See the cat? See the stripes?
Remember back to the public beta, and 10.1 and 10.2. Lots of stripes. Remember before the Finder used brushed metal? Remember how even title bars had stripes—and how the stripes everywhere were very pronounced?
At the time, of course, OS X got high marks for the beauty of its interface.
The reduction of the stripes and gratuitous transparency are, to me, among the most important changes that Apple has made to the OS. As with some of the other OS X improvements between the public beta and 10.4, celebrating this is kind of like thanking the bully for not beating you up anymore. It doesn’t really make sense, but you’re so happy that the bruises are healing.
Although I remember some vague claims years ago that the stripes made Aqua easier to use, I never believed them, and I think a true study would find the opposite. I know that OS X doesn’t tire my eyes out the way it used to. But, at one time, Aqua was the stripes, and we were told things like this:
The proper appearance for window backgrounds on Mac OS X is the pinstriping. Failure to adhere to this means your product won’t be a full class citizen from an appearance point of view, not to mention the fact that Aqua interface elements (buttons, checkboxes, etc.) were designed specifically to exist on an striped background and don’t look right on other backgrounds (including white).
—John Geleynse, Apple User Experience Technology Manager, 2001-05-18 message to the now-defunct Apple Human Interface Developers mailing list
My theory is that the stripes were a gimmick to encourage carbonization by making Classic applications look “bad.” Now that most people no longer use Classic, and Jonathan Ive is into solid-colored hardware, the stripes no longer serve any purpose.
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Also note that Geleynse is ESL (French first), and you have to give his tone a little leeway for that reason.
Thanks for the info. Your explanation for how the controls could be designed for a striped background is the best that I've heard. It makes sense that perhaps that's what he meant. However, although the problem you mention did exist, I don't recall that it was the subject of much discussion on the list, and it was not mentioned in the thread with this message. Another poster read Geleynse's comment the way I did, and asked how it could be true; but it was never clarified.
Apple employees, at least those in system software, don't get bonus points for being forthcoming with information. :) You're expected to take it as gospel, and they don't have to explain why.
They wouldn't put it like that, of course. I've been in similar positions, and I've done the same sort of thing. It's an unwritten guideline inherent in the culture.
Of course, this is an attitude/culture grounded in the old patriarchial version of one-way corporate benevolence. If the Cluetrain Manifesto has any merit (I think it does), the Apple way of dealing with outsiders is very outmoded. Sooner or later, I think they'll realize that they can have both conversation and secrecy; it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.
Brent on capsules.
No, it wasn't a conspiracy to make classic look bad -- classic looks "bad" enough on it's own in contrast to any variant of Aqua. The stripes were there to imitate the hardware bezels of the time (as you know), and I can confirm they were there only for that reason.
They actually tried to get rid of the stripes entirely during Jaguar, but too many apps had used their own striped background graphics without going through the Appearance Manager (or the appropriate Cocoa NSColors). So, instead, for Panther, they simply toned the stripes down.
Geleynse was trying to encourage adoption of the standard appearance conventions in that message. It's important to remember that Carbon didn't have compositing at that point, and controls on the wrong backgrounds would sometimes actually end up with a small patch of stripes behind them, surrounded by whatever color background the developer had chosen.