John Siracusa opines on what “Top Secret” features Leopard might contain and why Apple has embargoed them.
It’s a good read but the Macalope has noticed that despite the scowls of concern over the inconsistency and “unprofessional” look of OS X from many “professional” Mac pundits, it still manages to pull off the one thing it needs to: looking better than any other desktop operating system.
That’s not to say that the Macalope wouldn’t also like to see some things dressed up, a new coat of paint, some curtains, or that Apple won’t certainly provide us something in the eye candy category that will make Vista heads turn.
But the cluck-clucking of the old hens doesn’t seem to have stopped OS X’s market share from creeping up.
Also, Siracusa neglects to mention perhaps the simplest explanation for the embargo.
Showmanship.
Everyone loves a mystery and it sure helps get the asses in the seats.
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5 Responses:
November 21st, 2006 at 1:36 pm
> looking better than any other desktop operating system
As if that was a hard thing to achieve. What are you going to compare it to? Some KDE or Gnome variant? Windows? Being better than those isn’t exactly a huge achievement.
November 21st, 2006 at 2:40 pm
> As if that was a hard thing to achieve. What are you going
> to compare it to? Some KDE or Gnome variant? Windows?
> Being better than those isn’t exactly a huge achievement.
Well, that’s kind of unfair. Tiger looks better than panther, iLife 06 looks better than iLife 05. They are improving, even if the competition isn’t.
November 21st, 2006 at 3:22 pm
I’d go for what some of the commenters on Siracusa’s article would like: more consistency. Oh, for the days (which I never experienced) when the Human Interface Guidelines ruled supreme. Just iPhoto and iTunes feel like two different applications that have had a lot of work done on them to make them appear similar.
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:41 am
I second the nomination for consistency.
As I flip PC users away from the dark side, they are puzzled about the sometimes / certain situations interface that is Mac OS X. Simply put, if you are going to make a little red button close a window AND quit an application, it should ALWAYS close a window AND quit an application.
‘Nuff said.
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:42 am
But that’s always been the way that MacOS apps have operated (the close button thing). It only quits (or should only quit) when the app in question is a System Preference or that type of thing. It should NOT quit if it’s something like Word, where there is the possibility for multiple open windows, or creation of new documents just from the app.