5 Leopard GUI Gripes
The current beta build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released to developers at WWDC ‚’07, is not as polished as what people have come to expect of Apple’s design team - users are still left with at best several disagreeable changes, and at worst a hideous hodgepodge of HIG contradictions. I have broken down 5 onscreen blunders that detract from the user experience and make Leopard the ugliest and most uncharacteristically ‘Apple’ OS to date.
Giant Shadow
The drop shadow should be one of those subtle interface nuances that you never consciously notice, and it was, until now. Apple must think we have serious issues identifying the current window, because they took the liberty of giving us an enormous drop shadow to indicate it; it’s far too obtrusive, almost to the point of obstructing windows that it overlays.
Glowing Dock Dots
The little black triangles show the currently running applications, and again, are an unobtrusive part of the UI that blends into the background, only noticeable when you need it. The new, neon-blue ‘magic’ dots are so out of place, they’re hard to describe, almost like a mystical throwback to Aqua.
Translucent Menu Bar
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the current menu bar, so why introduce another confusing, superfluous effect? I can understand what they’re trying to do conceptually by trying to minimize the impact of the menu bar, but when another window is open, it actually ends up emphasizing the menu bar, which creates some sort of visual chasm between the top of the screen and the top of the window. Either way, it serves to make the bar harder to read, and might be confusing to the seasoned Mac user. Finally, it almost seems like it’s a half-hearted grasp at imitating Aero Glass, and it hardly needs to be said that that isn’t a good subject for imitation.
Spotlight Menu
I’m not sure what Apple was smoking when they thought that combining a translucent menu bar, black menu icons, and bright blue accents was a good design decision, but that’s what you get when you access Spotlight in Leopard. Admittedly it seems to work 3-5x faster in Leopard, but it still LOOKS atrocious.
New System Icons
Now, these might still grow on me, I haven’t decided yet, but they do seem a bit goofy right now. As you can see in this QuickLook screenshot, there is now almost a ‘grain’ to the folders, reminiscent of recycled paper. A weird change, although I do like the fact that the folders are now watermarked with an icon that indicates their contents.
The reason for the inclusion of this slew of new GUI elements in the beta was to get feedback from users (developers, in this case) before they rolled it out. So, if you don’t like the new look, let Apple know by Digging this story and bringing it to their attention
Vista is great.
Good eye
Ohh Geez freaken anal!!!
I *LOVE* the glowing blue dots!
Can’t wait!
I agreed on the drop shadow and Spotlight. Who uses the shadow to tell what the current document is anyways? I just look at the top of the window to see if it’s highlighted or at the menu bar. And those Spotlight colors are a strange choice indeed. I’m unsure about the translucent menu bar.
I don’t think the new system icons or glowing dock dots are bad at all. The average user doesn’t spend much time looking at the system icons anyways so I don’t think that’ll be much of an issue even if they don’t grow on anybody. The current black arrows on the dock aren’t bad at all but I think the glowing dots are more appealing.
I hope there’ll be a way where the user can adjust these new visual effects (such as the size of the drop shadow, the color or type of dock dots, and the opacity of the menu bar).
You can always go back to Windows Vista, what a fun OS it is.
THE BLUE DOTS SUCK! Give me back my arrows.
Yeah… I’m a fan of letting people know what window is currently active, but that drop shadow is rediculous. They should just baaaarely dim the inactive windows, instead.
I agree on all five points you made. I hope Apple will give us an option to select transparent menu bar, or just go for a classic one. I Also hope the shadow will be user customisable, I think it looks absolutely horrific this way. Having said that, my wife thinks the shaddow looks great.
I’d rather leave it the way it is in Tiger, but to make the foremost window more obvious, they could simply washout the background windows, or their toolbars.
Another thing I don’t like is the remaining aqua style on the window sliders, I hope they replace it with the iTunes styled sliders (http://www.silvermac.com/2007/changes-in-itunes-73/) it just feels more natural to the unified UI style.
I was at WWDC and got the leopard and installed it … my only problem was that Microsoft Office didnt work, neither did quicktime and i couldn’t install my CS3 when installing Leopard on top of Tiger. The quicktime and Microsoft Office problem was fixed when i did a clean installation, but not the CS3 issue. But having said that.. it is a beta version and for developers ONLY - and the Apple team is fully aware of some of its short comings like the hideous white colors you get on the Airport icon in the top menu and the highlighting of light colors etc..thats probably why they run it with the ‘not-so-great’ grass background rather than something else. If you were there at the conference and listened you would know this… (they also pointed out to mail them any bugs and GUI issues so that they could fix them before the final release - thanks for pointing that out again)
[...] Link to TOP 5 Reasons Why Leopard’s UI Sucks [...]
I totally hate the new menu bar, why in the hell would they do a translucent menu bar, it sucks in Vista and its gonna suck in leopard. If they’re out to “wow” people they should start by adding “cut” into the menu bar…something that should of been in osx from day one.
The massive drop shadow does remind of Vista’s drop shadow, which if i can remember was massive and really made it obvious and horrible.
Sombody call the waaahmbulance. An unreleased OS reviewed by someone who isn’t supposed to have it.
Cry me river. Sign up for a paid developer account and file a bug, whiner.
Ugliest damn thing i’ve seen all day! and i’ve been using vista
Dis looks shoop’d, I can tell from some of the lazor and from shoopin quite a few woops in my time.
And how about if you have a secondairy-screen, and having an application running there… now (and in X.5) you have to switch back to the primairy screen! How bad is that!
And well… not only the GUI can still be improved: how about ‘cutting’ files (no excuse to not re-introduce this with timemachine, al-be-it an extra feature for the people who want to put this on; implement just like windows/linux did or on a even smarter way like via the trashcan).
Or like the missing ability of Finder to show the path, so you can select the path of a file in just a second.
Or when you boot up, that you get a hint of what are the possible key’s you can strike…
Nope, where not yet there… waiting for X.6.
true, apple has lost its taste. I hope the ’secret feature’ is the new look and in october they’ll say “just kidding! here’s the real leopard look”.
Let’s hope some things will be rectified for the final release. I don’t really mind the translucent menu bar, but the glowing mirrored dock is an eyesore.
Just to show that it’s a matter of opinion:
1. I’m indifferent about the enlarged “active window” shadow. It neither bothers nor impresses me.
2. I rather like the new glowing dots. I think they work better in the overall OS appearance than the flat, 2D triangles.
3. Here in the middle of the list, I’ll agree with you. I’m not a fan of the new translucent menu bar, though I’m not vehemently opposed to it like some. Here’s hoping they make it a preference.
4. I hadn’t even noticed this, which should tell you how much it bothers me.
5. Again a place where I’m indifferent. The new folders look different, but not better or worse, to me. They’re certainly more subtle.
And if you really want to let Apple know what you think, Digging this story isn’t really the way to do it, but props to you for dress up a request for hits in a vaguely valid disguise. Get a free Developer Connection account, and go to http://radar.apple.com, and report your gripes as bugs. That’s far more likely to get Apple’s attention, if that’s really your concern.
i totally agree…..
[...] 5 Difetti estetici dell’interfaccia di Leopard Leggo oggi su OSNews.com il link ad un articolo di Mac News Online che mostra i maggiori difetti dal punto di vista estetico dell’interfaccia di Leopard. [...]
Apple is entering into a Bling War with MS. Bring back 10.2 UI!
Totally agree. I feel a lot of the GUI is almost too much of “What Microsoft would do” rather than what Apple would do. The translucent menu bar is really lame but I actually hate the new Dock more, since the icons don’t have the correct perspective as the Dock it looks really odd, especially the active blue underneath it. I hope some of this changes by the release or people out there write some nice mods to offset Leopards GUI shortcomings.
Good stuff! I’m in total agreement!
There’s more wrong with the Dock than just the glowing dots:
http://furbo.org/2007/07/03/the-hig-still-matters-even-with-special-effects/
And the transparent menubar can actually make the menu unreadable:
http://furbo.org/2007/06/28/maybe-that-transparency-is-not-such-a-good-idea/
Finally, the new folder icon’s “watermarking” is a problem with the smaller versions — they are hard to read because the contrast is so low. Without color, you don’t have a second visual clue to the contents of the folder, either.
-ch
i don’t know what you were smoking at the time of writing this.
most of this new features dont look horrible, they’re nice.
pepe
I think Apple is just “pulling the wool over our eyes”. I think that when Leopard is made final, none of these things will be there. Everyone laughed at Steve J when he showed the desktop, with the green grass wallpaper. I think everyone knows that Vista used green grass and leaves throughout their betas. I think Apple just threw some stuff up on the screen to make it look new, but something bigger is yet to come. Making the taskbar transparent and putting in some plain blue icons is nothing big. One of the new features of Leopard is Core, and I expect this to be a big part of the OS. I think Apple didn’t want people copying their stuff before it was final, so they just added a bunch of Vista-type stuff and called it the new desktop.
Interesting post,
The translucent menu is probably the worst, especially at that level of tranpserancy, things might change though.
Well said, couldn`t agree more, apart from the fact I don`t mind the icons at all.
The menu bar is atrocious, when a window is pushed up against it there is something rather wrong and distracting about the screen. The dock is a disaster of comprehensibility and clutter, and the drop-shadow unnecessary and, well, plain ugly.
Dan.
100% agree
The drop shadow on the whole is friggin annoying in the currest OS X.
The key to user satisfaction is CUSTOMIZATION.
Let the defaults be whatever most people will not complain about then give them the options to do whatever they want! Please.
I’d rather have either the new drop shadow as shown in your image or NO shadow
I don’t really like the glowing dock icons….UNLESS the new dock is like the wanna-be docs available for windows that let you skin it to look however you want.
But, those little black arrows in the current dock are USELESS to me. I can never see them. Maybe if I had the OPTION to make the black arrows appear ABOVE the icon’s I’d find them helpful. To get around this I have absolutely NOTHING in my doc except a folder full of shortcuts which I use as an application launcher. This means that EVERY icon in my doc is a running applications. Mixing app launching with indication of running apps is stupid and confuses every non-technical person I’ve convinced to get a mac so far. I don’t like the look of the aqua dots but they’e a lot easier to see.
The translucent menu bar is a silly, pointless attempt to mimic Aero. Some will like it. Some won’t. Give us ALL the OPTION to adjust the transparency amount.
seems like you had to write something just to write about Leopard…
About the semi translucent menu bar: i think it’s usefull, becource my LCD screen starts to show the menu bar even when it’s not there (during system startup), so this meens the screen is “burning in”. I think that in Leopard, changing the desktop picture can avoid this.
You can also make a desktop picture with a home made white bar on top of the picture, even with the shadow, just like the old menu bar. So that part remaines white just like the old days.
I do not know. I concur with some of your findings but others I dont.
I like the big shadow. It gives you a bigger deep of the desktop. I also like the new dock, but I would love a gray ligth, blue it is too shiny. The traslucent menu bar could be good if it is configurable. If it is not, it is a terrible decision. The recycle paper icons, I think the recycle paper is too subtle to even see it so it is better not to waste resources on it. Although new icons look nice, more photography like.
About the spotlight shot. I agree it looks horrible. I do not know. I think it is good the way it is today. Again, traslucency if configurable, OK. If it is not, terrible.
Are you bitching just for the sake of bitch? I’m not a Mac user, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with any them. New options can be nice and if you don’t like change go back to using a PC with Winblows because there you are almost guaranteed 5 years until their next release.
Agreed, and the 3D dock needs to go, it doesn’t look write with the icon shadows and is just a waste of CPU cycles with the useless reflection. Stacks does NOT need a 3D dock.
The Finder should ditch the dark gray used in iTunes and use the lighter gray found in the Systems Preferences (take a look at Path Finder http://www.cocoatech.com/pf4/ perfect shade of gray)
The button icons should remain Aqua compare the iTunes boring flat gray PLAY button to the beautiful aqua PLAY button found in Quicktime.
Transparent menubar(distracting) has to go; the one in Tiger is perfect with the rounded corners and look. No one cares about the desktop pic, turn on the screen saver or view it in Preview at fullscreen if you want to stare at a pic for hours.
that was more a use rant then a article. Simply dont upgrade if you wanna avoid moaning about stuff that doesnt matter
The transparent menu bar is distracting, not to mention missing the rounded corners. The Dock should return to its 2D state the new 3D state is distracting as well and the reflection serves no purpose just makes it more annoying.
You are right it is atrocious, all of it.
Unlike a few people, I like the new dock. It’s the menu bar I don’t like so much, because it just looks like a bastardized GNOME (I like GNOME) with an OS X skin on top of it. I do hope they make it optional.
I came to this article expecting it to be just awful…. actually, it turned out to be very well written!
Can’t say I share all of your concerns, but I appreciate the insights.
You are so right! Knowing that a lot of creative types love Macs, why wouldn’t an amount of consideration be placed on the decisions of all of the design?
In my opinion, I believe Apple is playing “catch-up” with Microsoft (and Windows Vista), where they shouldn’t, since Tiger itself is still beyond their current OS in the software and design. I wasn’t prepared for such a dramatic new look, but as for dramatic changes, Apple took it too far. The should really consider applying new and better designs, and at least take a look at the many different ideas a lot of UI designers have…
I’m sure you can revert anyone of these things back to the standard Tiger setting. Maybe this is worth mentioning but I think it’s way over the top calling them “Gripes”.
Cheers
Oliver
[...] Cinq petites choses sur Léopard… Posted in OS X.5 Leopard by Sylvain on the juillet 12th, 2007 Voici un petit aperçu sur cinq nouveautés de Léopard qui semblent sujet à controverse. [...]
“Apple must think we have serious issues identifying the current window…” and they would be correct, but I don’t think this will stop me quitting OmniWeb when I think I’m in iTunes.
[...] Check out the original article at Mac News Online [...]
I don’t mind the drop shadows - I just don’t “see” them.
I LOVE the glowing blue dots in the dock. The black triangles are too hard to see with a dark background and I hate having to use an APE like Clear Dock to change them now anyway.
The new icons look awesome, and if the OS itself allows me to “watermark” folders, it’s going to be a huge plus. And can you imagine all the designers out there making watermarks available for download for every possible app you can think of?!!!
The Spotlight thing looks annoying. Thankfully, for me it’s just an icon in the corner of my screen that I never touch. I use Quicksilver and it works just dandy.
Now the transparent menu bar… that’s another story. I can’t think of a worse thing to do to the Finder (and especially the menu bar) than to make things transparent. It’s a fad. It’s confusing. And hopefully Apple will give us the option of turning off the transparency, or a clever developer will release a freeware hack to change it back to normal.
Thanks for the quick review.
that menu bar looks so goddamn ugly, yuck!!!
As much as I love Apple (I’m a mac consultant by day), I have to agree that some of the stuff in Leopard is just annoying. My #1 would be those orbs under the running app. YOu can barely see them. #2 would be the menu bar. You can actually load up an Apple included background that will render the menu bar useless. What in the world was Apple thinking?
As for the shadows, I actually think it works. The active window almost looks 3d on a good monitor when it’s floating out there in front with that huge shadow.
The dock though…while the reflection is nifty, I just think they ruined the dock.
Man are you a whiner.. Whaa whaa… Let’s see your OS UI work..
I did not see any beta (including Leopard) before, so I cannot compare it with others on matter of “completess” of the UI from the betas to the final release. The issues you point out are of course valid, even consedering that usually you cannot customize almost nothing in the OSX UI. So I agree with you on most points, but I actually believe this is the biggest shame of apple: please LET PEOPLE CUSTOMIZE THE UI!
Anyone knows if the window corners are ‘chopped’ (less round) like in the newer iTunes releases?
I mean, if that is the standard for all the other windows as well.
Back on topic, I like the bigger drop shadow effect, to me it gives more sense of depth.
The biggest problem I have with the menu bar on Mac OS X is that on a high resolution display the menu bar can be very far away from the active window location, and on a multi-monitor display it might even be on the other screen!
I would really like to see an application menu that worked like the old NeXT menu, in that would could use a key-combo or middle mouse button to show the whole menu (DejaMenu is a great utility that enables this functionality), this would be a great power-user feature for the OS.
P.S. The translucent menu bar is an absolutely awful GUI design idea.
I agree that the menubar shouldn’t be transparent. it looks nice if you’re starring at the desktop the entire time, but when you have many other windows, it looks completely out of place. It doesn’t necessarily integrate with Apple’s overall color scheme. For example, if I have a purple background, can you imagine how ugly that would look with Apple’s iTunes look? Thus, while Jobs mentioned that this was so that we can enjoy our wallpepers more, many will be forced to use a specific wallpaper so that it integrates well with Apple’s theme. Or of course, one could make the dock look like before with a special wallpaper.
The shadow is also excessive, but not horrible.
The glowing dots are not good for usability. They aren’t visible enough. Light colors on light colors do not contrast well.
The Spotlight menu color isn’t good, but it is not horrible.
The system icons look fine.
I hope Leopard’s look will be improved before release.
I just wish they’d concentrate on making real improvements to Tiger, such as:
–change the traffic-light control buttons to something you can find on a laptop without a geiger counter. Something like the Platinum interface in KDE would be nice: big, square buttons that are easily found with a trackpad
–can we please have the ability to resize a window in more than one corner? Is this too much to ask, boys, or are we too busy backdating stock to deal with such minutiae?
–Command-tab should actually raise the window of the open app I select, rather than merely bring its menu up. I shouldn’t have to get a 3rd party utility (e.g., Witch) for this; it should be part of the OS.
I agree in every aspect you said, but there are 6 not 5 reasons. The sixth is the Dock. I saw it and the first thing I thought was: How will look a full zoomed window without the regular rect border of the original dock? And my conclusion is: very bad. I hope we could set all these options at the settings we all want. The only thing I don’t like in OS X is that we don’t get too much Appearance settings for us to customized at our will, but I hope these delicated new things can be controlled in the preferences, otherwise they could have a very bad impact in the mayority of users. More flexibility Apple, please, we don’t like Microsoft-like imposed things.
Also,
Steve Jobs: Are you crazy!!? that transparent menu bar is an horrible, horrible idea. Even the WWDC attendants thought it was a joke when the new desktop look was devealed, you could hear their laughs, but no, he (Jobs) was serious, even I thought it was a joke, because of the big Vista-like look. If the video still in Apple’s site go and check it, I’m telling the truth, people there thought it was a joke. BAD, VERY, VERY BAD IDEA, and much more bad since Jobs has criticized Vista’s look since the very first day. NO WAY TURN THAT OFF!! And where are the rounded upper corners. I HATE THAT THING, I REALLY, REALLY HATE IT.
The biggest problem I have with the menu bar on Mac OS X is that on a high resolution display the menu bar can be very far away from the active window location, and on a multi-monitor display it might even be on the other screen!
I would really like to see an application menu that worked like the old NeXT menu, in that would could use a key-combo or middle mouse button to show the whole menu (DejaMenu is a great utility that enables this functionality), this would be a great power-user feature for the OS.
P.S. The translucent menu bar is an absolutely awful GUI design idea.
Woah, that shadow would cover my entire screen!!! (Well, not quite;)). I like the dock spots and the menu bar, although I think some windows should go behind it and jump out when they become active (It looks good in my head).
I could not agree more on the spotlight thing, if you’ve got graphite on then the highlight should be in graphite, also I would like to see the menu go all the way to the end of the screen like the Quicksilver Flashlight module (If you haven’t used that on try it, its great). I hope Apple fix other Blue/Graphite inconsistencies with Leopard as well, but I still think I’m going to Uno it when i get my copy. And I love the new System icons.
I think Apple should allow more customization, being able to change the Dock back to normal, change opacity of the Menu Bar and maybe even have their own version ShapeShifter, basically make OS X the most customizable and easy to use OS out there.
The new look is pretty ugly all round. I really hope that there’s a way to set it all back to Classic (so that my machine runs faster too) like you could on Windows XP.
I agree with everything said. Leopard GUI is an absolute mess. I find it hard to believe it was a design team that came up with the changes. I mean?!? I’m thinking more along the lines of some 15 year old with no graphic design skills on work experience with a 15 minute deadline.
[...] read more | digg story [...]
[...] read more | digg story [...]
Leopard + Mac geeks…
I can feel it. It’s so very close, yet not there yet. On Friday, October 26th, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be in my hands, ready to be installed. While that may be a celebration in its own right, Apple is going on the safe side by hosting Le……
[...] TOP 5 Reasons Why Leopard’s UI Sucks The current beta build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released to developers at WWDC ‚’07, is not as polished as what people have come to expect of Apple’s design team - users are still left with at best several disagreeable changes, and at worst a hideous hodgepodge of HIG contradictions.[…] Thanks to npulido for providing this nice story on Digg (more than 1312 Diggs). [...]
Yeah, yeah… you stupid morons always find something to complain about. Go and fuck yourself, nothing will ever be good enough for you. Just like that other idiot mentioned… you can always go back to Vista, and then all your problems are gone… yeah, that’s just what you think.
Ohhh… my taskbar is semi-transparent, I will cry… in the same time there is a million of other users who are happy with changes like that one. What do you think ? You’re more important than other users, so Apple will release some update to give you back your stupid plain solid color taskbar ? Just dream on…
Good site!
I think you have a problem; poor taste. It is a shame that a pinhead as yourself has the privilege of blogging such egregious nonsense. You sir, can not grasp the concept of apple, Think Different
With all do respect, a mac fan
Windows vista ultimate hack…
Nice points……
Wait, what about Stacks? Is Stacks not the most useless piece of shit that Apple has ever come up with? What a joke. I miss being able to navigate through my folders upwards via my customized dock
I’ve been messing around with it for a long while now, and I can’t find anything that is comfortable in terms of dock customization. Talk about a step backwards in terms of UI. Dumbasses.
I agree with you. The dock dots totally suck (too difficult to take in at a glance), as does the new menu bar. :\ Hopefully they’ll change some of this stuff soon. Personally, I’d like to see an option someplace that allows you to toggle between the new UI and the older one.
And this guy:
“Yeah, yeah… you stupid morons always find something to complain about. Go and fuck yourself, nothing will ever be good enough for you. Just like that other idiot mentioned… you can always go back to Vista, and then all your problems are gone… yeah, that’s just what you think.
Ohhh… my taskbar is semi-transparent, I will cry… in the same time there is a million of other users who are happy with changes like that one. What do you think ? You’re more important than other users, so Apple will release some update to give you back your stupid plain solid color taskbar ? Just dream on…”
… is a total fucking idiot. Thanks, god, for botching the UI on that one.
Whoever wrote this complains about such little issues. if you think about it, do we really care?
Bought Leopard and had Apple deliver it to me the day it was released. I installed it, and within 3 hours had TIGER back on my MacBook Pro. Leopard is just way too annoying for me, and I see no reason to search all over the net to find fixes for the somewhat stupid things that Apple did to the OS in this release. I also did a little experiment. I wiped the hard drive, and installed WinXP Pro. The new Intel-Macs are PC CLONES. WinXP ran fine, and it ran well enough to be considered as a full time replacement to OS X. So rather than buy a new notebook from Apple again, any PC Notebook with similar specs will do. May not be able to run OS X on it (Thank You Steve ), but the direction OS X has taken leaves me to not want to run it at all, and I won’t over pay for hardware again….
I think you’re nit-picking. Those gripes are….almost silly. Leopard is great.
Hi,
Just incase anyone wants to know apple have already fixed up 4 of the graphical glitches shown above.
Fixes:
.(SHADOW)
The Giant shadow is now not so giant.
.(SPOTLIGHT)
Spotlight is now a beautiful blue.
. (MENU BAR)
you the option to have a translucent or a sold
colourd menu bar, and the overall appearance has been soften up a little bit.
.(DOCK)
The is no problem with the blue lights in the dock in the first place, but you can now download free programs that let you change the blue marker to ANYTHING, or if you want you can even change the whole dock to a entirely new one!
. (FOLDER ICONS)
The new folder icons in my opinion are awful! but you can download a program (available in freeware and software) that lets you change the default folder icons and/or any other icon on your mac.
my favorite application that lets you do this is called “candybar 3″
What the heck are you talking about people? Even jaguar is better than Vista. In addition, Leopard is working smoothly and the new dock is great in appearence. Why are you so cruel. Leopard is the best OS in the world currently. Yes every OS have some problems. We are not perfect. So engineers are not perfect too. But I am not talking about Vista. If you are complaining about leopard just use Tiger or Vista to see the difference and recognize how the new features helps you to go!