241–250 of 335 posts
I think one of the worst examples of UI design by Apple is the iCloud website. It's just so slow and clunky. I can't believe more people aren't complaining about it.
Yes, it is slow and clunky, but better alternatives are next door. So why complain?
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Skeumorphic features are defined by the fact that they are unnecessary carry-overs from older or different objects. They can be useful and style choices too, but a digital button does not need to indicate depth, whereas a mechanical button does, because it needs to protrude from the surface in order to be pressed.
Indicating depth in a digital button is a clear affordance.
This is a slippery slope. There's no hard boundary between skeumorphism and visual affordance, even though you'd like there to be.
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That Podcasts app is really really a piece of "work". whoever designed it should be fired.
+1 Even worse than maps, which are a huge ongoing problem.
Anyone who A) likes Apple and B) has ever been in a Dixons store in the UK will be overjoyed with the other departure, Browett (head of retail and previous Dixons CEO) who is leaving immediately (compared to Forstall's year long "transition" departure). Dixons is everything that Apple should never be; terrible customer service, clueless minimum wage staff, horrible retail experience, and generally used only by people…
But why did someone like this Dixon guy get in to begin with? He seemed like an odd choice from day 1, but I figured maybe apple knew something the rest or us didn't. Apparently not. Apple retail head is one of the most desirable executive positions on the planet. Why couldn't they recruit a true superstar? I'm a little confused and worried ...
I think the problem is identifying the superstar in the first place. Quite frankly, there is no company whose retail comes close to Apple, and so there isn't anyone who has a track record of being able to do the SVP Retail job.
In addition, the Apple SVP Retail job is different from head of retail at other companies (e.g. s/he doesn't have control over inventory [1]), and so when it comes down to the end of the day, it's really hard to find someone who has done a similar job in the past, let alone done that job well.
In all likelihood, Tim Cook had some idea of the downfalls of hiring Browett, but decided to bet on it. I would also guess that given the worries around that time that Cook wouldn't be able to handle the CEO job also made the hiring rather more urgent that it should have been.
[1]: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/25/how-apple-works-insid...
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I had the misfortune of shopping UK retail for a few years, and especially in electronics, I can't imagine anyone using it as an example of a great way to structure anything, let alone a premium brand like Apple. The only UK retail brands which don't seem horrible are high-end department stores (Selfridges, etc.) and grocery stores, and neither really seems like a good background for running Apple retail.
(Assuming you're American) what specifically makes retail in the US so much better?
There were two main kinds of stores -- pale imitations of Best Buy, Circuit City, and Microcenter (out in the suburbs/small towns) (which is ironic since those businesses have had serious problems in the US market now, too, 10 years later), and urban small stores. The smaller chain stores (Dixons high street locations) had very limited product selection and you had to wait in a queue to get a salesperson to handle your purchase, rather than staff out on the floor to push products (often on commission) and then take the purchase to the registers. The big stores mainly had cookers and other white goods/appliances, with really limited selection of anything tech. This was 2000-2002. EU stores were a lot better in my limited experience (NL and DE). The only way to actually buy computer parts was to go to fairly sketchy flea market type buildings or fairs, mail order, or a small number of independent shops (at least in London; never found anything outside London).
Staff were even less educated on products than at a Best Buy in the US today, terrifying. Even getting people to take a model number and look it up in their inventory system was a minor production.
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Mapping is NOT hard. I know from personal experience. What map applications have you authored? Any links?
A basic map application just requires data, projections (which is a solved problem, if a little tedious), and a rendering system. Path finding is also basically solved (it's Algorithms 101, though you need something a bit more sophisticated to make it scale). A basic mapping app can be hacked up in a week. A good mapping app is obviously much harder, but it's still doable. But like taligent said, it's data that's the…
All of which is a roundabout way of contradicting? yourself.
Interesting that Jony will be overseeing UI. I expect a more minimalistic polish to upcoming interfaces. In other words, this is the beginning of the end for the skeuomorphism trend at Apple.
I just hope that they can keep the contrast and the explicit visual of what a component does. Case in point: fire up letterpress on the ipad, get a gamecenter popover with its felt and wood finish, you can clearly identify what is supposed to happen (aside from copy[if you've used gamecenter before]).
To me it's one of the worst designs on the iPad. The buttons are way too tiny, they are arranged differently for every game, and each game seems to compete for the least intuitive layout and labeling.
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Mapping is NOT hard. I know from personal experience. What map applications have you authored? Any links?
A basic map application just requires data, projections (which is a solved problem, if a little tedious), and a rendering system. Path finding is also basically solved (it's Algorithms 101, though you need something a bit more sophisticated to make it scale). A basic mapping app can be hacked up in a week. A good mapping app is obviously much harder, but it's still doable. But like taligent said, it's data that's the…
That is the real hard part. Trying to obtain all that data. Because every mistake is potentially one person complaining loudly on the internet.
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(Assuming you're American) what specifically makes retail in the US so much better?
Aside from prices and selection (for some reason the number in USD is equal to the number in GBP for almost everything, even when GBP is 1.6-2.2x the USD), it's size and layout of stores and staffing. There were two main kinds of stores -- pale imitations of Best Buy, Circuit City, and Microcenter (out in the suburbs/small towns) (which is ironic since those businesses have had serious problems in the US market now,…
I do however agree on some of your other points, such as poor selection and useless staff.
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Thanks! Interesting quote: Although a major sell-off can sometimes mean an executive is leaving a company, that might not be the case with Forstall. I wonder why this didn't generate any rumours of his departure at the time?
I think this is more interesting: "Forstall has made it abundantly clear inside Cupertino that he would like to eventually be Apple's chief executive, adding that "he wears his ambition in plainer view than the typical Apple executive.""