Why Apple cannot replace Aqua in Leopard

[mark88]

First off... As a programmer I can happily say that apple can replace aqua easily enough. The basic raw library for Aqua is in OSX, it's not separately included in each and every application.

Custom widgets are generally built from and extended from other widgets, only a fool would design a widget by actually drawing it.

I'm sorry but your just wrong. 'Only a fool would draw a widget'..?

Then you're calling Apple, Panic, Omigroup and pretty much every other developer I can think of a fool. Just look for yourself, those tifs and pngs of aqua widgets are in pretty much every app on your machine.

 

[mark88]

Your making out changing the colour scheme of OSX as being ''impossible'' to change - my point was if they could totally re-work and re-design an operating system, which runs on 2 types of architechture in the time they did - I'm sure they can transistion from one 'grade' of operating system to the next.

Don't be so over dramatic.

Apple aren't 3 guys working in a garage - they do actually have people paid to work around the clock to do this, y'know? There's probably 3 or 4 'designs' for the Leopard theme in the works.

Think Windows 95 > 98 > XP > Vista. Except ours will be on time and actually work.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying they cannot get rid of aqua in Leopard. Period.

The day you install Leopard, you will still have elements of aqua on your system.

My guess is we'll see just another tweak of aqua, like we have already in previous versions.

 

[iShak]

They were written con-currently as two separate versions, the Intel version was never released to the public before the switch was made.

thank you, thats was the point, apple are not afraid to re-write stuff, con-currently or not ... if they gotta do it, they gotta do it.

 

[mark88]

For a while, but it wouldn't take long to change.

Plus Apple have their own internal software for rapidly producing all the UI elements they need, they don't just sit their with Photoshop and do it.

It's really not as big a deal as you are making out.

You think Apple have some special interface creation software? and they don't use Photoshop like the rest of the world? I highly doubt it, I'm sure Apple create their interfaces and icons in photoshop like everyone else.

And just to say again, regarding the 'change'. Lets take iMovie 6 as an example. iMovie features many custom aqua widgets. Look in:

Applications/iMovie HD/Content/Rescources

Everything you see in there that looks 'aqua' is not being drawn by the system and is simply a custom graphic used in the interface. Specific only to iMovie HD.

In order to remove Aqua from iMovie all these graphics would need to be replaced. Not so much of a big deal. But the fact is, if Apple did do that then when the new version of iMovie runs on Tiger, all those aqua widgets that suite Tiger, now have the look of Leopard inside Tiger.

And the same applies to any application that is built using custom aqua graphics, be it from Apple or any other developer.

Just look at this screenshot of the mail resource folder, just one part of it and look how many aqua widgets are in mail that are not being drawn be the system.

 

[whooleytoo]

I'm sorry but your just wrong. 'Only a fool would draw a widget'..?

Then you're calling Apple, Panic, Omigroup and pretty much every other developer I can think of a fool. Just look for yourself, those tifs and pngs of aqua widgets are in pretty much every app on your machine.

To me, the purpose of Core Animation is to "standardise" the creation of non-standard interfaces (if that makes sense). If developers use pre-drawn bitmaps controls (or even custom controls hard-coded), they'll look terrible if the UI in the new OS is updated but the application isn't.

On the other hand, if developers use Core Animation in the future to 'draw outside the box', then Core Animation would be updated when the OS & UI is, hence minimising the amount of work needed.

Incidentally, if all the developers need to do for a major OS upgrade was change a few widget graphics, they'd be very happy bunnies. When Quicktime 6 came out, for instance, we had to rewrite a lot of our code as it changed the threading model substantially.

 

[mark88]

If developers use pre-drawn bitmaps controls (or even custom controls hard-coded), they'll look terrible if the UI in the new OS is updated but the application isn't.

Finally, someone who gets it. Although I'm not so sure about your Core Animation reference.

The fact is, developers have been forced into creating their own widgets because Apple do it. Apple are worse than anyone for ruining the HIG.

http://www.indiehig.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/bottom_bar.png this image shows you what the situation is like. Apple introduce this widget in Mail, they don't provide it for developers in IB so you have everyone trying to create their own widget.

 

[killmoms]

Everyone who thinks 10.5 is getting any kind of interface facelift is crazy. They wouldn't hide something that huge for this long, especially since developers won't want their apps looking "wrong" when the new OS hits. We're going to get something that looks largely like what we have now, with a few tweaks here and there, just like the developer builds have been.

The last rumor that referenced some later build of OS X internally that had a new interface... that build number has already been passed in the most recent beta release to devs. Just face it—Aqua is here to stay, at least through Leopard.

 

[whooleytoo]

Finally, someone who gets it. Although I'm not so sure about your Core Animation reference.

The fact is, developers have been forced into creating their own widgets because Apple do it. Apple are worse than anyone for ruining the HIG.

Apple has been bending (/breaking/killing, burning, then stomping on the ashes of) their own UI guidelines for a while now.

They do tend to include most new controls in subsequent versions of IB, but either the developer waits for that to happen, or goes ahead and tries to create custom controls that mimic the appearance of Apple's new controls, which risks breaking any time Apple updates the UI.

 

[zephead]

I don't understand what people find "old" in Aqua. It works, it's crisp and clean and still looks modern. Do we really need change for change's sake?

I agree. Why fix it if it ain't broke? Aqua is still a beautiful interface which is a total mind-blower for switchers (like me ).

 

[a456]

Has anyone noticed how the 'illuminous' elements that are being highlighted (e.g. http://appleology.com/images/darkglass-1.png) look amazingly like some of the Vista elements http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/windowsvista/images/features/kb_bov_startmenu_type_2.gif As such would such a move be a bad mistake, and instead of going for such a gloomy serious interface the Aqua look might actually continue to make the distinction between the two OSes if they just continue to refine and tweak.

 

[mark88]

I agree. Why fix it if it ain't broke? Aqua is still a beautiful interface which is a total mind-blower for switchers (like me ).

I still like aqua. The removal of brushed metal and pinstripe is something I think we'll see though for sure.

Unified apps look fine, and I still think Tiger looks better than Vista.

 

[Hobofuzz]

btw, the problem wouldn't be an issue if Apple updated interface builder everytime it decided to introduce a new widget into it's applications. They don't and so you have this situation where evety developer tries to re-create what Apple does themselves in Photoshop.

Apple's updated interface builder for Leopard.
It's a huge overhaul.
I'm looking forward to the final release.

 

[satans_banjo]

Exactly. They've done it once, they'll do it again. (As you've just said, and invalidating your own point)

But since Leopard is another version of OS X, all the apps from the previous version will have to remain compatible, whereas from OS9 --> OS X none of the old apps worked on the new operating system

 

[killmoms]

Has anyone noticed how the 'illuminous' elements that are being highlighted (e.g. http://appleology.com/images/darkglass-1.png) look amazingly like some of the Vista elements http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/windowsvista/images/features/kb_bov_startmenu_type_2.gif As such would such a move be a bad mistake, and instead of going for such a gloomy serious interface the Aqua look might actually continue to make the distinction between the two OSes if they just continue to refine and tweak.

You mean the semi-transparent panels that have been used in various OS X applications since Motion first appeared like three years ago before Vista had a set theme?

 

[elppa]

But since Leopard is another version of OS X, all the apps from the previous version will have to remain compatible, whereas from OS9 --> OS X none of the old apps worked on the new operating system

To port many classic apps to carbon, so they ran in OS X didn't take many developers long at all.

Anyway nearly all the old apps did work, they just ran in the classic environment, which was technically part of the OS.

Anyway, I am getting side-tracked. If Apple announces a new UI month or two before ship date, I bet the majority of developers will have their apps ready by or shortly after the ship date.

 

[salmon06]

First of all Apple managed to write software that would allow developers to write code that would run on completely differnet cpu platforms natively in 32bit or 64bit (unlike microsoft, who could not hence the windows 32bit and 64bit versions where compatability is rubbish), finding a way to implement a new UI is hardly beyond thier reach.

Secondly why can't apple continue to support aqua and still introduce a new UI? That way developers could update their apps to look good on the new UI but in the mean time they will show up looking exactly the same as they do now.

I don't know weather they will update the look or not (Steve might like this one..) but it's far from impossible. They have large teams of developers who've been working on Leopard for a long time now, you don't really think all they've managed to do is build time machine and throw in a few new features to some existing apps do you? What was the point in Core Animation if they arn't going to show it off in all its glory!

 

[iancapable]

I'm sorry but your just wrong. 'Only a fool would draw a widget'..?

Then you're calling Apple, Panic, Omigroup and pretty much every other developer I can think of a fool. Just look for yourself, those tifs and pngs of aqua widgets are in pretty much every app on your machine.

Actually I'm not. From doing a lot of interface designing it does not make sense to draw a widget pixel by pixel. You inherit from some kind of base class. So custom widgets although custom still inherit interface aspects like any other widget, so changing a theme is not that difficult.

At the end of the day if you follow any kind of interface guidelines you will do what I say and inherit. If you just draw random stuff pixel by pixel you're mad.

How do you think shapeshifter is able to do it's job?

 

[mark88]

How do you think shapeshifter is able to do it's job?

Shapeshifter doesn't change everything. I haven't used it but would imagine it changes standard widgets(scrollbars, table headers, aqua buttons etc etc), not custom ones.

prove me wrong.

 

[elppa]

All the posters who are saying it can't be done just seem to be digging a bigger whole for themselves.

Whether it will happen or not is the real question, not whether it can happen.

 

[TheSpaz]

... didnt knew that!!! i am pretty sure i've heard steve say that the migration from PPC to intel aint that simple, millions of lines of code had to be 're-written' .. cuz this different atchitecture does require a different code (unless whole of mac runs on rosetta)

strange that no one noticed dormant intel code in pre-intel macintosh applications/OS

Apple was quietly writing Mac OS X for PPC and Intel side by side since 10.0 or something. This way, when they finally did switch processors, it wouldn't be a major headache for them to re-write the OS and hope they didn't didn't miss anything that would cause bugs. As far as I can tell so far, OS X runs and reacts the same exact way as OS X on PPC. It's completely transparent (except for the fact that it's a lot faster).

 

[TheSpaz]

I would like to see a change in Aqua. I also wouldn't mind a slight layout change of how the Aqua elements are sized and placed. I just know that if Apple can make a great interface, they will definitely top Aqua. I agree that Aqua is extremely old looking. It reminds me of the first iMacs and the Blue and White G3s and the old iBooks. Lets make OS X more modern looking. How about an Aluminum look like their Pro machines such as the MacBook Pro or Mac Pro. I would really like Apple's UI to mature and look more like a real OS than fisher price toy.

 

[MacVault]

I would like to see a change in Aqua. I also wouldn't mind a slight layout change of how the Aqua elements are sized and placed. I just know that if Apple can make a great interface, they will definitely top Aqua. I agree that Aqua is extremely old looking. It reminds me of the first iMacs and the Blue and White G3s and the old iBooks. Lets make OS X more modern looking. How about an Aluminum look like their Pro machines such as the MacBook Pro or Mac Pro. I would really like Apple's UI to mature and look more like a real OS than fisher price toy.

I 100% AGREE!

 

[killmoms]

I'd say XP looks far more like a Fisher Price toy than OS X with bright, garish title bars and whatnot. Overall, OS X is white and grey, with a few colored elements to keep things interesting.

 

[mark88]

All the posters who are saying it can't be done just seem to be digging a bigger whole for themselves.

Whether it will happen or not is the real question, not whether it can happen.

If you re-read the post, no one is saying it it totally impossible. We are saying that Aqua cannot be replaced come Leopard, even if Apple did decide to replace the interface style. Aqua would still be on your system.

Also, all these points below kinda suggest they aren't going to try:

- None of the Leopard builds so far how any new interfaces
- Apple have already created scalable aqua widgets for resolution independence(why would they do this if they had a new UI planned?)
- It's getting mightly close to release time
- Devs have been working with the new Xcode and IB for a while now, no new interfaces.
- Dev would be kinda pissed if Apple sprung a new interface on them 2 weeks before Leopard gets released.
- None of the other 10.X releases had major changes, just tweaks to standard elements.

I just hope people don't get their hopes up cause so far Nothing indicates that we are getting a new interface.

 

[shrimpdesign]

Shapeshifter doesn't change everything. I haven't used it but would imagine it changes standard widgets(scrollbars, table headers, aqua buttons etc etc), not custom ones.

Shapeshifter uses application-specific skins to replace custom application interfaces. Some themes have skins for tons of applications, like iTunes, Safari, iChat, iPhoto, iCal, Mail. And most themes are developed by one person.

And you seem to think that a large company can't do the same work as one person? You don't know how long they've worked on it, or how many people are working on it... so how can you say that they can't?

It's not really a matter of "they can't do it" .. they can. It's just a matter of "will they?"

It does all come down to one thing: Aqua is a skin. They can replace it if they want.

It may be rough to replace it, some apps will look weird until the developers update ... but the same thing happened with Intel Macs and the OS 9 -> OS X transition.

There weren't many Universal Binaries when the Intel Macs came out (I had one of the first Intel Macs; an iMac). Applications ran slow. It was ugly. But it only took a month or so for developers to release UB apps.

The OS 9 to OS X transition was longer than the Intel switch, and it was more painful, but it was for the better. OS 9 apps looked ugly running in OS X, but they worked. And people eventually transitioned.

Apple isn't afraid of transition.

I don't know if they will replace Aqua or not, but denouncing that they can is pretty idiotic, IMO.