Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007

Apple Universe Episode #35- Should Apple have used Cover Flow in iPhoto '08?

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Apple has released another iPhone ad unofficially titled either "All These Years" or "How?" I say 'unofficially' titled because it hasn't appeared at Apple's iPhone ads page as of this writing yet, but a copy is already on YouTube. This time around, Apple's giving a shout out to the business users, asking how they could have gone all these years without "email like this" or "stock updates like this" in their pocket. Personally, I'm glad they wrote the ad this way, because I would probably have spit out my beer if the voiceover would have said "without email like this... in your pants."

But seriously: I worry about how well this particular ad is going to do. The iPhone is receiving a lot of criticism from the business sector, much of it understandable, for not working with Exchange Servers. While I don't wear a suit to work every day (or pretty much any day), word on the street is that Exchange support is the major hurdle keeping the iPhone from storming corporate purchase receipts. If the iPhone is primarily targeted at consumers, that's great. But if Apple wants to truly go after business users, they need to play by that industry's rules and offer the software support those folks need.

That said, it is a bold ad that certainly highlights the iPhone's gorgeous UI in a business setting. I'll update this post with a link once Apple publishes the official ad.



TUAW reader o!ivier has posted a mockup to his Flickr account of how he believes the iPhoto '08 Events UI should have been designed. Seeing it as a more natural evolution of what Apple is doing with Mac OS X and their apps (iTunes, Finder in Leopard, etc.), o!ivier believes Apple should have built in Cover Flow for browsing events instead of the new 'skimming' UI, where users run their mouse over resizable thumbnails to see all the photos contained in the event scroll by. Instead, this Cover Flow mockup proposes the idea of scrolling left and right through Events just like you scroll through albums in iTunes. Clicking an event produces thumbnails of all the images laid out in the area below, which can then be resized independently from the Cover Flow area.

I rarely prefer design mockups like this over what Apple produces, but I have to admit: I think Apple dropped the ball here. O!ivier's mockup looks far more useful, as you can browse through Events and view resizable thumbnails of all the photos they contain without leaving the Events UI. Don't get me wrong, skimming is cute, but Cover Flow + iPhoto looks like it would look just as slick but provide a far more useful working environment.

Who knows - Maybe Apple just wants to wait for users to get used to Cover Flow in Leopard's Finder. After all, they need to give us at least a few reasons to upgrade to iLife '09, right?

Yet another minor Apple product announcement that made it under our radar was a new Jam Pack for GarageBand: Voices. No, it isn't samples of Britney Spears, John Mayer and Adam Duritz - it's a collection of over 1,500 new instruments that fall under the categories of Drum and Percussion Instruments, Choral Ensembles, and Soloists. The focus, of course, is on filling up your tool belt with samples of professional instrumental soloists and choirs covering a wide variety of genres and styles.

Apple mailed out a survey link for ADC developers asking for feedback on the current Leopard seed (9A499).

The survey is actually asking developers for a comparison between Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and the shipping version of Mac OS X Tiger (10.4):
This survey is intended to allow you to compare your experiences using Mac OS X Leopard Build 9A499 and a shipping version of Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.x). Please rate all the areas that you have used in 9A499.

The survey provides comparison choices of

- Much Worse
- Somewhat worse
- About the same
- Somewhat better
- Much better

on a wide range of Mac OS X tools and features. The described areas of comparison are broken down into Mail & Web, Graphics & Media, Setup & Mobility, Desktop & Interface, Productivity & Communication, and Sharing & Devices.

You must be an ADC developer to participate in the survey (verified by email).

Apple is expected to ship the final version of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) in October.

Posted by Daniel Brusilovsky at 9:26 PM |  2 comments  

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2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Your podcast is really, really good! I added it to phonecaster.de so that I can listen to it in Germany by calling a landline number when I'm outside. (Unfortunately data plans are still very expensive in Germany - without volume tarife you've got to pay about 10 bucks for one Megabyte Traffic)

I saw you interviewed at the ScobleShow. Unbelivable how well you're informed in tech and everything around it!

Best regards from Germany

Markus

7:57 PM
Daniel Brusilovsky said...

Thank you very much Markus!

8:25 AM

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