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austinsarner@mac.com
First off, do you think developers are going to embrace Core animation (given that doing so would possibly break the backwards compatibility)? I know the TextMate developers have said they plan to drop support for 10.4 in the next version to take advantage of CA (well the text rendering portion anyway, any plans for your software?
Overall I do think that developers will be embracing Core Animation over time. Like you said, deciding to do so will make your application Leopard only, so I see it being something that will happen after the bulk of the shareware audience migrates. As for me, there isn't any specific feature in any of my apps that could rely on Core Animation for a drastic upgrade. However, once a bulk of my user base has migrated I will consider enhancing existing animations and other graphics with it.
Is core animation more than just eyecandy? In other words does it provide a way to improve the user experience, whether through better UIs or speed boosts etc?
Core Animation is definitely more than eye candy. Animation in general creates continuity and more direct feedback to a user experience. For instance, when you select an item in the AppleTV, your selection glides into place as opposed to immediately snapping to the next item. Midway through the split second animation, you can neatly cancel out and go in the other direction. In addition to obvious graphical speed boosts, the elegance it can add to a UI is pretty substantial in my opinion.
From the demo video available on the Apple site it would seem that the new tools enable an almost windowless environment, is that true?
While I can't really comment on the actual inner workings of the framework, it seems that with Front Row and Time Machine Apple has opened up to the idea of completely modal experiences when used correctly.
Do you think Apple plans to move away from windows as a metaphor for the workspace?
Definitely not. I think that in some cases a windowless environment makes sense -- when changing the content of all windows on screen (Time Machine) or browsing through a media library from a distance (Front Row), for instance.
And as an extension of the last question, with Apple moving into more devices which run largely windowless UIs (i.e. Apple TV, iPhone) is the windowed application a thing of the past?
I think that windows still have a place in the desktop environment, while more focused devices like those require modal user experiences.
Jobs talked briefly last night at D about the various iPhone UI limitations: no mouse, no pull-down menus and so forth. While those are constraints in the case of the iPhone do you think Apple might be looking to turn them into strengths on the desktop platform?
Again, I do think that the reason a minimal UI like that works on a device like the iPhone is because of the device itself. It's relatively small and when you open it up you generally will want to either make a call, check your email, or do another very specific task. The desktop environment, on the other hand, is entirely about multi tasking.
Is there a new UI paradigm on the horizen and if so what do you think it would look like?
I wouldn't be surprised to see an evolution in consumer software that stresses a more real world style for applications. Garageband, for instance, is a great example of an app that takes the standard interface to the next level by creating a more innovative experience through the UI.
Regards
Sofa: Design, Interfaces and Software - madebysofa.com
Rozengracht 241-1 1016 SX Amsterdam
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Wil Shippley
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First off, do you think developers are going to embrace Core animation (given that doing so would possibly break the backwards compatibility)? I know the TextMate developers have said they plan to drop support for 10.4 in the next version to take advantage of CA, any plans for Delicious Monster?
Yes, Delicious Library 2 is based entirely around CoreAnimation and other key Leopard technologies, so our customers are going to have to upgrade their OS if they want to upgrade our program. We had originally planned to make DL2 10.4-based, and worked for a year and a half on that version, but in August of '06 we learned more about Leopard and where it is going, and we simply couldn't say no any longer. We realized any app we released based on Tiger was going to look really pathetic when Leopard came out.
Is core animation more than just eyecandy? In other words does it provide a way to improve the user experience, whether through better UIs or speed boosts etc?
Absolutely... every time you give developers a chance to do better graphics with less code, you're going to see another revolution in user experience. The revolution coming with CoreAnimation is akin to the one that came from the original Mac in 1984 -- the Mac said "here's a relatively easy way to add graphics to your user interface" and CoreAnimation says, "Here's a very easy way to add composited layers and motion to your interface."
The Core animation changes are quite significant and open up some interface possibilities that would have previously been a lot of work... Time Machine for instance has a pretty amazing interface which, from what I understand, is made possible by the new Core animation tools.
I can't speculate on how Time Machine was written, but it's true that we're going to see a whole new world of user interface metaphors with CoreAnimation. For me, the original Cocoa was about making it really easy to me to construct an interface with sliders and textfields and buttons -- standard widgets. So we saw a whole generation of applications (for NeXTstep, and then later for Mac OS X) that had pretty decent interfaces, because they all used the same widgets and the widgets were pretty and functional.
What we'll see with CoreAnimation is a move away from widgets and into direct manipulation. In Delicious Library 2, we're conveying much more information directly on our bookshelf view, instead of using textfields and the like, and similarly we're allowing the user to interact more directly with the books on the shelf, instead of just looking at them and then pressing buttons on another part of a screen to change them.
Sure, we'll see some pure "eyecandy" applications that kind of abuse CoreAnimation, but we'll also see more of what are coming to be called the "Delicious Generation" of applications (not a term I coined!), where the entire application is designed from the start to be beautiful and fun while solving whatever problem it solves.
From the demo video available on the Apple site it would seem that the new tools enable an almost windowless environment, is that true?
One thing to remember about CoreAnimation, or any 'enabling' technology, is that any developer could do all the same effects herself, given enough time and motivation. It's not that CoreAnimation taps into some magic graphics processor that we didn't know about before, it just makes it extremely easy to use the existing graphics processor in the most efficient way. Which means we get to spend more time making cool interfaces because we are spending less time trying to get, like, anything to draw at all.
Do you think Apple plans to move away from windows as a metaphor for the workspace?
I am very, very hesitant to speculate on future directions, because people often assume developers have some secret "red phone" where Steve calls us and says, "Hey, Wil, we're going to dump windows as a metaphor in two years, you down with that? Oh, also, did you get those iPhones I sent you?"
In truth, we wait for the same announcements as everyone else... and I have to wait for my damn iPhone. Which, believe me, is cruelty itself.
And as an extension of the last question, with Apple moving into more devices which run largely windowless UIs (i.e. Apple TV, iPhone) is the windowed application a thing of the past?
I personally think that full-screen applications are becoming more important (especially for Apple) as we see more special-purpose devices -- the Apple TV is supposed to a neat way to watch your shows, the iPhone is too damn small to support windows -- but there will always be a need for windowed applications. Humans are inherently multi-tasking creatures.
I'm old enough to remember a lot of the early experiments with graphical user interfaces, before the world standardized on the Macintosh model. It's funny to remember all the varieties of metaphors that were attempted back then (eg, the Andrew Window System from CMU had a "tiled" interface, where windows never could overlap, but instead automatically resized themselves to perfectly fill the screen, and Microsoft Windows used to have windows inside of windows for applications), but I think they all died out for good reasons.
Jobs talked briefly last night at D about the various iPhone UI limitations: no mouse, no pull-down menus and so forth. While those are constraints in the case of the iPhone do you think Apple might be looking to turn them into strengths on the desktop platform?
Fundamentally it hurts my arms to hold them up to the screen, and I have enough trouble keeping my screen clean as it is, so I don't think I really want a touch-screen computer. I haven't seen the iPhone up-close, but I absolutely think some of the creative solutions Apple has come up with in terms of directly manipulating items on the screen (instead of using widgets) are going to carry over and inspire the Delicious Generation of applications.
Is there a new UI paradigm on the horizon and if so what do you think it would look like?
I think the paradigm is direct manipulation -- just grab your document and "throw" it upwards to get it to scroll, for example, instead of fumbling about for the scroller.
Do you think users are ready to abandon the dominant metaphor of desktop UIs?
I don't think we'll abandon the old way as much as supplement our armory with a whole new arsenal of tools. It's an awesome time to be a Mac developer, and, by extension, a Mac user.
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