"The current beta build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released to developers at WWDC '07, is not as polished as what people have come to expect of Apple's design team - users are still left with at best several disagreeable changes, and at worst a hideous hodgepodge of HIG contradictions. I have broken down 5 onscreen blunders that detract from the user experience and make Leopard the ugliest and most uncharacteristically 'Apple' OS to date." Thanks to MacWereld for pointing this article out.
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Member since:2005-11-10
Why should you demand that Leopard does that?? As a solaris user, that's your choice, but you come from a market that Apple don't pander to. You already have access to ZFS and other technologies that Apple users are waiting to receive. I don't understand the "Hey Apple! Make me give up my choice!" and then pouting when it's not good enough?
As a Mac user, I'm looking forward to Leopard, even if it's a little rough on the 1.0. We know that our machines are going to perform faster than before, and not slow to a crawl, we know we're getting improved game performance with multi-threaded OpenGL, we're getting CoreAnimation that's going to play a major part in just about every app in the coming years.
For me, like it was in Tiger, it's about stuff under the hood - the enablers of technology. Tiger's introudction of CoreImage/Video and other APIs enabled a lot of great apps, and features that pushed me over to Mac.
I think the same will be of Leopard. Within a year's time, Mac developer's ability to create stunning UIs with animation that helps the user follow the flow of the app is going to make Windows software look positively dead pan. There are a lot of Mac apps that have shown that your software should be fun, easy to use, nice to look at. Looking at grey squares all day just sucks the life out of people.
And for people who say they don't like the eyecandy; There's a difference between eye candy and usability UI. Switching to a Mac has shown me that even the most professional software can be luscious and easy to use. I've never saw any such attention on Windows - eye candy meant horrible god-awful custom chrome and owner-drawn menus for no discernable reason.
Edited 2007-07-11 09:18
Member since:2005-08-18
"I've never saw any such attention on Windows - eye candy meant horrible god-awful custom chrome and owner-drawn menus for no discernable reason."
While I can't speak for the quality of OSX eye-candy (seeing as I have never used OSX) I feel pretty much the same as you in regards to Windows eye-candy. it's usually more of an eye sore.
Member since:2005-07-06
I think the same will be of Leopard. Within a year's time, Mac developer's ability to create stunning UIs with animation that helps the user follow the flow of the app is going to make Windows software look positively dead pan.
Heh, goes to show how much you follow Windows as a platform. Go look up Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly Avalon) and XAML. These were finished products before Apple even announced CoreAnimation. Not trying to criticize Apple here at all, because I'm excited about CoreAnimation, just trying to point out that Windows has already gone in the same direction. All mainstream desktop OSes will.
Member since:
2005-07-06
That isn't the issue. The issue is this; Once PowerPC end users finish moving over, they need something to keep up the growth.
They need to make their operating system compelling enough for Windows users to move. If there isn't enough compelling reasons their growth will slow, their reputation will be hurt.
I'm sitting here, I've got a laptop running Windows/Solaris - I want something that will pull me to the Mac, and sorry, Leopard so far lacks that pulling power that would want me to make that change (back) to Mac.