OSNews

Pic of desktop, sans clutter
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1743/picture1uq9.png

Also, pic of Preferences, much more polished icons now
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3170/picture3vy7.png

It looks to me, even with an empty desktop, that the dock still looks "busy" with unnecessary (and odd looking) reflections. Apple seem to have wanted to introduce some sort of a 3D appearance into the desktop, and it just doesn't work. I can't believe that Steve approved this?

I would just wish, they would dump and go back to the old look. It's clean and clear to look at. They _have_ dumped features that were shown at a keynote before, when OSX was before beta, so hopefully they will go for it.

When you see a red sign coming up towards you while driving, do you not know already that the sign will read, "STOP"? Or do you need it glowing and readable from any position within your viewing port?

It's different, but so is a rectangle, underscore and X to learn that they mean maximize, minimize and close.

After repetition the brain recalls their purpose.

You can reason that way, but it is not so obvious. In fact, Apple even concedes this by showing a more descriptive function when the mouse hovers over each button. Of course people will learn after just a few minutes, but the key is to be so intuitive that it wouldn't even take that long. This is why the iPhone is so amazing.

This is not only my complaint. Many usability experts dislike this design as well. But I suppose it's impossible to get modded up on OSNEWS if one provides constructive criticism of Apple. How dare I say the Dock has issues, the menu bar was a mess and that the window controls could be made friendlier?! Seriously, even as a relatively happy Mac user, this bias is getting annoying.

I'm not a big fan of the dock. I preferred the Shelf and the ability to double click an open app icon in Openstep while all the other app windows just instantly disappeared.

The intuitive interface of Keith Ohlfs hasn't been surpassed in OS X.

Keith is happy in marriage, but I just wish he'd accept that forever open offer to work with Steve once more.

I'm not completly sure what you mean. I never tryed Openstep but

Option-Click (on dock icon)

Might be what you are looking fore.

In Openstep the command-key depressed in combination with a double-click left mouse button would make key and order front that applications open presentation (windows and menus) while simultaneously autohiding all other windows from other open applications.

Option-Click on a dock icon is different behavior and not very useful.

Actually it's Command-Option-Click to get hide all others and make active window.

It suggested to users that it wasn't solid and windows could be moved under it and was difficult to read (not to mention it was superfluous and gave me nightmares of Vista).

Can you explain your logic to me on this one? It's still more transparent than Vista's bar and Vista's bar at least displays its text as opaque and not the whole thing as transparent.

if those evil lawbreakers who are running Tiger on their pc will do the same thing with leopard?

It's either that, or pay the Apple Tax on the hardware, unless they sell a boxed version that can be installed clean

The "tax" are mostly for the software anyway, but then you DO have to buy the OS bundled with hardware, and that sucks.

They did it to make it more obvious what window is the active/selected window. There aren't too many options to accomplish this task, and I like having a larger shadow rather than making inactive windows black/white, faded, or other usability attempts I've seen.

How on Earth would releasing OSX for generic PCs help Mac sales? Do you think Apple want Dell PC sales skyrocketing with OSX on them? The Windows versions of Safari and iTunes are only tools to help people migrate to the Mac, not to bring the entire of OSX to the PC.

Biggest fallacy ever and often citied by many.

Selling OS and apps only would destroy Apple.

It would bring them more cash than selling it bundled with Macintosh hardware ever.

Actually Apple make the most money from the hardware. The profit margin for Macs, iPods and iPhone is roughly 50%, give or take a few percent. One source cites this:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB...

That's a huge margin, and that's how they can sell their software as cheaply as they do.

If they were to sell OSX alone for PCs, it would not cost 129$, but probably closer to 4-500$ and that would run Apple into the ground quicker than you can say "Commodore, April 1994". I won't mention all the technical driver issues this would bring along, because that is old news.

iTunes for Windows is there to sell iPods. Safari for Windows is there to make people buy iPhones and let people take a sniff at some more Apple software. If they didn't have any profit margin on iPods and iPhones they would definitely not have released iTunes and Safari for Windows.

"It would bring them more cash than selling it bundled with Macintosh hardware ever."

Well, in the 90's there was a Mac clone market. Companies like Power Computing made their own hardware that ran Mac OS. When Jobs returned to Apple, one of the first things he did was to kill the program because the Mac clones were cannibalizing Apple's Mac sales (many were of the opinion that the clones were not only less expensive, but indeed better than Apple's own offerings). If Jobs were to now decide to sell OSX to PC makers, it would be complete reversal of his policy (not that it isn't possible).

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Computing

Edited 2007-08-26 19:36

But all of that was before Apple found the holy grails of IPods, ITunes (and soon ITV and IPhone), right?

Having worked during the NeXT/Apple transition and beyond it was clear that the sales Power Computing generated was cannibalized pre-existing Apple sales. Steve had more than one Town Hall Pow Wow about this reality and canned this program as it didn't "expand" the Mac platform.

While that is true, this is a little different.

The Power clones were PowerPC based and so expanding the potential base of Mac users was still an uphill battle. Switching to the Mac platform still required you to purchase a new machine.

Now OS X could be made compatible with the great majority of machines already out there with virtually no effort. Switching to Mac would be as simple as an OS purchase.

Personally I don't think Apple need to do this but it's not the same as the PowerPC based clone days.

Never question a Mac fan's loyalty? I don't know about you, but I have no loyalty to one brand or another. If Apple dropped GMA 950 support six months into Leopard you'd see a LOT of pissed off people. Sure, you'll always have the ass-kissers trying to tell the community that "Apple knows best", but every brand has its fanatic fanboys (witness the range of reactions to WGA screwing up yesterday).

Still, people tend to put up with Apple because they're often the best option in a market where most offerings are sub-par (in my opinion). If something better came along, I'd certainly consider it the next time I was making a computer purchase. Brand loyalty is silly... go with what works. If a brand maintains a consistent standard, all the better for that company and its customers. if not, it's time to go looking for something that better suits you.

Edited 2007-08-26 16:52

You must have missed the news

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/08/21/appleshare/index.php

5.9% and climbing.