Bruce Tognazzini has some suggestions for Apple if they wish to regain the lead they once held in the design of user interfaces.
I'm not wild about the notion of a gestural interface, but I do like the notion of enhancements to the files-and-folders structure we're all used to like Piles, File Cabinets and Scrapbooks, and to the use of visual cues as to the contents of folders.
[Via Interconnected]
Been reading Tog off and on for ages, always makes sense to some degree.
Posted by: Gordon on April 16, 2003 11:12 PMIt struck me after reading the article that one reason Apple might be reluctant to spend much time and energy in implementing these features is that many of them would be fairly easy for Microsoft to imitate in fairly short order. Good as MacOS always was user interface-wise, it was made to look better by the way it took MS eleven years to do a decent job of producing a GUI for Windows which borrowed many of the features and techniques of MacOS. (Not all, by any means, but enough to keep the average user happy.) This time round, if Apple implemented a neat little UI trick Microsoft would have a pale imitation up and running very rapidly. Apple might feel that it would be a lot of effort for little long-term gain.
That's not to say that Apple shouldn't try to innovate on the UI front, but it looks to me as if they're content for now to concentrate on making cool hardware and leave the UI to evolve gradually. I'd love to be proved wrong though...
Posted by: John on April 17, 2003 12:20 AMAlthough, the article does mention that Apple holds a patent on the concept of Piles, so it would more difficult for Microsoft to imitate that feature.
Posted by: Kartik on April 22, 2003 08:23 PMThat's a good point, though I can't help but imagine that if the idea proves popular MS will find a way to imitate it without actually managing to infringe Apple's patent.
Rumour has it that Panther, aka OS X 10.3, is going to implement Piles. There's a very pretty (if somewhat speculative) artist's impression of how they might work here, which makes me even keener to see them introduced ASAP.