Full FeedApple takes huge step forward in Windows app design, step back on the Mac
With Safari 4, Apple apparently got over its “let’s bring Mac OS X style windows into a Windows environment” mentality, and has done a really great job making Safari 4 fit in with the environment in which it is installed. Oddly enough, it seems as though they designed the new Safari 4 interface for Windows, and then applied the exact same design to the Mac version. What you see above is the Fail Diagram, explained below. Most are more design complaints than things that may actually cause a large usability issue, but they are things that a design-oriented company such as Apple should have noted. Feel free to check things out for yourself with your own copy of Safari 4.
1. “Let’s repurpose the title bar” - By having the title bar be the tabs, Apple has created a weird line and color difference in the title bar color. Now it doesn’t match the other title bars that Apple was so excited about having “Unified” in Leopard. See also number 7.
2. “Let’s attach a non-essential button to an essential element” - We all need to type in addresses, but why is it just as necessary to add a bookmark? For someone who wants to keep the interface as clean as possible (one of the selling points of Safari), this is a pain. The refresh button would be much better off in this area. See also number 5.
3. “Let’s make the only application to use a different font for the title bar” - Okay, I get that they are tabs, but they’re on the top now. Use the system standard Lucida Grande. The tiny bold font looks weird and annoying.
4. “Let’s make the close button a square” - This only really gets bad when you are on the tab closest to the window controls. Now there’s a close window button just pixels away from a close tab button (and why make the traffic lights part of the tab?)
5. “Let’s duplicate the pointless UI change we did on the iPhone” - Apple put the refresh button in the address bar on the iPhone for no apparent reason. Now they’re doing it on Safari. Why not put the add button in the address bar? The refresh button should be a much larger click target and be a button all to itself.
6. “Let’s change the system standard title bar gradient” - Apple made the top of the tabs a lot lighter, meaning that it is once again a pain to distinguish between active and inactive windows when only a bit is showing.
7. “Let’s change how tabs operate” - Now that tabs are the title bar, they can’t just be dragged off at any point. You now have to drag them from the corner. What indicates the drag area? Oh, it’s a window resize grabber. Great. That makes a ton of sense.
8. “Let’s add an add button” - So they give us an add button, now that everyone is used to double clicking the tab bar. And it’s on the corner of the entire window. So don’t try to grab your windows by the corners. Now that Apple is obsessed with clickthrough ability, not only will the window not come to the front, a new tab will open too. Yay.
Agree? Disagree? Did I miss something? Sound off in the comments below! Or, read how the Safari 4 interface can be improved.
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I totally agree! It s a mess. Help!!!!!
on February 25, 2009 at 03:52 AM - LINKI agree with most of your comments. However, I am not quite as picky and actually like some of the new look. Not only that, what is this obsession with the refresh button? Why should you feel the need for it to be seperate from the address bar? I am very happy to have it in the bar where it is now. Also, I use the Add Bookmark button A LOT more than I do the refresh button, so in my own opinion I prefer it having priority over refresh.
on February 25, 2009 at 04:03 AM - LINKSo bear in mind that, although a lot of your points do make sense, not everyone will share your opinion.
I have been working with Safari 4 for windows for about 7 hours now and my first impressions are that it is lighter and faster than any version of 3. I would have to say the Top Sites idea is pretty cool but is slow and not worth the wait it takes to launch. I will write a full article on the windows version when I get some more seat time with it.
on February 25, 2009 at 06:23 AM - LINKI utterly detest the tabs in the title bar. That must be one of the worst ideas yet to come out of Apple in recent years. And I agree with your other comments as well. I’ve already reinstalled Safari 3x even though it seemed that Safari 4b worked just fine. I cannot stand the UI, and I pray to God Apple will come to their senses—if I wanted ugly, complex, or inelegant, I would simply buy into the Microsoft platform.
Everyone, please write Apple and tell them to correct this egregious UI nonsense.
on February 25, 2009 at 10:26 AM - LINKI agree with everything you said, actually. At first I was willing to give it the old Apple fanboy “Just Let Me Get USed To it For a Second” try, but no, pretty much every change made is unnecessary, and any perceivable increase in page rendering (which I do not notice) has been offset by my slower fumbling around trying to work the interface. As someone who regularly has pages with 20 or more tabs open, the new tab scheme (especially clicking on the “more” tabs drop-down) is frustrating as hell.
BOO! BOO I say!
- The Doc
on February 25, 2009 at 10:37 AM - LINKThe worst thing about a title bar full of tabs is that it becomes way more difficult to move the window.
on February 25, 2009 at 10:56 AM - LINK... and what really kills me is that anytime I want to click on another tab the whole window moves. Also I have feeling that the tabs are less responsive i.e. even if I aim right on a tab it s not guranteed that it ll switch to that tab.
I keep trying to get used to the new Safari but the color scheme is not just the matter of preference - like you said they really messed it up.
I also hope Apple s going to come bak and fix all that jazz.
on February 25, 2009 at 11:02 AM - LINKFrom MacFixit (I believe):
Users can choose to try this new tab location, but if they do not like this new location, the tabs can be reverted to their old location by entering the following command in the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO
After this command is entered, quit and re-launch Safari. To reverse this command, re-enter it with “YES” at the end instead of “NO”.
on February 25, 2009 at 11:04 AM - LINKmy reaction was similar to yours when I first ran s4. your criticisms are not wrong. at the same time the new look is growing on me and the annoyance with the non-standard treatments are fading. its common with a design departure to feel a sense of repulsion. that is natural.
keep in mind that the browser is really the most important app today. its running 100% of the time. There is real cause to make it as space efficient as possible. hate it or hate it, the new design does free up a bunch of pixels. it also means that if you have another app window in front of the browser yet you can see the safari title bar, you can also see all your tabs, which is really nice.
taking your issues point by point:
1) yes, non-standard, no argument there. also removes some duplication and blank space - so there is a benefit too.
on February 25, 2009 at 12:27 PM - LINK2) while it would be nicer if you could kill that button with customize, it does make some sense attached as it is an action specific to the url.
3) this smaller version has been on the app for a while and does not bother me at all. the regular font is too bulky for use in the context.
4) agreed, I am not sure why these became square - maybe it was to differentiate them in the context you identify. if the stoplights were not on the tab they would not be in the foremost element of the window, that might also look weird but agreed, having them on the first tab is a bit unsettling.
5) it is a smaller target, true, that is a neg, but having it in the context of the URL does make sense. there also does seem to be an advantage to uniting the progress with refresh in one area and clearly that area should be the url area. This is not totally misguided. This is the same app as on iphone, so consistency makes sense too doesn’t it?
6) I don’t see this issue at all. all windows are lighter in the background. the question is, does the tab with focus stand out from the others as the active tab and, at least for me, it does.
7) well you’d have to have some way to move the window. that happens a lot more than reshuffling the tabs so it makes sense that it would be the more easily actionable response. I think the technical name for that corner element is a grip, which basically to me means it is a click target for moving something, that is the function here so its not all wrong. yes agreed, it does read resize to me too, but I can understand why they used something like that. might benefit from a little tweaking.
8) this is not an issue. makes sense to add an add button, a lot of people did not even know tabs were an option. a button somewhere helps with this, even if only slightly, but you definitely want a visual clue somewhere. this button is pretty restrained.
2b) Why do I have to have a search box? The adress bar is smarter now, it suggests urls from history. But is it smart enough to make a search if I enter a string that apparently is not an url? Or if I put a “g” or an “a” in front of it? I don’t want a “+”-button and I don’t want a search box either!
on February 25, 2009 at 02:23 PM - LINKSafari since intel Macs has been my browser of choice and I always welcomed upgrades. The problem with Safari 4 is not with the program, but with the program modifiers. Glitter and “look what I can do” type designers forgot the real basics of a browser…make it work simple & fast.
Firefox didn’t gain market share because it wanted to reinvent the wheel. It just did Explorer better than Explorer, faster and safer.
I’ve reverted to Safari 3….4 is just silly. Trying to reinvent standards on browsers is well beyond Apple’s paygrade. What’s next a square mouse…to “think different”? Time spent on Safari updates have probably contributed to the absence of any Mac hardware upgrades lately. Priorities people, priorities.
Steve, where are you to oversee this nonsense? The hardware still “just works” but the software no longer does. Cap this artistic designing talent before they make Apple software too difficult and confusing to use by the masses.
on February 25, 2009 at 03:00 PM - LINK“3. “Let’s make the only application to use a different font for the title bar” - Okay, I get that they are tabs, but they’re on the top now. Use the system standard Lucida Grande. The tiny bold font looks weird and anything.”
What the heck do the last 2 words in that statement mean? (needs an edit)
on February 25, 2009 at 03:01 PM - LINKAlso, this article is BS. Look, I like to rain on Apple’s parade often, but this new browser rocks!
On the one hand I like the new tab location because it saves place in the area of the window where it is needed, on the other hand it takes a little time to get used to it.
The button to add a bookmark is misplaced, indeed. To place the reload button in the address field was a mistake, too. And I don’t like the new way how to drag the tabs now. But maybe, when there are a lot of blogs reporting about this, Apple will change all of these points in the final release.
What I really do like is the Web Inspector. I love it :-)
on February 25, 2009 at 03:47 PM - LINKTotally agree with all of the points raised in the article. I applied the hack to reposition the tabs on the second day of using this pillock of an update.
Terminal:
on February 26, 2009 at 01:57 AM - LINKdefaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO
Man, why is everything in computerworld a religious war. Yes, it takes some getting used to. One has to retrain your muscle memory. Some things are somewhat lame, like the “addbookmark button. But even somepeople like that. And I can live with it. All in all, I find it a refreshing change. I think most of the dislike comes from the dislike of change. But what do I know, I’m no expert.
on February 28, 2009 at 04:12 PM - LINKI found this article by searching, “Safari 4 refresh buttton.” Customizing the toolbar, there is no longer a Refresh option. Luckly I know how to right-click along with all the other keyboard shortcuts for the Mac. But honestly, the Refresh button is a browser standard. Dear Apple - put the option back.
on March 4, 2009 at 12:19 AM - LINKSafari 4 is just an Apple version of Google Chrome. Tabs on top… toy-like appearance… they even have the “most-visited pages” thing when you open the browser, they just made it prettier. Safari 3 is a billion times better and Safari 4 needs more customizability before a real release. Let us decide what buttons we want where we want them and whether we want tabs on top or in the normal place and people will stop bitching. Also, why would they remove the progress bar? It’s useful, intuitive, and unobtrusive. The wheel thingy doesn’t tell you anything about what Safari’s doing.
on March 4, 2009 at 02:13 PM - LINK