There’s a burgeoning trend at Apple, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. The traditional Mac OS interface we love—or often love to hate— is being pushed aside by the emergence of user interfaces that seem to eschew any link with its past.
It started in Tiger, with Dashboard. The interfaces for widgets are not only unlike the Mac interface, but they’re also largely unlike each other. The rationale here is that Dashboard is a different “layer,” which is why, contrary to many’s hopes and dreams, I remain skeptical that Apple will ever enable widgets outside of Dashboard in anything but developer modes.
Continuing along, we meet the second iteration of the non-Mac interface when Apple launched the first iMac with an Apple remote: Front Row. Yes, Front Row does mimic the iPod interface, but it’s hardly very “Mac-like.” Nor is it perfect. Having gotten my home network up and running last night, I was surprised by the number of clicks it took me on my laptop, via Front Row, to access shared music on my desktop. (Music -> Shared Music -> Desktop Computer -> Artist -> All -> Song, for one example). Since it’s meant to be used from a distance, it is arguably logical it forms yet another “layer” of the OS.
Now, with the Leopard preview, we have yet another new interface: Time Machine. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with those who have said that this represents probably a fundamental shift in the way Mac users work, but I find it fascinating how un-Mac-like it appears (I haven’t used it, of course). It seems weird to me that you click the Dock icon and the context is taken from whatever app you’re in. Not necessarily bad, but strange.
Perhaps I’m being overly nitpicky, but UI is a big part of Apple and the Mac platform. Interface standards have been slowly eroding over the past few years, and Time Machine is only the latest example. How long before our entire Mac interface is made up of different “layers?” Is it a revolution in computing, or the beginning of the end?
I think you are good example of over-reacting. You are looking beyond the benefits and visual qualities and connections this creates with the end user to provide intuitive/3 dimensional way of restoring missing files.
Think: could you picture another easy way of restoring missing files from within the Finder? Would you have preferred some Spotlight kind search restoration/wizard feature?
Please, take into consideration this is not 1998 or 1984. I swear, its people like you who would still have us using Command line OS's and non-multi-tasking for fear that they might be confusing.
Look at how successful MCE on Windows XP has been for Microsoft? Time Machine is not something you are going to be using a lot, neither is Dashboard. I agree, lets clicks are needed for FrontRow, its still a version 1.0 product, so was Media Center at one time and we still have not seen the next generation of FrontRow.
You're not going to find me arguing that command line OSes are superior, my point is simply that there's an awful lot of variation in Apple's UI. What I'm seeing a lack of is consistency. And from a design standpoint, inconsistency is the enemy; it means that users have to learn multiple methods of interacting with their computer. Now, if anybody can pull this off, it's probably Apple. I'll wait and see how it works.
Also, I'm not sure I believe that MCE has been "successful" for Microsoft. I've seen nothing to indicate that MCE is widely used, nor have I ever seen anybody of my acquaintance actually running it.
Consistency is not a panacea. Indeed, life is not consistent. We possess a variety of 'life' skills, such as, speaking, writing and behavioural conventions. We may, indeed often do, use these basic skills in a variety of ways, depending on the context.
I think it is the same with computers. Users have a basic set of skills, such as, pointing, clicking, draging, use of search boxes, so forth. These are applied differently or put to different uses in differing contexts. Time Machine may look different, but it draws upon many skills that users understand and are familiar with. So long as the difference does not require significant adaptation (and/or the benefits outweigh the costs) people will usually be prepared to use the seemingly different application
I think most people can handle 3 or 4 different interfaces. Give us that much credit!
If an interface dramatically improves the usability of hitherto unused feature (backups / recovery), that's a good thing. I don't think the same of widgets / Dashboard. Actually, the whole widget maker doohickey in Safari gets me interested in widgets for the first time. Since, its so easy to make them / personalize them, they might just be more useful.
I agree with Tristan.
I think there is a difference between something new and different and something new and overwhelming.
Yes, time machine does use a different, inconsistent UI, but it also is still simple. Like Tristan said, it uses the same basic skills such as pointing, clicking and maybe a few keyboard shortcuts.
The problem comes when the consistent UI of the operating system is difficult to begin with, then a new app or program has a completely different difficult UI. You have to re-learn an entirely new system. Sure it may still be pointing and clicking, but you don't know where to point and where to click.
Time machine only has one screen. There's no hidden layers or menu bars or secret options that require menu searching and multi-sided clicking (Which most users have grown accustomed to doing anyway with Windows). It's one screen, with one main object, 2 buttons and a timeline, that I know of.
Different does not equal difficult.
Simplicity equals Apple's consistency.