Yet controls are very small, not ready for touch interface, and rather passé in design. Yes, they can change color, but they remain old clunky things. Why do you think Apple did not put Mac OS X UI in mobiles ?
Xojo developers who started on Mac and ported to Windows can attest how difficult it is with the Windows controls to get to even a decent result. They are simply too old. Even with a paint job, old busted is old busted.
“Let them eat cake”. I wonder what regular users of touch enabled computers would think of that statement. I happen to use myself a Transformer Book, which is both a tablet and a laptop, and see myself often going for the screen, event with keyboard and trackpad.
Dogmatism leads only to one thing : not understanding the market.
Apple itself is able to evolve past preconceptions, with for instance the introduction of the Pencil and the Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro, curiously close in design to Microsoft Surface. Would you call the iPad Pro “stupid” ? It makes just as much sense for a Windows 10 user on a Surface Pro to reach for the screen or the stylus (whichever its marketing name).
Never forget in the end what counts is the choice of the user. We all depend on his credit card vote, not on our own vision of what is stupid or not. I may like Mac OS X, it does not mean I have to despise Windows users.
I don’t know what you do for a living, but I’m a professional developer, making standard and custom business applications. Those users are sitting at a desk, with a keyboard and mouse connected to a PC (or Mac). They don’t touch screens. Touch screens may be useful in some situations, but then mostly for consuming information. Not to do actual work. I’m not talking about consumers here, of which some might connect a keyboard to a tablet. I have experience with a broad scala of professional users, so I think I know what those kind of users want. It’s not because they are old-fashioned. It’s because they need to get their work done. Not to play.
If the day comes that they ask me to build touch interfaces, then I’ll do that. But at this very moment they don’t want that. Yes, at home, not from 9 to 5.
Why do you think Surface tablets are not a great success? Because Surface tablets and Windows 8-10 have a identity crisis. If those Surface tables are what people were waiting for all those years, then you might think they embrace them, buying millions and millions. It’s not the case. Not even slightly.
Ouch. I touched a nerve, did I not ? I happen to have been publishing software since 1984, and witness both the advent of the PC and the Mac. As well as program and use both since day one.
You miss the point because precisely you develop business apps for corporate users. Your reasoning is valid within the confines of that market. You get defensive as if my statement about the general market threatened your living. I would not dream of questioning your business more than I did Lotus 123 when Excel came to be.
Come on. Calm down would you ? It is starting to feel like a feud between football fans here
You’re obviously a fan of Windows 10 and/or Surface tablets. Not a problem for me. But at the same time you think to know what most people want. We have different opinions. Also, that’s fine. Let’s leave it at that.
[quote=240134:@Michel Bujardet]Yet controls are very small, not ready for touch interface, and rather passé in design. Yes, they can change color, but they remain old clunky things. Why do you think Apple did not put Mac OS X UI in mobiles ?
[/quote]
Apple is slowly forgetting
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name
Bruce is the original Apple UI Human Interface guy - and this is a decent critique of whats wrong with not only iOS UI but OS X UI
I have several copies of the UI guidelines that Apple has produced over the years & the things that HAVe disappeared from them is surprising
A great example I ran into the other day was downloading & installing Xcode using the Apple Store
There’s virtually NO feedback in the App Store UI beyond the button changing to saying “installing” for a very long time
No progress, nothing in the App Store at all
Turns out the progress indicator doesn’t exist in the App Store - you have to look at launchpad (a completely separate app) to get an indication of “progress” … Thats just dumb
Oh, Apple doesn’t create a perfect world, that’s true. But luckily they do understand that you can’t mix a desktop UI with a touch UI. So far, they don’t do that. If Apple would transfer OSX into something like Windows 8-10 then it’s bye bye OSX for me.
Excellent reading. The only thing I would remark is that as we are in an iOS thread, even Apple for all its might and power is just like all of us largely dealing with the unknown. Between microscopic screens, usage type we may not yet understand fully (I never use social media for instance) and new users having known nothing before (Mouse ? The rodent ?), trying to normalize UI is daunting.
I totally agree with you Norman. I am totally dumbfounded with some of the changes, or should I say deletions, that Apple has made the last couple of OS X versions. Many of their apps no longer remember previous window sizes or positions is one that really bugs me. Little things like that. And don’t get me stated on Mister Ive with his thinner and thinner idea and the total mess up with the Mac Pros, in my opinion. Yes, the old Mac Pro was large; but it held 4 hard drives and two SuperDrives with ports front and back. Now to get the same configuration you actually take up far more desktop area. Yes, it is a really pretty cylinder sitting there but loses a lot of that beauty with all the crud sitting around it.
[quote=240148:@Michel Bujardet]
Excellent reading. The only thing I would remark is that as we are in an iOS thread, even Apple for all its might and power is just like all of us largely dealing with the unknown. Between microscopic screens, usage type we may not yet understand fully (I never use social media for instance) and new users having known nothing before (Mouse ? The rodent ?), trying to normalize UI is daunting.[/quote]
There are still a number of principles that have been just tossed aside for what seems to be aesthetic reasons and that can lead to a less than satisfying experience (as Tog & Co point out)
Seems to me iOS, just like other touch interfaces, is making exactly the same mistakes as a lot of poorly designed web UIs : too much cuteness, and little concern for usability, readability and functionality.
The article is quite right about discoverability and recoverability. There is simply no undo available, or standardized way of implementing it. The UI is entirely not fault tolerant.
Yet again, all that feels more like the web than Mac OS X or Windows.
Apples problem is they have elevated Jon Ivey to “god” status… and the visual aspects of OSX and iOS are what HE prefers… or sometimes, what ever makes it different than what is was…
[quote=240159:@Michel Bujardet]Seems to me iOS, just like other touch interfaces, is making exactly the same mistakes as a lot of poorly designed web UIs : too much cuteness, and little concern for usability, readability and functionality.
The article is quite right about discoverability and recoverability. There is simply no undo available, or standardized way of implementing it. The UI is entirely not fault tolerant.
Yet again, all that feels more like the web than Mac OS X or Windows.[/quote]
Simulator already supports it (Hardware > Shake Gesture)
Things like text fields & text areas should already just work so you dont need access to the accelerometer for them
Some controls dont support “undo” (like switches)
[quote=240163:@Norman Palardy]Simulator already supports it (Hardware > Shake Gesture)
Things like text fields & text areas should already just work so you dont need access to the accelerometer for them
Some controls dont support “undo” (like switches)[/quote]
I could not read everything, but what is certain, is that Microsoft does a good job at the moment, there are many users who use Windows, and that Xojo accumulated delays on Microsoft technologies.
About undo, I experimented further with the shake gesture. It works only while a TextField or a TextArea is focused, and when the change has been done with the keyboard. There is only one level.
There is lot of room for improvement. In order to implement a true Undo throughout, I feel this truly requires being able to detect the shake gesture.
