Although I am yet to upgrade to Leopard, I have scoured the web for reviews, demos, comments, etc, and from what I have seen, the new Leopard UI is still somewhat confused. It still seems to be bit of a mish-mash of Tiger, Leopard, iPhone and various rebel apps.
For example, although Aqua has mostly disappeared from the UI, in the Finder and throughout the system we still get the Aqua 3D 'candy'-style scrollbars, losenge Save/Cancel/etc buttons, list criteria bars and other bits and bobs, even though iTunes has a more fitting metallic sytle.
Another obvious example is the button arrangement sported by Mail, and now Preview. This are the only two apps with the bubble type buttons, even though there are clearly more consistent ways for the app to appear.
More minor inconsistencies are apparent throughout - such as a confusion over which type of dialogue box is needed - either normal, or black with 'x' in top left corner; also whether a button should 'lozenge' shaped or more square with slightly rounded corners (like in the Time machine preferences); and whether a 'plus' button at the bottom of the window should be in an iTunes type silver set of buttons, or the aqua style column as seen in Mail; I could (probably) go on, and I'm sure everyone else who has looked closely at the UI has spotted (new start pages in iWork anyone?)
I'm not saying I don't like the Leopard interface, in fact it seems to be major step on from Tiger. I just think that if Apple are going to highlight a unified interface as a major new feature, then it should be presented in a consistent and thorough way.
Does anyone else share this view, or am I just looking a bit too closely?
For example, although Aqua has mostly disappeared from the UI, in the Finder and throughout the system we still get the Aqua 3D 'candy'-style scrollbars, losenge Save/Cancel/etc buttons, list criteria bars and other bits and bobs, even though iTunes has a more fitting metallic sytle.
Another obvious example is the button arrangement sported by Mail, and now Preview. This are the only two apps with the bubble type buttons, even though there are clearly more consistent ways for the app to appear.
More minor inconsistencies are apparent throughout - such as a confusion over which type of dialogue box is needed - either normal, or black with 'x' in top left corner; also whether a button should 'lozenge' shaped or more square with slightly rounded corners (like in the Time machine preferences); and whether a 'plus' button at the bottom of the window should be in an iTunes type silver set of buttons, or the aqua style column as seen in Mail; I could (probably) go on, and I'm sure everyone else who has looked closely at the UI has spotted (new start pages in iWork anyone?)
I'm not saying I don't like the Leopard interface, in fact it seems to be major step on from Tiger. I just think that if Apple are going to highlight a unified interface as a major new feature, then it should be presented in a consistent and thorough way.
Does anyone else share this view, or am I just looking a bit too closely?