Slashdot led me to think she was wrong, but actually after looking up the definition, turns out she was right because ironic doesn't have quite as restrictive a meaning as you think it does. That in itself is probably ironic..
It's retarded to imply that I "unilaterally declared that Apple are masters of the UI". They don't get everything right for everyone as you point out, but they have shown the industry that sometimes making things easy to use will get you a lot of money. If something can be made easier to use while still retaining full functionality for those who want it, then that's great. When they dumb things down so much that features are lost, then that's bad. I like to have the choice, so I don't use OSX, but I'd be happier if more of these retards you talk of used Macs over the years - then I would never have had to clear out their virus infected porn boxes.
I think it's more that they have a decent margin on the machine in the first place, and they just keep switching their "extra free!" deals every few weeks to make people feel like they're getting a good deal. I got the machine for work anyway so I didn't care about the price that much, but I wasn't about to add on £20 just to get some decals on the back.
I wasn't saying they have perfect UIs or anything, I'm saying they have spurred improvement in a few areas. And the guy using the one buttoned mouse as an example of a bad design when OSX can use 2 button mice seems silly to me. That makes it a personal preference rather than a UI decision.
I preferred the finder method to the Amiga method tbh. I can barely even remember switching windows in Amiga OS.. it's been something like 12 years.. not that I usually ran more than one app at once anyway.
I really hated the UI with Windows 3.1, especially when minimising windows.
With the dock then apps that aren't already in there go to the right. I can't remember exactly how I configured it but I removed a lot of the default apps out of the dock, because I'd never use them. There may have been settings for whether apps get added in again with common usage, can't remember (might be thinking of Linux docks here).
I don't care how iTunes stores its files, because I hate the iTunes interface full stop:p It tries to kiddify things far too much, and I've always preferred just browsing my music via my own directory structure. I didn't use iTunes even when I was using OSX.. Winamp is my favourite media player of all time, though Exaile is "good enough" for me for now.
Generalised sexist statement: guys just like cool gadgets. I even have a design on the back of my netbook - though only because it was the same cost as simply getting a black one due to a deal Dell had that month, otherwise I would have probably just gone for black.
Car analogy: I don't really care if my car looks like shit as long as it's fun to drive, but if I find a car that is fun to drive and looks good, I don't see why I shouldn't choose it over one that is simply fun to drive, all other things being equal.
I wasn't talking about BSODs at all, just how the interface feels to use. I'm guessing it's to do with double buffering windows or something.
As for responsiveness I wasn't talking about individual apps, just the OS overall. Even Linux doesn't really get this right, my mouse still can get jittery when the machine is under heavy loads. Maybe I'm just imagining that on my Amiga you could always move the mouse around, I don't know. I also actually liked how if an app was unresponsive on an Amiga that it wouldn't buffer up all your mouse clicks and keypresses, but that's down to personal preference I guess.
I got an MBP a few years ago, very happy that Apple were gaining popularity again (though I found it sad that the reason for this was because of an MP3 player..), but the machine wasn't very reliable, overheated easily and locked up if I tried to do any serious gaming. I agree Apple have gone downhill, or perhaps just were never that reliable in the first place. I still prefer their OS to Windows, but thankfully I don't have to use either:p
Now I think Apple's hardware sucks, I've never been into any of the iProducts, and I also am growing to dislike their overall ethics and policies, though a lot of that could be to do with Slashdot groupthink!
I installed Ubuntu on my MBP too, eventually got sick of little driver annoyances and I'm now running on a Dell netbook that I knew would work perfectly with Ubuntu. Ubuntu 10.04 seems to have sorted out some problems for the MBP (which I just use as a server now) but I already use my netbook 100% of the time so I don't really care anymore.
Right, some of this is just you complaining and not actually finding out how to use your computer. Look at http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/entry/osx_5_alt_tabbing_in to find out how to switch between apps and between windows in a single app..
As for the dock, yes it integrates the idea of Widnows quick launch, and I think it does it very well (so much so that whenever I install Ubuntu I install a dock instead of the taskbar at the bottom of the screen). I grew to like the concept pretty quickly. I didn't find it hard to notice the arrow/dot below the apps at all, and I had it configured so that there were only a few apps in there so that it wasn't such a mess as when you first install OSX. Extra ones would pop in there too when I was running apps that I didn't usually use, and I thought it was just a great space saving concept overall.
I never really used Expose. I'm an alt-tab kind of guy, though often clicking on the dock is handy in Ubuntu because it also switches to the appropriate desktop and application with one click rather than requiring a few different keystrokes. I'm guessing it would work the same with Spaces on the latest version(s?) of OSX.
As for the right click stuff I can't comment, I don't remember it being a problem. I actually prefer using "touch two fingers to the pad and then left click" for a right click, but I don't have that option on my netbook.
I agree that lack of cut and paste is annoying, yes.
Good job ignoring the paragraph about the iPhone. Perhaps I need to say it outright for you instead of you drawing from inferences. They created a smartphone UI that actually works with fingers and works responsively. I really don't know why people weren't doing all this anyway, but even if it seems a very obvious idea, it was something that phone makers simply were not doing before. It was a revolution - now everyone else is copying it.
Likewise as I said in my other reply to the OP, Apple pioneered multitouch (on both the iPhone and laptop touchpads) - it was something that either was non-existent or at least not well known and utilised before Apple did it. Multitouch on a laptop's touchpad is also much better than using the side of the pad for scrolling, which I just find fiddly and annoying.
I've probably already said that I don't really like Apple as a company any more, but you're being rather childish here trying to deny that their OS was way ahead of Windows for years, and that several design features on Windows and other OSes were first done on Macs. Simple little things which you just take for granted, like the recycle bin/trash can metaphor. Again, that's just a statement of fact. Yes, OSX has specific failings, but pointing them out doesn't change the fact that Apple have been first with a few physical and virtual design concepts.
WTF is it that allows some of the most argumentative assholes on the web just overlook the one simple fact that Apple is really shitty at putting together a UI?
You could at least provide some examples here btw (beyond a lame joke that has no relevance - a dial is fine for scrolling through a list, but obviously a general purpose laptop needs a more general purpose input system) if you want to distinguish yourself from those you are criticising. Apple's UI accomplishments over the years are obvious, but I guess I'll have to list a few since you are so used to a post-Apple world that you don't realise what they've done.
They were (one of) the pioneers of graphical interfaces in the 80s, and it took until Windows 95 for Windows to come anywhere near Mac OS (but it was still awful). These days there's less space for refinement in 2D graphical interfaces, but for one thing I loved the OSX dock so much that I installed a dock in Linux - and MS must have loved it too because they modified the task bar in Win7 to function in a very dock-like fashion. Now think of how shitty MP3 players and phones were before the iPod and iPhone.
I've never owned an iProduct, but I'd always thought that smartphone interfaces were shit. The fact that Windows Mobile was the best smartphone OS out there for a while really says something about how awful everything was (and it's still not great, but it's better), considering how unresponsive and non-finger-friendly it was (I quickly grew to simply using my fingers to interact with my touchphones even when I had a stylus right in the corner of the phone, though it was very awkward sometimes trying to hit a 2mm "ok" button with the tip of your nail). But now all the other phone makers are actually starting to get that response time and usability are important (well, they probably always knew this but since there was little competition going on they didn't put any effort into it, all of them content to wallow in mediocrity because they were raking in plenty of cash already), and that if they don't do something then they are going to disappear into obscurity.
Apple have really driven UI design in several ways over the years. It's not being argumentative to say that, it's argumentative to try and deny it.
I'm happy with 2 buttons, and the "mighty mouse" does in fact have 2 buttons (not that I've ever used one or want to use one). Multitouch on a touchpad is great too, I wish all laptops had it.
If you couldn't figure out how to move data onto an external drive in OSX then that might say more about you (or perhaps a poorly designed application) than the OS.
I'm sure Apple would push a DRMed format if they could get their customers to accept it.
They already did, for several years..
It's really amazing how an excellent UI is so valuable to quite a lot of people that they'll pay much higher prices
It's not that amazing. I grew up with Macs so I didn't think of Macs as an excellent UI so much as I just thought of Windows as shit. Mac OS is decent though I prefer Linux for the abundance of customisation options. Anyway, how an OS "feels" is important. To me Mac OS always gave a feeling of sturdiness while Windows just seems really flaky. I think some of that stems to the way it redraws Windows, IIRC even in Windows 7 there is tearing if you move a window around too fast. The other part is probably that I grew up with Amigas which had decent multitasking so that even if the CPU was maxxed out doing something, you could still move the mouse around and it all "felt" responsive. With Windows that simply isn't the case..
The unique thing that Apple did was actually bring design into the world of computing, it doesn't matter whether the designs were "new" or not (aside from the fact that there is very little new in the world of fashion and art either).
I think it's good that other companies are being forced to put some effort into UI design and styling to stop Apple pulling ahead. I don't like Apple much these days but they certainly are good for the market.
Board straight models? All the ones I saw were at least a little fat. Some of them actually looked like contenders for sumo wrestling or "world's strongest man" (and these were the females). Highest I got was a 2, and I have a feeling that if I'd got her first I probably would have rated her as a 0 or 1, but looking at all the heifers slightly altered my perceptions temporarily. *shudder*
Note: I can and have removed the entire ECU box from a car in the past - it runs, but slowly and less efficiently and may not pass an emissions test, but it still works in a driveable condition
Why would you ever want a slower, less efficient car?:s
An attacker would have to have sophisticated programming abilities
Sophisticated programming abilities my ass. It's just editing a bunch of variables in tables AFAIK. You can find stuff like VAGCOM (Volkswagen Audi Group ECU editing software) online, and it only costs a couple of hundred quid for the necessary hardware.
and also be able to physically mount some sort of computer on the victim's car to gain access to the embedded system
Yeah, because nobody these days can afford a laptop.
Aside from that, I think this is pointless scaremongering. First, you'd need to have someone that literally wants to kill you which I doubt is very common. Second, you'd need to leave your car unlocked or they'd have to disable the alarm. It would be much cheaper just to physically sabotage a car. And if you are worried about someone cutting your brakes, pump them a few times before moving off to check them. Police drivers are trained to do this as part of their routine when operating a vehicle. With a fully fly-by-wire system then perhaps it could be possible to set the brakes to disable themselves over a certain threshold speed of course..
Slashdot Mirror
And it helps to ensure that future generations of Americans continue in one of their main patriotic duties; love for warmongering. Yay!
Slashdot led me to think she was wrong, but actually after looking up the definition, turns out she was right because ironic doesn't have quite as restrictive a meaning as you think it does. That in itself is probably ironic..
donate blood to the red cross. It'll make you feel better.
That's a lie! It made me almost pass out! Damn those vampires!
Damnit, I knew we should have bombed Swederland when we had the chance!
It's retarded to imply that I "unilaterally declared that Apple are masters of the UI". They don't get everything right for everyone as you point out, but they have shown the industry that sometimes making things easy to use will get you a lot of money. If something can be made easier to use while still retaining full functionality for those who want it, then that's great. When they dumb things down so much that features are lost, then that's bad. I like to have the choice, so I don't use OSX, but I'd be happier if more of these retards you talk of used Macs over the years - then I would never have had to clear out their virus infected porn boxes.
I think it's more that they have a decent margin on the machine in the first place, and they just keep switching their "extra free!" deals every few weeks to make people feel like they're getting a good deal. I got the machine for work anyway so I didn't care about the price that much, but I wasn't about to add on £20 just to get some decals on the back.
I wasn't saying they have perfect UIs or anything, I'm saying they have spurred improvement in a few areas. And the guy using the one buttoned mouse as an example of a bad design when OSX can use 2 button mice seems silly to me. That makes it a personal preference rather than a UI decision.
I preferred the finder method to the Amiga method tbh. I can barely even remember switching windows in Amiga OS.. it's been something like 12 years.. not that I usually ran more than one app at once anyway.
I really hated the UI with Windows 3.1, especially when minimising windows.
With the dock then apps that aren't already in there go to the right. I can't remember exactly how I configured it but I removed a lot of the default apps out of the dock, because I'd never use them. There may have been settings for whether apps get added in again with common usage, can't remember (might be thinking of Linux docks here).
I don't care how iTunes stores its files, because I hate the iTunes interface full stop :p It tries to kiddify things far too much, and I've always preferred just browsing my music via my own directory structure. I didn't use iTunes even when I was using OSX.. Winamp is my favourite media player of all time, though Exaile is "good enough" for me for now.
Generalised sexist statement: guys just like cool gadgets. I even have a design on the back of my netbook - though only because it was the same cost as simply getting a black one due to a deal Dell had that month, otherwise I would have probably just gone for black.
Car analogy: I don't really care if my car looks like shit as long as it's fun to drive, but if I find a car that is fun to drive and looks good, I don't see why I shouldn't choose it over one that is simply fun to drive, all other things being equal.
I wasn't talking about BSODs at all, just how the interface feels to use. I'm guessing it's to do with double buffering windows or something.
As for responsiveness I wasn't talking about individual apps, just the OS overall. Even Linux doesn't really get this right, my mouse still can get jittery when the machine is under heavy loads. Maybe I'm just imagining that on my Amiga you could always move the mouse around, I don't know. I also actually liked how if an app was unresponsive on an Amiga that it wouldn't buffer up all your mouse clicks and keypresses, but that's down to personal preference I guess.
I got an MBP a few years ago, very happy that Apple were gaining popularity again (though I found it sad that the reason for this was because of an MP3 player..), but the machine wasn't very reliable, overheated easily and locked up if I tried to do any serious gaming. I agree Apple have gone downhill, or perhaps just were never that reliable in the first place. I still prefer their OS to Windows, but thankfully I don't have to use either :p
Now I think Apple's hardware sucks, I've never been into any of the iProducts, and I also am growing to dislike their overall ethics and policies, though a lot of that could be to do with Slashdot groupthink!
I installed Ubuntu on my MBP too, eventually got sick of little driver annoyances and I'm now running on a Dell netbook that I knew would work perfectly with Ubuntu. Ubuntu 10.04 seems to have sorted out some problems for the MBP (which I just use as a server now) but I already use my netbook 100% of the time so I don't really care anymore.
Right, some of this is just you complaining and not actually finding out how to use your computer. Look at http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/entry/osx_5_alt_tabbing_in to find out how to switch between apps and between windows in a single app..
As for the dock, yes it integrates the idea of Widnows quick launch, and I think it does it very well (so much so that whenever I install Ubuntu I install a dock instead of the taskbar at the bottom of the screen). I grew to like the concept pretty quickly. I didn't find it hard to notice the arrow/dot below the apps at all, and I had it configured so that there were only a few apps in there so that it wasn't such a mess as when you first install OSX. Extra ones would pop in there too when I was running apps that I didn't usually use, and I thought it was just a great space saving concept overall.
I never really used Expose. I'm an alt-tab kind of guy, though often clicking on the dock is handy in Ubuntu because it also switches to the appropriate desktop and application with one click rather than requiring a few different keystrokes. I'm guessing it would work the same with Spaces on the latest version(s?) of OSX.
As for the right click stuff I can't comment, I don't remember it being a problem. I actually prefer using "touch two fingers to the pad and then left click" for a right click, but I don't have that option on my netbook.
I agree that lack of cut and paste is annoying, yes.
Good job ignoring the paragraph about the iPhone. Perhaps I need to say it outright for you instead of you drawing from inferences. They created a smartphone UI that actually works with fingers and works responsively. I really don't know why people weren't doing all this anyway, but even if it seems a very obvious idea, it was something that phone makers simply were not doing before. It was a revolution - now everyone else is copying it.
Likewise as I said in my other reply to the OP, Apple pioneered multitouch (on both the iPhone and laptop touchpads) - it was something that either was non-existent or at least not well known and utilised before Apple did it. Multitouch on a laptop's touchpad is also much better than using the side of the pad for scrolling, which I just find fiddly and annoying.
I've probably already said that I don't really like Apple as a company any more, but you're being rather childish here trying to deny that their OS was way ahead of Windows for years, and that several design features on Windows and other OSes were first done on Macs. Simple little things which you just take for granted, like the recycle bin/trash can metaphor. Again, that's just a statement of fact. Yes, OSX has specific failings, but pointing them out doesn't change the fact that Apple have been first with a few physical and virtual design concepts.
Okay, so I've decided to feed the troll.
WTF is it that allows some of the most argumentative assholes on the web just overlook the one simple fact that Apple is really shitty at putting together a UI?
You could at least provide some examples here btw (beyond a lame joke that has no relevance - a dial is fine for scrolling through a list, but obviously a general purpose laptop needs a more general purpose input system) if you want to distinguish yourself from those you are criticising. Apple's UI accomplishments over the years are obvious, but I guess I'll have to list a few since you are so used to a post-Apple world that you don't realise what they've done.
They were (one of) the pioneers of graphical interfaces in the 80s, and it took until Windows 95 for Windows to come anywhere near Mac OS (but it was still awful). These days there's less space for refinement in 2D graphical interfaces, but for one thing I loved the OSX dock so much that I installed a dock in Linux - and MS must have loved it too because they modified the task bar in Win7 to function in a very dock-like fashion. Now think of how shitty MP3 players and phones were before the iPod and iPhone.
I've never owned an iProduct, but I'd always thought that smartphone interfaces were shit. The fact that Windows Mobile was the best smartphone OS out there for a while really says something about how awful everything was (and it's still not great, but it's better), considering how unresponsive and non-finger-friendly it was (I quickly grew to simply using my fingers to interact with my touchphones even when I had a stylus right in the corner of the phone, though it was very awkward sometimes trying to hit a 2mm "ok" button with the tip of your nail). But now all the other phone makers are actually starting to get that response time and usability are important (well, they probably always knew this but since there was little competition going on they didn't put any effort into it, all of them content to wallow in mediocrity because they were raking in plenty of cash already), and that if they don't do something then they are going to disappear into obscurity.
Apple have really driven UI design in several ways over the years. It's not being argumentative to say that, it's argumentative to try and deny it.
I'm happy with 2 buttons, and the "mighty mouse" does in fact have 2 buttons (not that I've ever used one or want to use one). Multitouch on a touchpad is great too, I wish all laptops had it.
If you couldn't figure out how to move data onto an external drive in OSX then that might say more about you (or perhaps a poorly designed application) than the OS.
I'm sure Apple would push a DRMed format if they could get their customers to accept it.
They already did, for several years..
It's really amazing how an excellent UI is so valuable to quite a lot of people that they'll pay much higher prices
It's not that amazing. I grew up with Macs so I didn't think of Macs as an excellent UI so much as I just thought of Windows as shit. Mac OS is decent though I prefer Linux for the abundance of customisation options. Anyway, how an OS "feels" is important. To me Mac OS always gave a feeling of sturdiness while Windows just seems really flaky. I think some of that stems to the way it redraws Windows, IIRC even in Windows 7 there is tearing if you move a window around too fast. The other part is probably that I grew up with Amigas which had decent multitasking so that even if the CPU was maxxed out doing something, you could still move the mouse around and it all "felt" responsive. With Windows that simply isn't the case..
The unique thing that Apple did was actually bring design into the world of computing, it doesn't matter whether the designs were "new" or not (aside from the fact that there is very little new in the world of fashion and art either).
I think it's good that other companies are being forced to put some effort into UI design and styling to stop Apple pulling ahead. I don't like Apple much these days but they certainly are good for the market.
Board straight models? All the ones I saw were at least a little fat. Some of them actually looked like contenders for sumo wrestling or "world's strongest man" (and these were the females). Highest I got was a 2, and I have a feeling that if I'd got her first I probably would have rated her as a 0 or 1, but looking at all the heifers slightly altered my perceptions temporarily. *shudder*
Note: I can and have removed the entire ECU box from a car in the past - it runs, but slowly and less efficiently and may not pass an emissions test, but it still works in a driveable condition
Why would you ever want a slower, less efficient car? :s
An attacker would have to have sophisticated programming abilities
Sophisticated programming abilities my ass. It's just editing a bunch of variables in tables AFAIK. You can find stuff like VAGCOM (Volkswagen Audi Group ECU editing software) online, and it only costs a couple of hundred quid for the necessary hardware.
and also be able to physically mount some sort of computer on the victim's car to gain access to the embedded system
Yeah, because nobody these days can afford a laptop.
Aside from that, I think this is pointless scaremongering. First, you'd need to have someone that literally wants to kill you which I doubt is very common. Second, you'd need to leave your car unlocked or they'd have to disable the alarm. It would be much cheaper just to physically sabotage a car. And if you are worried about someone cutting your brakes, pump them a few times before moving off to check them. Police drivers are trained to do this as part of their routine when operating a vehicle. With a fully fly-by-wire system then perhaps it could be possible to set the brakes to disable themselves over a certain threshold speed of course..
Exactly the same version of the beta here and it's working fine (on Ubuntu 10.04).
Thank you very much, God. Asshole...
Welcome to Enlightenment. Please check your corporeal body at the door.
Don't worry, everyone's really hot when they're covered in burning oil!
Looking forward to the day I graduate to "shocked".
Would that count as a Quantum Leap?
Since when was leaving your door unlocked illegal?
Not really, it's simple use of "reductio ad absurdum" type logic to make a point.