The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
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The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
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Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#2[deleted]
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#3Perhaps it's an interesting examination of co-evolution between the computer, the GUI, and the and user, but the central thesis is silly. If the inversion process you use to arrive at "anti-" statements is poorly defined, you are free to make them mean anything you wish. In this case, they were made trivially equivalent to the aforementioned evolution. There's nothing wrong with this except that the author then expects us to accept the validity of the core principle on the basis of its correct post-dictions and thereby extend credence to its pre-dictions. Nice try.
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#4We predict that people who have grown up with computers will be much more capable as computer users than the current generation of users. Thus, they will be able to use (and will in fact, demand) expressive interfaces with advanced means of expressing their wants.
How unfortunate that this did not turn out to be the case, and I think it's likely that is because most people liked the "simple and easy" Mac-like UIs with no learning curve, and didn't want to grow beyond them.
The point about "user control" is odd though, since that's basically the exact opposite of the Apple philosophy today, and even the older Macs seemed more opaque and with less user control than the PCs of the time.
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#5> We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore.
It's an interesting exercise to compare this to the mobile platforms, e.g. iOS. Windows are gone. Icons are here. Menus are changed. Pointer is changed too (your finger is pointer, not an abstract arrow).
Though on OS X desktop I don't see any innovations at all! May be I'm missing something? Windows, icons, menu, pointer, that's all. Probably gestures are an innovation, but it isn't used widely except in operating system windows manager and Safari. Can we think of a tabs as an innovation? I never really liked them, I believe that tabs could be replaced by better window management. It's something that tied to application now, but it should be tied to a window manager and probably in better ways.
Desktop user interface is definitely stagnating, if we're talking about OS X. I don't know much about new Windows releases, but in Windows 7 it was the same story.
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#6We predict that people who have grown up with computers will be much more capable as computer users than the current generation of users. Thus, they will be able to use (and will in fact, demand) expressive interfaces with advanced means of expressing their wants. How unfortunate that this did not turn out to be the case, and I think it's likely that is because most people liked the "simple and easy" Mac-like UIs wit…
Aren't tiling window managers, and the revival of vim-like keybindings (vimperator, zathura...) somehow a bit of response to this demand?
I'm very satisfied with keyboard-driven, text-mode little Unix applications that compose well. For example, as old as mutt is, you can still plug it in to e.g. notmuch to achieve very modern Gmail-like indexing.
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#7Perhaps it's an interesting examination of co-evolution between the computer, the GUI, and the and user, but the central thesis is silly. If the inversion process you use to arrive at "anti-" statements is poorly defined, you are free to make them mean anything you wish. In this case, they were made trivially equivalent to the aforementioned evolution. There's nothing wrong with this except that the author then expec…
Did you notice that it was published 20 years ago.
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#8The proposed alternative: "The central role of language" using "a pidgin language for computers." Sort of like talking to Wolfram Alpha or Siri.
So far, that hasn't scaled well. Doing anything complicated through such an interface is painful. Works fine for the easy/banal stuff, which is why it's successful in the phone space.
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#9> We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore. It's an interesting exercise to compare this to the mobile platforms, e.g. iOS. Windows are gone. Icons are here. Menus are changed. Pointer is changed too (your finger is pointer, not an abstract arrow). Though on OS X desktop I don't see any innovations at all! May be I…
Even mobile platforms are pretty WIMP-y, especially ones that actually have multiple workspaces.
We're still a long way from Oberon, Acme and Bluebottle OS-style interfaces, which are truly "innovative".
Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)
#10> We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore. It's an interesting exercise to compare this to the mobile platforms, e.g. iOS. Windows are gone. Icons are here. Menus are changed. Pointer is changed too (your finger is pointer, not an abstract arrow). Though on OS X desktop I don't see any innovations at all! May be I…
> Windows are gone
Ehhh, yes and no; as mobile OSes have gotten more multitasking-friendly they've moved towards the "card" metaphor, in which each app runs in a card and there's some method for shuffling between them. And a card is really just a window that's maximized 100% of the time. (Which is how most general users use windows on the desktop, so they're not losing much.)