Fear Not the Keyboard

The Macalope:

While everyone knows the keyboard is based on the MacBook’s, no one seems to have realized that if they wanted to “try out that new keyboard,” all they had to do is sashay over to a MacBook and give it a whirl. It’s not based on it, it’s exactly the same. Sure, it’s in a different form factor, but the touch of the keys is identical and that’s really what people mean when they say they want to “try out.”

Oh well. It looks nice, but I don’t particularly like the feel of the MacBook keyboard, and the spaces between the keys drive me crazy.

iPhoto 7

• Why are the Flagged and Trash sources inside Recent?
• Event reflections are off by default—which I guess is almost as good as not having them in the first place.
• As with previous versions, the Preferences window looks like a normal window but is actually application-modal.
• The Web site is horrid. Each “tab” has the same page URL but with a different fragment.
• Why do iLife apps have their toolbars at the bottom of the window? The whole “Show in Toolbar” submenu would be unnecessary if it simply used a standard toolbar. Perhaps there’s an unwritten guideline that contextual toolbars go at the bottom of the window, but this doesn’t seem very well thought out to me. Plus, iWeb’s toolbar is at the bottom, but as far as I can tell it isn’t contextual.

Evil Google Video DRM

Jesper:

Google kills purchased Google Video scheme and throws all purchased videos to the wind. For everyone. Paul Thurrott nails it: “This is, of course, the nightmare of DRM come to life. Even content that you “purchase” (i.e. not rented content) isn’t actually owned by you and it can be taken away.”

Redesigning the Leopard Dock

Rory Prior:

From Apple’s products you generally get the idea that they understand the concept of ‘less is more’, just look at the iPhone with its super elegant, simple interface or the iMac or any of their other minimalist designs. Yet the Leopard dock shows none of this design subtly or elegance, trading it in for crass visual effects. So perturbed was I, that I decided to have a go at redesigning the dock.

Looks good to me. Also see the comments about the Numbers icon and one-dimensional zoom boxes.

Dock Mac Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard