Tag Archives: mac

The Tabtitlebar – Where Apple and Google went right, wrong or M.I.A.

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This will be short.

Already, skirmishes of opinion over Apple’s interpretation of Google Chrome‘s tabtitlebar – or the positioning of the tabs in the title bar of the browser in order to utilize screen space for webpages – have erupted on various news sites and blogs. Even on OS X, the jury over Safari 4‘s user interface design is divided; on the Windows port, most who express favor with Safari 4’s user interface design are usually users of Windows Vista, so the main supposition is that those who have the most trouble with the tabtitlebar are Windows XP users; oh, and (on a cross-platform basis) people who simply like more screen real estate for pageviewing.

Of course, Google Chrome Beta (Google’s first browser, and currently Windows-only) was the first notable web browser to publicly promote the UI infusion, and it was not without its initial criticisms for that same reason (among others, including the option of sending anonymous usage and crash data to Google). Safari 4 Beta, on the other hand, marks a first for Apple in its legendary user interface history, and may also begin a user interface trend for Apple throughout its Mac OS X applications (Finder, Mac OS’s file navigation app, is hinted to have tabs in early alphas of Snow Leopard, OS X’s 6th iteration, so it may well take up Safari 4’s tabtitlebar feature).

Many have written about problems with this emerging user interface widget, which utilizes the operating system’s window manager by embedding navigation between tabs within the title bar (mostly on Windows). Personally, I think it is a good idea due to a month or so of using Google Chrome (I also find the process-per-tab idea to be a good idea), but problems still linger with both implementations as far as I’m concerned.

  • Speed: Chrome is far better in the speed department than Safari as far as opening, closing and navigating between tabs is concerned (again, maybe because of the process-per-tab idea). The Windows port of Safari 4, like its Mac port, does not allow an option (AFAIK) for using middle-click to close tabs; left-clicking to close tabs in Safari 4 on WinXP feels like chipping into brick. The responsiveness to clicking buttons to close and open tabs is horrendous on this platform.
  • Tab navigation and perception: In this area, I’ll say that Firefox 2.0+, despite its own speed and resource management issues, did a better tour-de-force at tab navigation than Opera, Chrome or Safari, by allowing one to scroll through as many tabs as one may please without the tabs being scrunched up in the tab area. All the other browsers, even Chrome and Safari, continue to maintain the metaphor of the "limited tab area", with Safari 4 doing worse by maximizing the view of the tab of the current page in view at the expense of other tabs-in-waiting.

Yes, Firefox actually did something that I’ve come to appreciate (and wish that they could extend into a much wider territory of tab navigation; getting rid of the tab-specfic close button in 3.0 remains questionable, IMO).

There is room for improvement for Safari and Chrome in this combination of two user interface metaphors. In fact, there’s room for improvement for most of Apple’s software ports to Windows, but I highly doubt that Apple is willing to consider such ideas as unscrunching the tabtitlebar for tabscrolling or giving separate processes to each tab, just as how I doubt that Microsoft will do the same with IE8 or IE9.

.deb now available: Gloobus – “Cover Flow view” for Linux

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It’s a bit buggy (i.e., alpha software), but I posted a request for the creation of a usable .deb package of the app for Ubuntu a few weeks back on the Getdeb.net bugzilla on Launchpad. It was finally published today on Getdeb.net.

Here it is for Hardy Heron (8.04 LTS) and compatible distros on Getdeb.net.

It is an app that allows you to view folders and files in a Cover Flow-like perspective, using OpenGL to render the animations.

Props and thanks go to Christoph Korn and João Pinto from Getdeb.net for taking time to publish the .deb and to Jordi Hernàndez a.k.a. BadChoice for creating the app and publishing the source code. Haven’t worked with the app extensively to give a fair assessment of its functionality at present (well duh, since I can’t post hyperlinks correctly in Firefox 3, which is default in Ubuntu. I’m using WinXP.), but I will a bit later in another post.

Updates, screenshots and video demos of the app in action can be found on the Gloobus blog. Please post bugs and suggestions to the bugzilla at Launchpad.net, so that the developer (yes, only one guy is working on this) can gain ideas on how to improve the app and its functionality.

Mark Shuttleworth gets some serious iMac envy

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….Or, why Canonical (or the Ubuntu Foundation) should hook up with an All-in-One PC maker like Acer-Gateway or Averatec.

Mark Shuttleworth yesterday voiced his desire to help get Desktop Linux to, or past, the same design landmark currently held by Apple’s Mac OS X. He also predicted that the same would be accomplished within the next two years.

Now one can laugh at this, and maybe even make a few jokes about how Ubuntu’s trademark brownish-beige look and feel is easily dispelled by Mac OS X’s trademark bluish/ivory look-and-feel.

I personally don’t think that a desktop Linux distribution like Ubuntu should be so easily discounted as an operating system and software platform in comparison to Mac OS X. However, I contend that Ubuntu’s success as a competing operating system and software platform against Mac OS X should be judged, or at least reviewed and assessed on how well either operating system fits into and utilizes an All-in-One PC.

The reason why I place the All-in-One PC in such a higher regard in comparison to the more diverse monitor-mouse-keyboard-tower combo that is sold by most desktop PC vendors as far as comparing Ubuntu to Mac OS X is because Mac OS X, since its introduction around 2000/2001, has historically been designed around the iMac, the AIO PC that was inaugurated in 1998 as the flagship product of the “new, improved” Apple. Even as Apple had introduced other desktop and laptop computers which had less of a hardware focus around the OS X GUI (including the current Mac Pro and Mac mini), the Mac OS X user interface has almost always been designed around the iMac in all generational iterations of the computer.

For instance, if you look at the iMac page on Apple.com, you can see how the GUIs of all the applications displayed on the screens of the row of iMacs are designed to take up the entirety of the screen. In fact, since Apple had first started to sell the flat-screen iMacs (starting with the iMac G4 of 2002), the screen real estate taken up by whole applications has almost always been advertised on the iMac page of Apple.com. The current iterations of the other desktop and laptop products from Apple are not advertised in a similar fashion on their own respective front pages on the website; the GUI’s design is not “front and center” on those pages.

So I honestly think that Mac OS X’s UI is designed to fit best on an iMac, with all the other installations of OS X on the other Mac desktops and laptops being a second-best consideration for Apple until recently. This All-in-One GUI-design mentality is also carried over to the iPhone OS, as the iPhone OS is designed more for the iPhone (an “All-in-One” candybar mobile device where, again, the screen is all that matters for user interaction) than it is for the iPod touch (and, if it decides to add another mobile pocket device, maybe a clamshell, to the line-up, Apple will still preinstall the iPhone OS onto the device without any significant changes in the design of the GUI or the functionality of the OS). A sign of this is the fact that the iPod touch still has some camera functionality akin to the iPhone, even though the iPod touch doesn’t have a built-in camera.

Meanwhile, Windows on the desktop isn’t and never has been designed with such a focus on the All-in-One desktop computer form factor; instead, it has been traditionally designed around the monitor-mouse-keyboard-tower metaphor.

Desktop Linux, as well, has been historically designed around the monitor-mouse-keyboard-tower metaphor, at least because the cheaper desktop computers have followed such a hardware design for expandability and upgrading purposes. Thus, Ubuntu has followed in like manner.

However, because it isn’t created and provided by one single vendor, nor are the offered looks determined by one single vendor, it may be possible for desktop Linux distributions like Ubuntu and its own spinoffs can be designed and themed for best fit and access on an All-in-One PC’s display.

If a Linux distribution (or more specifically, dare I say, an Ubuntu spinoff) can be designed and themed to be accessed specifically on an All-in-One PC like Gateway’s One, Sony’s Vaio L or Asus’ EEE Monitor, I think that it may become the pinnacle of free software UI design for both desktop and laptop computers.

Anyone who may want to consider such an idea should at least consider the user interface of the “made-for-EEE PC” Linux distributions like Xandros and eeeXubuntu, and then try to apply the user interface with major modifications for access within an AIO PC.

So this, I believe, is what Canonical must consider if it wants to compete with Apple in the area of user interface design. It must look at and study the hardware form factor that Apple uses to design the user interface of Mac OS X (the iMac) and then apply an AIO-centric design to Ubuntu that definitely outranks and outmaneuvers the Mac OS X-on-iMac user experience.

If it can do that, then Apple will be forced to compete against desktop Linux on the desktop and laptop front, particularly to retain their high-profile image as a computer company.

Idea: wireless “dumb terminal” touchscreen display for smartphones

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OK, just thought about this last night:

I notice that most smartphones, including the multitouch fullscreen ones like the iPhone and Neo1973, are built as all-in-ones, with the hard drive and processing unit placed directly behind the display.

Then I saw the video of the most recent Macworld keynote by Steve Jobs last night, in which he introduced the MacBook Air. I had already read from Digg about how this new notebook computer, in order to accomplish one of the thinner laptop form factors, sacrificed such long-standing laptop components such as the optical disc (CD/DVD) drive, replacing it with an external optical disc drive that streams optical media data (even DVD-borne software titles such as Office ’08 for Mac or OS X 10.5) to the MacBook Air, where such data can then be copied or installed to the hard drive. This essentially rendered the MacBook Air, in Jobs’ words, a “wireless machine”; this may suit Apple’s modus operandi, which is directed more to digitally-transmitted data (iTunes) than to hard-based data on CDs, DVDs, or Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.

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Now, the following is becoming increasingly true:

The more mobile and free-wheeling the device, the smaller the form factor, the greater the network dependence, and the greater the need for interaction with the display.

The MacBook Air, the iPhone, and the iPod touch are all Apple’s mobile “wireless machines”. The software in these devices rely upon a wireless, streaming network in order for several applications to function correctly, and the interfaces use a greater immersion of the finger for various tasks, whether its widening a photo or dialing a phone number.

However, in the mobile industry (including Apple’s mobile products), most of the components (CPU, hard drive, etc.) are tied underneath the display (or, if its not multitouch, then both the screen and buttons). The same goes for other multitouch computer devices, such as the Microsoft Surface which is due for sale by at least 2009.

But what if the multitouch display could be used for the same communication purposes as your average smartphone without it being welded or tied to the computer that holds the hard drive and electronics?

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My idea is what I call “the commoditization of handhelds and other mobile computer devices”.

What this will allow is for someone to use one or more displays for a single, more stationary phone device, and for someone to cheaply upgrade their stationary phone device with greater hardware enhancements than would be feasible with the phone device tied directly to the display.

The phone device will “talk” wirelessly with the portable display, which doesn’t have a hard drive and very few electronic components except for those which allow for the display itself to function at all. The display will recognize any touch motions, which are then sent back to the stationary smartphone device where the operating system is stored. The smartphone is also wirelessly connected to the Internet though a wifi router.

This will be a more cost-effective approach to the creation of smartphones, as it will let both the computer and the portable multitouch display be true to the concerns within either components’ own domain.

This also allows for greater innovations within the display field that will eventually make it to the mobile market. This is one example:

No More Apple Computer

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Today, Apple’s dropped the “computer” from their name. They’re now known officially as Apple, Inc.

Also, they’ve announced the much-anticipated iPhone (to be released in June).

And, finally, they’ve announced Apple TV, formerly known as iTV.

Oh, and they’ve revamped their entire website. It’s mostly in black, but methinks that they did a half-job with it.

Now, for my piece.

Apple has done alot within the 10 years since Steve Jobs was brought back to the company. They went for a brand new operating system and a brand new microprocessor architecture. They’ve also jumped into the media business feet-first, and have made quite a splash into the telephone industry as of today.

So I wonder: does this most recent keynote denote a move away from the Macintosh line of computers?

OK, that’s a bit far-fetched, and flamebaiting.

But look again at what Apple has done in the second Steve Jobs period, and the side-effects of these actions.

  1. They moved from PowerPC to Intel, with full knowledge of the possibility of Mac OS X being reverse-engineered by so-called “hackers” to run it on other, non-Apple computers which share the exact same hardware architecture.
  2. Numerous users on public forums have expressed their desire to use Mac OS X without paying the premium for the hardware.
  3. Apple is no longer just a computer company, as noted by the aforementioned name change.
  4. Apple, as of today, is competing directly with Microsoft (and Sony) in the home entertainment hardware department: Apple TV vs. Xbox 360, iPod vs. Zune (btw, I’m certain that Steve Jobs, being the co-founder of Disney’s new animation department, has long held a foray into the media carriage industry as a goal for Apple.)

So, my theory is that

  1. Apple will recognize a market which only the operating system, sans the hardware, can appeal to.
  2. Apple will gradually license Mac OS X to other computer companies.
  3. They will, just as gradually, phase out the Macintosh computer line before, at least, the end of the decade.

Simply put, Apple, in the most ironic twist in computer history, will become the new Microsoft, and vice versa.

Flame me now, please.

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In other news, Yahoo demoed its custom-made Messenger for Vista earlier this week at CES.