Apple UI Nitpicking
November 1st, 2007 by Kelson. Posted in Annoyances, Apple and tagged for rants, usability, WindowsI appreciate that Apple offers a single software updater for all its free Windows software. But one thing annoys me about it.
It opens a window, then opens a message box showing a progress meter as it checks for updates. Only one problem: It fills out the “New software is available” caption before it actually checks.
New software is available… oh, wait, no it isn’t.
This isn’t an issue on Mac OS X, because the progress meter is shown as a sheet, which drops down from the top of the main window and obscures the caption. But on Windows, that caption is visible from the moment the window appears, saying that you really do have something new available, raising your hopes that maybe, just maybe, Apple has finally gotten around to releasing that new version of Safari, or that security fix for the flaw you heard about a week ago, then dashing them to the ground.
Or, less dramatically, it’s jumping to conclusions, providing potentially false information.
And then, even if it turns out there isn’t anything new, the caption stays in place…leaving you with two contradictory statements as to whether any updates are really available.
Related Posts
- Reinventing the Upgrade Wheel
- Apple Software Update: a Simple Solution
- Apple Updates Software Update, Addresses Criticism
- Incremental Updates and the Problem of N+2
- Insecurity updates
7 Responses to “Apple UI Nitpicking”
By Matt on Mar 21, 2008
This is quite a amateur mistake… sad.
By Martin on Mar 22, 2008
This should of course have been filed under Viruses, being about the “Apple Software Update”-worm/spyware/malware that infest not only those arbitrary play thingies (”Mac”) but also the working tools of serious information workers, the ibm-compatible pc’s
By David on Mar 24, 2008
It is like this because on the Mac Apple Updater, that part of the window is covered by the progress bar the entire time and status messages show up also covering the headline. Because Apple Software Update is originally Mac software, I don’t blame Apple at all. Its just one of those kind of funny things that happened as a result of the OS wars.
By Kelson on Mar 24, 2008
I’m fully aware of why it does this, and described it in the original post, right below the screenshot.
It’s still bad design, like a program that only looks at the last digit when deciding how to create an ordinal number, and prints out the “11st” (elevenst) “12nd” (twelvend) and “13rd” (thirteenerd). You can tell what they meant, but it’s sloppy. It’s particularly ironic for a company that prides itself on its UI design.
By blanknull on May 3, 2008
who has time to worry about this stuff? get a hobby.
By Kelson on May 3, 2008
A hobby? I know! I can surf the internet looking for random people, then make disparaging comments on their personal blogs! Does that sound like a better use of my time?