Comments on: iPhone Black == Brushed Metal?

By: Geff

Geff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:57:02 +0000

I read a lot ok my iPhone and I find my eyes feel less strain/ pressure from black background and white text (like in the bloomberg and twitterific app) then in say mail and netnewswire.

Other than that I normally second the consistency argument (until a better one comes along…:-) )

By: Geff

Geff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:57:00 +0000

I read a lot ok my iPhone and I find my eyes feel less strain/ pressure from black background and white text (like in the bloomberg and twitterific app) then in say mail and netnewswire.

Other than that I normally second the consistency argument (until a better one comes along…:-) )

By: Corporation Unknown » iPhone SDK NDA Lifted!

Corporation Unknown » iPhone SDK NDA Lifted! — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:25:50 +0000

[...] be hearing that news from this blog first, but I do want to acknowledge and take advantage of it. My last post felt a bit vague, even to me, about my definition of “iPhone black” and that was partly [...]

By: Apple and “Cinematic Experiences” « Shebanation

Apple and “Cinematic Experiences” « Shebanation — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:33:40 +0000

[...] An interesting discussion is going on about the “iPhone Black” UI over at Paul Goracke’s Corporation Unknown blog. The post itself is really about how the current trend to ‘all-black’ iPhone apps is a lot like [...]

By: JB

JB — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:50:56 +0000

At WWDC, I was in many 1:1s with designers, and every single one pushed me to get more daring with the designs. They told my friend the HIG is for people that don’t know how to design.

This was all strange to hear from Apple, and a little hard to swallow. But there you go — Apple is actively pushing to reduce consistency, and to increase, as they told me “cinematic software experiences”.

By: JB

JB — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:50:00 +0000

At WWDC, I was in many 1:1s with designers, and every single one pushed me to get more daring with the designs. They told my friend the HIG is for people that don’t know how to design.

By: Scott Stevenson

Scott Stevenson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:24:02 +0000

In my experience, if you try to determine a specific set of rules for every UI convention, you’ll find yourself lost down the rabbit hole. I think this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for UI in the classic engineering approach: there isn’t always a series of logical decisions to arrive at the destination.

Your example of interior design is a great way to illustrate this. The idea of “mood lighting” doesn’t always lead you to the most practical results in terms of visibility, but it does succeed in creating an experience. In a lot of cases, that’s what the developer is looking to do and that’s what the user reacts to.

Chris W’s comment above mentions that that Weather and Stocks are “unnecessarily” different (and you address these as immersive), but I think it’s a mistake to assume consumers want everything to be as uniform and structured as possible. In fact, that can lead to a very monotonous experience. It’s a delicate balancing act between chaos and stagnation.

I agree with you that developers often use UI conventions in contexts that don’t fit well, but that’s nothing new and will continue to be the case whenever they don’t have the the funds for or availability of a dedicated designer.

By: Scott Stevenson

Scott Stevenson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:24:00 +0000

By: Steven Fisher

Steven Fisher — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:07:34 +0000

I viewed brushed metal as a signal that an application was database or external resource-based rather than “real world.” Address Book, Safari and Mail were obviously brushed metal apps to me. Apple seemed to be moving toward this for a while (I came up with this theory before Mail became metal, and predicted it would go metal). Logically, System Preferences and most of Utilities should have been metal, too. But then rather than clarify the rule, they dropped brushed metal.

I can’t say I was disappointed: I didn’t like brushed metal much. But there was a pattern to it, it just seemed Apple didn’t understand what the pattern really was.

By: Steven Fisher

Steven Fisher — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:07:00 +0000

I can’t say I was disappointed: I didn’t like brushed metal much. But there was a pattern to it, it just seemed Apple didn’t understand what the pattern really was.