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.

Comments

Apple's take on Windows 8

[BenJeremy]

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.

Re:I don't follow

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a standard "apologist" tactic. Sort of like an appeal to authority, but one that assumes the authority knows more than you do.

In the future, impeding legibility, requiring more screen space, and making the GUI look fuzzy are just as bad as they are today. However, this author is indicating that eventually such things will become less needed, and we'll learn to live without them, and they fit the same pattern as Apple's abandoment of hardware that was really showing its age.

Except that this is not hardware. Fonts are just as functional as they were two hundred years ago. They haven't outlived their usefulness.

Perhaps high density pixel screens will fix the fuzziness, but it won't fix the footprint (unless Apple's font management is totally pixel based, which would be stupid, and I don't think Apple is stupid). But even then, if Apple released a poorly legible desktop on a high res display, it still would be poorly legible.

So you come back to the main point of this article. "Apple knew better back then"; ahem.... actually everyone knew better back then, floppies were used by about 8% of all the computer users when Apple finally ditched them. "and so Apple will know better now"; ahem... if only we were sure that past performance was a reliable indicator of future performance. "And we should trust Apple because they know more than us"; ahem... ok, so we've gotten to the real argument here.

"The Right Choice"?

[QuietLagoon]

... 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.

Hockey puck mouse

[Rick Zeman]

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....

Re: I don't follow

[lgw]

Not to disagree in principle, but don't confuse "readable" (ability to read for hours without strain) and "legible" (ability to make out each letter at all).

Serif fonts are readable: great for reducing strain from hours of reading under good conditions. That's why they're used for books (except some crazy tech books that get it wrong), newspaper text, magazine text, and so on. Serif fonts are perhaps over-used in blogs, from a desire to look more like a newspaper, I suspect, for text too small for the screen resolution to really make it work, but for eReaders and such that devote all possible space to the text, allowing for larger fonts, it's the obvious choice.

Sans-serif fonts are good for remaining legible under highly difficult conditions. That's why they're often the choice for billboards, for headlines (designed to attract you close enough to read the text), for advertising text (to make the big text easier to read from across the room, and the small print unappealing to read) unless the advertiser's style trumps other font choice concerns. Sans-serif was the only practical choice in the early days of computing, and so some people still see them as "technology fonts" - ooh, it's high tech, it should be sans-serif. Sigh.

Helvetica is a particularly demanding san-serif font. It's sort of the worst of both worlds for screens - it demands high DPI, but it's still less readable than a proper serif font. In a totally Apple move, choosing style over practicality, they pick the font that's famous for being the most stylish (at least among hipsters) over practical concerns (e.g., one-button mice, you're holding it wrong, bendy-phone - all style over practicality).