Economics & Eye Candy

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, MisterX  wrote:

> The economics is where it's at, not the eye candy...

One can bag on Apple endlessly (I do), but for better or worse, they
established an approach/appearance with their UI some time ago and ran with
it.  Part of this approach employs deep masks, and now that
Dashboard/widgets are available to the masses -- a development environment
of sorts -- this capability is even more important if the Rev folks want to
stay competitive on the platform.  It remains to be seen how Dashboard
evolves, but for now, I believe the Rev guys made a good decision to include
this feature.  Mac users are an odd lot: they want everything on their
system to be "Mac-like".  The deep masks feature is one way Rev apps can
continue to be more Mac-like.

But don't fool yourself into thinking this is a goofy Mac-only trend.  Look
closely at XP and the reports that came out as far as 2 years ago regarding
LongHorn.  XP already has some of the Mac's translucency effects, and
LongHorn (in true MicroSoft fashion) promises to be more Mac-like.
According to WindowsITPro in 2003: "Early test versions Microsoft is showing
at WinHEC include amazing animation effects, smooth window scaling, and
advanced window translucency."

When is LongHorn supposed to ship?  06? 07?  And here we Rev developers can
start developing our stacks now with these features.

"But we're going to see all kinds of poorly designed apps and unnecessary
garbage released with all these features!"  Of course we are.  This is the
same argument that was voiced in the 80's regarding desktop publishing, and
in the 90's when the Web started taking off.  Maybe this is the decade of
interface eye candy.  And it will no doubt spawn some goofy looking apps.
Eye candy is no substitute for usable/effective UI deign.  But if the
developers of the underlying systems are pursuing the eye candy route, our
apps need to at least support the features.  Employing the features is up to
you.

Surprise: the economics are tied to the eye candy.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
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E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com