Leopard: Ready or Not?

There has been some chatter over the last week or so, about the possibility that Apple’s next operating system, Leopard will face another delay. Much of this was sparked after rumor sites reported that Apple sent out a survey to developers, requesting that beta testers the system, give them information as to whether or not the system met the quality standards of Apple’s previous releases. Of course the ensuing debate could be making something out of nothing, but it does highlight some of the concerns that have been expressed both openly and privately about the completeness of 10.5.

The beta release given to developers at WWDC and subsequently through Apple’s developer site is under NDA, so those developers participating in the program cannot speak publicly about the state of development. Of course that hasn’t really stopped anyone. Some have threaded the fine line between adhering to and breaking their non disclosure agreement by only commenting on aspects of the operating system that Apple has already talked about. The main rumor sites have all reported much the same story, that people are finding the beta releases still bug ridden and that developers have expressed concerns that the issues can be resolved in time for an October release. Aside from the bugs however, there have been other serious concerns about Leopard that are not as easy to fix as simple programming glitches.

Quite a large number of people working with the beta have expressed concern, and quite vocally too, over certain aspects of the UI. In particular the Dock , the menu bar and the drop shadow on the active window.

Andrew Escobar on his blog writes about the active window drop shadow:

“Steve Jobs claimed that in Leopard it’s much easier to determine which is the active window. He’s right. It’s the one with the big ass shadow. Every time you switch windows, the screen appears to flash as the shadow moves from one window to the other. This is horribly distracting, and especially slow on my PowerBook G4.”

I have heard other commentary similar to this from others that have used Leopard. Of course the software is still in beta, but sources who wish to remain nameless have questioned the wisdom of showing these features at WWDC as part of the “new features” when they clearly need substantial work. One comment described the drop shadow on the active window as being akin to “something a first year design student would do.”

The new dock has garnered even mote disdain, especially the numerous and distracting drop shadows, the unnecessary reflections and the improper rendering of perspective. All of this is publicly documented on numerous blogs, the most notable being this one from Craig Hockenberry, icon designer for iconfactory.com. Craig points out numerous ways the new dock conflicts with Apple’s own human interface guidelines. He makes some very good points, particularly:

“Hundreds of designers have been producing icons for tens of thousands of applications by following the Human Interface Guidelines. Changes to the Dock should respect these guidelines since changing existing artwork is not an option on such a large scale.”

There is also considerable concern as to what happens when the dock is moved from its default position at the bottom of the screen. When the “top secret features” were first announced at this years WWDC, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber had this to say about the dock:

“The new look for the Dock doesn’t make much sense for any position other than at the bottom. The lighting and “fake 3D sitting on a tray” visual effect look like crap with the Dock on the side. During the keynote, Jobs said that it looks great on the side, but he only put it up on the left for about a second before snapping it back to the bottom.”

More recently Rory Prior of think mac software posts his own rendition of how the dock could look to “suck less”.

People are clearly not happy with the user interface “enhancements” in Leopard. I think much of this stems from Apple’s normally minimalist design aesthetics. While Apple has, in the past gained much criticism for implementing visual eye candy, most of the time their animations and effects are giving some visual clue as to what is happening. In Leopard however, at least from what has already been shown, many of the effects are superfluous and even distracting. You get the impression (and it’s just that, an impression – I have no inside information) that Apple management, i.e. Steve Jobs was so distracted with iPhone development that they let numerous things slip by in Leopard that would never have made it this far in the development cycle other wise. Nothing demonstrates this superfluousness more than the transparent menu bar.

My own first impressions of Leopards menu bar were “What the hell were they thinking?” It is clearly a knee jerk reaction to transparancy effects in Vista, and serves no useful purpose whatsoever. The argument for the design put forward by Jobs at WWDC that it was to alow you to see all your desktop picture is rediculous. I find it hard to believe that anyone cared that much about the tiny part of their desktop picture that was being covered by the menu bar. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was an option, but apparently it isn’t, and I’m not alone in my opinion. David Chartier writing for the Unofficial Apple Web Log describes the new menu bar as “hideous”. Michael Tsai, developer of Spam Seive describes it thusly:

“The transparent menu bar is insane. If you had asked me a couple years ago whether this or the gratuitous Dock reflections were Leopard or Vista features, I would have guessed Vista.”

Someone has already written a utility to disable it.

There are certainly some fantastic technologies under the hood in Leopard, but one can’t help but wonder if, in their quest to make it more exciting for the ordinary user, Apple broke the cardinal rule of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Now that the iPhone is out I hope the management at Apple take the time to fix the great big UI mess that is the current build of Leopard. I know the Apple faithful will deride me for such anti apple comments, and normally I would be one of those people (I even defended it shortly after WWDC), but everything I’ve seen of Leopard from a UI point of view makes it the most un-apple release in the company’s history. I understand that the current build is just a beta and it is unfair to judge the final release on those grounds, but because Jobs showed off these interface elements as “features’ of the new OS, it will be very hard for them to back track on them. I for one hope that the rumors of a delay are true. I would much rather the development team at apple got it right rather than release it in its current form. I won’t however hold my breath.