It's always interesting to see with what solutions others come up to exactly the same problems. In the last days both Microsoft and Apple let us cast a closer look at their next OS versions.
If you missed them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MnEndww2YQ and shorter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2aaduuWTvo Windows 8: They too struggle to come up with an interface that works both for small touch screens and the more and more often as "legacy" labeled desktop experience. Their solution for now doesn't strike me as very elegant but one thing they did get right: There is one single OS for every form factor and every architecture (though that doesn't say anything about their licensing and version madness...) There is a lot more to say about their hardware and partner "strategies" which are interesting for Canonical but I'll just mention two little interface details that are worth taking note of: You know the windows snap feature, in Win8 you can resize both windows with a single handler. A pretty obvious feature which would be nice having. In full screen apps there is no "information area" (clock and hardware stats). If they can pull that off the "wing panel" that stays below the maximized wind as discussed in "Global menu in Oneiric Ocelot (11.10)" could be an interesting solution for with applications such as Chromium/Firefox with tabs on top. A click in a screen corner for example could bring it temporarily to the foreground. If you think about it, hidden information that is very easy to unhide and that doesn't have to be visible all the time (if you are working on something it's often just distraction) seems sensible to me. Note that IE 10 and other "native" Win 8 apps have no menu bar, neither do apps in the "desktop view", the ribbon interface is now extended to their file manager. I have my doubts but right now it really looks like they want to push that IE 10 experience as the default web browsing everywhere, 30" non-touch desktops included. OS X Lion: "less chrome": Have a look at the video player, Quicktime X, this is already in the current 10.6: No title bar, no controls, nothing but the content unless you move your mouse and actually want to interact with controls. Full screen apps: see how the top panel slides out? They too do without a clock and other always on indicators, the desktop is just one swipe away anyway, i.e. it's back as fast as you can move your eyes from the current activity to the top right. Apps can make of all four scree edges and completely adjust the visual experience. This is for example a great feature in video and image editing, monotone and natural interface and backgrounds don't distract or distort the visual sense. Dock: I haven't seen an HD version but it looks like even the subtle hints of running apps are gone, together with auto save their desktop behaves more closely to iOS. Opening and switching apps is the same, closing and hiding apps is the same. For getting an overview over running apps and open windows the dock was never the right interface anyway, "mission control" is their solution. It's less cluttered than Expose and yet provides more information. Menu bar: Not only do full screen apps, launchpad, time machine/versions and mission control view have no top menu bar, I think it's telling that the menu bar wasn't used or mentioned in the video a single time. Every day activities all can be accomplished by gestures, obvious interface controls and universal drag and drop. It's becoming apparent that the menu bar is "legacy" for Apple who too are converging their desktop and touch experiences. It stays relevant for their Pro line of apps, Adobe CS, Office suites (not including iWork?) but for the usual consumer applications it's no longer needed. For example I went through the small menu of the new App store, it's just fall back entries, not a single function that isn't exposed more logically and simple in the interface directly. However their approach of hiding the menu bar where it makes sense and the fact that the text menu in general is becoming less and less important with the convergence of touch and desktop did change my view on the menu bar discussion: I no longer think moving the menu back into the window is a superior solution to the current approach of Unity. The right solution is no menu at all for those apps that don't need (or should need) one like default audio and video players, picture and pdf viewers, file managers and web browsers. For other applications however controls on the top screen edge can be the best approach if they only weren't hidden and were more flexible to allow _something_ like the ribbon as well. In terms of individual features: auto save and versions is a must have ;) Windows has versioning too btw, it's only lacking a nice GUI (big surprise). btrfs is already available for the adventurous, would be nice to see some frontends with this level of integration and ease of use as time machine in OS X (time machine works on the file manager level but also works with individual files and even mail and iphoto for example, all you have to do is click on the icon in the dock). On another note: "Launchpad". Sue them! :P _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
