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iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

theindustry.cc

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Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#21

Post by pavlov »

dwich wrote: post #9
pavlov wrote: post #4

[...] however iTunes’ new display of Apps is horrid; every app icon has an ugly faux-perspective bevel that just doesn’t seem to work. I don't understand what the author is referring to here. The screenshot looks just like I remember iOS app icons looking -- they've always had that canned bevel+gloss look applied to them. Overall, the new iTunes makes me think that Apple keeps inching towards the Metro look. Gradient…

I think the iOS icons always had a gloss, but they now have a strong bevel particularly noticeable on the bottom. I've noticed that icons with text or design elements overlapping the bevel look especially strange.

Ah, you're right, that must be it. It's quite subtle, but certainly a noticeable change for someone who looks at iOS icons more often than I do.

The idea with that bevel is probably to make the icons look somewhat more three-dimensional when they are "stood up" on a perspective plane (like the OS X dock does with icons in its default position at the bottom). The problem of course is that the icons were not designed for this kind of pseudo-3D look, and that's not something that can be fixed by simply compositing a sharp dark shadow at the bottom edge of the icon.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#22

Post by esolyt »

mitchty wrote: post #14
alex_c wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reversed scrolling direction jumps to mind. Minor in the large scheme of things, but it shows a conscious move towards combining the desktop and mobile concepts.

The thing is, on a trackpad it makes more sense now after getting used to our phones touch. Also its a quick defaults away to change back to the old way. defaults write -g com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool false I find it amusing that on a site like Hacker News people are complaining about vastly simple things to change. If they remove the choice maybe then complain, but this is a vast non-issue compared to the tw…

They're not complaining because it's difficult to change. They're complaining because they are unhappy with the mentality and the direction OSX is going.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#23

Post by pavlov »

roc wrote: post #17
pavlov wrote: post #4

[...] however iTunes’ new display of Apps is horrid; every app icon has an ugly faux-perspective bevel that just doesn’t seem to work. I don't understand what the author is referring to here. The screenshot looks just like I remember iOS app icons looking -- they've always had that canned bevel+gloss look applied to them. Overall, the new iTunes makes me think that Apple keeps inching towards the Metro look. Gradient…

I can't see Apple following Microsoft into a UI language that dispatches with affordance to the point that users are confused as to what's an actionable UI element and what isn't. I agree they're going that way ; to a definitely more-modern, understated look. But I think the big difference is going to be that they hold onto visual contrast precisely where Microsoft has let it go and/or confused it.

I'm not sure. In the new iTunes, almost all on-screen elements are now actionable, but only some of them have traditional visual indicators like button outlines or pop-up menu arrows. (For example, a playlist can be renamed by clicking on the large title which looks just like a static header.)

The new iTunes UI doesn't have any mouse-hover effects either, apart from those that are part of the OS X standard window decorations. This suggests that the new UI is designed primarily for touch rather than mouse use.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#24

Post by marblar »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #5
purephase wrote: post #2

Funny, the one thing that is making we more and more wary of using Mac OSX in the future is the convergence of iOS. Different strokes, I guess. It just seems odd to celebrate it.

Absolutely agreed. Snow Leopard was the last "true" desktop OS. I really don't see the need for Launchpad and co. when everything is and always has been a cmd+space away. EDIT In response to the heated discussion below, it's not just the launchpad that has me a little peeved about Lion and ML (I'm on ML now). Some of things that are being taken from iOS that I don't necessarily feel belong on the desktop: natural scr…

You can bring the sidebar back with Cmd-Option-S

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#25

Post by marblar »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #3

Lots of thoughts. It looks nice and simple. Too simple. I think it actually looks much sharper and more modern than iOS does these days. Hopefully the design influence runs both ways. Also, I know everyone has their own opinion, but yikes, this looks just bad to me (from the article): http://theindustry.cc/assets/2012/11/mini.png (edit, maybe it's my high res monitor but that font is painful to look at)

Here's one with more pixels: http://imgur.com/vn0J0

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#26

Post by mitchty »

esolyt wrote: post #22
mitchty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, on a trackpad it makes more sense now after getting used to our phones touch. Also its a quick defaults away to change back to the old way. defaults write -g com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool false I find it amusing that on a site like Hacker News people are complaining about vastly simple things to change. If they remove the choice maybe then complain, but this is a vast non-issue compared to the tw…

They're not complaining because it's difficult to change. They're complaining because they are unhappy with the mentality and the direction OSX is going.

I understand that, it just comes across as someone moving their cheese. I guess I don't expect my desktop os to stay static forever. Change isn't always bad, I was in their camp until about a day after using it in which I realized it wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#27

Post by mhurron »

jlgreco wrote: post #20
benbeltran wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many regular users beg to differ. At least, in my experience, the people who are less familiar with computers are the ones that love the new features the most. Especially launchpad and such. Also, just curious, but what about Lion / Mountain lion disqualifies it from being a "true" desktop OS?

The 90s seem like they would have been a good time to worry about users who don't really know what computers are. Why are we now driving for that market when everyone under the age of 30 grew up using modern computers? Are we still gunning from the mostly imaginary "grandmother who doesn't know how to use computers" market? The market that 1) is only shrinking, if indeed it ever existed and 2) presumably doesn't buy…

Do you work with people? General people 'get' computers as much as they did in the 90's and they've been using them the whole time.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#28

Post by mhurron »

mitchty wrote: post #13
ComputerGuru wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agreed. Snow Leopard was the last "true" desktop OS. I really don't see the need for Launchpad and co. when everything is and always has been a cmd+space away. EDIT In response to the heated discussion below, it's not just the launchpad that has me a little peeved about Lion and ML (I'm on ML now). Some of things that are being taken from iOS that I don't necessarily feel belong on the desktop: natural scr…

And you can ignore Launchpad in Lion and Mountain Lion as if it were Snow Leopard. Honestly, I don't notice most of the changes. And full screen mode for apps is much better than expanding a window to fit the screen. Granted all I really use is chrome/firefox/emacs/terminal but really I don't see why everyone continues to whine about the changes. They're minimal to non-existent to users like us.

> And full screen mode for apps is much better than expanding a window to fit the screen.

Which doesn't work the way you expect if you have multiple monitors.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#29

Post by dbaupp »

jlgreco wrote: post #20
benbeltran wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many regular users beg to differ. At least, in my experience, the people who are less familiar with computers are the ones that love the new features the most. Especially launchpad and such. Also, just curious, but what about Lion / Mountain lion disqualifies it from being a "true" desktop OS?

The 90s seem like they would have been a good time to worry about users who don't really know what computers are. Why are we now driving for that market when everyone under the age of 30 grew up using modern computers? Are we still gunning from the mostly imaginary "grandmother who doesn't know how to use computers" market? The market that 1) is only shrinking, if indeed it ever existed and 2) presumably doesn't buy…

Just because people are used to something doesn't mean that the something is optimal, that no improvements can be made, or that a simplification isn't useful.

Re: iTunes 11: the convergence of iOS and OS X design

#30

Post by super_mario »

To me the usability has suffered quite a bit with the update. Everything is a little further away in terms of how many clicks it takes to get to it. Until you show the sidebar that is. I'm glad to see the side bar now has color. But why is it off by default? Just for the sake of change? And why is the keyboard shortcut/menu item the only way to show it (i.e. UI is not discoverable)?

And why is the iTunes icon a musical note? iTunes is more about everything else but music. It's apps/books/video/podcasts/radio/TV/device syncing/music. Something like this would be much more appropriate:

http://wakaba556.deviantart.com/art/iTunes-replacement-icon-...

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