I bought an iPad yesterday, which is the first Apple product I've ever owned, although I've used a few over the years, especially when they went wrong for non-computer-literate friends. I'm setting it up at the moment, and transferring various bits and pieces off the Thinkpad notebook I've been using for the last 2 or 3 years.
Considering the reputation they have for good design, I'm really surprised at some of the shitey junk in Apple's apps. For example, at the place where I worked way back in the Windows 3 days we used Lotus Notes for our calendar and email. The calendar had this really awful Filofax look, with fake ring-binder clips, and pretend paper and bits of pretend leather for the cover. It was really vile, the worst sort of 'chartjunk', to borrow Tufte's term, and used to get a real hammering in books on good visual design - the same books which often promoted Apple's visual design as a standard - which described this sort of thing as 'overbearing metaphor'. Think of Microsoft Bob <http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html> for another classic example, lest you think I'm merely Apple-bashing. So what do I find when I start setting up my calendar and stuff on the iPad? A calendar with a really awful Filofax look, with fake ring-binder clips, and pretend paper and bits of pretend leather for the cover. It is really vile, the worst sort of chartjunk. They've committed the same crime with their Contacts app, and worst of all is their Newsstand, which has faux woodgrain shelves, believe it or not (not that I want to use it). It's not even ironic post-modernism. Do any of the Apple junkies here know if there's a way to re-skin these apps to something that doesn't look like it was designed by a 13-year-old? Cheers, Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
