This doesn’t bode well. The apple UI team has failure after failure under their belt in the past 5 years
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Apple Could Be Planning to Redesign Messages App Next Year
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Except this wasn’t how it was. There were tons of useless things on the screen that didn’t do anything.
Here’s an excerpt from the ArsTechnica review of Mac OS X Lion:
“The trouble is, the new iCal looks so much like a familiar physical object that it's easy to start expecting it to behave like one as well. For example, iCal tries very hard to sell the tear-off paper calendar illusion, with the stitched binding, the tiny remains of already-removed sheets, and even a page curl animation when advancing through the months. But can you grab the corner of a page with your mouse and tear it off? Nope, you have to use the arrow buttons or a keyboard command, just like in the previous version of iCal. Can you scribble in the margins? Can you cross off days with a pen? Can you riffle through the pages? No, no, and no.
At the same time, iCal is still constrained by some of the limitations of its physical counterpart. A paper calendar must choose a single way to break up the days in the year. Usually, each page contains a month, but there's no reason for a virtual calendar to be limited in the same way. When dealing with events that span months, it's much more convenient to view time as a continuous stream of weeks or days. This is especially true on large desktop monitors, where zooming the iCal window to full screen doesn't show any more days but just makes the days in the current month larger.
The new version of Address Book in Lion is an even more egregious example.
Address Book goes so far in the direction of imitating a physical analog that it starts to impair the identification of standard controls. The window widgets, for example, are so integrated into the design that they're easy to overlook. And as in iCal, the amazing detail of the appearance implies functionality that doesn't exist. Pages can't be turned by dragging, and even if they could, the number of pages on either side of the spine never changes. The window can't be closed like a book, either. That red bookmark can't be pulled up or down or removed. (Clicking it actually turns the page backwards to reveal the list of groups. Did you guess that?) The three-pane view (groups ? people ? detail) is gone, presumably because a book can't show three pages at once. Within each paper "page" sits, essentially, an excerpt from the user interface of the previous version of Address Book. It's a mixed metaphor that sends mixed signals.
These newly redesigned Mac OS X applications are clearly inspired by their iOS counterparts, which bear similar graphical flourishes and skeuomorphic design elements. (Address Book in particular is a dead ringer for the Contacts app on the iPad.) In iOS, the inability to turn pages with the flick of a finger or yank out that tantalizing red bookmark is even more frustrating. In both environments, when the behaviors seemingly promised by the graphical design aren't delivered, all this artwork that was so clearly labored over fades into the background. The application trains us to ignore it. What was once, at best, a momentary amusement is reduced to visual noise.
In 2011, we're far past the point where computer interfaces need to reference their forebearers in the physical world in order to be understandable (though it's possible Apple thinks the familiarity of such designs is still an effective way to reduce intimidation, especially for novice users). At the same time, hardware and software have advanced to the point where there's now ample "bandwidth" (to use Tog's term) to support visual and functional nuances beyond the bare necessities.
Interface designers are faced with the challenge of how best to use the glut of resources now at their disposal. As Lion's iCal and Address Book applications demonstrate, an alternate description of this situation might be "enough rope to hang yourself."
So explain to me how something like the tear off paper or the red bookmark are any better than the hamburger menus in modern versions of iOS/macOS.
I’d argue they’re worse. The bookmark didn’t do what a bookmark does in the real world. It was just… there.
The leather and torn off papers in the calendar didn’t do what paper does in the real world, it was just… there.
it was a Calendar that looked like a real Calendar, but worked like a digital calendar.
It was an address book that looked like an actual address book, but didn’t work like an actual address book.
Skeumorphism would look so good on the 4K OLED scrrens, why do people still prefer flat deisgn over skeumorphism when there are now screens that can take advantage of the design I have no idea.
The fact that you can’t change or delete a name ofr add one to an existing group text if it was a mix (green and blue bubbles), you have to start over by adding everyone name just to delete one. So I salutate the change.
That’s fine but that’s not what I’m defending. I could have done with out the fluff you quoted. I miss the intuitive basics that were unnecessarily discarded along with the fluff when it was decided EVERYTHING with Apple OS/iOS interfaces was wrong and EVERYTHING needed reworked, white washed, simplified, minimized.
Again, there’s a difference between the gingerbread stuff which you don’t like, and which I didn’t love nor hate (but which never got my panties in a bunch like some of the reviews you quote), and certain robust Interface Design cues that were unnecessarily obliterated around 2013 when things suddenly went white, stark, monochromatic, minimalist, and flat.
You’re mixing the superfluous gingerbread stuff with what I consider to be robust, intuitive interface design that was too white-washed away via “breakthrus” like iOS7, flat design, material design. We still keep frames on our walls around pictures/paintings right? It adds context. And functionally holds the art. Also we use white light switchplates and electrical outlet cover plates instead of wall-colored plates that blend in almost invisibly. Why? Even though you learn their position after a while, it helps locate them for you & others, and it’s a decades-refined system that just works and doesn’t need reinvented.
What I championed above and value (and which some call skeumorphism) are the visual differentiator cues and interface actions cues that make clear what’s actionable vs. info-only, that help define what’s on the screen instead of hiding it in plain sight by blending it in with the background. I value grids and borders and coloring on a screen to separate things, rather than everything be completely bare white with no bordering such that everything runs together.
The stuff you or ARS technica critiques could have been improved upon without the deliberate middle-fingering obliteration of all the helpful interface cues when the axe was taken to leather stitching, page turning, etc. When the green felt and wood grain was thrown out, so was the baby, and so was a lot of the “it just works.”
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no one cares 🤣
rcs is carrier based, hardly any carriers support it when google get bored they'll scrap the Google RCS version of it too.
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I’ve no problem with them redesigning the app, but to be fair I’m happy with it at the moment.
It does what I need, which is sends messages.
Now as for improving the calendar app, I’m all for that.
I’d like to be able to copy appointments and have better duplication options.
It does what I need, which is sends messages.
Now as for improving the calendar app, I’m all for that.
I’d like to be able to copy appointments and have better duplication options.
Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Oh that takes me back!
I often hit the dictation button when I'm just trying to hit the space bar. I'd rather it just go away. The only time I ever use dictation is with carplay in the car.
I wouldn’t mind more features as long as I have the option to “hide” them if they become too obtrusive or make the app too cluttered. In the settings there could be a choice between switching between a “basic” and “advanced” mode.
The worst part is that there's now another button for dictation in the text field itself. The only difference between the two buttons is that once you have text in the text field, you can't access that button anymore.
A few customization options would be great, I’d love to be able to change the color of message bubbles, but I know that would mess up their branding. I wonder if there’s another way they could differentiate between SMS and and iMessages? Or maybe make SMS grey, and let you customize the color of iMessages to any other color? For some that would be more incentive to use it than blue vs green
i am in chat rooms for organizing meetings etc.
at the moment i am in big trouble. i refuse access to my contacts in whatsapp and telegram (allowing apps to have access to my contacts is a no go … accept apple 🤔).
At the moment, chat rooms with pure Apple contacts are fine. with mixed Androids and Apples its a mess.
So i wish a new iMessage app should
- manage mixed chat rooms
- support attachments (links, pdfs, etc.
- allow collaborating on documents (android+ apple)
at the moment i am in big trouble. i refuse access to my contacts in whatsapp and telegram (allowing apps to have access to my contacts is a no go … accept apple 🤔).
At the moment, chat rooms with pure Apple contacts are fine. with mixed Androids and Apples its a mess.
So i wish a new iMessage app should
- manage mixed chat rooms
- support attachments (links, pdfs, etc.
- allow collaborating on documents (android+ apple)
A revamp after 15 years. That's really quick for Apple. Give it another decade a least.
Ya know, if I were Apple I’d just have to do a little trolling by claiming the updated app’s green bubbles will be even GREENER!
I hope they add all these new features but still leave out RCS to annoy Google.
I’m cautiously optimistic about this. iMessage is one of my favorite apps, so I hope they really nail down the new design.
On Skeuomorphism. I missed Microsoft Bob, and I don't know why. I do remember the really bizarre BS that NEC put on their computers when I worked at CircJet City. OMG, that stuff was brain dead. Yikes...
Oh, I actually got to the point I liked 'Clippy'. But then I found the Einstein replacement. How cool is that. But the whole Clippy thing died. *shrug* It was trying to help...
Oh, I actually got to the point I liked 'Clippy'. But then I found the Einstein replacement. How cool is that. But the whole Clippy thing died. *shrug* It was trying to help...