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!"

Comments

Nothing new

[psicE]

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.

Re:Grey is bad?

[justsomebody]

Personally I hate XP from my guts, as all Windows versions. But at least you have a choice to select colors. AQUA IS WHITE.

A 20 year old irony

[tkrotchko]

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?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!

[srelan]

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.

Re:Some good points

[justsomebody]

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.

Re:and the difference is...

[MoneyT]

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.