Comment by haroldp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by haroldp | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> They are 100% correct about the spatial Finder; 15 years later and what the current OS has is still laughable compared to some of the gems of the Classic Finder.

And every version that comes out, the Finder moves further away from spacial and towards a disk browser. I hate it so much.

> I don’t quite understand why Apple went so far away from Platinum.

For the purpose of looking cool in a demo. OS9 had Platinum, and it was the standard, and third party apps that didn't fall in line, really stuck out in an uncomplimentary way and collected a lot of flack.

Since then, OSX has gone through... how many re-skinnings? How many optional app UI kits? Do you remember the brushed aluminium one that was popular for a minute? Remember all of their one-off, over the top, skeuomorphic apps? Now Chrome can get all fucky with the title bar and no one even notices. And one of Apple's own flagship apps, iTunes, is such a user-surly, confused mess of UI mistakes it's hardly usable.

> not to mention the pop-up tab windows from 8.5+.

Finder Drawers! I miss them too. I especially miss the huge contextual menu ecosystem that OS9 had. Anyone else miss WindowShade?

As someone who grew up with Mac OS 7.5.2, 8.5 and 9.1, then 10.3, 10.4, 10.5.8 then 10.6 and the upgrade train ever since... I honestly can't remember Finder being much different to how it is now except the obvious added features. I certainly can't remember it having lost features in the last >20 years.

Can you give details?

Read John Siracusa's Spatial Finder rants in his OS X reviews for Ars Technica for more details than you could ever want

http://archive.arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.htm ???

If you read this, note that although the main page displays, their section links are broken (they all use ".html" instead of ".htm"; after you click one, you can edit it in your URL bar to use ".htm" and then it will display).

Try this link: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2003/04/finder/

Compared to the UI used between 1984 and the launch of Mac OS 8 in 1997, Platinum itself was a short-lived re-skinning. The 1984 UI was colorized in 1991 with System 7 and only fully reskinned in 1997, a 13 year span. Mac OS X is 15 years old now, for contrast--plenty of time to fit in a few reskins.

Not really sure the numbers make the point you're suggesting they do.

The "Classic" Mac OS UI developed incrementally over about 15 years, in a mostly evolutionary process. Even Platinum wasn't an especially dramatic change except in the context of that conservatism. But over the product's lifespan, it represented significant improvements.

Over about the same amount of time, OS X has ping-ponged around, undergoing a series of major reskins, without much in the way of consistent direction. It seems to be a lot of change-for-change's-sake, and it's not clear to me as a user throughout the entire period that the end result now, in 2016, is all that much better than where we started out back in 2000.

Apple's had nearly as much time with OS X's Aqua UI as they had to take the Classic interface from its start (512x342 1-bit pixels on the 128k) all the way to Platinum, and the results are not exactly impressive.

Platinum was a very dramatic reskin at the time. It was originally designed to set Copland apart from System 7, but after Copland failed they just rolled it out in Mac OS 8. Aqua was then designed to set Mac OS X apart from Mac OS 8/9.

Overall Platinum lasted four years, which was just as long as the brushed metal phase between Panther and Leopard (2003-2007). Leopard was the next major revamp, which lasted until Yosemite (2007-2014).

So, if you wanted to be generous, you could divide the Mac UI eras like so:

1984-1991: Monochrome Classic

1991-1997: System 7 (colorized)

1997-2001: Platinum

2001-2003: Aqua

2003-2007: Aqua (Brushed Metal Remix)

2007-2014: Aqua 3.0

2014-pres: Flat Aqua

Don't forget that Platinum was unveiled years before OS 8 was actually released, and one of the most popular System 7 extensions was Aaron, which provided the Platinum theme, and as such a large contingent of Mac users were using Platinum long before OS 8 came out.

I remember installing Aaron when it first came out, and I don't think I ever uninstalled it (though I remember playing around with the Hi-Tech version that Apple's lawyers killed).

That's right! In fact, Aaron was used to provide the Platinum theme on Jeff Goldblum's character's PowerBook in Independence Day.

Oh hell yes! I loved Aaron too.

> Remember all of their one-off, over the top, skeuomorphic apps?

I actually liked those a lot. They were the only things I've seen in my adult life that brought back the sense of fun and whimsy I had when I first used a Mac as a little kid.

Even though I never actually bought one (because I don't like walled gardens), I used to go into the Apple Store often just to play with the skeumorphic apps on the iPad. If iOS wasn't such a walled garden, I probably would have bought an original iPad just to play with those apps at home.

> Anyone else miss WindowShade?

Oddly enough, I've seen it pop up on Linux desktops for ages. It's still part of KDE, and even in 2016 I can shade my windows by double-clicking on the titlebars like God intended.

> > Remember all of their one-off, over the top, skeuomorphic apps?

> I actually liked those a lot.

I also liked them, and I think skeuomorphism is a good idea, generally. And I think iOS's completely anti-skeuomorphic abstraction is a bad idea, generally. And I get why Chrome ate my title bar. But is it a good idea for users to have to learn different UI metaphors for every app? I feel like one of classic MacOS's real strengths was that there was ONE UI and users were really skeptical of any app that broke the rules.

> > Anyone else miss WindowShade?

> Oddly enough, I've seen it pop up on Linux desktops for ages.

If memory serves, that feature originally came from Linux/X-Windows, was added to MacOS as an extension first, and then incorporated in the official OS. (And then discarded)

I'm not an Apple user. One day I had to install or upgrade some software (I don't remember exactly), on a Mac. The instructions said that I had to first start iTunes. That's a program for playing music, right? You can imagine how underwhelmed I was by the UX on this so-called user-friendly platform. Since then, I never felt any urge to switch to or even try out an Apple product.

That's pretty laughable, yes. They also needed Itunes to factory reset an Ipad.

> That's a program for playing music, right?

I wish. That feature is practically abandoned. I use WinAmp to play music. I so wish I was kidding. The iTunes app is horrendous.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com