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Apple Doesn't Design For Yesterday
HughPickens.com writes Erik Karjaluoto writes that he recently installed OS X Yosemite and his initial reaction was "This got hit by the ugly stick." But Karjaluoto says that Apple's decision to make a wholesale shift from Lucida to Helvetica defies his expectations and wondered why Apple would make a change that impedes legibility, requires more screen space, and makes the GUI appear fuzzy? The Answer: Tomorrow.
Microsoft's approach with Windows, and backward compatibility in general, is commendable. "Users can install new versions of this OS on old machines, sometimes built on a mishmash of components, and still have it work well. This is a remarkable feat of engineering. It also comes with limitations — as it forces Microsoft to operate in the past." But Apple doesn't share this focus on interoperability or legacy. "They restrict hardware options, so they can build around a smaller number of specs. Old hardware is often left behind (turn on a first-generation iPad, and witness the sluggishness). Meanwhile, dying conventions are proactively euthanized," says Karjaluoto. "When Macs no longer shipped with floppy drives, many felt baffled. This same experience occurred when a disk (CD/DVD) reader no longer came standard." In spite of the grumblings of many, Karjaluoto doesn't recall many such changes that we didn't later look upon as the right choice.
Microsoft's approach with Windows, and backward compatibility in general, is commendable. "Users can install new versions of this OS on old machines, sometimes built on a mishmash of components, and still have it work well. This is a remarkable feat of engineering. It also comes with limitations — as it forces Microsoft to operate in the past." But Apple doesn't share this focus on interoperability or legacy. "They restrict hardware options, so they can build around a smaller number of specs. Old hardware is often left behind (turn on a first-generation iPad, and witness the sluggishness). Meanwhile, dying conventions are proactively euthanized," says Karjaluoto. "When Macs no longer shipped with floppy drives, many felt baffled. This same experience occurred when a disk (CD/DVD) reader no longer came standard." In spite of the grumblings of many, Karjaluoto doesn't recall many such changes that we didn't later look upon as the right choice.
So what's so "tomorrow" about change from Lucida to Helvetica, which impedes legibility, requires more screen space, and makes the GUI appear fuzzy? Is that the definition of "tomorrow" now?
The distortion is strong in that one. And now he must excuse his earlier brief glimses of reality.
Btw. Helvetica is a classic font that is more narrow and easier to read than Lucida especially on print, on a screen it is best with good hinting, which Apple's fontsystem doesn't do.
Ugh... when Microsoft throws out the old to make with the new, however stupid and ill-advised it really is, they justifiably get lambasted for it.
When Apple does it, they are "designing for tomorrow"
Um, ok, sure. Whatever. Ignoring good user interface design is still bad.
Perhaps "tomorrow" means that Apple has done internal tests to show Helvetica as more legible than Lucida on its Retina brand displays. We've come a long way since 1984 when Apple made 72 dpi the standard, and the iMac ships with a Retina display now.
Though I'm not a bit fan of MS... They continually have shown that they have no problem leaving old architecture in the dust -- when it suits them. When 2K3 came out, they made a "code optimization" change that left all P1, P2, P-Pro multi-processors behind. Few of their drivers are compatible from one version of an OS to another (and they can be digitally signed to one version). MS has not problem leaving "old" tech in the dust.
.. don't attack MS.
Because Mac chose a bad font
Whatever. Ubuntu Unity seems to be the only cool-looking UI left.
They're deliberately making your old non-retina mac fuzzy to push you to buy a new one. Nothing more.
Sheez, do I have to tell you EVERYTHING !!
Is this just a "default" font choice that can be easily changed in the settings? or are Macs so locked down that you can't even change friggin fonts?
I dislike most of Apples hardware choices. Ignoring the fact that say that ZIP drives where pushed by apple. CD and Floppy where sacrificed for weight...actually moved to external caddies, which is where they should be, as they were (increasingly) occasional use devices. My CD\DVD still gets utilised in my computer and I lament there was never a local;cheap;large enough;versatile;small replacement to replace it,Cloud and USB are better in their own ways, but not a real replacement. My ever growing raided hard drive storage is simply burning electricity, and my fear of losing everything grows.
I'm on an macbook air with the new Helvetica font. It looks crisp and clear and I was totally lovin' it when this popped up on my RSS feed. Any application I use that requires study of small text, such as code editor or word processor, typically supports more than the default system font.
They've been doing this for years. Client software is an afterthought. So is hardware, want to run a "modern" OS on your C2D Mac, FU.
Now you can use the internet to find hacks and work arounds showing it will run just fine, but Apple likes you to buy new hardware every year or so.
I prefer the MS model significantly. Windows 8.1 runs flawlessly on my old C2D laptops, oh and I can actually replace the parts easily, unlike in my last and final Mac.
Asshole company, but people like style over productivity, so enjoy your apple tax morons.
... Karjaluoto doesn't recall many such changes that we didn't later look upon as the right choice....
The opinion of whether or not it was the right choice is severely clouded by the fact that in the Apple environment, there is No Choice. The user Has To go along with what Apple decides is The Future.
.
Apple has built the walls so high around its empire, that few dare leave. Therefore, they must rationalize that whatever Apple decides for the future is The Right Choice.
Is this post really just an ad for apple?
I don't often use OSX, but I'm a little mortified that the system font is dictated by the whims of Apple, instead of being selectable by the user. When I install Windows, one of the first things I do is to change the system fonts. In KDE I used to, but now I'm happy with the defaults. But it never occurred to me that there might be a modern OS that doesn't give you this option!
Well wtf about today? Is the change literally tomorrow? If so, then I guess that's okay. If it's a year or three away, this is just really bad design choice. Kids learning on Apples in school will learn that Apple fonts are fuzzy and look bad for the next five-six years.
When the Retina enhanced redesign of iOS was released (iOS 7), the majority of products being sold had Retina displays. Now, only two very high end models of their Macs have Retina displays. Really, they should have waited until they had "mainstream" Retina Macs before changing the fonts, like they did with the iPhone and iPads.
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
Legibility and usability is no longer of importance. Their focus group isn't working professional any longer, its fashion sensible teens and facebookers. When you throw away usability of an item to make it look "cooler" it's no longer good design, it fashion and fashion never lasts.
IOs has required to have many of the usability "helpers", meant for people with disabilitys, turned ON for average users for some time now... and many of them hardly makes any difference. Sandboxing from hell makes several developers abandon the app store. There is NO real Mac Pro (WTF is up with that?).
I used to have an iPhone, I used to have an iPad. I have replaced them for Androids... Why? Because my eye sight is too weak to use an Apple product. I still have a $3000USD Mac Book Pro but im not sure my new computer will be a mac. I'm not sure my eyes are good enough for me to be included in the Apple family.
I was really happy when the retina displays came out because it gave me more legible fonts and and a sharper display, now the high res displays has turned OS design into a pissing contest to see who can draw the thinnest lines and use the least contrast... On my stationary machine I use Linux and Awesome (since there is no real Mac pro)... Its a tool, plain and simple, not something designed to use to impress others by looking "cool".
Apple doesnt design for the past or the future, or even the present. Apple products are designed using focus groups and industrial engineering teams. once the nuts and bolts are completed, apple checks current fashion and design trends as set by the industry (Pantone for example sets your "favourite" color or scheme for the year) and conforms as necessary. Then, the largest marketing firms in the world polls their focus groups and create a multi million dollar campaign rivalling anything seen at even the american political level. The product is advertised on television, internet, billboards, and subtly through product placement in your favourite television shows until it becomes an icon or status symbol. Finally, a handheld computer that costs around $50 to make is sold to the general public for upwards of $300 as dictated by the finance team, with futher successors of the product priced more competitively as deemed necessary.
arguably consumer driven development or manufacturing as its told in the fairytale of the free market has been dead for 50 years or more. Its eulogy was trumpeted by Jimmy carter in his malaise speech as he committed political suicide by telling americans that buying endless amounts of more goods and services was simply contributing to misery. Frankly, you buy what you're told to buy due to a combination of manipuative social psychology and indoctrinative marketing. No one really needs a lexus or the latest iphone.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I didn't read any comments here about the common situation when Apple removes features from its "yesterday" software in new versions of its "tomorrow" software then scrambles to restore some of those features because of user complaints.
I'm not a Mac user so I don't know if it's possible, but it would be good if Apple made it easy for users to select an OS font best suited to their needs. If one has an older 21 inch iMac and maybe poor eyesight, then maybe some other font, neither Lucida nor Helvetica, would be better for them. Apple might even go so far as to make suggestions for folks with a visual handicap like macular degeneration, glaucoma or something else. Heck, Firefox on Windows allows font choice, though it's an app.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Much like with Windows 10 and 8 (which run in Windows 7's footprint), Apple is actually supporting every single machine that ran Mavericks.
A couple of machines got dropped at Mavericks (the rather silly initial Macbook Air and the last white plastic MacBook).
But in this release Apple is officially supporting hardware that dates back to the mid-2007 iMac. People who bought a machine more than seven years ago are going to get at least another year of full support.
I'd imagine that machine, and my late 2008 unibody MacBook, will finally fall out of OS support with whatever replaces Yosemite. But more than 8 years of support for an all-in-one machine strikes me as pretty good.
Funny how Apple can do no wrong in the eyes of fanboys. His first paragraph slams Apple yet gives them an pass. Seems like Windows 8 was designed for "tomorrow" too. Pass or Fail? Fuck you Erik.
Both Apple and Microsoft have been using ripoffs of Helvetica for decades as their default font. That was what all the cool kids did back in the 1980s - if you didn't want to pay for a font, you paid some graphics artist to design one which looked a lot like it but was slightly different. Adobe bought licenses for the real fonts, and if you were in the printing industry and needed the real Helvetica you could buy Adobe Type Manager (originally for Mac, later for WIndows).
All this announcement means is that Apple has finally decided to pay whomever has the copyright on Helvetica for the rights to use it as their default system font. The bit about "tomorrow" is just marketing spin to make it sound like some awesome new thing, when the font itself was made in 1957.
And yes Apple abandons old tech and adopts new tech sooner than the rest of the industry meaning they're often at the forefront of tech which later becomes commonplace among PCs. You can cherry pick some of their successes (e.g. 3.5" floppy, abandoning optical drives) to make them seem brilliant. Or you could list some of their failures (e.g. firewire, lightning thus far, SCSI on the desktop, PowerPC which they abandoned for Intel) to make them seem like bumbling idiots. Apple isn't a prognosticator. They're making guesses about the future just like everyone else. For some reason people are less likely to remember their failures than with other companies.
Apple controls the hardware specs and limits them, they write the code to run on that hardware, and it's still buggy and insecure.
This article reminds me of the reasons professionals shouldn't bother with Apple, limited hardware choices, virtually no upgrade path, and things do not "just work".
If you have a ton of money to throw at it every 2 years knock yourself out, I moved Adobe suite and all the pro music software to the PC, which has tons of hardware options, stability I never got with any Apple machine (I've used several) and it's far cheaper.
I can keep my system intact and add a 4k monitor + new GPU and keep right on going, I keep hoping Linux will get that good and easy but it hasn't yet.
So I stick with Win7, for me it's the perfect system, stable and fast, easily upgraded.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It must be hard to praise planned obsolescence to such a degree while having Apple's dick shoved so far down your throat.
Helvetica is the hipster font. Apple is hedging their bet that eventually hipsters will make enough money to buy iProducts in the future.
Karjaluoto doesn't recall many such changes that we didn't later look upon as the right choice.
He must have never tried to use the hockey puck USB mouse. Truly a case of form over function....
Or rather, the famous reality distortion field later convinced Apple customer's that Apple must have been right all along. Because otherwise they'd have to admit that they'd been had, and no one wants to do that.
People who have paid a high price to enter a group tend to value that group, and people who are part of a group tend to conform to that group's judgments. It's terrible tech and terrible design, but it's great marketing.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
But in this case, well, Apple does something wrong (not even remotely comparable to the trainwreck that Microsoft did with Metro, I'll concede) that devalues the largest part of its already expensive product line, with the exception of the most expensive products, and without adding any value to those either, but Apple fan are happy nonetheless because... it's good to be shown how Apple does not care about who doesn't spend the most?
What is this, an exercise of asceticism in the path of the true Apple worship?
What really bothers me though is the removal of old SMB support (I don't know if it was Mavericks or ML) and now
the removal of the ipfw firewall. I had just gotten around to learning that and setting up a Launchctl plist.
The fact that the green button now fullscreens an application is another change I don't like.
Just one image, and it isn't clear which font is being used in it. Without a side-by-side image comparison, how can we actually decide for ourselves which is better and which is worse? Heck, that they did not provide a side-by-side image comparison, makes me question the truthfulness of their claims, and thus question their true intentions.
why Apple would make a change that impedes legibility, requires more screen space, and makes the GUI appear fuzzy?
You're viewing it wrong.
Is SlashDot/Dice paid by Apple to keep posting about them? I know local news sites like ABC and the Denver Post constantly talk about only Apple products because they're sponsored (though they don't say that they're sponsored).
is DirectX 11 no available on XP?
Apple Changes System Font, Degrading Onscreen Readability
There, fixed that wonky headline for you. I suspect you were posting with the new OS X Yosemite and just couldn't read what you were typing?
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
What really causes my eyes to bleed is the new "flat" buttons that don't really look like buttons; they look like text labels. The top of every window now looks like someone gave a junior high student a screenshot of a Mavericks window and told him to reproduce it using construction paper, scissors and glue.
And the frosted-glass semi-transparency effects are just a pointless and unnecessary in Yosemite as they were in Windows. I get the feeling that the Apple UI team has run out of useful work to do, and now they are just changing things because they're bored. The next OS/X release will no doubt change them back, and then add in some other dubious changes that be reverted in the release after that.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
What a fine example of religious self-contorting thinking. Yeah, the Almighty made something stupid and ugly, but then it's the Almighty we're talking about, so it must be some deep wisdom underneath the seeming ugliness.
The truth is, Helvetical is just depressingly ugly, Retina or no Retina. It just has that ineliminable "default" ugliness that is an immediate turn-off for anyone with minimal aesthetic sense. It's ugly on low-res screen and it's just as ugly in print (which Retina still can't compete with in terms of dpi). It's ugly, period.
vi is my shepherd. I shall not font.
Have gnu, will travel.
Exactly. Apple designs for the very near future, as in, when you download their new OMFG FREE operating system, you're going to need to upgrade your hardware in the very near future.
Highly accomplished designers tend to fall in love with and become obsessed by Bauhaus style in its various cyclical incarnations. The remaining 99.999% of the human race finds Bauhaus objects and systems very pretty to look and impossible to use for more than a few days, as documented by Jane Jacobs, William White, Tom Wolf, and many others. The designers believe the rest of the critics are blind and the human race is just using their wonderful Bauhaus stuff wrong.
sPh
Yep.
Jony is just a queer and Yosemite, phallic icon for penis, has jony all over it.
Apple's new Gulag is to lock users into their iCloud Drive that forces vanilla white operating systems and hardware across the board.
Be careful if installing Yosemite on an external drive; the Yosemite updates the boot loader and GUID table so that another bootable drive with a version less than 10,10 is not recognized (not even and on purpose by the Yosemite rescue partition on the ex-drive).
Glad I still have the 10.6.8 dvd to boot back to 10.6.8.
Thanks Apple -- father fuckers.
ipfw's been gone for a while ... but they've made a lot of other stupid choices that might be good for general users, but make things a pain when you're administering lots of machines.
For instance, pushing all updates via the iTunes store; we have a centralized account that we put everything under ... so an iWorks update comes along, and sysadmins have to go and enter the password on each machine.
The 'server' package under the App store to get the server OS ... WTF? For apache, the config files are absolute crap now as there's a ton of if/then logic to alter the config if it's server or client.
And dear god, their replacing some languages (eg, perl), with wrappers that decide which version to call based on what system & user level config is present.
I've lost track of how many things have annoyed me ; I've been sitting on 10.6.8 for a long time now, but after this whole 'shellshock' issue, I was forced to upgrade to something that's still being supported ... and absolutely hate it.
The only good news is that they *finally* updated the mini ... which means we'll finally be getting new hardware to replace our xserves. (the cancelation of which should've been the clue that they didn't care about 'enterprise' type stuff anymore). I'm thinking of putting FreeBSD or similar on 'em though, rather than MacOSX.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I find Yosemite looks find. My core objections are:
1. Increasing complexity is making the UI unworkable. There needs to be app to do all the mechanics for features such as Continuity and Handoff and to check for issues that may keep it from working.
2. iTunes over-engineered. Every time I go to work on my car, I don't want to find the tools have changed in radical ways and relocated themselves. Tools shouldn't change. They should just work and work in the same way they always have. I don't want to relearn how my hammer or screwdriver works every year or so.
iTunes forgets that principle. The new iTunes adds few new features, but its UI is radically changed for the worst. It's a classic illustration of designers thinking they know better than users and creating a horror. It seems to have a fixed set of modes the designers thought were best for us. Click on one button and there's no sidebar. Click on another and two almost useless ones appear. "Hey," I think," I don't want that sidebar to disappear or change." A good UI doesn't do ten things when it should do one.
The designers also seem to think the that typical user is an illiterate four-year-old. Screens are cluttered with useless pictures rather than compact lists and that require too much scrolling. Even when I manage to configure it to be more text-centric, it seems obsessed with hurling that childish picture UI back at me. "Now, now, little boy," it seems to be saying, "don't think your smarter than your are. You should like these pictures we're providing for you. Don't act like an adult and insist on text."
All in all, iTunes is beginning the challenge that Skype upgrade of a few years back as the all-time worst UI on the Mac. That matters to me more than a mere font change I'll hardly notice.
Although it can be, also note that the Helvetica Nueu that Apple uses in Yosemite is heavily edited to look OK on LCD displays - just like other screen tuned fonts.
They also were trying to get the average size of sentences between the old and new fonts closers so programmers didn't have as much work to adjust for text changing sizes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Locked down app stores are not not the future and big part is just the mystery censorship as well cracking down on emulators.
Also the sandboxing locks out to meany apps.
Do you really want app to lock out steam on mac os?
Perhaps "tomorrow" means that Apple has done internal tests to show Helvetica as more legible than Lucida on its Retina brand displays. We've come a long way since
As a former employee of Apple's (i still go back and forth as a contracter, so posting anonymously) the days of Apple doing internal UI and usability testing are a long ways away... it simply isn't how their product development began to work under Steve.
Under Steve, instead of paper prototypes and usability testing/science, it became much more "this is what I like and feels right, do that" and consumers agreed with him more often than not. Unless by internal testing you meant Ive liked how it looked when he squinted sideways to mandated it, then yes, I guess you could be correct.
The idea that Apple somehow produces superior UIs is a myth, and needs to be accepted as such.
The Apple UIs have always been about aesthetic appeal. Just as in fashion, there are fads, and sometimes what is popular or seen as attractive is not always the most ergonomic or functional.
I love design for its creativity, but one of its problems is that it's not empirical: people rationalize poor design decisions all the time, and Apple is no different.
The choice of Helvetica is purely a status issue, designed to appeal to those who cling to it as a status symbol. I'm not saying Helvetica is a poor font, just that it serves a certain calling card function in certain groups.
I say this as someone who owns and uses Windows, OS X, and KDE on a regular basis--OS X is my second-least favorite OS after Windows 8 from a usability standpoint (my favorite is KDE, followed by Windows 7).
The way it always goes down:
PM: We have to unify iOS and OSX experience
UX, working on a nice 4K monitor: Oooh. Looks pretty!
Developer: whatever, I have a deadline to meet
Rare developer with some UI taste starts a flame war on the mailing list, followed by a thread of me toos and managers explaining some of the factors behind the decision but not really listening to feedback.
It's not even a horrible process. If UX was forced to redo the work, their heart would not be as much in it as the first time around. At minimum, the product would be delayed or released with more bugs. It's just a sad fact that collective intelligence is much less than a sum of individual intelligence. Therefore products have to become mediocre in order to gain more features that only a big team can implement.
Soldered RAM is always a wrong choice in a PC.
Example: a few releases ago they made scrollbars thinner (making them harder to click), and also made them disappear by default. All this to "free up the space" that was being "wasted" by scrollbars. Now in Yosemite they're getting rid of window title bars in many apps, making it harder to move windows around. This is for the same reason: to free up space being used by title bars.
My computer has a 24" screen. The space taken up by scrollbars and window titles is completely insignificant. The inconvenience caused by not having them is very significant. This is a design decision that might have been justifiable 15 years ago when a 17" monitor was considered large, but today is completely absurd.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
How many time have you got a document/email sent from the latest version of Windows only to not be able to open it?
A little font change is far from the worst change in Yosemite. Now many apps now do not have a title bar!
Whatever imbecile made that decision has absolutely no place in interface design.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Apple ditches the floppy drive, SCSI, and ADB in the late 90s, and a mere 15 years later you realize that they aren't concerned with legacy things? Good work.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
...was make things look pretty. It seems Yosemite has reverted from the modern 3d realistic world back to 60's cartoons. At least from the few screenshots I've seen...
Or, you'll stick with buggy-ass 10.6/Mountain Lion if your machine is one of those left unsupported by Apple in its most recent "fuck you" to its customers, or, you simply still require that your PPC apps work.
Or, if you can run it, you'll stick with 10.9/Mavericks. And benefit from (finally) a decently stable OS that hasn't yet been hit with the flat stick, uses the nicer fonts, and generally try to hang on for a while until hopefully, Apple gets rid of that blind, tasteless cluetard Ives, followed by a return to design principles that don't make their products look like a generic pack of cigarettes.
I mean seriously -- have you folks yet *looked* at Yosemite? Minimalism taken beyond ugly, well into "what the hell" ("buttons" that are nothing but text... who was the dimwit that thought that was an "advance", I wonder? Browser with no title-bar, information-poor pseudo URLs... it'd be funny if it weren't so sad. These functional downgrades were *not* done with usability in mind. For anyone. This isn't design. This is flailing at random change with no one around who can tell you "dude, that's... stupid" to your face.) I'm half surprised they didn't take the ability to nest folders away. But hey! Maybe next time, eh?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
My nearly-an-SUV 3/4 ton pickup (Avalanche) neatly converts into nearly a full pickup if I want it to. The back of the passenger compartment comes out, the rear seat area becomes part of the bed, and as a bonus, you can pop out the glass, open all the windows and the moon roof, and you're nearly sorta in a jeep. Kinda. If Jeeps had pickup beds. :)
Reminds me of recent fighter designs. Not really great at any one thing, but pretty good at most. As long as I don't have to take it into a furball, I guess I'm ok.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The fine article is right about Mac OS X Yosemite being hit by an ugly stick, but he's dead wrong arguing that Helvetica is the type face of choice designed for tomorrow's high resolution display. Helvetica was the default system font of Windows 3.0. That's how far the Mac OS X look and feel has regressed before a time when designers developed an aesthetic sense from lessons in calligraphy.
I once had a signature.
To get rid of the window decorator eyesore, In System Preferences, General, Appearance, choose Graphite. While you're at it, click the "Use dark menu bar and Dock" and change the highlight color to Graphite as well. This is how I cope with the assault of pastel colors.
I once had a signature.
So what's so "tomorrow" about change from Lucida to Helvetica, which impedes legibility, requires more screen space, and makes the GUI appear fuzzy? Is that the definition of "tomorrow" now?
Yep. That is Apple's version of tomorrow. Ugly, arrogant and barely functional. Every time they do something like this it validates the decision I made long ago to avoid their products.
It's planned obsolescence. That's no surprise from Apple, the people who brought us iPod touch with a un-replaceable batteries, macbooks with soldered in RAM, and 17 steps using 2 specialized tools to change battery in iPhone 5 etc.
The new OS looks like crap on your old (non-"retina") hardware that is otherwise still working fine. Sounds like time to drop another $1500 for the latest macbook. Super for Apple and their stockholders, sucks for you. I'm liking my Lenvo T-series laptops running Linux better and better every day.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Android has been using a variant of Helvetica called Roboto for years. See .
Apple does not design "for the future". They design for future purchases.
They drop support for older hardware to force you to upgrade, not because there is a technical problem mandating it.
I'm running Debian on a 12 year old box. It's had a CPU upgrade (to a whopping 3.8 GHz single core) and some extra RAM installed (4G total.) It's perfectly usable, and fully patched.
Had I bought a Mac, I'd have an unsupported paperweight years ago.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The only future for OSX Yosemite is a dead end.
Everyone who worked for NeXT have been driven away by queers like Ive and the other virtual tee-shirt designers.
This is very sad.
OSX Panther has more functionality than Yosemite.
and IMHO that is it's unique selling point. You can run programs written 20 years ago unchanged without the programs looking like garbage.
...is clean and elegant. It's beautiful. Initial reaction was surprised. I didn't know how I felt. Nobody likes change.... at first.
Those are hyperlinks. That's the generally accepted, even traditional, look for a hyperlink. You do know what a hyperlink is, do you not? When I click a hyperlink, I expect to arrive on a web page forthwith. That's what they mean. But that's not what these mean. These mean... random stuff. Normal words... are words. Underlined and/or blue-colored words are hyperlinks. Buttons, despite Ive's insane, drooling jihad against skeuomorphism, should look like you are expected to reach over and press them. This leverages the user's familiarity with the real world (something I admit I don't think I can assume you have) and creates a natural understanding of an implied action just by existing. An action, I might add, that is not hyperlinking. Because we use, you know, highlighted words for that. How would you react to a stereo that had no buttons, just words on its face? Is that intuitive? Of bloody course it isn't. You press a button, it depresses, it looks different, it clicks, you know to expect the action to occur. If it's a toggled state, the button stays in. Natural. Normal. Expected. But a word? Where's the premise for touching a word? Where indeed? Hyperlinks, you say? YES! BLOODY HYPERLINKS!
Ah. Ah ha. Ha. Ha Ha Ha. Oh, that is priceless. Just priceless. Ive's work is at best, a mixed bag, and he surely isn't the world's foremost designer. I can think of any number of designers that make him look like the pretentious hack he is. Starting with any number of supercar designers, wandering off into audio equipment and musical instrument design, heck, there are even refrigerators that are designed better than Ive's work product. Also, Scott Forstall's ideas were far better in terms of design than Ives. He just wasn't minimalist -- but minimalist is not a synonym for "good", and in fact, very seldom is that the case.
Also, look at the new Mac Pro. What a dysfunctional failure-storm. Can't install drives in it, doesn't fit in with other equipment well, requires desk warts to be even reasonably functional... expansion is a plug-addled nightmare... even the plugs themselves can be pulled right out, no security (physical or data) whatsoever. Oh yeah, Ives. I wouldn't let that guy "design" my kitchen. He'd probably take out all the plugs, knobs and buttons, color everything silver, and not allow silverware dividers in the drawers or pots on the stove. But you'd get a microwave with only one setting, and son, you'd be expected to like it. And you... well, you probably would. Lacking any kind of taste as you do. ;)
Yes, absolutely, that's why I praise Mavericks so highly after years of buggy OS's left unfixed. That's why I thought "awesome" when the fully expandable Mac Pro came out, and why I bought right in. That's why I changed from Windows to the Mac. That's why I generally have the latest in home theater gear. That's why I have a Tesla on order. That's why I cohabit instead of marry. That's why I'm atheist and not theist. That's why I just took in a severely injured kitten. That's why I get such a kick out of messing with a Raspberry Pi, cobbling up little RPi projects we can use around the house. That's why my favorite literary genre is hard science fiction. That's why I have moved to SDRs, away from conventional radios. In fact, that's why I write SDR software.
Yeah, I'm just terrified of change, you bet. You crack me up. Any other "insights" you might care to share while you're making things up out of the clear blue? I think Fox News is holding a place for you, better get right over there.
Let me at
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You'd think Apple just went on a puppy killing spree based on some of the posts.
I'm 50 years old with an astigmatism and after upgrading a 2011 Macbook Air what I can say is the font is different. I can read it fine. If you're having trouble reading it, the issue is more likely contrast or LCD smoothing, not the damn font. Try the Accessibility settings. It is silly that Apple doesn't allow people to change the font out of the box, but of all the things to rage about, it's pretty ridiculous. Especially on a supposed geek site where people should realize that OS X's configuration system is based on XML "property" files. You can edit them yourself with any text editor. Or you can use the Property List editor. Or you can download Tinker Tool for free.
Geeks know how to edit text files and download free software, right?
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
The release of Mac OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" show distinctly a "brain drain" of talent leaving Apple. This abandonment, i.e. jumping ship before being pushed out by Jony Ive, is startling.
Apple Inc. is not a computer company.
Apple Inc. is not a smart phone or mp3 player company.
Apple is not a Business Services or Financial company.
Apple Inc. is a Fashion company.
Likely the Apple Watch will full the space as the Apple Newton did.
yesterday had 1 mouse button, and apparently tomorrow does too.
I installed Yosemite yesterday and got hit with an uglier stick. The installer went into a loop. It failed and gave me the only option of restarting the installation. And it failed again. Some times it produced a system log and asked me if I wanted to save it. I said yes and then it said that I was not authorized!
Finally found the change startup disk window, but it was empty. I was not able to just restart the old OS. Ask for help? The system was down, how do I talk to Apple? While waiting on the phone, I finally found Command+R and got the Time Capsule backup running. After the restart, the installer said that the install package was damaged and that I should download it again. It gave me the App Store page with Yosemite, which said that it was already downloaded.
So it will be sometime before I try again. Maybe 10.10.2.
No shit.
Apple designs for tomorrow with only one thing in mind ($), like every other "for-profit" company.
What a pointless article, honestly.
Needs more screenshots for the non-Apple / non-Yosemite crowd.
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
Litigation over Innovation.
Nelvetica Neue is damned ugly. The flat design is damned ugly. The push for BRIGHT BLUE and animated everything is damned ugly and distracting.
I no longer like to use the products that Apple creates.
Thanks Jony. You've made me not want to use Apple products. And using Apple products is my career.
Your sense in UI aesthetics sucks.
Are you high? Your world most certainly doesn't look like mine. My Wife is a MacBook Air user and let me tell you: I've never seen a laptop that good from a hardware standpoint. By a pretty wide margin. Light, strong, extra thin with an entire day battery life. The software she doesn't care all that much about. She basically needs MSOffice and the rest is bonus.
I'm a linux user, my kids Windows users. There is stuff for everyone. And nobody is afraid to leave anything.
Nice troll though.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Their focus group isn't working professional any longer, its fashion sensible teens and facebookers.
I have plenty of coworkers on MacBook Airs and they look happy about it. Furthermore, all those people work in IT. My wife is a MacBook Air user and she looks happy as well. She's a teacher and does everything on Mac.
You *wish* for Apple to cater only to hipsters because it fits your distorted view of Apple, but really, it's not the case.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Let me guess, you're not an Apple user?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
"and still have it work well" -- is that some kind of rhetorical flourish? Seems like a set up for a strawman (in reverse) . . . I got a pile of boxes in front of my desk that are doorstops until I decide to install Linux because Windows won't do the trick.
I want my Chicago back.
Any of these just really piss me off grandly. When you are typing one, two, and three word phrases, things are unclear. Passwords, unclear.
I
1
|
l
What did I just type at a quick glance? i, one, verticle bar, and L. Why not make this obvious in your damn font people?!
The J is just a pet peeve. What about "Z" or "E" or "F" or "5"? Just save time and get rid of that top bar, who needs it!
I guess it's Apples turn to start breaking every other version their OS. Just like Microsoft; it was just a matter of time before stole a bad idea and tried to make it work.
its amazing ,,,
This has to be the biggest piece of Apple adulation that I've ever seen. A practice of flattery over everything Apple do is always superabundant in most of the output of the American tech press: we're used, for instance, to the reviewers' pirouettes when they first dismiss some bad choice by Apple as irrelevant, and then they have to praise the reversal of that choice as the best thing after sliced bread in some later version of an Apple product.
But in this case, well, Apple does something wrong (not even remotely comparable to the trainwreck that Microsoft did with Metro, I'll concede) that devalues the largest part of its already expensive product line, with the exception of the most expensive products, and without adding any value to those either, but Apple fan are happy nonetheless because... it's good to be shown how Apple does not care about who doesn't spend the most?
What is this, an exercise of asceticism in the path of the true Apple worship?
I should start the "Church of Steve Jobs/Apple". I would make millions off the mindless fan boy Apple zombies out there. I proclaim myself the "High Priest" of the church! Go forth and wait in line for the iPhone 7. The church demands it!
fonts are just pictures of letters. they are rendering of the ABCs. People will be most comfortable with the typefaces they are comfortable with. Think of speaking 'english' to a British person. the word is the same, the meaning is the same but the pronunciation is baffling (to both). Try the word 'Aluminum' for example. you might get " Al You Min ee Um " from a brit and " Uh Loo Ma Num " From an American.
There are lots of visual and psychological reasons why some onts are better than others but the overriding factor is " what font was most prevealent when you learned how to read" ?
There is point size, x-height and the length of ascenders and descenders to consider.
Serif letters are better than Sans Serif (or was it the other way around)
crap