Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 28th Feb 2009 11:47 UTC
A few days ago, Apple surprised everyone by releasing the first beta of Safari 4, the company's latest version of their WebKit browser. While I generally love Safari on the Mac (my browser of choice on that side of the fence), I've never felt as comfortable with it on the Windows side of things. In any case, this latest beta has made a very bold move in the interface department, and I'm sad to say that it's not for the better. Let me explain where it went wrong for Apple.
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RE: The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again
by dragossh on Sat 28th Feb 2009 21:40
in reply to "The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again"
Member since:2008-12-16
- OS X window controls are basically o , o and o.
They are colored. After you hover over them, you know what each one does.
- iPod and iTunes have an o that means you have not started to listen a podcast marked with it. Not that it says so anywhere.
Logic says so. You wouldn't mark with an o a podcast that was already listened to, would you?
- The sort of slider with two positions for on and off I have seen on iPhone and OS X makes it pretty much impossible to to tell if it is on or off.
I think a lot of people can tell quite well. When it says Off it's off and when it says On (and it even turns blue) it's on. What's so hard to grasp?
- Dock. No matter who implements it, it sucks.
It's quite good in my opinion, maybe you're just accustomed to the taskbar. A Windows 7-like Dock would be neat though.
RE[2]: The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again
by zima on Thu 5th Mar 2009 12:40
in reply to "RE: The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again"
Member since:2005-07-06
"- OS X window controls are basically o , o and o.
They are colored. After you hover over them, you know what each one does.
"
Just got me thinking...while personally I don't have particularly anything against this setup, what about people that are colour-blind to one degree or another?
BTW - I'd like to have a mainstream, polished interface that depends on colour as little as possible, is mostly just neutral b&w (or perhaps a toggle switch that does that, also with, for example, activating some user style in the browser that assures things will remain contrasted)
RE: The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again
by stooovie on Sat 28th Feb 2009 23:07
in reply to "The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again"
Member since:2006-01-25
One corner resizing in OSX is an abomination of UI design. Amount of resize/move/resize again is unbearable, even more so in a floating windows paradigm that is so central to OSX window management.
Is there an utility that allows users to resize OSX windows from all sides and corners?
RE[2]: The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again
by thebackwash on Sun 1st Mar 2009 00:22
in reply to "RE: The emperor's clothes fail to exist once again"
Member since:2005-07-06
Yes. It's called NuclearMouse. http://628weeks.com/projects/NuclearMouse/ You might also try MondoMouse, http://www.atomicbird.com/mondomouse or WindowDragon http://windowdragon.sourceforge.net/
Personally, I like MondoMouse the best. You can resize w/o clicking.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 23:02 UTC, submitted by M.Onty
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 22:28 UTC
"A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."More News »
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Member since:
2007-07-01
Simultaneously screwing up two well established interface components because Google did it?
I can understand the reasoning that in a browser title bar and tab title are sort of redundant, but instead of making title bar a tab bar, there should be an option to get rid of the title bar.
It is interesting how supposedly artsy and usability savvy Apple keeps making stupid OS interface decisions:
- OS X window controls are basically o , o and o.
- iPod and iTunes have an o that means you have not started to listen a podcast marked with it. Not that it says so anywhere.
- The sort of slider with two positions for on and off I have seen on iPhone and OS X makes it pretty much impossible to to tell if it is on or off.
- Resizing from only one corner. WTF?
- The global menubar is good according to Fitt's Law, but absolutely wrong considering Gestalt Laws and despicable MODALITY it brings.
- Dock. No matter who implements it, it sucks.
I could go on, but I'll just end by saying that Apple hardware design is way better than their software interface design.