[ubuntu-art] Moving things forwards.
Andrew Laignel
a.laignel at ukdotcafe.com
Thu Jan 3 12:50:01 GMT 2008
Troy James Sobotka wrote:
> Am I reading this?
>
> OSX has for the longest time held away _many_ users because their
> audience has been so clearly stated time and time again. It has
> just recently begun to pay extreme dividends on their unflinching
> dedication to that audience. And yes -- people _LOVE_ Apple and
> people _HATE_ them.
>
There audiance seems to be stated as people who don't want to spend time
messing around with the computer - people who just want to 'get stuff
done'. If you want a desktop you can tweak to your hearts content OSX
is not for you.
> It is _not_ colour neutral. It is _not_ 'musak' as you so seem
> willing to flog. It is a complete campaign based around Time
> Machine from the ground up. Everything - every single little
> detail regarding art and presentation around Leopard is
> centred around it.
>
To be honest I've not used a mac for a while so I am unsure what you
mean by the association with time machine, but the original Aqua theme
was a bit overly stylised and some criticised it for being too
childish. They then rolled out the brush metal effect, which
subsequently got toned down to the current incarnation which is subtle
greys, blacks, whites and blues. Over the years since the original
launch of OSX you can see a clear process of refinement in the GUI.
Aqua is one of my favorite themes in use today and it looks incredibly
stylish. Maybe it was a bad example but I can see no reason for anyone
to call it 'horrible' as it is designed to be neutral.
> J. Ive vaulted into the role of ye-who-can-do-no-wrong by modelling
> the coloured iMacs after gummy drops. He even went on a research
> tour to round out his knowledge.
>
There was multiple choices, this would be the equivelant to allowing the
choosing of a theme on install. If there was only one choice of iMac
you can bet it wouldn't be the 'Flower Power' version. Most of Apples
other products afterwards have adhered to the 'any colour as long as its
white' method.
> Please, do a little research. Apple does not make musak. As anyone
> would tell you, I am the furthest thing away from an Apple fanboy,
> but they treat art / design / sound / etc. with the respect, knowledge,
> and training it deserves.
>
> Sincerely,
> TJS
>
Hey, I was only saying that votes are valuable in so far as to find out
what not to do and finding out what people hate is important. Neutral
doesn't have to be bland or lacking in style, it just needs to avoid
polarizing people.
As an example look at the Fiat Multipla. It's so horrible I think I
would even refuse to get in one. Yet it made it all the way from
concept to large scale manufacture so someone must have liked it. Yet I
am sure a large amount of people (myself included) would never, ever,
buy one. If your only tallying yes votes you wouldn't really see the
negative reaction of the people who'd rather scratch their own eyes out.
Anyway I was only pointing out the problems of doing a 'yes only' voting
method.
Car in question...
http://www.channel4.com/4car/media/100-greatest/03-large/40-fiat-multipla.jpg
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