Drinkable Chicken

Fortunately for all rumor mongers, it was indeed a tablet that was announced by Apple today. They would have looked quite silly if it had been something else. :-)

From what I’ve seen so far, I like it. As usual, there’s a large number of bloggers and commenters who disagree, sometimes with valid arguments, but most of them seem to be of the flavor “oh noes it has no camera” or “it’s just a large iPod Touch”. Whatevs. Most people won’t care, they will just use it for videos, music, web surfing, reading books and magazines, email, instant messaging, and much more, without a steep learning curve. Sure, it’s not a replacement for a “real” laptop or desktop computer, but I don’t think it was intended to be anyway.

Personally speaking, I do want one, but not immediately when it becomes available. Not only do I not have the funds for it at the moment (I was unemployed for ~5 months last year, remember), but also, from what I have seen, it’s better to wait when buying hot new Apple products. (Remember the iPhone price drop?) Chances are the price will go down, or the low-end model will be beefed up. They will likely also need time to iron out the wrinkles in the operating system, and developers would need time to start writing apps specifically for the iPad.

(When/if I have money to blow, I would probably sign up for the developer program and start writing apps. And in spite of the App Store restrictions, I might be able to use Scheme! :-)

One thing I am wondering is if the touch screen will work (or can be made to work) with a stylus… essentially you’d then have a Wacom drawing pad. Coupled with the right software, that could be a great tool for artists. (Or musicians… imagine a Kaossilator app…)

It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who has a problem with Mac design going to from colorful and friendly to cold and boring.

“I’ve spent the day eyeing Leopard warily from my chair and web-surfing for skins, icons, and suchlike. There’s a *whole* lotta grey goin’ on there, and I’m trying my designer-y best to neutralize its depressing effects by altering what I can in the options allowed, but I cannot help but wail and gnash my teeth and remember the good old days of Kaleidoscope.”

“Now it seems to be all about conformity. What happened? Toolbars? Any color you want as long as it’s dark grey with a really dark grey but not quite black tiny little font (Hello? Readability? Not. And don’t get me started on the light grey on white documentation and website.)”

“I mean, c’mon… flat grey folders? Screaming blue menu highlights? What happened to that happy, glossy, candy-colored interface that made things look happy and fun instead of like the inside of a cube farm asylum?”

Tja. I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. I actually loved the looks of OS X when it first came out. This was in the time of the original iMac and iBook, which came in a variety of colors, and were curvy rather than blocky… very different from the beige boxes that were all too common back then. The design of OS X mirrored that: colorful blobs of goo for buttons and scrollbars, translucency, pinstripes…

Then at some point they [*] decided that everything had to be be flat, grey (or maybe black or white in the case of laptop cases), minimalistic, and (IMHO) boring. Maybe in an attempt to look more “professional”, I don’t know. Some people I spoke to seem to equate professional with unexciting and colorless, so yeah. (One exception is the iPod Nano which, in the latest wave, comes in a number of bright colors. Maybe because an iPod doesn’t need to look “professional”… :-)

Unfortunately new releases of OS X mimicked the hardware as well, and it shows. Apparently even the little apple and Spotlight icon in the menu bar had to get the black-and-white treatment.

Whaddya think? What is the reason that Apple design ideas have changed so much? And will they change back someday?

[*] Assuming that designer Jonathan Ive was responsible for both the iMac/iBook design and the current flat/metallic design, maybe there’s hope that Apple will get a taste again for non-boring designs someday.

There is still hope for Apple then. :-)  Maybe the pendulum is now going to swing back again… from bland and colorless toward colorful, like in the good old days.  One can only hope…