Paul Kafasis:
20 years ago today, on March 3, 2003, Rogue Amoeba released Audio Hijack Pro 1.0. This was a crucial event in the company’s history, as sales grew a much higher level, taking Rogue Amoeba from a hobby to a viable business.
On this anniversary, it seems fitting for us to unveil something else special: the Rogue Amoeba Historic Screenshot Archive. It’s an in-depth collection of images and information about key versions from our 20+ years in business, and we think it’s well worth a look.
This is really cool.
Previously:
Update (2023-03-08): Rui Carmo:
Although we blame the web and shitty Electron apps for the recent downturn in overall computer usability, it is sobering to go over these screenshots and notice that the erosion of clarity and usability on the Mac actually started with Apple itself as it progressively sanded down the macOS UI into featureless rounded rectangles laden with ambiguous text that (lacking affordances) might or might not be buttons and drop-downs.
John Gruber:
I really miss UI design that made controls obvious. Clear affordances. All buttons obviously buttons, all text input fields obviously text input fields. Pop-up menus that are obviously pop-up menus (today’s MacOS 13 is chock full of pop-up menus that only reveal themselves as pop-ups when you hover over them). 20 years ago we bent over backwards to make the purpose of every control as obvious as possible; the style today is to make everything look like flat static text.
Depth and texture in UI are good things. Our displays have never been better suited to displaying color and fine detail, but our UI themes today look like they were designed for output on a crummy old laser printer or something.
Update (2023-03-14): Cory Birdsong:
Taking extremely busy UIs and making them cleaner and less obtrusive often ends up in a decent-ish place, but the mistake is not keeping in mind that the goal should be clarity, not indiscriminately stripping out every bit of visual noise.
The shiny aqua style makes the active control here a little hard to read, but when glancing at the new style you might not even notice there's an active control[…]
Anniversary Audio Audio Hijack Pro Design History Mac Mac App macOS 13 Ventura Rogue Amoeba Screenshots
Sophia Teutschler:
The source code for CoverSutra is now available on GitHub.
This was a great app back in the day. So many of these talented indie developers ended up working at Apple.
Via Dave Verwer:
Sophia Teutschler has been open-sourcing her old apps (Tipulator, CoverSutra, and Groceries) recently[…] None of Sophia’s apps is exactly ten years old, but they’re certainly of that era, and it struck me how much things have changed as I browsed the repositories.
It’s got Objective-C properties with manual reference counting, NS_DURING, Cocoa bindings, Scripting Bridge, and “delicious” interface design.
Previously:
Cocoa Bindings CoverSutra History Mac Mac App Music Objective-C Open Source Programming
Serena (tweet):
There are a few existing asset catalog viewer applications for macOS, however, none felt feature complete, Samra offers the following:
- Browse through the Asset Catalog file
- Show all types of objects (renditions) in it, not just images (colors, pdfs, image sets, etc)
- Ability to edit icons/images & colors
- Search in Asset Catalog for renditions by name
- View detailed information about each rendition, such as lookup name, width, height, appearance (if it’s meant for dark mode or light mode) and other type-specific information (ie, RGB values for colors).
It’s open-source, with downloads available here.
Previously:
Asset Catalog (.car) Developer Tool Graphics Mac Mac App macOS 13 Ventura Open Source
Adam Chandler:
150% of my iPhone 14 Pro Max’s screen on the App Store’s Today screen is occupied by advertisements that aren’t relevant to my interests. Apple’s services team is ruining the experience.
Mario Guzman:
Ugh. I got hit by two Apple ads this morning. What the f is this shit?
First, some Apple Store ad for Valentines Day.
Then I open Music to get my day going and this is what I get immediately. An ad for the Super Bowl Halftime Show. 😒
When did Apple get so freakin’ spammy?!
Mario Guzman:
Turn off Apple Store Spam notifications by going to Account > Settings > Notifications and switching off “Announcements and Offers”
Mario Guzman:
Earlier I posted about shutting off Spam Notifications from Apple via the Apple Store app.
Well, apparently it’s worse. If you shut it off, you get this little reminder (that won’t go away unless you re-enable the spam notifications). This is so fucking user hostile.
Christina Warren:
These sorts of ads in the Apple TV app are so obnoxious.
The worst part is this is literally when you launch the app. Don’t do this shit! This is a bad, dark pattern! Apple doesn’t get to claim moral high ground when it does stuff like this!
Previously:
Update (2023-04-06): Mario Guzman:
I love how the Music app keeps asking me to choose an Apple Music plan despite having an Apple One membership — and the highest tier at that. 😒 This is the fourth time I get this view today.
Update (2023-06-01): Mario Guzman:
Apple doesn’t respect your choices OR this is just another bug…
With my new Beats, Settings app now advertises AppleCare+. But even if I decline by saying “Not Now” and then “Don’t Show Again”, it’ll bring it up in a couple days.
This is the third time I’ve done this.
Update (2023-07-06): Adam Chandler:
I never searched for Apple Arcade, nor do I have it installed on my iPhone.
This is an advertisement.
Update (2023-07-26): Daniel Jalkut:
Pretty sure Apple News just abused the social contract for their top stories notifications. If they weren’t involved in Lionel Messi’s soccer career in the US, I don’t think his debut would have warranted a wrist notification.
Update (2023-08-18): Thomas Clement:
But seriously, one notification every two weeks. Is there an off switch somewhere?
Advertising App Store Apple Services AppleCare Dark Patterns iOS iOS 16 Music.app TV.app
