Apple's "New" GUI

[osirisX]

All I can say is people got their hopes up based on rumours.

[.Neo]

-Apple unified the windows. Whoopee. We've had this look available via themes and Uno for...how long now? Not to mention, this is really nothing incredible.

-My dock has reflections. Yay. Is anyone actually considering this a feature? Hell, I find it annoying, simply because it makes the dock more bulky. I'm using a pretty small dock with cleardock and the reflections icons, and it's nice and minimal. It's functional, but stays out of my way. And the stacks, I'm pretty sure I took care of that a billion years ago by sticking a folder on my desktop where all my downloads go automatically.

-New Menubar? They made it...non-curved at the top corners and gave it a terrible transparency. It looks like something you'd see on a crappy rehash over at Macthemes.

-Pinstripes, again, minor editing of resources.

-HUD panels? What, you mean the transparent black windows? Those already existed before Leopard, for crying out loud.

-Yay.

If you're going to act like that nothing will ever be impressing enough.

And how did those themes come into existence in the first place? That's right they copied Apple's iTunes Unified Brushed look. iTunes always featured new UI elements before the OS: Brushed and the plastic toolbar buttons are a perfect example of it. A great portion of Mac OS X' Panther look was available via SmoothStripes for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar as well. Months before Apple even featured the final Aqua revision.

I'm not going to debate you wether this new UI is impressive or not. But the change itself is just as mayor as the change from 10.2 Jaguar to 10.3 Panther like I stated before.

My biggest complaint is this. Apple always hypes the hell out of everything. And after all the hype, the Leopard delay, and all the jabs made at Microsoft, this is a pretty poor showing. The UI is sloppy. Honestly, I could live with it if it wasn't for the menubar Change the look, get rid of that terrible transparency. The rest is mostly superfluous crap, that I would even go as far as Aero to compare it to. There's no reason for the dock to have some stupid reflective floor gimmick. It's not functional in any way whatsoever and only makes the dock bigger.

Apple never hyped anything about a potential new UI in Mac OS X Leopard. We did that all on our own.

I remember just as many people moaning and complaining about Mac OS X 10.3 Panther's new Aqua UI, now, 4 years later, everyone loves it.

[chrisgeleven]

Yep, the hype is completely everyone's fault. Only thing apple said is that there were some secret features that they wouldn't reveal until WWDC 2007. They didn't say revolutionary new features, they said secret features.

People read into things way too much.

I for one will enjoy Leopard. Time Machine, Spaces, Stacks, new iChat features, new Mail & iCal features, and so on are great features that I can use immediately. Plus all of the little refinements will add some nice polish to the OS.

People are looking for stuff to complain about, because they can't take the positives at all. It isn't like Apple took a Windows GUI and plastered it onto OS X, come on people!

[Pc_Madness]

In OSX, a window can't go behind the menubar can it? Whats the point in the transparency then? :\ (have I posted in this thread? I can't remember :\)

[.kvn]

cosine, you are obviously unimpressed with Leopard and that's fine, but there's no need to make jibes at others who think differently.

[sevastopol]

i like it personally

[Windam]

I find it funny, how Mac and some PC users detested Aero and now their own future UIs heads in that same area called FUNCTION

Don't go behind your computer waiting to be entertained by a standalone desktop, that's what media and content are for..

Leopard gets it done right.

[geoken]

If the transparent menu bar were to be accompanied with actual transparent (not opaque) menus, it wouldn't be so bad. But yeah, I'm pretty impressed with Leopard now, especially with the unified interface, new Finder, Stacks, and Quicklook. Definitely a much more revolutionary step than the change from XP to Vista, that's for sure. Should have been referred to as Mac OS XI (11.0) or something.

How is it a bigger step then XP>Vista. Vista's explorer alone added stacks, search folders, groups, about 200 filters, quick previews, supersized thumbs. Video, audio, pics, spreadsheets, emails, webpages, etc can all be previewed right in explorer without launching an external app.

[Southern Patriot]

This is the exact problem with most of the Apple userbase.

Generalizations like that negate any valid comments you might have had. :no:

[acies]

Why do people say that the menu bar looks exactly like Vista?? Because it is transparent??

They look pretty different to me...

[well...]

Can i point this out:

All features referenced in the Mac OS X Leopard website are subject to change.

on the official site: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ and every page on lower levels

Would i be wrong in assuming it meant the 'new' ui as well?

[acies]

Can i point this out:

on the official site: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ and every page on lower levels

Would i be wrong in assuming it meant the 'new' ui as well?

I wouldn't start hyping it up.

[well...]

No, im just saying, if it gets a really bad reaction it's not too late to change even if it is improbable!

[acies]

True.

I think the only way they can really win and please everyone is to put in multiple themes.

[ikyouCrow]

they rushed the GUI. it's obvious.

also, did anyone else get a Filmstrip view flashback from that 'coverflow-finder' screenie? i swear it's like Filmstrip view in Explorer on Windows XP.

this is all looking really creepy.

i'm sure it's on everybody's minds that it looks freakishly like an Aqua skin on XP or something. transparent menu bar? after they made fun of Vista's translucent UI?

as for Stacks? functionaly no different from putting a folder on the taskbar in taskband mode. and why is Apple all of a sudden obsessed with reflections?

i'm gonna hide under my bed now and hope for this nightmare to be over...

[.kvn]

Oh my gosh and gee whizz - Shock and Horror! A new gui that looks suspiciously like other gui's. :rolleyes:

If you don't like Leopard's gui you can always stay with Tiger and use Shapeshifter to give you that little extra something some of you so achingly desire, or perhaps change to XP where you can theme it until it looks like Apple's desktops or some mishmash from a sci fi series, or dare I suggest try any number of Linux distro's and fire up Beryl to have a desktop that can turn upside down if you wish.

This thread's dead.

[cosine]

Generalizations like that negate any valid comments you might have had. :no:

Actually, no, it really doesn't - but you can continue to think that if it's what your little heart desires.

P.S. - look how much I care! I'm caring what you think about my post! No, really.

they rushed the GUI. it's obvious.

Pretty much. You honestly mean to tell me that a bunch of UI designers from Apple, a multi-billion dollar company, sat down, and the best they could come up with was a transparent menubar and some copy/pasted iTunes 7 resources?

Oh my gosh and gee whizz - Shock and Horror! A new gui that looks suspiciously like other gui's. :rolleyes:

The general complaint is not that it looks like other GUIs, it's more along the lines of "it looks like ****".

[vf-]

Pretty much. You honestly mean to tell me that a bunch of UI designers from Apple, a multi-billion dollar company, sat down, and the best they could come up with was a transparent menubar and some copy/pasted iTunes 7 resources?

The general complaint is not that it looks like other GUIs, it's more along the lines of "it looks like ****".

Agreed.

[Tharius]

also, did anyone else get a Filmstrip view flashback from that 'coverflow-finder' screenie? i swear it's like Filmstrip view in Explorer on Windows XP.

this is all looking really creepy.

i'm sure it's on everybody's minds that it looks freakishly like an Aqua skin on XP or something. transparent menu bar? after they made fun of Vista's translucent UI?

That sums it up pretty well. Coverflow doesn't seem to be much more than a fancy filmstrip and the new itunes style sidebar is a step closer to the XP sidebar IMO. Even though the items are fairly different it has the same hide/show groups scheme in a list-like view.

Besides that, the menu bar just doesn't work. It seems like little more than transparency for transparency's sake. It seems out of place not having the same reflective look as the dock and not having any other element in the OS really matching it. From what I can tell it doesn't even blur the background which really helps with transparency, and seeing as Vista has that perfected you'd think that it would be a given. It looks even worse when you open one of the menus and its opaque(or mostly opaque). At least that's what I think.

Besides that, the dock seems pretty cool and the larger shadows do add a better sense of depth to the desktop. But as someone stated earlier, the keynote video sums it up well with the laughter when it was unveiled followed by the "oh...he's serious " moment. I was just hoping for more.

[acies]

The general complaint is not that it looks like other GUIs, it's more along the lines of "it looks like ****".

Well people are always not going to like it. Alot of people don't seem to like aqua.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

Personally i could care less of Vista looks like OSX, or OSX looks like vista,, grow up people, who cares of 1 did / had something before the other.

*and i use a Mac, so there isnt any MS Fainboyism, i said the same thing when Vista came out, get over it

[ikyouCrow]

So you rather create a folder in some directory, make aliasses of all of your - let's say - applications, move those to the folder you just created and then drag it to the Dock; instead of just picking up those same applications, drag them to the Dock and let it create a virtual folder (called a Stack in this case) automatically for you for quick access?

A Stack seems like a more convenient option to me.

dude, that's what the original Apple menu was for.

call me crazy, but i honestly find searching (on the Start Menu at least) for an application and launching it from the results list to be a lot more convenient than hunting down all the apps. i think i'll ever need and then building a stack for them.

[giga Veteran]

dude, that's what the original Apple menu was for.

call me crazy, but i honestly find searching (on the Start Menu at least) for an application and launching it from the results list to be a lot more convenient than hunting down all the apps. i think i'll ever need and then building a stack for them.

I prefer Ctrl-Space myself. (Bless you Quicksilver)

[.Neo]

In OSX, a window can't go behind the menubar can it? Whats the point in the transparency then? :\ (have I posted in this thread? I can't remember :\)

Currently it can't. Most of the time the Menubar isn't used by the end-user. Maybe that's the reason Apple wanted to make it blend in more with the UI. Apart from that I can't think of a reason.

I find it funny, how Mac and some PC users detested Aero and now their own future UIs heads in that same area called FUNCTION

Are you actually comparing the amount of transparency of Leopard to that of Vista?! :|

dude, that's what the original Apple menu was for.

call me crazy, but i honestly find searching (on the Start Menu at least) for an application and launching it from the results list to be a lot more convenient than hunting down all the apps. i think i'll ever need and then building a stack for them.

Then don't. I can see myself using Stacks regularly. Especially during projects for college.

[Corona]

i hate the look of itunes 7 and seeing the same look on entire OS makes me puke