“If you’re eagerly awaiting Microsoft’s Windows 8 Metro interface, due in late October, then you might be interested in obtaining it a little earlier for an iPhone or iPod Touch. Metroon, a Dreamboard theme for jailbroken iOS devices, does just that – providing a near-perfect replica of Microsoft’s Metro interface.” Up until 4-5 years ago, one of the most popular skinning activities was to make Windows look like Mac OS X. These days, people are putting loads of effort into bringing Metro to iOS (or Android). Subtle, but telling, shift. A few weeks ago, I upgraded my dad’s iMac to Lion. His first response when opening the Address Book: “god that’s tacky. Yuck!” The sooner this anachronistic skeuomorphism dies, the better.
Well, there is also an effort/gain advantage. Metro is an easy skin to replicate: flat squares, primary colors, single typography. It is far more complicated to replicate a skin with tons of textures or fancy shapes.
Having more variety in design would be a nice evolution. Being a great fan of early XXth century styles, I often wonder what would an “Art Nouveau” UI look like… Hardly practical, I know, but it is a nice conceptual challenge to try to figure it out.
And very foreign to the mainstream style of today’s world.
Hate Metro on the desktop and have my doubts it’ll be up to much even on a tablet/phone. Not that I thought overmuch of the iPad interface, whatever it’s called; but, then, I’ve only played around with the new one for a few minutes …my take, great screen but could do with a decent interface/OS.
Would metro be any better or worse? What is the best interface for a tablet/phone anyway? Serious question…I’d really like to know as I don’t actually own a tablet or, even, smartphone.
Edited 2012-07-11 19:07 UTC
Sorry that I’m going off topic here, but Thom, why don’t you build your own perfect UI? It wouldn’t take much to knock a working example together in in C using SDL or JavaScript (with the Canvas element)… You could build a working mock up incorporating your favourite ideas in UI design and get support for what you really want! In the immortal words of Depeche Mode “Don’t just stand there and shout it, do something about it”!
Just a thought!
Does designing (NOT coding, Tess is doing the real work) the next version of OSNews count?
I guess a bit, yeah… But I was thinking more about a general purpose Operatig system UI…
I have lots of ideas, but zero coding skills, and after my own company, OSNews, and my social life, there’s about 3.4 seconds left per day :/.
In other words, not motivated just like 99% of us.
So for how long this redesign goes on already?
(and, funnily, I think I had a sort of nightmare about it once, during a nap right after reading & posting on OSNews – IIRC, the colour scheme in dream version of the site was a combination of blacks and oranges; curiously, basically am optical negative)
Edited 2012-07-16 01:25 UTC
Not everybody is a problem-solver. Some are only problem-finders. Those are two different jobs: finding problems requires a cold analytical eye, problem-solving requires imagination.
This is so true. Often problem finders are criticised as nit-pickers, but sometimes it takes a 3rd party to point these things out. Even some of the most talented designers can get so engrossed in their own project that some of the small details get forgotten.
And don’t get me started on how developers don’t always make good designers (and visa versa).
It tells nothing. Mac OS X is 10 years old. Metro is new. Unless the human mind has changed in the last 10 years, after working in the same way for millennia, Metro is the coolest between the two.