From the desk of Alasdair Monk

The iOSification of OSX

Off the back of the preview of OSX Mountain Lion there's been a lot of talk, mostly condeming, the direction Apple is taking with the aesthetic of apps.

Clearly directly influenced by their work on the interfaces of both the iPad and iPhone, OSX Mountain Lion sports Notes that look like Notes (complete with torn paper effect), Tweets with paper clips holding 'attached' images and a Game Center that looks like a poker board.

It's all looking a lot more kitsch and very less sleek than the original OSX we all know and love. The majority of designers I know berate the 'toy' look that Apple seems to be leaning towards, and would much rather see them adopting a more sober, professional palette. Personally, I sit on the fence a bit here. I don't really mind the playfulness of it all but when the skeumorphism of an interface gets in the way of what I want to do, or the usefulness of the app, then clearly things have gone too far.

But what I think about it isn't really that important (- this is the last time I will ever say this sentence so cherish it).

My point is, that Apple have never really coveted the 'power user' not really. They fell in with that crowd because they make products that are stable, useable and beautiful. But they don't want to be the sober, boring, functional tool only used by designers and developers. They've always relied heavily on metaphor-heavy interfaces, lets take a look at Mac OS 1:

It wasn't the first operating system to employ the 'desktop' metaphor, but it was arguably the first to go commercial with it. On my 'desktop' there's 'folders', a 'trash bin', 'windows'… the list goes on. My heavy use of inverted commas around terms that are so common in our techno-terminology today just shows how these kitsch metaphors have totally penetrated the way we think about using computers. Metaphors help us understand without having to be 'taught' how to use something.

The calculator on my iPhone looks just like a calculator, so I know immediately how to use it, because I am like the fucking master of using a calculator. The same goes for the 'calendar' feel of iCal and the somewhat tacky yellow paper used in Notes.

For those of a discerning nature, these things might not please your minimal tastes, but they help the vast majority of users understand, and as we've already established, this is who Apple want to please, not us on the fringes.

My guess is that people are worried about Apple going whole hog and that in four years time we'll be looking at an OS that reminiscent of the Windows XP 'clown orgy' guidelines of "use as many disgusting colours and terrible layouts everywhere". There's one major difference though, and it's that Apple can still design where Microsoft, generally, cannot (although, their latest work, is looking awesome).

If Apple could have slapped on linen textures, shadows and 3D buttons on Mac OS 1, they definitely would have done. We need not be afraid.

Now read How to build an iPad from scratch