Lifeless Grey

It might just be me, but isn't the new Mac OS X Leopard just a bit to grayish? - I might even go so far as to call it lifeless grey...

There are no wonderful design details. It is just plain square boxes, with a plain grey window color. There is no life or visual energy - the very thing that thrills every creative person's inner imagination?

What did Steve do to the graphic team? I feel uninspired... using a Mac!

Compare the graphical richness Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista - and Windows looks a lot cooler (high-quality icons, live thumbnails etc.).

Comments

Blaise Kal - Nov. 3, 2007

You' re absolutely right. Vista looks a lot prettier and has awesome icons, graphics, and visual effects. Leopard is very gray and boring.

But despite its grayness, I prefer Leopard. It has a more uniform design/look across applications.

Vista is a bit too chaotic, and applications often use their own skins and icons which don't fit in he theme.

Thomas Baekdal - Nov. 3, 2007

I am not saying Vista looks pretty :o)

But, the grayish look in Leopard is just too boring.

Arpit Jacob - Nov. 4, 2007

yeah even I wondered about it. I don't mind the greyness but they could have definitely come up better Icons for 10.5. And yes Vista is as prettier as a Mac people don't want to admit it ;)

Toke R E - Nov. 5, 2007

It seems to me the strategy in the Leopard look is to deemphasize menus, folder listings and windows as prominent elements so as to give room for the new UI elements that now really shine. I am thinking of the Dock, the Coverflow view and the Quicklook function in conjunction with Expose, Spaces and other dynamic UI features.

When you begin to use these things, the Leopard experience is far from bland and gray - its colourful and dynamic on a stylish neutral background.

Michael Mahemoff - Nov. 5, 2007

Hey this is Apple we're talking about, ergo it *must* be cooler than windows. Less visuals on a PC make it bland and lifeless. Less visuals on a Mac are elegant and minimalist, m'kay?

And we'll let them off on DRM and iphone locking too please. This is Apple we're talking about.

Myles Braithwaite - Nov. 5, 2007

I have actually been finding that the grey is making me want to design even more.

Martin Bekkelund - Nov. 6, 2007

I can't really disagree. However, I think that you've found the least exciting screenshots that's possible to create.

Leopard's new Quick Look shows you the content directly in the Finder, and is as well as exciting as Vista's psychidelic colors:

Have a look at a random folder and my desktop:

http://filer.bekkelund.net/bilder/martins_desktop.png

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Paul - Nov. 11, 2007

I just reverted from Leopard to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, which is stable and clean.

I will wait at least a year in order to upgrade to Leopard. The OS itself was not bad despite the glitches. What I could not bear was seeing my famiiar applications misbehave.

Wendy - Nov. 11, 2007

According to your screen shot, okay I admit that it's gray. However, how about Coverflow, Quick Look, Front Row or Widget for Leopard; they are not 'gray'.

Bobby - Nov. 11, 2007

What...EVER.

Honestly, to me using the mac is about the functionality. I like that it Just Works. Thus far, I've not had any major problems (and I do tend to put a hurtin' on my machines), and I'm happy as a clam. I honestly believe that the operating system should, well, operate, and get out of my way and let me work, and Leopard does that amazingly well. The new features are well worth it (spaces, stacks and Time Machine in particular, and the todo/note features in mail, well, worth their weight in gold to me) so hey...I'm not complaining. I've never been a huge eye-candy maven, and while I tend to think in terms of "What does it do for me?", I actually kind of prefer the new look. It's more uniform, and a lot more consistent, IMHO.

however...one thing really irritates me, and that's the ad-hoc decision to make network mounts all upper case, and to make them really difficult to find the side-bar. Ay-carumba...way to mess with my network mojo!

Bobby - Nov. 11, 2007

Oh yeah...

You don't seriously expect me to believe that you actually RELY upon your mac for inspiration do you? That would be really...well I don't know what to say about that. You're an interaction designer, ok I get that...but don't let this opportunity slide past you! Take initiative and hey, design new interactions based on this lack of inspiration! What's it not doing for you, and why? Solve these problems! I would view this as a golden opportunity!

Just a thought...

Thomas Baekdal - Nov. 12, 2007

I guess it just reminds of working with Mac OS 9. When Mac OS X was introduced they revolutionized the interface. They moved away from the light grey, zero-effect interfaces and for the first time in years you could say that there was one system on the planet that actually looked good - and that was the Mac OS X.

Leopard reminds me of the non-interface design days of Mac OS 9.

Don't get me wrong - I like Mac - why do you think I got one? But come on, Apple is supposed to be the top design company on the planet

Visitor - Nov. 18, 2007

I think Leopard should be "plain".

One of the original design considerations of the Mac operation system was to "Get Out Of The Way". Meaning get out of the way and let the user spent their time creating great work. This is a different user experience then Windows which seems to demand the user's attention just to get anything done...