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MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

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Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean for everything on screen to have a relationship to everything else? Could you elaborate?

The classic MacOS's Finder was 'spatial'. Since each folder on disk could only be open in a single window, and that window remembered its position and layout, there was a certain physical consistency - it felt like the windows were the actual folders on disk, with the same kind of coherency and stability you expect of real-world objects. Meanwhile, the Mac OS X Finder is not spatial. You can have the same folder open…

Yeah the classic Finder exploited human spatial and muscle memory to help users navigate filesystems quickly, which was pretty smart because those forms of memory are very strong — humans are generally quite good at remembering where things are in physical space, retaining such information more easily than we do abstract information like file paths.

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels playful because everything else from that era was ugly in my opinion

I wouldn't call XP (Luna) theme ugly. It wasn't as clean as Windows2k but it was just fine.

The fisher price look. For me it was a downgrade in aesthetic and seemed like trying too hard to make it appealing and friendly for the computer illiterate masses.

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#54
post #2

Wow, unbelievable that it was designed in 2001! It still looks fresh and modern, although maybe a bit too playful so that it appears a bit childish? But only barely. It appears to have all the basic functionality expected from a modern operating system, I instantly feel right at home although I've never used it. I find the review terrible though, one of the major changes was the user interface, revolutionary I would…

interesting, it looks sterile to me

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#55
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything after Windows 2000 was ugly. Windows 2000 was the last system in the world with coherent and beautiful UI. Those times are over. We can't have good things.

Hard disagree, Windows 2000's large swathes of grey doesn't look good to me at all.

Yeah, I'm surprised to even see this praise. Win2k was just a return to the corporate grey Windows theme after XP. Just Windows 9x/NT again rather than something special.

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#56
I was deep into OS explorations in this period. I ran BeOS, Yellow Dog linux on PowerPC, had all flavors of NT, etc.

My feeling about OS X at this time was that it was the right choice but that it was "too late" and that Apple took too long and the window of opportunity had passed.

I take that now as startup advice: It isn't too late!

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#57
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d vote the opposite on the playful aspect. Todays UIs feel oppressively monotonous and lacking heart.

I miss the textured Aqua days. Peak was Leopard/Snow Leopard. Flat is just so... flat. And boring. And also harder to read, because it's harder to orient yourself in a big textureless area than in a space with some texture in it.

Boring, perhaps. But definitely not harder to read. The old styles with text against textured backgrounds (for example, the pinstriped menu bars) detracted from readability. Current design is significantly better, especially dark mode, although lately there is a trend towards low-contrast UI (text against similarly-coloured backgrounds) in recent versions of iOS and macOS which is also detracting from readability, IMO.

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#58
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree, Windows 2000's large swathes of grey doesn't look good to me at all.

Yeah, I'm surprised to even see this praise. Win2k was just a return to the corporate grey Windows theme after XP. Just Windows 9x/NT again rather than something special.

Windows 2000 predated XP by almost two years.

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#59
post #2

Wow, unbelievable that it was designed in 2001! It still looks fresh and modern, although maybe a bit too playful so that it appears a bit childish? But only barely. It appears to have all the basic functionality expected from a modern operating system, I instantly feel right at home although I've never used it. I find the review terrible though, one of the major changes was the user interface, revolutionary I would…

> It appears to have all the basic functionality expected from a modern operating system

The truth is, for the most part operating systems haven't really advanced that much, at least from a ux standpoint. Speaking as someone who started using computers in 1997 on windows 95 and a 133mhz pentium. All the basic metaphors and mechanisms have stayed the same. Tabs in browsers were considered like a huge leap (I know it's not strictly an OS thing), and that was almost 20 years ago.

Re: MacOS X 10.1 (2001)

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm surprised to even see this praise. Win2k was just a return to the corporate grey Windows theme after XP. Just Windows 9x/NT again rather than something special.

Windows 2000 predated XP by almost two years.

Oh yeah, that's right. Though the chronology isn't important.

I think modern macOS is a decent example of how you can increment away from the drab corporate gray of that era without using flashy colors like XP and without going too far into flashy effects like Vista.

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