7 ms·

Is it just me or is the .app an abomination of a UI? Why does Apple now have three different window control styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r

by pclark 16y ago

Is it just me or is the .app an abomination of a UI? Why does Apple now have three different window control styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't click hold to get the contextual drop down? The navigation (Featured, Top Charts, etc) are so far away from the other controls (Back and Forward) its insanely awkward to use. It feels kind of ... weird using an app store on my Mac. I guess because I'm fortunate in that I know where to look for Mac applications, I don't really have the burning need for a central place.

borism 16y ago
because iTunes is the most hideous part of Apple experience. luckily it's only needed for music... ...oh wait
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- rimantas 16y ago
  iTunes is just fine on OS X. And yes, the second style is iTunes specific, I guess to keep consistency between normal and "mini" mode.
  - pclark 16y ago
    iTunes is by far the worst Apple product in terms of software engineering
    - rimantas 16y ago
      Maybe. Never had any problems with it, be it Windows (long time ago) or Mac (since 2004).
      - pmjordan 16y ago
        Do you use the Store and iDevice syncing parts of it at all? The Store always has me running around in circles unless I know exactly what I'm after and can search for it directly. The back button and breadcrumbs often behave contrary to expectation, and for some reason there only is a global search. The store also seems excruciatingly slow; I assume the servers are all located in North America and the content isn't optimised for transcontinental latencies. iDevice syncing is full of unhandled corner cases which lead to crashes, inconsistent state, nonsense error messages, or lost data. It's also really easy to accidentally delete stuff off your device if you don't have the same data locally. I probably get the short end of the stick for being a developer: iTunes and XCode have a kind of love-hate relationship. That's far from the only source of problems though, I've seen all kinds of weirdness outside the context of iOS development. Even outside of this, there are some embarrassing hiccups, e.g.: - The UI becomes extremely unresponsive while importing media - it seems the import runs in the UI thread, or otherwise causes the UI thread to block. - If you're editing metadata for a file while it's playing, there's a brief pause while saving. There's no excuse for either of those, and seem the sort of thing a decent programmer with knowledge of the codebase could fix in a day or so. (I'm aware that ID3v2 is typically stored at the start of the file and requires the whole file to be rewritten; notifying the streaming playback thread of the byte offset shift and new file descriptor is however not rocket science)
        astrange 16y ago
        File more bugs: http://bugreporter.apple.com/ http://bugreporter.apple.com/
        Lazlo_Nibble 16y ago
        Registered Apple developers only. Though there's at least one iOS bug that's getting close to being $99 worth of annoying to me (they broke an edge case of "sort album artist" behavior in cover flow a while back -- though I suspect it was on purpose, for efficiency reasons).
        16y ago
    - sfphotoarts 16y ago
      Care to back thar up with some explanation. Having switched to iTunes long ago and use it daily without ever having problem I fail to see your point.
      - achompas 16y ago
        iDevice backups take forever and the iTunes Store is frustratingly slow to browse.
        Xuzz 16y ago
        More to the point: neither of those belong as part of iTunes. (Well, maybe the music store. But device management and syncing makes no sense.)
      - runinit 16y ago
        Lack of support for third party codecs (FLAC specifically). Lack of auto conversion support when transferring to devices. "Genius" Playlists never work for anything obscure Ping is terrible Lack of tagging support (no autotag feature) I use mediamonkey (i'm on PC), once you switch you can never go back. I can organize my collection exactly how I want it from in the software, i can browse my harddrives to preview music before I add to my library. It supports pretty much every codec under the sun AND will convert it to compatible versions for whatever device i'm syncing to. There is also a plugin for discogs tagging support (one of the best online discographies in the world), a plug in for "autodj" (based off last.fm). I realize that not everyone in the world is as anal about organizing music as I am, but for the job, itunes can't compete.
        calloc 16y ago
        I do believe that by installing Perian you get support for more formats in iTunes as well as Quicktime.
      - lawfulfalafel 16y ago
        I like how you can't tell it to monitor other folders for new music.
    - xyzzyb 16y ago
      Big reverse opinion from me. I'm big into cataloging and organization of my files. iTunes rescued me from a complex nest of mp3 folders and got me into a unified metadata interface that allows me to slice and dice my collection anyway I choose. For example, the following smart playlists: - Top 100 highly rated songs that haven't been played in a month - Five random Simpsons episodes (hooray bus entertainment) - Unrated songs - Highly rated songs from the 90s - etc. My wife and I use frontrow (just a skin over iTunes really) to manage our media library: dozens of movies, hundreds of tv shows, thousands and thousands of songs. Couldn't be happier with it.
- psnj 16y ago
  Vigorously agree. I have no idea why I have such a hard time using iTunes, but I do consistently, even doing really simple and obvious things. It horrifies me.
  - roadnottaken 16y ago
    To be fair, it's a pretty complex program that does very sophisticated things behind the scenes. I used to hate it, and I still mostly do. But I notice that the only people that really hate it are powerusers. There are hundreds of millions of people out there that find it delightful and enabling. It probably says something good about your UX if you're only bothering powerusers.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Powerusers don't want a UI. They think they want a scripting language. Most of them really want a butler, though. Just make everything directories and let the power users do what they want. Just don't do that in the mainstream app. Keep stuff like that in the power user's special app.
    - axod 16y ago
      I think there's a pretty compelling argument that iTunes has become a monolithic abomination trying to do a thousand things. Split it up into more programs that each do something simple and well.
      - Travis 16y ago
        I'm not sure splitting it up is the solution. But I 100% agree, it's become a bloated piece of crap. I've thought this for a long time now. Anyone have any alternatives, that aren't something like MythTV? I just want a lightweight multimedia app for my Mac (VLC doesn't have a great "library" feature, so that's a nogo for me... but something like VLC). VLC is my favorite app ever.
        jokermatt999 16y ago
- robgough 16y ago
  I agree, and am hoping they will sooner, rather than later, rewrite it from scratch. I did just move to an SSD over Christmas though, and must say it is significantly better now - especially noticeable is I no longer seem to be getting beach balls during iPhone syncing.
- VeXocide 16y ago
  On OS X it's pretty easy to fix, just run defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1 in the terminal.
tiles 16y ago
There's a lot of similarity between the latter two (rotated almost on a pivot). If Safari moved to the .app store variant, saving real estate in the top, I'd approve. Perhaps they're trying to phase in a new button layout?
- pclark 16y ago
  The iTunes ones are smaller and closer to the edge of the window
rimantas 16y ago
Why does Apple now have three different window control styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png Only three? That makes very consistent interface then. Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't right hand click to get the contextual drop down? Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither does Opera on OS X. The navigation (Featured, Top Charts, etc) are so far away from the other controls (Back and Forward) its insanely awkward to use. Jus like on every web page? Does not cause much trouble though.
- pclark 16y ago
  Seriously... Only three? That makes very consistent interface then. How is three good? Why are we applauding that, when, last week, Apple had two styles? I don't use Windows much but I'm pretty sure 99% of all the applications use the same window elements and style (this one: http://media.arstechnica.com/images/windows7/Peek%20-%20Before.png http://media.arstechnica.com/images/windows7/Peek%20-%20Befo...) Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither does Opera on OS X. It isn't right click, its click and hold. Same difference. Safari has it. App store doesn't. Jus like on every web page? Does not cause much trouble though. Lets compare Safari to App Store in terms of distance... http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/1bwg.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/1bwg.png
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    Aperture (and probably the other pro tools) has yet another style (greyscale), actually, but that only reinforces your point. The various different teams within Apple seem to be pushing their UIs in wildly different directions recently. iTunes was one of the first with weird UI (the back button in the iTMS is horribly broken); iPhoto '11 behaves quite differently to iPhoto '09, and unlike any Apple app before it. Now the App Store.
  - sausagefeet 16y ago
    99% of Mac apps use the same window elements and style too...
gaiusparx 16y ago
Guess the UI is in transition to a more standardized one in Lion.
- thwarted 16y ago
  Standardized until it's changed in Alley or Calico.
  - cohenaron 16y ago
    hey, semi-noob here. what do you mean by "alley or calico"? sorry, but google isn't helping me here...
    - nathos 16y ago
      Mac OS X versions are named after cats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X#Versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X#Versions
sjs 16y ago
Better not look at Twitter for Mac (aka. Tweetie 2) ...
- tvon 16y ago
  That thing seems pretty beta, it even has a zoom button that does nothing. The translucent sidebar needs to be at least colorable (I'd opt for the standard grey though), I had a very dark background that made it hard to see where the window ended on the left. It's also a bit strange to grab and move since it lacks a top window border and any empty space up there to click on.
modeless 16y ago
Just be thankful that they fixed app installation from "download .dmg, wait for it to check and mount, open it, open applications folder, drag app to applications folder, drag app from applications folder to dock, unmount .dmg, move .dmg to trash, open app, click through security warning" to "click buy, wait for download, open app".
rajuvegesna 16y ago
If you try taking a screenshot of the AppStore (Cmd+shift+4+space bar), it doesn't include those window control styles. If Snow Leopard can't understand it, may be this is their new style for Lion?

by pclark 16y ago

borism 16y ago

because iTunes is the most hideous part of Apple experience. luckily it's only needed for music... ...oh wait

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rimantas 16y ago
iTunes is just fine on OS X. And yes, the second style is iTunes specific, I guess to keep consistency between normal and "mini" mode.
- pclark 16y ago
  iTunes is by far the worst Apple product in terms of software engineering
  - rimantas 16y ago
    Maybe. Never had any problems with it, be it Windows (long time ago) or Mac (since 2004).
    - pmjordan 16y ago
      Do you use the Store and iDevice syncing parts of it at all? The Store always has me running around in circles unless I know exactly what I'm after and can search for it directly. The back button and breadcrumbs often behave contrary to expectation, and for some reason there only is a global search. The store also seems excruciatingly slow; I assume the servers are all located in North America and the content isn't optimised for transcontinental latencies. iDevice syncing is full of unhandled corner cases which lead to crashes, inconsistent state, nonsense error messages, or lost data. It's also really easy to accidentally delete stuff off your device if you don't have the same data locally. I probably get the short end of the stick for being a developer: iTunes and XCode have a kind of love-hate relationship. That's far from the only source of problems though, I've seen all kinds of weirdness outside the context of iOS development. Even outside of this, there are some embarrassing hiccups, e.g.: - The UI becomes extremely unresponsive while importing media - it seems the import runs in the UI thread, or otherwise causes the UI thread to block. - If you're editing metadata for a file while it's playing, there's a brief pause while saving. There's no excuse for either of those, and seem the sort of thing a decent programmer with knowledge of the codebase could fix in a day or so. (I'm aware that ID3v2 is typically stored at the start of the file and requires the whole file to be rewritten; notifying the streaming playback thread of the byte offset shift and new file descriptor is however not rocket science)
      - astrange 16y ago
        File more bugs: http://bugreporter.apple.com/ http://bugreporter.apple.com/
        Lazlo_Nibble 16y ago
        Registered Apple developers only. Though there's at least one iOS bug that's getting close to being $99 worth of annoying to me (they broke an edge case of "sort album artist" behavior in cover flow a while back -- though I suspect it was on purpose, for efficiency reasons).
        16y ago
  - sfphotoarts 16y ago
    Care to back thar up with some explanation. Having switched to iTunes long ago and use it daily without ever having problem I fail to see your point.
    - achompas 16y ago
      iDevice backups take forever and the iTunes Store is frustratingly slow to browse.
      - Xuzz 16y ago
        More to the point: neither of those belong as part of iTunes. (Well, maybe the music store. But device management and syncing makes no sense.)
    - runinit 16y ago
      Lack of support for third party codecs (FLAC specifically). Lack of auto conversion support when transferring to devices. "Genius" Playlists never work for anything obscure Ping is terrible Lack of tagging support (no autotag feature) I use mediamonkey (i'm on PC), once you switch you can never go back. I can organize my collection exactly how I want it from in the software, i can browse my harddrives to preview music before I add to my library. It supports pretty much every codec under the sun AND will convert it to compatible versions for whatever device i'm syncing to. There is also a plugin for discogs tagging support (one of the best online discographies in the world), a plug in for "autodj" (based off last.fm). I realize that not everyone in the world is as anal about organizing music as I am, but for the job, itunes can't compete.
      - calloc 16y ago
        I do believe that by installing Perian you get support for more formats in iTunes as well as Quicktime.
    - lawfulfalafel 16y ago
      I like how you can't tell it to monitor other folders for new music.
  - xyzzyb 16y ago
    Big reverse opinion from me. I'm big into cataloging and organization of my files. iTunes rescued me from a complex nest of mp3 folders and got me into a unified metadata interface that allows me to slice and dice my collection anyway I choose. For example, the following smart playlists: - Top 100 highly rated songs that haven't been played in a month - Five random Simpsons episodes (hooray bus entertainment) - Unrated songs - Highly rated songs from the 90s - etc. My wife and I use frontrow (just a skin over iTunes really) to manage our media library: dozens of movies, hundreds of tv shows, thousands and thousands of songs. Couldn't be happier with it.
psnj 16y ago
Vigorously agree. I have no idea why I have such a hard time using iTunes, but I do consistently, even doing really simple and obvious things. It horrifies me.
- roadnottaken 16y ago
  To be fair, it's a pretty complex program that does very sophisticated things behind the scenes. I used to hate it, and I still mostly do. But I notice that the only people that really hate it are powerusers. There are hundreds of millions of people out there that find it delightful and enabling. It probably says something good about your UX if you're only bothering powerusers.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Powerusers don't want a UI. They think they want a scripting language. Most of them really want a butler, though. Just make everything directories and let the power users do what they want. Just don't do that in the mainstream app. Keep stuff like that in the power user's special app.
  - axod 16y ago
    I think there's a pretty compelling argument that iTunes has become a monolithic abomination trying to do a thousand things. Split it up into more programs that each do something simple and well.
    - Travis 16y ago
      I'm not sure splitting it up is the solution. But I 100% agree, it's become a bloated piece of crap. I've thought this for a long time now. Anyone have any alternatives, that aren't something like MythTV? I just want a lightweight multimedia app for my Mac (VLC doesn't have a great "library" feature, so that's a nogo for me... but something like VLC). VLC is my favorite app ever.
      - jokermatt999 16y ago
robgough 16y ago
I agree, and am hoping they will sooner, rather than later, rewrite it from scratch. I did just move to an SSD over Christmas though, and must say it is significantly better now - especially noticeable is I no longer seem to be getting beach balls during iPhone syncing.
VeXocide 16y ago
On OS X it's pretty easy to fix, just run defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1 in the terminal.

tiles 16y ago

There's a lot of similarity between the latter two (rotated almost on a pivot). If Safari moved to the .app store variant, saving real estate in the top, I'd approve. Perhaps they're trying to phase in a new button layout?

pclark 16y ago
The iTunes ones are smaller and closer to the edge of the window

rimantas 16y ago

Why does Apple now have three different window control styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png Only three? That makes very consistent interface then. Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't right hand click to get the contextual drop down? Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither does Opera on OS X. The navigation (Featured, Top Charts, etc) are so far away from the other controls (Back and Forward) its insanely awkward to use. Jus like on every web page? Does not cause much trouble though.

pclark 16y ago
Seriously... Only three? That makes very consistent interface then. How is three good? Why are we applauding that, when, last week, Apple had two styles? I don't use Windows much but I'm pretty sure 99% of all the applications use the same window elements and style (this one: http://media.arstechnica.com/images/windows7/Peek%20-%20Before.png http://media.arstechnica.com/images/windows7/Peek%20-%20Befo...) Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither does Opera on OS X. It isn't right click, its click and hold. Same difference. Safari has it. App store doesn't. Jus like on every web page? Does not cause much trouble though. Lets compare Safari to App Store in terms of distance... http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/1bwg.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/1bwg.png
- pmjordan 16y ago
  Aperture (and probably the other pro tools) has yet another style (greyscale), actually, but that only reinforces your point. The various different teams within Apple seem to be pushing their UIs in wildly different directions recently. iTunes was one of the first with weird UI (the back button in the iTMS is horribly broken); iPhoto '11 behaves quite differently to iPhoto '09, and unlike any Apple app before it. Now the App Store.
- sausagefeet 16y ago
  99% of Mac apps use the same window elements and style too...

gaiusparx 16y ago

Guess the UI is in transition to a more standardized one in Lion.

thwarted 16y ago
Standardized until it's changed in Alley or Calico.
- cohenaron 16y ago
  hey, semi-noob here. what do you mean by "alley or calico"? sorry, but google isn't helping me here...
  - nathos 16y ago
    Mac OS X versions are named after cats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X#Versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X#Versions

sjs 16y ago

Better not look at Twitter for Mac (aka. Tweetie 2) ...

tvon 16y ago
That thing seems pretty beta, it even has a zoom button that does nothing. The translucent sidebar needs to be at least colorable (I'd opt for the standard grey though), I had a very dark background that made it hard to see where the window ended on the left. It's also a bit strange to grab and move since it lacks a top window border and any empty space up there to click on.

modeless 16y ago

Just be thankful that they fixed app installation from "download .dmg, wait for it to check and mount, open it, open applications folder, drag app to applications folder, drag app from applications folder to dock, unmount .dmg, move .dmg to trash, open app, click through security warning" to "click buy, wait for download, open app".

rajuvegesna 16y ago

If you try taking a screenshot of the AppStore (Cmd+shift+4+space bar), it doesn't include those window control styles. If Snow Leopard can't understand it, may be this is their new style for Lion?