Brent Simmons on ‘Stock’ Mac UI
Brent Simmons: To recap: the reasons for using stock Mac UI are 1) user familiarity, which we’ve known for a while just isn’t a thing, and 2) hoping to be able to expend less developer effort, which we’ve seen can work against you. But there’s another reason: the stock Mac UI is designed by Apple, the best designers in the world, and do you really think you can do better? Really? The app world is…
Brent Simmons, a renowned developer, discussed the reasons for using the stock Mac UI in his recent post. He highlighted three main points: user familiarity, reduced developer effort, and the undeniable expertise of Apple's UI designers. However, Simmons believes that the stock Mac UI design misses the mark and questions the wisdom behind its guidance.
He argues that the decision to stick with stock Mac UI is mainly driven by wanting approval from long-time Mac users, which shouldn't be a factor at all. Simmons has always appreciated the concept of "stock Mac UI" and its importance in maintaining the Mac-like feel in software. He believes that the stock UI is so universally agreed upon as a fundamental aspect of Mac-likeness that it's seldom even discussed.
In his post, Simmons shared screenshots of NetNewsWire after removing the stock window chrome and toolbar, replacing them with custom controls. The revised version of NetNewsWire looked refreshed and Mac-like, which caught Simmons off guard. Even after years of Apple's struggles with the Mac user interface, these screenshots appeared refreshing and genuinely Mac-like, outperforming the current version of NetNewsWire, which heavily relies on the stock Mac UI.
Written by urgent.news from Daring Fireball's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
