I must mention a few things as I use OSX, XP and Vista (mind you I use OSX as my secondary OS so I may be windows biast)...
-Flip3D does not have to be run from the quicklaunch. The icon is there for anyone using a keyboard without a windows key which these days is almost nobody as 99.9% of keyboards sold today for PC's have a windows key. "windows-tab" will envoke flip-3D. Alt-tab will do the standard tabbing. Its no more difficult to use flip3D than alt-tab. The windows key is right beside the alt key.
-The preview over the taskbar actually works very well. I've usually got quite a few windows open and dont find it difficult to see whats being rendered there. I dont know how it would be on a lower resolution display but I'm running my monitor at 1600x1200.
-You say the UI should be minimized and only offer one way of doing something. Well just because you like something a certain way does not mean that the next person will as well. Some people might want to alt-tab the old way because they are used to it. Some may like the windows-tab because their machine has enough power to run aero and flip3D... how is this any different than having 2 options in OSX of apple-tab and expose?
-You compared the small thumbnail preview over the taskbar to expose...saying it has nothing on expose, but its actually not comparable to expose. Flip3D is what is being compared to expose. Not sure why you'd compare the task bar thumbnails to expose but its more similar to items minimized to the dock...
-The transparent windows do change when they are in the forground or background. They dont stay the same. The titlebar and window borders become considerably lighter when its active...the inactive window has darker titlebar and borders.
Anyway a few things I thought I'd mention from my perspective while using Vista on my home machine... (OSX and XP at work).
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Originally Posted by fryke  Well. That demo shows _exactly_ what I mean. The flip-through open windows thingie, for example, is _not_ the default task switcher you use with alt-tab, rather it's something you have to "start" from the QuickLaunch part of the taskbar. It's not very useful, certainly not faster than alt-tabbing. It's eye-candy that doesn't improve working with the system. The preview you see when hovering over minimized windows in the taskbar is not very helpful either. Too small to discern similar windows. This has _nothing_ on Exposé (although that itself never shows windows of hidden apps, something I find very strange, they should add that as another option within Exposé).
Improving an UI should go about _reducing_ the UI. I don't want four ways to select the correct window. I want _one_ that does the task perfectly. If that ain't possible, the ones that are already there should be improved. But to add yet another (the flip-through thing) one without removing one it could replace... bleh. :/
The transparency of the window borders does, in my opinion, not help putting the content of a window into focus. It's something they just don't seem to get. If you have window borders that _always_ look the same, they automatically move into the back of your mind. That was _good_ in Windows 95-XP! Now you have borders that change, depending on what's behind the window, constantly irritating the mind just a little, so it actually _gets_ more focus. While I'm still not totally convinced by Apple's way (removing window borders completely apart from the title bar and scroll bars), I think it's at least a good starting point.
Again... "making everything this universal dull grey in leopard just seems half arsed to me..."
1.) They're _not_ making everything Unified. Just the already Unified apps plus the brushed metal ones. In my book, that is what they should've done when introducing Unified in the first place.
2.) "dull" is good. Monotony is one of the great principles of interface design. The focus should be on the content. It fades into the back of your mind. Adobe gets it completely right. See the interface for Adobe CS 3 apps like Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop. |