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May 28th, 2006
Categories: Interaction, Interface, OS X

Aside from the glass cube, the 5th Ave flagship Apple store is nothing special. Also, the in-store demo iPods and Macs need a better selection of music. Some asshat played that *$&%@ing James Blunt song (I believe it’s called “You’re Pitiful”) five times in a row while I was writing up the comments below.

Testing Mac: iMac Core Duo 2.0Ghz, Radeon X1600 128MB

Aperture 1.1.1

  1. Why are the adjustment and keyword application indicators displayed in the photo viewing area? There is usually ample space outside of the photo to display such information. Photo surface area should not be obscured unless absolutely necessary.
  2. The star rating display should provide single click access to the full range of 5 rather than only displaying the assigned rating. Hiding the rating mechanism behind a contextual menu when there is ample pixels to expose the functionality visually is an odd choice.
  3. The color/white balance adjustment indicator badge should also serve as a means of toggling the display of that particular HUD. Same goes for the keyword label icon.
  4. If their buttons are added to the toolbar (I don’t think they are on it by default), the Keywords and Adjustments HUDs should zoom in and out from the corresponding button.
  5. Performance was unpredictable. I ran into repeated CPU spikes (120%+) performing common tasks.
  6. Unlike in iPhoto 6, the icons at the left and right ends of the thumbnail size slider do not act as shortcuts to minimize and maximize the size of the previews.

iPhoto 6.0.3

  1. Why is the search field so narrow? A wider field encourages more precise queries and makes editing an existing query string a hell of a lot easier. Even at full screen width (1600px), the field only comfortably displays 12 characters.
  2. The Info/Calendar/Keywords switcher should allow on-hover switching; if the user holds an image over the Keywords icon while Info is active, the pane should switch to Keywords.

Safari’s Private Browsing Command

The “Private Browsing” command in Safari’s application menu should have ellipsis as it requires further user input to be executed (Apple HIG: Using the Ellipsis Character). As is done with several commands in the Apple menu, holding down Option when selecting it could hide the ellipsis and skip the confirmation dialog, activating Private Browsing immediately.

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