Finally, a Mac user who can critique Apple without seeming like he lost his religion.

Thank you Derek

– kenneth durril on 29 October 2007 @ 8pm

I agree with the space theme. It’s going to be the Dalmatian iMac of this go-round.

Yeah, I hate the weird close/minimize/maximize buttons, too, but I actually think they fit better with the new unified windows.

I think the finder windows look fine. I would call them *faded*, and not *light*. They aren’t perfect, no, but I am not bothered by them so much. The drop shadows have gotten a bit excessive, haven’t they?

I find the list view alternating a very good thing for my eyeballs finding things. An off option is a good idea, though, I’ll give you that.

– Phil on 29 October 2007 @ 9pm

You might try switching from Blue to Graphite in the Appearance prefs. This changes the buttons to dark gray and the blue/white to a pale gray/white. As for the finder windows, as long as all the background windows are all faded or all dark, I don’t see a problem. Might be nice if Apple could give you a choice.

Since I use a selection of fairly neutral backgrounds, the Finder bar changes don’t bother me. If the background is fairly busy, I can see where it could be a problem. I actually prefer the sharp corners on the new bar.

The white drop shadows had not even registered until you mentioned it and I looked close. Doesn’t seem to be very noticeable to me. Maybe a difference in monitor/resolution settings?

The dock on the bottom is bad. Since I set mine on the side, not a problem. :-)

I actually like the TM background. I guess if I spent a significant time staring at it I might get bothered. But since I doubt I would ever spend more than 5 minutes looking at it……..

– Jeff on 29 October 2007 @ 10pm

Generally speaking, most of these visual comments are a matter of personal preference. GUI’s by nature should be designed with major visual decisions in place, yet with customizable options al around. Considering Apple’s OS X is as far enough along in its life, one would think “customizable” would be, by now, just another central feature, not a central desire from all who use it.

– John Date on 30 October 2007 @ 7am

I agree with you on almost all of your points (I can’t really see the white drop shadows you’re talking about). I have to disagree on the blue/white alternating backgrounds in list view. This is quite useful when you have a list of names and other file attributes. With a plane white background it’s easy to get lost when your eyes go across the row. This is why accounting paper has the same style of background. Notice that it’s not used in column view, because you only one pice of information on each file (the name).

– John on 30 October 2007 @ 7am

“Finally, a Mac user who can critique Apple without seeming like he lost his religion.”

You make it sound like he’s the ONLY one…

———

I agree with most of your complaints and I’ve already found fixes for some of them myself. I’m sure soon people will start to release hacks as they have always done.

– Weili on 30 October 2007 @ 7am

Yeah, the constant attempt to take these 2D screens and make them seem 3D is a bit much. It’s not a real physical object. Our eyes and bodies already know it.

That said.

There is a way to leave the dock at the bottom and keep the side-like visuals.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007101815375480

– Elan on 30 October 2007 @ 8am

Hmm..think I’ll be waiting till there’s a way to kill some of that stuff.

Here’s a fix for the dock: http://www.jackilyn.com/2007/10/27/how-to-get-rid-of-the-glass-dock-in-leopard/

– andrea on 30 October 2007 @ 9am

I agree on one point, the folders… they feel like they should used in Windows, not on the Mac. Very ugly.

– Tim on 30 October 2007 @ 2pm

To resurrect the rounded corners, the folks behind Butler came up with Displaperture.

http://www.manytricks.com/displaperture/

– Brooks Seymore on 30 October 2007 @ 3pm

One of my least favorite features is the folder implementation in Stacks - the way they change appearance based on their content is INSANE … I agree with you re. the Menubar and Dock - I’ve already hacked both of those and I’ve hacked the startup default desktop so I don’t get the tired Space theme at all - I’m currently looking for a way to hack my folder icons so I can recognize them at a glance, NOT have to spend 10 seconds working out which is which … I’m hoping the under the hood improvements outweigh the superficial cosmetic changes, but this is the first Apple OS I’ve instantly felt I had to hack to make it bearable.

Cheers.

– Crunch McGee on 31 October 2007 @ 4am

I think the foreground background concept is high contrast / low contrast. Rather than make the background windows looks grey and dingy, Apple chose to make them low contrast white with a large foreground window shadow. I actually think leopard is toned down and classier than Tiger. Apple made the menubar transparent just for marketing so windoze switchers would know that Leopard has transparency like Vista (not to mention they had it in 2001). Thank god JObs didn’t bring it back to everything. Vistas transparent bars are hideous.

– George on 31 October 2007 @ 4pm

There was an App I loved for Tiger that would darken everything except the foreground window. On poblem was it screwed up drag and drop. Wish Apple would add such a thing.

– George on 31 October 2007 @ 4pm

Hide the Dock if you don’t want to look at it all the time. :) Also, there’s quite a few third-party Dock replacements cropping up.

– Partners in Grime on 24 November 2007 @ 10am