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| Where Microsoft has 'more taste' than Apple |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-07-22 17:05:06 |
| Mike Elgan at Cult of Mac: "It must surely be a sign of the impending apocalypse that Microsoft's operating systems have 'more taste' than Apple's. I'm referring, of course, to Apple's inexplicable use of skeuomorphic design in iOS and OS X apps, and contrasting that with Microsoft's stark avoidance of such cheesy gimmickry in the Windows 8 and Windows Phone user interfaces. A skeuomorphic design in software is one that 'decorates' the interface with fake reality - say, analog knobs or torn paper. The problem is worse than it sounds." Won't come as a surprise to anyone that I wholeheartedly agree with this one. iOS and Mac OS X are ruined by an incredibly high Microsoft BOB factor. I have no idea how - or if - Apple will address this, or if the current downward spiral is going to continue. |
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| RE[2]: It is the circle of tech... |
| By HangLoose on 2012-07-23 06:06:51 |
|
> I don't think you should include a game as an example, as the whole point of a game is escapism. You don't want it to look like a computer interface (unless of course you're playing one of those "hacker" type games). oops.. my bad. :D that makes perfect sense. |
 - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Hm |
| By Gone fishing on 2012-07-23 07:02:29 |
|
> As for Metro, it's about as far from Windows 3.11 as you can get. Have you actually used a Metro interface? I live with it every day on my phone, and it's highly intuitive, simple, elegant and stays out of my way. It's not perfect; no interface ever will be, and there are a few things I'd love to change about it. But it works for me so I stick with it. Interesting maybe Nokia isn't f*cked |
| - Score: 2 |
| False dichotomy |
| By Gone fishing on 2012-07-23 07:51:22 |
| Using an architectural analogy we are presented with the view that Bauhaus is superior to mock Tudor - but I wouldn't choose to live in either. |
| - Score: 3 |
| OS Usability over time VS Expectations from OS |
| By siraf72 on 2012-07-23 08:11:34 |
|
There are many things that bother me in Lion. Well no, mainly two things. Contacts and iCal. Good Lord, they are ugly. However, there is another theme that seems to be repeated in these comments and that's how systems were somehow easier (ergo more correct) in the days of yore. I can't help but feel it's because we expect so much more and we get things done so much faster now that we really take for granted how far things have come. We expect to be able to navigate and send data between applications so quickly that maybe the old Apple UI guidelines type approach (i'm talking about when every window had to look and behave the same) might make it more cumbersome, not less. Just a thought... |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Hm |
| By Drumhellar on 2012-07-23 08:21:52 |
|
> As for Metro, it's about as far from Windows 3.11 as you can get. Have you actually used a Metro interface? I live with it every day on my phone, and it's highly intuitive, simple, elegant and stays out of my way. It's not perfect; no interface ever will be, and there are a few things I'd love to change about it. But it works for me so I stick with it. I love it, also. My only gripe is how god damn much I have to scroll on the start screen. As I (slowly) add apps to the start screen, the scrolling gets annoying. God help me if I decide to move a live tile from the top to the bottom. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Trollbait article |
| By wocowboy on 2012-07-23 10:48:09 |
|
Who cares? Some people like fake leather and torn bits of paper and some people don't. The world does not end or stop turning because it exists or does not. I used to use WindowBlinds desktop themes that brought all sorts of fun looks to my Windows desktop, steampunk devices and buttons, how is that different from what this article is railing about. It's called personal preference and is what makes being able to have your desktop look the way YOU want it to, instead of what Mike Elgan wants. Along with seemingly everyone else on here, I also loathe the Win 8 desktop and the entire experience, from using the previews. The Jekyll/Hyde thing turned me off within 5 minutes of using the first preview. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[4]: Hm |
| By henderson101 on 2012-07-23 10:59:36 |
|
> GarageBand specifically called out the useless "wooden" left and right borders. Why does Guitar Rig need to implement a rack for my emulated Amps? Why does EZ Drummer need to show me an on screen kit that is impossible to play without a multitouch screen? (and they didn't exist for the general public the first time I ever used EZ Drummer.) I'll admit I skimmed your original post, apologies. But if one starts down the road of realism, where does one stop? |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: OS Usability over time VS Expectations from OS |
| By henderson101 on 2012-07-23 11:04:36 |
| I'm going to be honest and say this: I have owned a Mac Mini with Lion for almost a year now. I've owned a MacBook since 2008. MacBook went from Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion (this last week.) Lion just works. Lion seems more stable on my hardware (admittedly, went directly to 10.7.4.) Weird things, like flakey WiFi, seem to have cleared up (though I didn't migrate my profile this time...) Lion on the same hardware as Snow Leo feels comfortable. Best upgrade I've done for a while. (caveat, this Macbook still triple boots Snow Leo, Win 7 pro and Lion - I just blatted my Leopard partition to install Lion.) |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: OS Usability over time VS Expectations from OS |
| By siraf72 on 2012-07-23 11:29:26 |
|
Sure those are updates that bring with them the benefits of a mature system. I was simply referring to whether the strict Apple GUI guidelines Apple was famous for (Pre os 10.0 ) are still as valuable today where data flows between applications far more rapidly than it did in those days. Apple flouts it's on rules more and more with every release. Clearly many people *here* view it as a bad thing. I'm just wondering if there isn't a a degree of necessity that dictates this shift. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: OS Usability over time VS Expectations from OS |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2012-07-23 12:20:37 |
|
The bigger issue is that we're moving away again from the document-centric ideal, back to an application-centric world. In the latter, the application is the star, and as such, gets more attention than what actually matters (the document or content). In a document-centric world, applications must get out of your way and hence they ought to be as consistent and unobtrusive as possible - with the ultimate goal being that applications become loose collections of components, with document calling individual components instead of entire applications. I always thought this was what we were working towards, but somewhere we did a 180 and regressed back to the MS-DOS days. What a shame. I don't give a rat's ass about applications or their developers - I care about my shit. |
| - Score: 4 |
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