Presenting The Finer Details
Apple September 12th, 2007
I found this image of the Apple TextEdit icon in Leopard last week and immediately dragged it to my desktop for safe keeping. Stumbling upon it again today and taking a closer look, I had a few thoughts which ran through my mind.
This level of detail is something you wouldn’t see any other company than Apple bother to put the effort into. My assumption is that Microsoft don’t really care about the fine details of their products - as such a huge company it could be in the back of their mind, but I’ve never seen Microsoft take any action. On the other hand, Apple approach their products with a totally different mindset. The little details appear to matter to Apple, and these little details make their products what they are - great.
This goes for their software as much as hardware. Take a look at the screenshot above and you’ll see what I’m getting at with this statement. Apple appear to break things down, to step closer and take a look at the smaller picture along with taking the step back to look at the bigger picture. I believe part of their success can put put down to this.
For all other hardware/software companies, take a leap out of Apple’s book. Start paying attention to the fine details. It’ll be noticed.
September 12th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I don’t think it was actually Apple who started this. I’m almost positive it was freelance icon designers. I have an icon set from at least 2 years ago that has writing like this. Regardless its pretty cool Apple put it in, and I’m sure it has to do with the new high resolution icons for the CoverFlow interface in Finder.
September 12th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
No, it was in the Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 Build 9A527. I believe there is a gallery of these images on a site called ThinkSecert.com.
September 12th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I’m running the latest Leopard build on my MBP, and all of the apps have these new icons. To tell the truth, I liked the 128×128px icons better - at this size, the subtle nuances of icon design sort of get lost.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dvn_Ied9t4M
September 12th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I think this really encapsulates what Apple is all about it - detail and FUN. I blogged about it here http://theappleofmyi.com/blog/?p=1113 , when it first came to light, and I remember smiling and reading it.
“Apple appear to break things down, to step closer and take a look at the smaller picture along with taking the step back to look at the bigger picture. I believe part of their success can put put down to this.”
I think you’ve got it there - many, many businesses need to look at the detail. And not only big ones. I am helping a small business at the moment with marketing and Web Presence and they are amazed at how much they can do, relatively easily, which will make a BIG difference.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
The fact is there are these new gorgeous icon sizes in the leopard builds and so you can see this detail. ANY company would have to include some words at this level of detail. The real news (which hit some weeks back now) was that those words seem to have been on the TextEdit.app icon since the beginning - have a look the text looks the same “shape” although you cannot see the words properly.
The idea that Apple would be the only company ever to get this detail, Glenn, is a way off. I love Apple but Microsoft do the same in their vista icons.
D
September 13th, 2007 at 1:38 am
I agree with Danny, *any* company would have had to put that much detail in with the new larger icon sizes they want to use in Leopard. In fact, I agree with everything Danny just said, so I’ll leave no further comment. :P
September 13th, 2007 at 3:44 am
“This level of detail is something you wouldn’t see any other company than Apple bother to put the effort into. My assumption is that Microsoft don’t really care about the fine details of their products - as such a huge company it could be in the back of their mind, but I’ve never seen Microsoft take any action.”
Whilst we all bow down to the design gods at Apple, from the above statement you cant be across many Microsoft products. The amount of ‘thought’ as you put it, that went into Office 2007 for example, is simply astounding. The development tools coming out of Redmond are another good example of well designed, thought out applications and put extremely powerful software in the hands of developers.
To say Microsoft as an organization doesn’t put the same amount of thought into design or care about the finer detail of software as Apple is plain crap sorry, don’t repeat the Apple rhetoric of the mid nineties where conferences and Apple events were just a fest of anti Microsoft bullshit. Steve himself alludes to this in his come back speech at MacWorld I think it was.
Microsoft really engages its users more than you think and does pay attention to detail but sometimes you have to be using their ’stuff’ on a daily basis to notice it.
September 13th, 2007 at 5:09 am
With you there Dave. The idea that Apple is the only company that makes good products is utter BS frankly. MS office 2007 is frankly stunning - the redesign work on that is incredible. This is something that many people need to get their head re-aligned on. The amount of times I see stupid blogposts about how microsoft never make great products is frankly too many. Also Apple make some crap ones aswell, some real boo boos are just let go because its Apple.
Dont get me wrong I love Apple - but people have to learn to be less narrow minded, and looking at this post and few others, Glenn, you could do well to broaden your mind.
September 13th, 2007 at 5:48 am
It is actually in the Apple human interface documents that any icon like that with a document with text on it must be actually have text and then be scaled down not just have squiggles on it. Yes I have read the guidelines on icon design.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:09 am
Maybe it was. But I saw the same icon with a different story from an icon designers icon set before leopard was announced, or a beta of leopard was out.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Proof that Apple are really planning to make this the most polished version of OS X yet, it’s the biggest leap we’ve seen in their OS so far other than the transition between OS9 and OS X. Impressive. The only other companies I know of who seem to go into the same level of detail are Audi and B&O…
September 13th, 2007 at 7:24 am
More utter rubbish. Its the same icon! just at a higher resolution. The text has always been there. If Microsoft did this you would all be going “whatever”. As a matter of fact they do do it.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Actually I’m correct. Some of Microsoft’s icons for XP had to be re-made in 128 x 128 px bitmaps, although this was only on a few things. A lot of programs, even those bundled with XP itself, didn’t have proper 128 x 128 px icons and as a result, ended up with really poor, pixellated icons when viewing in Thumbnail mode (which I usually did).
The same goes for Vista, they’re bitmaps which are made at 128 x 128.
September 13th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I’d have to say Microsoft makes products. That’s all you can say about them. That’s not a BAD thing anymore then saying Ford doesn’t make the best cars. Hey, someone has to make the stuff we all drive. Not everyone can buy a $200,000 car.
But don’t kid yourselves, Microsoft is so totally invested in their corporate/IT methodology they can’t create genre changing design. They spend 5x what Apple does on R&D and what do you get? Vista and the Zune. Now, that’s just fine. They work..fine. If you like them, that’s great! But do not confuse what they do with outstanding effort.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Oh god, you guys are the definition of a parrot. I love Microsoft Office 2007 for the PC. Fantastic product and a great ambassador for good R&D (the total redesign of the UI that is) I think vista is terrible, the Zune is ok (I know many zune fanatics)and the xBox 360 is incredible. Anyone who assumes Apple can do design and Microsoft cant is a freaking idiot and needs his head examined. I love Mac OS X it is a great example of good design, but just because Apple are good doesnt mean that Microsoft are bad! Competing companies are good for the market place - if you buy everything with an apple sticker just because its Apple instead of taking a look at all the competition and then making an educated decision - who looses out? you do!
If any of you out there are developers (like me) you will know how much “effort” it takes to create a product. I cannot believe that someone would think that Microsoft doesnt put “effort” into its products. How much BS can you lap up?!
September 13th, 2007 at 10:43 am
You’ve slightly misread what most people here have said. It hasn’t once been mentioned that Microsoft never puts any effort into it’s products, more that Microsoft don’t do such a good job when it comes to the really fine and small points on their products. Some companies are better at it, others are worse.
Mozilla for example, make a good overall product, but the smaller details tend to be a bit so-so. Same with Microsoft, Sony and Ford are other (unrelated brands) who are the same. Apple, B&O and Audi or BMW are companies who DO put a lot of effort into the tiniest details of their products.
Microsoft make some fantastic software, but then again, they also have serious downfalls which tends to drag their software down…
September 13th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Incredible while it still works. The design, or some part of the product is seriously flawed. So many machines are breaking and being send back its ridiculous.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:53 am
*calms down and re-reads* I do apologise I seem to have read what I didnt want to hear as opposed to the comment :p I agree with your recent post with the companies good at finer points. But to bring me back to the original comment: This particular example is an incredibly bad one. This text has been part of the icon design since the beginning of “TED”, its just only now we can see what it says because of the larger icon sizes. My point on Microsoft is that they do the same in their vista icons (I concede I have seen some lower res ones hiding at the back of a configuration folder somewhere). Apple do put in extra detail - but to put this up as a shining example of Apples effort was a bit of a smack in the mouth as a dev tbh. There are so many others to choose from (*insert our favorites here*).
On re-reading Mark’s post there is still one thing that I disagree with: that all you can say about their products is they are products. They ship some bad ones for sure - Im certainly not a vista fan - but (sorry I keep coming back to office 2007) word 2007 has one of the best User Interfaces I have ever used, and I admire their bravery in completely changing a UI that was so entrenched in people’s workflows.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:57 am
So many is interesting…. It is old and *some* are breaking. But take a look around Apple’s support forums. There are some serious issues out there. Ive had a crackbook that currently has the screen flicker as-well. Luckily I avoided random shutdown syndrome…. the list goes on. This is one of my points. Because its Apple too many people ignore these faults, where in fact its more constructive to make a point of standing up and saying something. Machines get fixed and you end up with a stronger product line.
When I say a machine is incredible I tend to talk about the working version.
September 13th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Looking around Apple’s support forums is not a fair representation of the number of machine failures. That’s like standing in a graveyard, exclaiming “gosh, everyone’s dead!”.
Microsoft have admitted that the 360 is flawed, and the design actually means that each 360 is certain to die within a varying period of time, while Apple’s laptops simply fail due to faults. In fact, Apple’s computers are pretty reliable as far as things go in the laptop market at the moment. Sure there are issues, I’m not going to deny that, and I often think Apple could do better to remedy these problems. However, they’re not bad in comparison to some other companies (who are much, MUCH worse, believe me).
And no, the XBox 360 is not incredible. I’ve got one, and I prefer my original xbox massively. The 360 doesn’t impress me in any way, and never has. The PS3 is a much better piece of hardware, and much better thought out IMO, as well as the Wii (I have neither, only a 360 and original Xbox).
As for Office 2008, I agree mostly. It’s very very well designed, much better than any previous version of Office. Since Apple bought out iWork ‘08, I think Apple have the edge. The design is cleaner and much simpler. You don’t end up spending ages on pointless (and pretty cheesy) effects in Powerpoint, you don’t get lost in options in Word and Numbers is much more helpful when it comes to putting the kind of spreadsheets I use than Excel. For power users who really really know what they’re doing, Office is the best. For the rest of us, iWork is more intuitive and productive, or at least that’s my experience…
September 13th, 2007 at 11:25 am
I meant take a look at the variety of issues in the forums. Apple as you say is better than a lot of companies but the original batch of macbooks were “flawed” in that they shipped with too thin plastic around the touchpad. - My point being here is that Apple has just the same issues that everyone else does.
[OFF TOPIC]
I cant get my head round why you liked your original xBox more (I have both aswell) but thats opinion and thats fair play. The one thing that annoys me bout my 360 is the noise levels. Other than that I think its a fantastic bit of kit. The PS3 is also outstanding, although at the moment it needs to build up a nice range of game titles. The wii is the wii :p
[/OFF TOPIC]
Just a check: I was meaning MSOffice 07 on the PC. All office offerings on the mac i have seen are terrible (including the future 08 version). I use iWork on a daily basis and I love it. Very clean and a nice UI. But I think the new versions of office on PC are really impressive in that you DONT have to be a power user to use it well. Powerpoint is shite. Always was and always will be :p That is the one place where iWork wipes the floor with Office - Keynote is incredible, I am super impressed with it.
Let me clear something up before this goes too far off topic. I am not a Microsoft fanboy, Im very anti fanboy: people should never buy a product without looking at the competition (if there is any). Thats my philosophy anyway.
And again, this is not what I was saying in my comment - I was saying that this is a bad example of Apple going the extra mile.
September 13th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Ha, nice… Apple aren’t the only ones to do it, though. I think there’s “IE Sucks” or something somewhere in CSSEdit’s icon if you look closely :P
September 14th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Nice post Glenn. I agree that Apple will always be on of those companies that really pays attention to detail. What is amazing though is how they still remain to keep make it look so clean and so simple. For example, their packaging. All packages are always extremely clean whereas if you look at Microsoft, it may take a little bit of looking at the box to figure out exactly what you’re looking at. With that said, here is my transition into a funny parody that some of you may have seen already had Microsoft re-designed the iPod package.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298
enjoy!
September 14th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Glenn, I’m sorry! This is way off topic, but I have to do this.
Any one who disses the 360 because of hardware issues only has a base on that; the hardware. For those of you that don’t know the biggest issue behind the 360 is the 90nm chips that they run off of. The cause the “Red lights of death” issue that so many people have had. Yeah, it’s true. Microsoft screwed up. But they fixed that. If you have an older Xbox with a 90nm chip and it breaks within 3 YEARS of you buying, you can get it replaced for free.
Secondly, the game choice for the 360 is incredible. Not to mention the exclusive’s like Gears of War, Halo 3, Crackdown, Shadowrun, and BioShock make it hard to compete with. The only games I even blinked at for the PS3 was Lair and Heavenly Sword, and Lair is a flop.
Xbox LIVE alone is worth getting a 360. Arcade games, HD content, game demos and videos. Not to mention social aspects like IM, voice messages, and friends. I don’t know about you, but damn, video games are fun when you play them against other people. /sarcasm. Point being, it’s tested and tried, and it works well.
If you need something else, I will shoot you down. Overall, the 360 dominates.
The Wii is great. Not for the hardcore gamer, but with friends it’s an absolute blast! I don’t game nearly as much as I used to, but the 360 is for me.
As a side note, I must concede that the 360 does sound like a Harrier jet when it starts up. BUmmer, but I can deal with it.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:37 am
But I still prefer my original XBox?
To me, the 360 doesn’t offer anything fantastic it didn’t have before, and I’d know, since the PS1, I’ve only ever owned XBoxes (used to be an avid xbox fan). I just find it disappointing to play on now, to me games are about having fun…
September 14th, 2007 at 9:38 am
@Joe - Exactly, and finally some sense!
We do need to bring this thread back on topic though!
@Alex - if its about having fun: do you not enjoy the better graphics, the online co-op etc… do you not enjoy Gears of war?!
September 14th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Firstly, why is it that everyone follows the crowd and thinks it’s ‘cool’ to slag off microsoft? They’ve tried for years (albeit not always successfully - think Windows ME) to bring a stable OS to the odd 95% of people that use it daily, that’s a pretty hard task to achieve, especially when you have unofficial kernal extentions and buggy drivers thrown at it left right and centre from all of the third party hardware that doesn’t follow standards, and while they may only just be grasping that form over function is what most users prefer nowadays I think they’ve still done pretty well with Vista recently, and SP1 will definately improve performance issues, although my hard drive is still hurting from those 15 odd gigs of space it takes up, and my ram still hates me for having half of it used up on the OS.
Office 2007 is one of the first releases of office that Microsoft have thought outside of the box with, the ribbon and tabs are a great interface and are intuitive if you actually bother using it and not just stare at it for five seconds before sprinting to your Mac to post an angry blog post about how ‘ugly’ it looks.
There are a hell of a lot of issues with the Macbooks, iBooks, iMacs, etc, etc ,etc, if you just search for [insert mac product name here] defect on google then you’ll easily find a massive list of people with problems, the same way as if you search for defects in PC hardware, neither company is 100% perfect and both have their fair share of issues, Microsoft don’t listen to what the users want 99% of the time, and Apple have the whole ‘if it’s broken buy a new one’ thing going for them.
Also greg what you fail to realise, which may be down to you seeming to be an avid Apple user who only purchases Apple products, is that Microsoft don’t sell PCs, they don’t take part in manufacturing PCs, they sell software to 95% of the population that uses computers, when talking about packaging issues, remember it’s not microsoft who decide how it looks, it’s the manufacturer of the hardware, say Dell for instance, that gets to decide.
Also as a side note, I have no idea why someone would prefer an XBox over an Xbox 360, it completely baffles me.
Relating to the original discussion I believe any self respecting company that wants their application to be presented in the best way possible would put all of the detail possible into their graphics, this includes icons. Apple wouldn’t be cought dead with bad looking apps or icons, not with such an obsessive and rather frightening community that it’s developed over the years, and most developers for OS X commit because of the same reason, which is good for everyone, windows doesn’t have this so developers get lazy and make horrific applications that make no sense whatsoever.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:43 am
I can appreciate it’s graphics and the work that’s gone into it, but I prefer a quick bash at Spyro or Crash Bandicoot or Super Smash Brothers. Halo 1 and 2 are also fantastic, but I just can’t see any major advantage other than graphics/sound/online play getting better. I don’t see any ‘fun’ enhancement though…
September 14th, 2007 at 9:48 am
@Alex - I have to say Ive been playing a LOT of Halo 1 co-op with my bro recently - so much fun. But I enjoy GOW so much more. But I do see what you mean with the fun element (crash bandicoot, what a ledgend!)
But the whole aspect that the xBox just doesnt have out of the box is Live and the market place etc. They are so well done with the 360 and there is so much fun to be had there.
Im definitely a graphics man - therefore it has a huge impact on how I enjoy the game.
September 15th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Wow Glenn, how’s it feel to have your comments section taken over by video game nerds?
Thanks for the post, I’m gonna save the blown up icon image on my computer too now.
September 15th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Wow Glenn hows it feel to have a community with people who knock each other in it…
Im just glad I didnt post my thoughts on your “why the Mac Pro beats the iMac” post *cough* yeah… great content.
Sorry now Im just being a bitch - but since your video show your blog has lost out, and it really bugs me.
September 15th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Sorry you feel that way Danny. I’ll continue to put more time into the blog. It hasn’t just been the video show which has taken up my time, I’m having to study full time along with working online - it starts to eat at you.
What do you recommend I do to improve the blog further? What has “cut out” since I begun doing the videos?
September 15th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Hey Glenn,
For a start the blog feels like its getting updated less and less - I appreciate that you have your video show. But tbh I see you more as a blogger, I have watched the video show but couldnt for more than 2 episodes (I know you have a nice fan-base on that - but for me its just not a show im interested in). It may not be the quantity but I feel that fewer times am I scanning NNW and seeing a piece with an interesting title from you and clicking through to read it.
I brought up the iMac Vs mac pro post and this was also of poor quality I thought, but its more in a frustration that I know you can do better. You have a loyal following on the blog that are going to comment “great post” every time, but it just seems that you know this and are playing to them, as opposed to thinking through a detailed opinion piece that will attract attention from Digg and external readers.
Please don’t be offended (or feel patronised for that matter), its just I have heard these opinions voiced privately and Im inclined to agree with them. I was just scanning your archives for titles etc. and you can see - I wont bring up examples, but there are less and less opinion pieces - which are why I started reading your blog. Sure product reviews are nice and your photos are ok but you have, at times, brought an opinion to light that I never saw before - and Im beginning to miss it.
Like I said, you have a loyal following so Im sure if they want they can shout me down on this one. But Im missing your view on things.
September 16th, 2007 at 2:39 am
I have really taken your comments to heart and to mind. Thanks for all of your input, I will try to best adapt to it to create higher quality content on a more regular basis!