What do you think of the Apple website's new tab design?

[true777]

What do you think of apple.com's redesign of the navigation elements?
Those old, grey-and white tabs were ancient -- I don't think the new gradient grey navigation bar is super exciting -- they definitely went for a "safe" choice -- but I think it's a lot better than the outdated tabs.

What do you think?

[psycoswimmer]

It's nice. I like it better than the old design.

Add a poll?

[Daveway]

It looks okay. All the black backgrounds get tiresome. It's harder to find things (like the Quicktime section).

It'll grow on me i guess.

[iMeowbot]

The Aqua tab thingy was looking pretty far behind OS X itself, a refresh was due. I'm not at all impressed at the way pages like the storefront now require more screen real estate with no additional content to justify the change.

[LeviG]

have to say I quite like it. Especially like the slider bit on the mac and ipod+itunes pages :D

[elppa]

I like it, but I think the :apple: logo would be better if it was plain white, I think the grey on grey looks a little awkward.

[weeman]

I like it more than the old setup. It takes a while to get used to though.

[tgildred]

No more .mac tab.

[elppa]

No more .mac tab.

I feel .mac's days may be numbered in its current form.

[TheAnswer]

The only thing that looks off to me is the gloss on the Apple Logo. But it's much better it general. The top ten lists on the sidebars are cool as is the transparent slider (I hope we see more of that in Leopard).

[ATD]

The top bar feels too thick to me and in some of the layouts it feels very out of place.

Did anyone else notice that in all the new demos the drive icons are gone from the desktops?

[killr_b]

I vote for a poll. ;)

I like the new look. Not so 90's anymore. Matches the "Pro" line I think.

[apfhex]

I think it's fantastic looking, much more simplified. The old tabs, with the bar full of links below them, was starting to suck. Also they've unified everything finally... over the past few years so many of the pages had quite different looks and sizes.

Oh, and the mini site map at the bottom is a REALLY good addition.

[ezkimo]

Did anyone else notice that in all the new demos the drive icons are gone from the desktops?

You've been able to turn them off for a long time in the finder preferences.

I also think its a long needed, and very good, upgrade to the site.

[ATD]

You've been able to turn them off for a long time in the finder preferences.

I didn't know that. :rolleyes:

I also think its a long needed, and very good, upgrade to the site.

I'm liking the site overall, just a few things I would tweak.

[biturbomunkie]

it's not great, but it's certainly better than the dated aqua theme.

[ezkimo]

I didn't know that. :rolleyes:



I'm liking the site overall, just a few things I would tweak.

By the way, I looked at your portfolio. Lots of really fine work in there. Great job.

[psychofreak]

I really like it...and maybe its a theme Arn should think about adopting...(the white pages, not the black ones)

[TheAnswer]

I really like it...and maybe its a theme Arn should think about adopting...(the white pages, not the black ones)

And maybe we could get a post CoverFlow option in addition to the Forum Spy. :D

[PlaceofDis]

it was a much needed overhaul for their site, definitely was starting to feel dated. not perfect imo, but i'd expect them to fix things here and there too over time.

[ATD]

By the way, I looked at your portfolio. Lots of really fine work in there. Great job.

Thanks for saying that. :)

[zim]

No more .mac tab.

I felt the same way. A bit annoying but I always go to mac.com, so I guess it isn't that annoying.

I feel .mac's days may be numbered in its current form.

I agree but I don't feel that it is going away away.. Steve mentioned .mac during the conference.

.mac is a service they provide and I feel that it should have been left in the menu bar.

If anyone misses the old menu then head on over to the discussion area on the support page :)

[Luis]

Isn't it ironic that apple.com gets tabs but finder still doesn't??

[jialuolu]

I like the new Spotlight-like search, but for a lot of pages it feels like the new design is more cluttered

[zwida]

Especially like the slider bit on the mac and ipod+itunes pages :D

Yeah, I think that's a pretty slick visual representation of the menus. I think it's a much needed overhaul that strikes me as well executed.

[pengu]

Isn't it ironic that apple.com gets tabs but finder still doesn't??

i think thats a good sign that a Finder with tabs wouldnt be as great as you think it would.

tabs work fine for things like browser windows, where they dont interact with each other.

how the hell do you drag and drop a file from tab one to tab two?

[biturbomunkie]

how the hell do you drag and drop a file from tab one to tab two?

maybe it's time for apple to implement cut and paste in Finder!

[dcv]

I guess it looks more "current" than the previous design but it's not particularly exciting is it? I also don't like the fact I need to open a wider window just to accommodate it; what were they thinking?

[James.Paul]

As a whole I really like the design, nice clean and simplistic, the search tool is great, gives visitors an intro to Mac OS X. The tabs are straight to the point and identifies what apple does, computers, ipod, iphone. The feature I like on the site is the image galleries on the leopard new features where the image seems to expand and float above the screen. I would love to incorporate something like that on my site as my slideshows are a bit basic, anyone know where I can find a script to buy for that?

[elppa]

Isn't it ironic that apple.com gets tabs but finder still doesn't??

No, Apple.com has actually lost tabs.

Those aren't tabs in my eyes, their just navigation buttons.

[tomoisyourgod]

yeh the old design is a few years old now... new design looks good.

Nice and simple...

I love the product scroller for Mac Mini/iMac/ etc etc...

it's on this page http://www.apple.com/mac/

[tominated]

i love the new site! the nav bar is gorgeous! It feels good to.

[djbahdow01]

Looks pretty good to me. It was time for a change.

[DavidLeblond]

I like the fact that it has an option for Mac in the main menu bar.

[true777]

Per popular demand, I added a poll -- so get out and vote!

Thanks for the suggestion.

[wheezy]

I like the new look... not quite 100% sold on the LARGE part of the site, while I agree dropping 800x600 design on a website as anyone you want to target should have left that resolution ages ago... this new version just seems too big. Maybe somewhere in the middle... but, all in all, it looks very nice!

And, I just tried the search, didn't realize it worked like spotlight. I have to say they incorporate a lot of kick @$$ scripts on there site, from the Top Download iPhone'esque sliders, to the Mac@work shingles, to the cover flow Mac selections to the spotlight search, to the half popup QT viewers for the Leopard features....

Dang, that list gets long. It's one heckuva well put together technical site. Lots of code, lots of new things, lots of variations of current things... Apple did what they do best. Microsoft's Website is... well... not like this. At all.

Innovation. Gotta love it!

[dogbone]

It blends seamlessly into the top of my browser. :apple:

is there such a thing as UNO for Apple.com?

[bluetooth]

I didn't know that. :rolleyes:



I'm liking the site overall, just a few things I would tweak.

Yes - my thoughts exactly.

[elppa]

I like the new look... not quite 100% sold on the LARGE part of the site, while I agree dropping 800x600 design on a website as anyone you want to target should have left that resolution ages ago... this new version just seems too big. Maybe somewhere in the middle... but, all in all, it looks very nice!

Innovation. Gotta love it!

Thing is this will go for another 3-5 years, by then it will probably start to look small and resolutions of screens keep increasing.

1024px will look like 800px does now, too small.

This is why I'm moving towards the idea of elastic design and ems for everything.

[true777]

I think the new top navigation bar looks good on dark backgrounds, but on white background pages it looks a little out of place and not well integrated with the rest of the page -- sort of floating there by itself.

I think it looks ok -- but given Apple's reputation for sophisticated design and aesthetic perfection, I find it mildly bland and crude -- just not very sexy and refined. But still a leap forward from the previous one!

[fivetoadsloth]

I like the look though I wish they didn't make it quite as wide. Also something things are a bit harder to find (Ill get used to it) Though definitely a lot better.

[iMeowbot]

This is why I'm moving towards the idea of elastic design and ems for everything.
Yes, more of that. People seemed to be getting early on that the Web wasn't paper (it really, really helped that text mode browsers were fairly common at the beginning), but that seems to have been forgotten.

It's possible that they're rolling out a custom layout to deal with it, but how stupid are the these Apple pages going to look on their new phone?

[true777]

It seems a bit odd that "hardware" and "software" don't have separate tabs, but that "downloads" has its own tabs.

Seems like it would make more sense to have a "hardware" and a "software' tab and then make "downloads" part of the "software" area.

[Jasonbot]

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two designs:

Old:
http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/3917/picture8sl6.png
New:
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/6213/picture7we6.png

The new site seems too dark for my liking, I know apple has been slowly shifting to new new colour scheme but the black is a little morbid, too professional and hard on the eyes.

As for the new tabs the new ones mimic an OS X desktop with an apple logo and spotlight search bar but they leave behind the 'secondary' row of detail which has been added in slightly (very) cluttered main pages where it is hard to find.

The choice of tab headings shows that .mac is dead, quicktime is no longer as famous as it has been in the past and that Mac OS X is no longer one of apple's main focus points, probably due to the fact that it's become bigger than intended, not that apple would ever get rid of OS X but maybe since its on the main page there is no need for a tab at teh moment.

The new site seems to cater for higher standard resolutions as all the content has been spread wider across the page due to screen resolutions of computers increasing. I would still liek to see the page adjust to a greater width. Even though it seems fine on my 20" iMac I can't imagine how it must feel on a 30" screen.

All in all a decent improvement graphically, technically and practically I'm still unsure.

[brad.c]

Not a bad design, but not new either. It's the same look'n'feel of some of their existing "pro" product pages. For that nostalgic feel, you can still browse the Canadian site in it's dated aqua glory.

[decksnap]

What are people browsing on that it seems too wide? You'd have to have a 800x600 monitor not to be able to fit the page on your screen. It's about time the new baseline became 1024. I've officially phased 800x600 out of my design considerations. Sorry iMac G3s. :D