Add another UI style to your long list
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Apple introduced iTunes 5 today and with it yet another OS X UI style - this time it's a dark variation of unified, or polished metal, or something. With it Apple takes the weird pale blue source list from Mail (ugh Mail ugliness is spreading!), 1 pixel wide splitter bar and generally munges together aqua, unified and brushed metal UI elements. Pretty. I was really hoping the unified/plastic look would replace brushed metal but it looks like we are just going to get a new smooth metal variant which I think is actually uglier *sigh*. Seriously someone needs to gift wrap the ugly stick and send it back to Redmond.
posted by Rory Prior @ 8:34 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
I've thought about this a lot too. Although there is a thing to be said for consistency across a UI, there is also something to be said for contrast. When we have got a bunch of Apple's apps open at once, isnt there quite a benefit in being able to distinguish between the different metallic and/or plastic styles?
If every window style was the same, we might be making more mistakes in choosing the desired program when its pushed behind a few other windows.
Does this make sense? What do others think?
Josh makes a good point. When I was using Shiira a while back, I ended up setting it to metal, just to add some contrast to the screen. On the other hand, I'm now using the unified beta Camino…
Well, I actually quite like the new iTunes look. It is orders of magnitude nicer than brushed metal, which is starting to look a bit dated IMO.
It can definitely be helpful to have a bit of differentiation between windows, but I don't think that's an excuse to go freestyle on the UI design, unless we want the standard OS X desktop to look like Dashboard. I don't have a problem with there being say two variations of the plastic/unified theme but I really want them both to be a standard part of the OS, not just cooked up on a per app basis because that's where the real inconsistency comes from.
Agree completely, Rory. Developers do need to be careful that they dont run free with appearance options if Apple is doing so. Because then, yes, we'd end up with Dashboard like applications.
The thing that caught my eye the most in the new iTunes appearance though is actually the squared-off edges everywhere. Gone are the standard radiused edges of the window and track viewer. It's a minor detail, but I wonder if that becomes the standard, since Apple seems to be on a clean-up of Aqua.
It's a shame.. now we have 4 different stiles.. wow, wonderful consistency!
Thanx god someone is working on a gui replacement with just unified theme..
take a look http://www.sagefire.org/C1827030151/E20050812201046/index.html
There's a lot being said / made about all of the changes to the UI, but as an eternal look & feel tinkerer myself, I'm really not in a good position to cast aspersions...
forgive my ignorance everyone - long time listener first time caller - can the appearance of iTunes be changed from the silver "brushed" look to something with a little more bling??
You can probably change the way it looks using some 3rd party theming software.
If you upgrade to version 5 or 6 you get the new burnt aqua look.
When I was using Shiira a while back, I ended up setting it to metal, just to add some contrast to the screen
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Thahks!
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