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by inasmuch
1463 days ago
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> This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became the Apple we know today. What's so strange about this is that, as that playfulness has been lost, the software has, in many ways, moved in a direction that feels more childishly cartoonish. It seems the aim is now to make all computing feel fun and friendly (even when it perhaps ought to be more serious or economical), which has, ironically, stripped all the charm out of the experience by inundating us with bright colors and childsafe corners. Small, unexpected, thoughtful moments and Easter eggs like those described in this thread are like a small piece of chocolate after a healthy meal. What we have in most software now (Apple is by no means the only company guilty of this) is more like a diet comprised entirely of candy. |
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The weird part is most current attempts of this are actually really bad at it past initial surface appearances.
Minimalist and “content-first’ UIs look great in screenshots and I guess they prevent new users from getting overwhelmed, but they also hide all the features in a way I find quite hostile. We have an absolute wealth of pixels in our displays today, but tons of software makes you decipher abstract line icons to work out what it can actually do.
The Mac thankfully still has the escape hatch of the menu bar, which almost universally allows you to browse and search all performable actions (and see their keyboard shortcuts inline!), but mobile operating systems don’t even have a touch-centric equivalent of tooltips.