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Apple Explains Interface Differences
WCityMike writes "This switch document for developers details the interface differences between Microsoft Windows and the Aqua interface used in Mac OS X. Written on a layman's level, it actually makes for pretty interesting reading!"
There are way too many 'common sense' articles posted on Slashdot. Why do we need apple to tell us that we should only use one menu bar in Mac apps? Half of their 'tips' are suggestions such as hiring a company that pays Apple a commission to recommend them, or saying to conform to what Apple wants your app to look like. Big fucking deal. Any Mac developer worth his salt should know this stuff anyway. My only hope is that somehow all the /. geeks can somehow slashdot Apple. Then all the Apple sysadmins have to stop smoking the 'peace pipe' and put the web site back up.
I have switched to Mac, from Windows, and I'll tell you one of the reasons I might switch back is that single Menu bar. It is so annoying to have a window open on the lower half of the screen, or on a second screen on my dual monitor setup, and have to navigate all the way to the top left of the screen to get to the menus. I don't know how Apple can think this is better. This and the fact you can only resize a window in the bottom right have to be two of the most annoying things about an apple, enough that I will probably sell this crapintosh on eBay and buy 3 pcs with the money.
In addition to this being common knowledge among Apple developers well before now, everything said here was said better by MacKiDo. Take a read here. It describes very well how the Mac interface is better than just about any other.
Of course, if you go to MacKiDo's main page, you'll also notice an introduction note; in summary, it says that OS X was a mistake, as Apple's primary focus is no longer on the UI. And you know what? I couldn't agree more. Say all you want about OS X bringing Unix to the masses, but the fact is, the masses would have been better off without Unix. OS 9, despite having less eye candy than OS X, was architecturally better for the home user in just about every way than OS X - the only significant development X had was Cocoa, and that could easily have been ported into an OS 9 upgrade instead.
By switching to OS X, Apple threw out 15 years of hard work, just to release an OS with an inferior UI on an inferior kernel. And their interface in many ways no longer follows the principles that Apple themselves set out so brilliantly back in 1984, and others tried to emulate with varying degrees of success (don't even get me started on the Dock).
I still love the PPC platform; it's no Alpha, but it is the most popular RISC platform for the desktop. IBM, at one time, had the CHRP platform; it was the PPC answer to x86's open hardware, and it would have allowed a PC user to upgrade to PPC by simply throwing a new motherboard and processor into their existing case using their existing components and peripherals. If IBM releases their new Power4 processor for CHRP, I'll be the first to buy it, and install PPC Linux. And if the planets are all in alignment, and Apple decides to design OS XX based on a completely new design, scrapping all development environments but Cocoa and going back to the old OS9-style user interface, then I'll buy a Mac.
But there's absolutely no point in buying a closed platform when the software, specially designed for that platform, sucks. At least with PCs, I can run BeOS on a laptop; with Macs, such is no longer an option.
As with any company sponsored propagada. They show you the gems of there interface compared to the most lackluster parts of thier competitors. I like how they toute there pleasing interface then compare it to a non-WinXP GUI. I admit the XP interface is nothing great but come on. I don't know how many Mac users I hear saying that the Mac "Launch bar" (name?) sucks.
As John Stossel would say "Gimmie a break!"
All I can say to all you zealots is Ba.....
Why should i be interested in reading a interface manual for a system that doesn't run in my computer?
Unless in doing a UI investigation, the doc is pure crap for the millions that have a x86/PC box...
Cheers...
i think that the images are /.ing themselves...soooo slow....huzzah!
errr...ok. so you *want* dialogue boxes like that? and you *don't* like MDI? ok then.....i personally had nothing against the concept. i kinda like toolbars as well...
the following redesign is better? only if that's the only option that you get. which, assuming that they are making it for a mac, it would be.
did i read correctly that mac os x supports file name extensions? as in the things that windows/unix/everything else has had for years? is apple going back on part of its perfect operating system? are they stealing an idea from the rest of the world that they thought was good? why haven't i heard of this before?
why can't they call their things normal names, that *humans* can understand quickly, not things like cocoa or peanut butter or whatever the fuck they want. java was a cute idea, but this is taking it too far. shut the fuck up, apple. just use a fucking acronym once in a fucking while. i'm sure that it won't hurt, unless you're too busy feeling superior to think about something.
cunts.
(sorry, i'm just a little angry tonight. ;))
The part about not using MDI style applications is in my opinion _very_ wrong. I often have 3 or more applications open when working and I find it damn confusing to look at all of them at the same time. Ever hit something outside the program you are working in and then spend time finding your way back?
Macs are just crappy to working with if you use more than one program at a time.
The gui is just not designed to let me move around with speed and ease.
Linux and Windows are much better at that.
Bottom line_ Macs are too expensive and slow.
I like my new dual mp 2000+. Cheaper and faster (and it runs linux properly!).
Personally I hate XP from my guts, as all Windows versions. But at least you have a choice to select colors. AQUA IS WHITE.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Apple's trash can.
You don't eject disks, you throw them in the trash can.
Doesn't that strike you as odd given Apple's criticism of virtually every other UI over the years?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Yes it was proven too that we need your mother to finish you... it was proven it was proven well fine ... how and when
give us facts instead of rethoric to impress pompom girls...
So even after paying a premium price for supposedly perfect top of the line hardware....you still have to shell out extra cash for an unencumbered mouse.
I thought the point of Apple controling the mac hardware was to make sure that you DON'T have to go to third party options.
If I was paying that much for a system I'd be pissed as heck that the first thing I had to do was throw out the main user interface and buy a new one!
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
A simple reference to an Apple developer interface guideline article and it brings out such immature condescension from people who aren't interested in the article to begin with!!! Sure you can find some nit-picking in the article but the venomous anti-Mac rants are completely unwarranted for the actual topic at hand. Some of us are platform agnostic and try to learn best practices wherever we can.
Are you Windows-only developers really so childish and spitefully smug as to waste your own time trolling uneccessarily? Slashdot is getting very old.... Time to find a site with grown-ups.
1) It's painfull if you're forced to have color matching. Your case of using brightness and contrast is out. Laptop on the sun is unusable, white, greay, red or black.
2) Wrong, I wasn't pointing out rendering time of photo or HDrawn icons. I said that resolution of photo icon is forcing you to bigger icons. Handdrawn icons are made for resolution they are drawn and they are simified to look better on smaller resolutions. Try to size down photo icon and you'll know what I mean.
3) Not the controls. View design and interface design of these applications. All others are white or white with gray stripes. Qt and iTunes are gray (with texture fill). Look better, don't use laptop on the sun. If they say in their design paper, use this, why don't they.
4) Not necesarilly everything, there are two ok and two cancel buttons and that's the fact
5) I guess you don't realise I'm talking about paper, not applications. Paper forgot to mention suggested actions.
6) You say people don't go where they could. Heh, Why are they selling iBooks with 1024x768. Ever tryed to run MOX on that? I guess people don't all have 22" displays, and yes MOX beggins to be usable at 1600x1200
7) They made Qt and iTunes skin look different? That's why. But still read my comment. I was talking about selecting colors
8) I guess you have completely missed representation what MDI is. MDI can be used the way mozilla does. MDI can be pager with options to choose which document.
Neither am I a moron, and probably neither are you. But if you wanna get your PhD I guess you should better start considering staying at the topic.
1. Talk is about paper that is describing how to make a software to run on Apple hardware
2. This paper should make a picture of this systems perfection
3. System is the first thing that should use that paper
4. If system is not following this paper correctly, why should others?
5. All examples I used are Apple designs for MOX and Apple hardware
6. All you've described is sad reality and lame excuses
And yes we agree. Aqua is not the best interface.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Sounds like Apple's standard pompus elitist bullshit to me.
Once again with the sad and pathetic attempts by lonely dead ednd slashdot posters to associate sexuality with a computer. TH emore I see these posts, the more I think it's a reflex of die hard Wintel weenies to deny that it's actualy becoming cool to once again own a mac.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
NOT this is a pathetic artical and has no proof.. its laughable.
Apple u are manipulative lieing bastards who screw over your own customers and they like it.
If u invest in apple your dumb.
If u buy an apple your stupid.
If u think an Apple is better designed than windows your wrong.
These werent points in that artical they were just as convincing as a 5 year old. Hope somebody believes it cause i dont.
Cya Apple losers