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Forbidden romance?
Why are electronically published romance novels not receiving the blessings of the traditional steamy-fiction industry?
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[09/27/99]

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A WORM IN
THE A P P L E ?

Quicktime 4.0 is like nothing you've ever seen on a Mac. Has Apple broken its intuitive user interface?

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By Daniel Drew Turner

Sept. 30, 1999

Everyone knows that Mac users are interface snobs, and Apple lives off it. Platform patriots may bandy arguments over speed, stability and performance, but there's little doubt that Apple's Macintosh operating system, with nearly 20 years of well-researched Human Interface Guidelines, sets the standard for ease of use. It's this one thing -- an intuitive, consistent and friendly interface -- that keeps the Mac faithful, well, faithful in the face of PC users' constant taunts of cheaper prices, abundant software and a few grim years in Cupertino.

Now, in a successful bid to shore up its ebbing market share, Apple is moving aggressively into the consumer market, pushing candy-colored iMacs and clamshell iBooks to people who may never have known the comfort of booting up a computer and being greeted by a smiling Mac icon. But will those enticed by the luscious casings be happy with what they find on screen?

Maybe. Or maybe not. This year, Apple made its first recognizable break with the tenets of its own Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), which have for two decades been the guiding light of the company's operating system. As a result, the intuitive interface -- long Apple's strongest selling point -- has been compromised.

It began with the April 20 release of a preview of QuickTime 4.0, a significant technology update to Apple's multimedia player. Accompanying that update, however, was a makeover that violated almost every one of the company's guidelines. Not only has QuickTime 4.0 (QT4) lost the look and feel common to every other element of the Mac OS, it "breaks" if you try to apply to it the same user behaviors that have long been cultivated by the operating system, such as clicking on the upper-right-hand corner of a window to collapse it. And this crack in Apple's interface foundation is spreading: Upcoming Apple applications -- including the video editor Final Cut Pro and Sherlock 2, the next iteration of the Mac OS "Find" function -- are saddled with similar, and arguably damaged, interfaces.

Response has been overwhelmingly negative from developers and users. Online bulletin boards, like the Mac the Knife forums, have been flooded with complaints. A dissatisfied user named John Christie posted a Fix QuickTime page, noting that the new QuickTime "has an absolutely terrible interface." QT4 has even been inducted into the Interface Hall of Shame: "The new interface represents an almost violent departure from the long established standards that have been the hallmark of Apple software," says the Hall of Shame review, posted by Isys Information Architects, an interface design firm. "Ease of Use has always been paramount to Apple, but after exploring the QuickTime 4.0 Player, the rationale behind Apple's recent 'Think Different' advertising campaign is now clear."

If this new design philosophy proves to be a cuckoo, spreading and breaking the successful unity of the Mac OS, it could break Apple. After all, as some have said, if you want a poor imitation of the Mac, you might as well use Windows -- at least you get the newest games that way.

Next page | What did they do to the control buttons?