 Mon, 06 Nov 2006
Rogue Amoeba's a relatively young company, founded just over 4 years ago. If we had a brick and mortar store, we couldn't put up a "Since 2002" sign - we weren't even around the last time Apple was "beleaguered". But in the scheme of Mac OS X software companies, it would seem that we're part of the old school.
Anyhow, the three of us realized that after developing on Mac OS X for just a few years, we felt like not just part of the old school of Mac developers, but the crotchety old men of the Mac software industry. In the past year or so, Mac development had shifted from applications providing new functionality that appeared at the dawn of OS X to applications (and ideas) built around flash and sizzle, with plenty of marketing hype to fuel the fire. This had created something of a toxic atmosphere in the Mac development world. A rift between the old school, with its plain but functional apps, and the new school of flashy but frivolous apps, has developed. Talking 'bout Their Generation While talking with Brent and Gus, I dubbed this new school "The Delicious Generation". Many of the design and marketing ideas of this new school seem to be derived from the successes of Delicious Library2, and I'm sure many members of this generation would readily and happily list it as an influence. So at the risk of increasing Wil Shipley's ego (and starting a meme), the Delicious Generation is the term I'll be using for the new school. The old school needs no other name. Who Are You? Who, Who, Who, Who?
Plenty of those exist already, but Disco looks different, and it was well-hyped, so people are interested. Disco's smoke effect is now infamous for being a sign of the fall of the Mac. I certainly won't go that far, but I think it's clear that it's a "triumph" of style over substance. Some other prominent members of the Delicious Generation include AppZapper, the My Dream App contest, and the new MacHeist. These all share a common ancestry of people behind them, but more importantly, they're nice-looking sites and applications that are heavy on the marketing buzz and light on substance. Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me, When I'm 64? I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to not describe myself as "crotchety" (I've never been comfortable with the word "crotch" hanging out at the beginning of it, for one thing). The thing to do then is to have a look at the new school and see what we can learn from it. There's certainly plenty of middle ground between a plain-jane application packed with features that has a UI capable of putting you to sleep, and an application so loud and bright it'll keep you awake, even though it's not doing anything. So let's take a look at the Delicious Generation (and yes, I'll be painting with broad strokes). Il Buono (The Good)
As well, there's definitely some impressive new marketing ideas going on here. My Dream App has drawn in thousands of people and gotten them interested in Mac software. It's also been the subject of countless articles across the web. Many small developers would kill for the kind of press that My Dream App has received. What can we learn here? The old cliche "Sell the sizzle, not the steak" certainly applies. Perhaps best of all, the members of the Delicious Generation have worked to promote each another. With viral marketing and cross-promotion, they've built on one another's successes, thus lifting up more than just themselves. A few cross-links on blogs used to cut it, but it doesn't compare to the power evident here. I don't like the idea of ads or badges on our site, but developers can always look for new ways to help each other. Il Cattivo (The Bad) I've already touched on the major problem of style over substance. Without getting too many nastygrams, I hope I can say that these applications are a bit light on content. A fellow developer joked that Disco would be released to much fanfare, and then the developers would realize they'd forgotten to hook up the disc burning functionality, having been so busy with the Smoke. This didn't strike me as too far off the mark. Caring about the UI is A Good Thing. Focusing on it solely to the detriment of user interaction or even features, is not. I also wonder if the sales these applications get are quality sales where the user is satisfied, or simply people who bought in to the hype. Hyperbole and breathless reporting is certain to receive criticism and backlash. Some definite backlash against the hype Disco received can be seen in this article and its comments. If you bought an application for its smoke effects, what happens when the novelty wears off? In crass terms, everyone wants to sleep with a Playboy bunny, no one wants to marry one. Finally, I question who's really benefiting here. With a site like MacZOT or a program like MacHeist, a small developer can gain quick notoriety, but at what cost? Gaining users is good, but it also increases support costs, and selling at a discounted price will obviously net less income. The developer has also reduced the perceived value of his software. If an application appears with a slashed price on one of these sites, will new full-price sales follow, or will people simply hope to find it on sale again? Are these loyal users who will buy upgrades and new applications? My sense is no. Il Brutto (The Ugly) In The Year 2525 (If Man Is Still Alive) So what happens next? Quentin puts his faith in capitalism, and trusts the market to shake things out. It's track record is certainly pretty good, but one need only look to network television and the seemingly unceasing rise in popularity of reality television to find a counter-example. Television has never been the most soul-enriching medium, but it's tough to believe it hasn't gotten worse as dramas and other scripted genres are replaced with banality.
I'll close with a quote I heard from a member of the Delicious Generation who shall go unnamed. He said, "You can be honorable, or you can make money". I shot back "You can do both!", and I firmly believe it. Can we learn something from the new school? Absolutely, they're doing lots of things right. But I think there's plenty they can learn from the old schoolers as well. It's time to figure out where the middle ground is, between style and substance, between hype and marketing, between the Delicious Generation and the crotchety old men. Stick around, this should be interesting. Footnotes: 2. The real truth of the matter is that Apple started it. As John Gruber pointed out in his talk at C4, Apple is moving away from a consistent interface across the entire operating system, and towards a model based on the idea that "it should look good". Whether that's ultimately sustainable, we'll see, but for now that's the way it is. However, while Apple may have started this trend, I think few would argue that Delicious Library took this mentality far beyond anything Apple ever imagined. Others have only gone further.↩ 3. MacZOT is also a prime example of this snacky culture of Mac software, where users purchase software at steep discounts without taking much time to evaluate it. Users can get good deals, and that's a positive thing. But how many of those customers wind up getting something that they value?↩
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Szedlák Ádám
Mon Nov 6 02:58:27 2006 In the beginning one can find really good stuff at MacZot. I got my SubEthaEdit from there, that I use and value, and will likely upgrade, if it is needed. But I generally agree, flashy apps took over the place.
nargalzius
Mon Nov 6 04:37:52 2006 I kinda noticed that nowhere in this article do you link to Delicious Library. I mean you're telling everyone what inspired the new school, but expect them to google about it while you link to other "secondary players." I think it would be good to have a link to Delicious Monsters' site simply to show people how form AND function has been perfectly excecuted by Delicious Library - which is something even the new generation hasn't been able to do yet.
Rory Prior
Mon Nov 6 05:07:03 2006 It's nice to know I'm not the only one whose worrying about the sudden appearance of hypeware on the Mac. Still if they keep failing to really deliver to sell anything more than hype it's hard to imagine them sticking around in the long term. From reading people's reactions to things like MacHeist it also seems there is 'hype weariness' developing. I don't think it's a sustainable, year-round business strategy. It sure would be nice is the likes of TUAW would heap some of the same attention on the rest of us though.
LKM
Mon Nov 6 05:12:21 2006 I think comparing Disco to Delicious Library is wrong. Delicious Library has a pretty standard Mac interface. Only its browser view is "prettified," and not to the detriment of anything else (actually, if you look at it, the interface is far more standard than many of Apple's apps - compare DL to iTunes, especially the leftmost list view with the "folders"). The problem with Disco isn't that it's pretty. The problem is that they created pretty interface elements which lacked any of the functionality of the normal, Apple-provided interface elements. Windows that can't be resized, list views without any kind of selection, transparent windows that make the content unreadable and so on. Pretty versions of interface elements are okay, but they should 1) work exactly like the Apple-provided ones (with regards to things like selection, click-through and command keys) 2) Not provide less features than the Apple-provided ones 3) Not be so different as to be confusing So... Delicious Library: Good. Disco: Bad.
Jesper
Mon Nov 6 05:31:56 2006 I highly disagree with the specific fact that Disco is an app where style trumps substance. Disco's greatest asset may be the glitzy effects, but its second greatest asset is a no-bullshit interface, about as far away from the twenty-questions interface of many "real" burning apps (like Toast, Roxio or Nero), as you can come and still be genuinely useful. It may not be the greatest UI in the world for file management specifically, but all in all it's a neat setup and certainly a competent disc burner with competent features, present as they may be in Disk Utility and Finder or not. And for what it's worth, I think Disco's set of features lines up very well with its price tag. This is a good move by the Disco team. When people inevitably copy Disco, there's a big chance they're going to copy its looks, not the way it works, and the resulting application will be sizzle, not steak. You could call this the "Windows users using Mac OS X themes and ObjectDock and think they're better off" syndrome. The major point in your article has not gone by unnoticed. There are apps so completely buried in promotional copy and Core Image translations and undiscoverable click-to-edit text fields that their actual competency is lost. This, if you buy these apps and use them, clearly is a problem, but it's not actually new. What's new here is Core Image and Apple's mindset of inventing new skins for every major version of iTunes, not the mindset of the individual developers. These sorts of apps have been around more or less forever; what they have gained are transitions and acceptable-looking UIs. Sadly, they're sharing some sort of mental bond with applications that do look good and actually do something. I believe that by attaching the "Delicious Generation" moniker so strongly to that last quote (by proximity), you're doing many of the new apps a disservice, because you're inferring that that entire side shares the same view of application quality, and that's clearly not true.
Andrew
Mon Nov 6 05:39:49 2006 People will get pretty fed up with all the hype after a while. They always do. For what it's worth I have seen MacZot of late shifting a lot of apps that most people wouldn't really want to buy anyway. I also think that a lot of the hype is aimed at a younger audience, it certainly seems to have a student mentality about it however, I do think though that it shows indy mac developers that that it is possible to create buzz around their apps with a little marketing imagination.
Jeremy Higgs
Mon Nov 6 06:52:26 2006 Hi Paul! Great post. You've articulated what I've been thinking recently. The Little App Factory is a bit younger than Rogue Amoeba, but we're feeling a bit like the "old school" with the new applications out (or coming out). I think we can learn a lot from these new applications, but still retain what we think is "right" at the core. Jeremy
Alex McHugh
Mon Nov 6 06:52:45 2006 This is a natural consequence of the increasing public awareness of "OS X" and it's increase in market share, many people used to quote that Windows had say a factor of 10 or 100 times as many applications as the classic Mac OS, I would always counter that most of these Windows applications were poorly put together re-hashes of existing tools, and that when you reduced the list down to quality applications that were useful and not one trick ponies then both platforms were on much more equal ground. However now we have a less experienced generation of computer users who think myspace is acceptable web design and also go for applications that are flashy and attractively designed. That said, there will always be a market for more quality well thought out and designed applications. Yes people will move on from the hype eventually, but at this point "OS X" developers should be trying to attract and retain these newer customers, as those who do stick around once the buzz dies off, will be mac users for life.
Erik J. Barzeski
Mon Nov 6 09:47:49 2006 I disagree with Jesper that people copying Disco would focus on the UI at the cost of features for one simple reason: it'd be almost impossible to have less actual features than Disco. And Disco is itself a "copy" of Burn and the built-in disc-burning in Mac OS X. The respect Disco shows for one of the most important things on your Mac - your data - is appalling. It's no surprise that this app came from the AppZapper folks. AppZapper is nothing but SpotLight with sound effects, and a poor copy at that. The backlash is beginning. And for good reason. P.S. I'm not a fan of Delicious Library either, but I do see it as having a substantial amount of steak. It may be 80/20 steak to sizzle, while Disco is more along the lines of 10/90. P.P.S. I wrote a bit more on my blog.
dirkstoop
Mon Nov 6 12:32:22 2006 Hi Paul, There's definitely something going on in the Mac shareware world, but your analysis puts everyone who's actively marketing their apps and/or spending extra effort to make them look good on one big heap. That's fine for trend spotting and discussing overall developments and it did get the conversation started. I'm highly insulted though that you use the remark - "You can be honorable, or you can make money" - of one anonymous person to tack a total lack of ethics on an entire group of developers. I don't consider myself part of any specific group, but if you insist on polarizing I'd be on the 'delicious generation' side. Me and the people I work with do have a sense of ethics. While development style is something fit for cultural analysis, there's not one big consortium of 'delicious developers'. We all make our own decisions and we all have our own sense or lack of ethics. Please keep that in mind. cheers, Dirk
MJR
Mon Nov 6 12:34:33 2006 You make some good points, but never mention that Disco is in Beta. As in, not finished. I'm glad everyone has ripped apart Disco, because the criticism will only improve the final version of the app.  Paul (Rogue Amoeba Staff)
Mon Nov 6 12:35:57 2006 nargalzius: That was a simple oversight - I've got about 30 links going on in this article. Anyway, I added it. As far as "perfectly executed", I wouldn't agree with that, as I think it still falls to far on the flash side of the spectrum. However, it's certainly quite well done. Rory: I think there's definitely a feeling among many that it's getting to be a bit much. As for viable, I'd agree that it doesn't seem like it would be, but maybe it is. LKM: It wasn't a direct comparison, it's simply saying the DL departed from the standard UI elements in a major way, and others have followed that path and taken it well beyond. Jesper: That's certainly your right, but I think CD burning apps is pretty well-traveled ground (as evidenced by the links). I find it -very- difficult to accept an application with Smoke as a feature as "a no-BS interface". As for Apple's change, I certainly noted this, and John Gruber did a far better job of explaining it in his C4 talk which eventually he'll get online. Andrew: The ability to create inexpensive buzz is definitely one of the good things to come out of this, as noted. I think it could be better harnessed, however. Jeremy: Thanks for the praise 8). Alex: That's an interesting idea, that with more publicity (and presumably more users), we'll start seeing more rehashes. As for MySpace, that comparison came up in discussing this article, but it's much too far/unfair. Erik: Good points, and a good post. Finally, another link: Michael Dupuis apparently had some of the same thoughts 2 days ago. Dirk: As noted right in the post "I'll be painting with broad strokes". I'm not attempting to smear anyone, and the whole point is that the polarization is occurring, but it doesn't need to. As far as the quote, it's use was simply to further the conversation, not to implicate an entire group of developers. My apologies if you read it that way. "We all make our own decisions and we all have our own sense or lack of ethics. Please keep that in mind." I think I have, as that's the whole point of the article - "Developers should take the best elements of all this and use them".
Ekim
Mon Nov 6 12:42:58 2006 I am singularly unimpressed with the "Delicious Generation" -- and the name is absolutely fitting, as Delicious Library is the perfect exemplar of style over functionality....and absolutely visually stunning piece of work which falls over hard if you actually try to USE it with a large (couple thousand item) library....in other words, the software fails to work for what one would think would be its primary usage scenario. But it looks good in demoes and screenshots. Who needs functionality, or QA or any kind of process if you got that?
Nick
Mon Nov 6 12:50:21 2006 FWIW, as part of the really old school generation of Mac developers I'd like to point out that much of this discussion also took place in the 80's regarding Kai's Power Tools (KPT). KPT used custom UI widgets that made it stand out from everything before it. There was a lot of debate about whether that was good or bad.
Drew Thaler
Mon Nov 6 12:55:33 2006 I wonder how much of this is the natural consequence of Steve Jobs' own preference for flashy software. The flashy software demos really started in a big way with the release of OSX in 2001. Five years later, hmm, what do you know ... the Mac world is full of flashy stuff that demos well.
Jesper
Mon Nov 6 13:42:56 2006 Paul: "I find it -very- difficult to accept an application with Smoke as a feature as "a no-BS interface"." Okay, I guess my phrasing deserved that. My point is that if you strip down all the glitz, the app still takes you from point A to point B in a way that - in my opinion, of course - works much better for semi-advanced stuff (like disc spanning) than any other way I've tried. To me, this isn't about being able to do everything that Toast can do, or being able to do very easy stuff in less effort than in the Finder (burning a disc in half a click?), it's about being able to do much of the other common stuff faster and easier. This is why I believe Disco has a lot of steak and why it can be worth the 15 bucks.
A real old timer
Mon Nov 6 13:58:54 2006 Old school should be reserved for the Mac OS Developers who worked pre X versions of the Mac OS and who had to wrestle with the pascal style interfaces and copybits. Some of those guys are still around for sure. - > The reset is all new school!
Marco
Mon Nov 6 13:59:51 2006 does any of this really matter? apple will just rip off the best ideas these guys come up with to be included in 10.5 and beyond Paul (Rogue Amoeba Staff)
Mon Nov 6 14:02:20 2006 Nick: That's definitely true - this isn't the first time something like this has occurred. But I think Apple breaking from the HIG has changed things a fair bit. When KPT did it, people pointed to the HIG and Apple's design. Now, what can we point when, say, Disco has non-standard Close/Minimize/Zoom buttons? Drew: I think that's an interesting point to consider, and an unfortunate one. It's tough to buck Jobs. Jesper: You think Disco is being aimed at mid-level users? From what I've heard (from people like Jason Harris) is that it's aimed at newbies. As I said to Jason, if that's the case, I think the hype for it has reached exactly the wrong people. For that matter, I don't think newbies are going to want, or even understand, Smoke. As well, it seems to want to be competing with Toast, based off that tagline alone. A real old timer: For what it's worth, the developers at Rogue Amoeba have all had Macs since at least System 6. The company itself is quite young, but we've been on the platform a decently long time. Marco: I'm not really sure what to say to that. Assume that Apple does steal the best ideas - so? This post is much more about what third party developers can and should do. Even if Apple includes some new ideas taken from the ISVs, the HIG is still dying.
Jack
Mon Nov 6 14:19:31 2006 As a user rather than a developer I couldn't agree more - apps looking pretty is one thing, but if they throw out consistency, I'm just not going to use them for long. Perhaps I'm just lazy, but I want applications to work as I expect them to, rather than having to learn a new set of rules for every application. As far as the hype goes, I think the 'Delicious Generation' tactic of pushing products by saying 'Wow! Look at this pretty thing! With smoke!' can't last compared to the 'old school' tactic of saying 'This application does x, y and z, and it does it very well'. NetNewsWire and VoodooPad are good examples for you to highlight: no one is going to weep with joy at the sight of screenshots from either of them, but, having been recommended them via word of mouth, I recommend them to others, because they work. Over time, that kind of low level, steady 'hype' must be better for a company than a flash in the pan burst of publicity.
Drew Thaler
Mon Nov 6 14:24:34 2006 So as far as "finding the good" goes ... I think someone should undertake the task of creating an HIWiki to track the living (de-facto) HIG as it has been adapted by modern applications. You could do it with just a simple wiki, but for best results you'd make two things easy: user-contributed code, and some sort of voting system to get a feel for the consensus on certain points.
Craig Hockenberry
Mon Nov 6 14:49:18 2006 What really scares me is the Delicious Generation getting ahold of Core Animation: <http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/coreanimation.html> It's a powerful & useful API, but I'm guessing it will be abused for the sake of glitz. -ch
Karl Adam
Mon Nov 6 15:01:16 2006 I also strongly disagree with the fact that Delicious Library is being lumped in with the rest of these apps. Ekim, how many people do you know have a library of several thousand? That's is NOT the norm, I barely have a couple 100 DVDs and Books, and it works quite well for me. When people make that argument I like to point at iPhoto, that used to be dog slow for anyone with thousands of pictures, but given time it has been well optimized to deal with that usage scenario, why can't you wait for DL to do that same? It successfully looked up all your books, dvds, games, etc, did it not? It also looked up all their details and images for them from the web successfully? If you used the isight feature, it did that well and accurately, right? After all, if you used it long enough to get thousands of items in there, it clearly did everything it was suppposed to correctly, until you were sitting there with thousands of items entered and you're now shocked that it's performance isn't the same as with it's much smaller sample library. Disco on the other hand does nothing of consequence well, I've watched it's "features" spit out coaster after coaster for people that have tried to use it. it thinks it's on the level of Toast, but my toast works much better than it could ever dream to, I launch it, drag files in and hit burn, what simpler UI is there? AppZapper is the second worst offender since it's functionality is all guesswork. Besides the preference file and application file, the rest of the related files for a particular application are just guesses at what the file might be responsible for creating. If anything this new generation should be named the Disco generation because it's all sizzle and no steak. Disco doesn't do anything you couldn't already do with Disc Utility and AppZapper's functionality can be easily achieved by a user and spotlight.
Tom
Mon Nov 6 15:35:29 2006 Interesting talk from a guy who's rendering his own blog UI unusable by having a ridiculous line-height on his Georgia body type. I would've read more, but I started to get a migraine...
Craig Hockenberry
Mon Nov 6 15:40:23 2006 What really scares me is the Delicious Generation getting ahold of Core Animation: <http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/coreanimation.html> It's a powerful & useful API, but I'm guessing it will be abused for the sake of glitz. -ch Paul (Rogue Amoeba Staff)
Mon Nov 6 16:14:39 2006 Jack: It's definitely interesting to hear from users on this - thus far, a lot of the chatter has been from developers. Drew: There actually is a small project like this here: http://macsb.ironcoder.org/wiki/Indiehig. It's a good idea. Craig: I think we'll see some awful Core Animation work, and then it'll settle down. Something like what happened with metal, really. Karl: The idea here is that DL inspired this, not that it's necessarily part of it. A few more links/trackbacks: Ars' Infinite Loop journal has a post discussing this, with some good feedback in the comments. I gave Jason Harris a preview of the article yesterday, and he worked up a reply which he and I later discussed. I think one important thing to realize is that overly complex to implement is not the same as an overly complex result. It might be insanely difficult to create a feature, but that doesn't mean it actually does anything. It's also not a matter of whether the application "appears simple", but whether it's actually doing anything new or different. If Disco's goal is to be a simple and fun way to burn CDs for newbies, ok. But I think that's ground that's been well-covered before, by Apple and others. As well, I think the hype for it has reached exactly the wrong people then. For that matter, I don't think newbies are going to want, or even understand, Smoke. There's no debate in my mind on the idea of needing a GD for designing, or at least needing to sharpen up those GD skills. However, I think it's also valuable to realize that graphic designers aren't user interaction/user experience designers. Anyhow, his post is a good read. People (on Digg and other sites) seem to be trying to frame this as all or nothing, old vs. new, when the whole point was there's a middle ground, and no one is really at the ends of the spectrum. Finally, Michael Dupuis had a direct reply to my post. In response to his one complaint, the key part of that sentence is the "identical" part. Regardless, we agree on the basic idea - a beautiful app can wind up being more usable than a plain one.
Mark Munz
Mon Nov 6 18:16:01 2006 I'm old, old school. I've been working on Macs since 1989. I agree that the latest batch of shareware has become more splash than splish. All style, no substance. Just Bling. etc.. Animations are a great way to convey useful information to the user. Apple's poof animation is a great example of this. When animation is done for the sake of animation, it loses its value to the end user. To me, there has to be more than "looks cool" behind the animation or graphics. As for Michael's comment about hiring Graphic Designers. GD have a place, but most GD are not UI designers. Yes, they can create great looking graphics, but that has nothing to do with usability, and consistency required to make an app user friendly. Like all things in life, it is all a matter of balance. Too much fluff without substance, and your app starts to look silly. Too much substance and no fluff and your app is seen as mean and unfriendly.
Wil Shipley
Mon Nov 6 18:18:32 2006 Paul, Lots of good points here. Mike Matas and I used to fight all the time on glitz vs. substance -- perhaps surprisingly, we would switch sides almost daily. One day I'd be arguing for 3D-ish shelves (he invented the idea first, then decided he hated it, then I invented it separately, then I talked him into it again) or for crazy animations in the iSight barcode scanner (lost that one), the next day I'd be arguing against simplifying an interface YET AGAIN but losing functionality I thought everyone was using. One tricky thing about writing software is that the best software seems VERY simple, even if it's not. I've seen a lot of super-complex library-type applications out there that SEEM like they have more features, but essentially I think they just make simple things complicated instead of making simple things simple. So, there's part of me that hopes that, for every piece of software I write, at least a few people say, "Well, that seems like it's just a lot of flash and no real code." Take iSight barcode scanning. We have two competitors who purport to do this, as well, so many people assume it's pretty easy. But in fact, I've spent eight months on the various iterations of the algorithms I use to do this; it was the single most expensive part of the program to write. But it's just one panel. And, if you don't compare our program side-by-side with a competitor, you'll never know how much faster and more accurate ours is. So, you say, "Look, program X has feature a, b, and c, and ALSO does iSight scanning, so DL is clearly all glitz." Well, no. I just spent a long time making sure that my feature really worked. I don't have any features that are just checkmarks. Bluetooth scanner support is the same way. It's represented in the interface by a single button and a menu item. If you don't own a Bluetooth scanner, you might not even know we support it. But I had to write the Bluetooth client drivers myself for that, and talking to hardware is never easy. Again, this took weeks and weeks of time, and it's been one of the biggest support burdens in the program but, for people with large collections, I think some form of wireless scanning is a must. So, there it is. When we added features to 1.0, they had to pass the Mom test. "Would my Mom want to use this?" and "Would she understand HOW to us it?" That's why we didn't add support for unmodified CueCats. I've got nothing against them, but they don't pass the first Mom test -- my Mom's not going to go scrounging on eBay looking for a discontinued scanner from a company that went bankrupt half a decade ago. Version two has a slightly different focus; we've substituted "a collector" for "my Mom" in most cases. But Mom still plays an important role -- I'm not going to add a feature that would confuse my Mom, or at least not add it without having it be "hiding" behind a less complex, more common way of accomplishing something. (For example, raw FTP setup is a lot more complex than .Mac, and my Mom has .Mac. But raw FTP is valid for collectors and should be in there.) -- The guy who said "You can be honorable, or you can make money" is no progeny of mine and knows it. Also, he's wrong. Hell, I've got a whole slideshow on doing both. -- There are people who feel Delicious Library has more polish than features. To them I say, honestly, "sorry." Version one isn't for you. I wish it could be for everyone, but I had to make choices. I feel I did the right thing adding some good functionality and lots polish to version one, because now I have the resources to do versions two and three, which we've had planned out since before we even first shipped. In many ways version 1 of Library IS like iPhoto 1, which I think is kind of a compliment. We're slow if you load us up with thousands of items. This sucks. Version 2 is both based on CoreData and uses a faster graphics pipeline. We've been testing it with four thousand item collections routinely, and our design goal has been to handle one hundred thousand items without being unusable (eg, we're making sure we stay inside a reasonable swap space, that disk writes aren't prohibitively slow, etc.) The huge win to CoreData is that if you have a 20,000 item library and you change one item, CoreData only has to write out one block (essentially), so it takes about a twentieth of a second to save. With version one and its custom autosaving XML data store, if you modified one item you had to translate all 20,000 items into XML and write them to disk again. YOUCH. This would burn up the main thread and make the app unusable, but wasn't something I could readily fix without going to a full-fledged database, which required a rewrite. -Wil Shipley Chief Monster, Delicious Monster Software
Jesper
Mon Nov 6 18:35:10 2006 Paul: "You think Disco is being aimed at mid-level users?" No, I didn't say that. I said that the high note of the app is "semi-advanced stuff". Multi-session discs. Disc spanning. That's not immediately obvious in Disk Utility or Toast. I leave it to the Disco team, if anyone, to define who the app is being aimed at, and I don't think they'd want to do that. Mark Munz above hits the spot: every single one of Apple's animations in the OS has an agenda. A poof means "there goes an alias or proxy". A ripple means "something new just appeared on your Dashboard". An image snapping back to a location means "the drop wasn't accepted". An icon zooming into the screen or bouncing regularly in the Dock means "this thing was told to open, but might not open immediately". An icon bouncing irregularly in the Dock means "this app wants your attention". The specific UI style Disco uses does not have an agenda, therefore it is for show. Anything that is for show is fit for pointing out as superfluous or bloated or an attack against the free society, or whatever one would like to make of it. Smoke, however, does have an agenda - "your disc is burning, therefore smoke, har har". Smoke is intrusive and longer lasting than poofs or ripples, which is why there's an option to turn it off. Lastly, I agree with you that this is a whole spectrum. There are sides here that could benefit from approaching the other side. But I'm also asking you: would Disco, as a small useful utility, have gotten attention on the same scale as it has today? Does this attention - good or bad - result in more sold copies?
Dustin MacDonald
Mon Nov 6 21:23:25 2006 I somewhat agree. There is definitely a balance needed here. However I would not associate Delicious Library at all with the applications mentioned - I believe it is one of the few apps that posesses this balance. I've written more on this in my blog post: http://www.dustinmacdonald.net/2006/11/delicious-generation-hardly.html
Geoff Schmit
Mon Nov 6 22:58:47 2006 I posted some thoughts on the emergence of this Delicious Generation. While I think the evolution of technology plays a part, I think the evolution of the typical computer user is a more important factor: "... today’s computer users can easily handle non-standard user interfaces and gratuitous effects. While some of us old schoolers may be distracted by these effects and their inconsistencies, today’s users have a much higher tolerance. Twenty years ago, users were figuring out how to use a mouse and were confused by System 6’s MultiFinder. Given these challenges, the user interface had better be consistent and not appear to be on fire. Today, my two-and-a-half year old sits down at the computer, fast-user switches to his account, launches Safari, and starts browsing the web with ease. I don’t think gratuitous Core Image effects are going to confuse him."
Steve
Mon Nov 6 23:18:54 2006 You really should've dubbed them The Disco Generation. They're both somewhat vapid and without soul and, over time, will fade away. Delicious will most likely be around for a long, long time. I still believe there is room for both, though. Sometimes vapid has its place, even if it is only to serve as a warning sign on the road of life.
theMacpenguin
Tue Nov 7 00:49:33 2006 I completely agree about a middleground. A blend fo form and function. My Dream App left me beside myself at the incredibly useless apps (except for portal) that won. If you want a good example of a program thats good at both, look at <url href="macromates.com">TextMate</url>. Its GUI is simple and the keyboard shorcuts and the bundle system (drool) make it extremely productive. <url href="http://www.panic.com/transmit/>Transmit<url> is also a great app, once again a good blend of form and function. I think that Disco's and the Atmosphere's of the development world need to look at these apps, to see what a great can be! :D
theMacpenguin
Tue Nov 7 00:53:09 2006 Hehe I'm sorry about the tags, above, didn't realize it was normal html here! Well anyway here are the links: <a rel="http://www.macromates.com>TextMate</a> <a rel="http://www.panic.com/transmit>Transmit</a>
leeg
Tue Nov 7 04:53:48 2006 I'd say it certainly is possible to combine the schools, with fewer issues than one would get, say, crossing the particle streams. I wave a Ken Case in your direction as evidence - OmniDazzle is a Mac 2.0 product while OmniWeb has always tracked How Cocoa Looks - even if that does require a bit of non-IB hacking to achieve. And I prefer OW ;-). Like many other people I am concerned that Core Animation will lead to the death of the Mac UI, but the old school had its fair share of contentless apps too. How many shareware apps are out there which just wrap a UNIX tool in an NSTask and a couple of text fields?
Oliver
Tue Nov 7 08:16:15 2006 I think you've made some valid points, but it is unfortunate that you are picking so much on Disco. I needed an application that keeps track of which files have been burned to disc - that's something Toast never did. Additionally I regularily need disc-spanning - something the Finder never did. Granted, Toast lets you compress your movie, split it into chapters, burn it on a DVD, choose some obscure format, fiddle with your dvd burner's settings, etc. - but I just needed a competent disc burning app (and I only bought Disco after I had the chance to try it out). And although Disco has a "delicious" UI it really does all of the above. And it is still simple to use. I don't see where there is a problem with the app itself. Of course it uses existing frameworks, but there is no harm in that either, is there? The whole discussion reminds me of the 80s flamewar between command line interface users and Mac users (GUIs being toys and all) I do want my apps to be good-looking AND functional. Nobody likes BBEdit because of its looks, but if it would look better and would be easier to use it would be an even more pleasing app.
Dustin Wilson
Tue Nov 7 11:00:04 2006 A rant like this is good every once and a while because it shows a developer in a new light. I bought a "Delicious Generation" application, and that application is AppZapper. It might be "Spotlight with zap effects." I can drag icons to it and it instantly finds all files associated with that application. I can use it as a complete uninstaller or I can pick and choose what I want to remove such as a bad preference file or something. No hunting. No waiting for Spotlight to take forever to find it. I don't see the purpose in belitting other people's applications. I'm not a big accountant, so I don't really have a need for a full accounting suite on my Mac. Does that make Quicken Pro a crappy application? No. I don't have a need for an even simpler disc burning application that happens to smoke when done burning a disc. Does it make Disco a crappy application? No. It makes it flashy, but it does do what it says. People know it smokes when burning a disc before they even try it out. So what? Let's take one of your own applications for a spin. Do I have a need for a sound editing program like Fission that can only split audio files? No. Can't Audacity do that and more including the fact that it's free? Yes. Does Audacity look like poo? Yes. Fission is a program you have to pay for that can do something other applications can already do better. Its only saving grace is that it looks pretty. Does that stop you from developing it anyway? No. Stop belittling other people's applications and make your own applications better to show them up instead. Paul (Rogue Amoeba Staff)
Tue Nov 7 11:36:00 2006 Mark: That's pretty much spot-on - hopefully, users will agree. Wil: Sure, but there's "seeming simple" and there's just "lacking in functionality or performance. To be sure, I think DL 1 had a bit too much polish, and not quite enough in the feature/performance department, but overall it was certainly solid. Also, I must applaud you for managing to land an ad for Delicious Library 2 on our page 8). Jesper: Ok, but if the point is "semi-advanced stuff", it's not really being pitched that way at all. I also think using "copies sold" as the only metric for measuring an application isn't really the best method. On the face of it, the more copies sold, the better, as far as the developer is concerned. But if those sales are low quality, they'll result in more support emails than they should, or no loyalty to the company. That's not a viable strategy, at least not for a real business. Not everyone making Mac software is trying to run a business, but for those that are, it's important to realize that there are different types of sales. Dustin: As noted, Delicious Library is the grandfather here, one of the first major applications (outside of Apple) where the focus is more on flash and not features. It's what inspired the rest and I'm not trying to insult anyone here, Delicious Library or the Delicious Generation. I would certainly agree that DL had a far better balance than some other examples listed here though. Geoff: I'm glad your summary of my view actually nailed it. It seems a lot of people are skimming the article and finding things to reply to that just aren't there. As far as the idea of a new generation of users (those raised on the Web more than applications, really), it's an interesting idea. I don't know that it's quite as definite as you think, but it's certainly a consideration. However, there are still lots and lots of people who use computers but aren't steeped in the interfaces of the web. Losing any sort of consistency, in both appearances and behavior, isn't going to benefit them, or anyone really. Steve: As noted, I think DL was the inspiration for a lot of this, and thus they got the honor of the name. Again, it's not intended as a snub. Macpenguin: Panic's applications have long had a good combination of features and looks. I'd say, however, that they've never taken too many risks, nor stepped too far away from what Apple provides (save for Skins in Audion). That may no longer be possible. leeg: If nothing else, it will be interesting to see. Oliver: I don't really think I am picking on Disco. You can find plenty of other articles out there that do, including a couple linked within the article, but the focus here isn't on taking down Disco. I do, however, wish that it had a more standard UI and behavior, and that it was more than a warmed-over layer on top of the DiscRecording.framework. Using frameworks isn't the issue, it's the fact that a half-dozen apps (or more) already cover all this ground. If new features were added, great, but I don't think what's new has been focused on, compared to the flash of the app. Dustin W.: This post isn't about "belittling other people's applications" at all. It's focus is on application development, and the balance needed. The issue being put forth here is focusing much more on flash than on features. Audacity can't do what Fission does, namely lossless editing of MP3 and AAC files. Can it do some of the same things Fission does, and some things Fission doesn't do? Sure. Can Fission do things Audacity can't do? Sure. Fission has a solid base of features, with what is hopefully a nice interface on top of it - it's certainly not all flash. Could Fission have more features? Sure - but it's a 1.0. It's certainly not lacking in features because we spent a great deal of time adding flash. As for "showing them up", again, that's not the point here. I'd hoped to open the door to discussion on the balance needed in development, and from the reaction here and around the web, I think I did that.
David
Tue Nov 7 17:17:21 2006 As one of the old-old-school crowd*, I'm inspired by many of these new apps. I wouldn't categorize them all as "Deliciousware" -- I don't think Delicious is that special in terms of visuals and certainly not in performance (rather it's functionality and it's mixing of personal and public information). It seems to me that the attention paid to Will Shipley is more to do with his monetary success (and, it must be said, his somewhat vocal ego). Success breeds discontent and, truth be told, Mac developers can be a catty bunch at times. Re the HIG, year after year, we were told by Apple that we shouldn't create interfaces with certain features (including color and sound). Any posting to comp.sys.mac.programmer or a Web site on the topic of "how do I do this?" was invariably met with a flurry of commandments/orders from the Mac community's self-appointed guardians of the HIG. (Many of whom, when they could tear themselves away from being interface police, created some pretty ugly apps...) But things have changed. The static interfaces of Mac OS, driven by computing power and storage space and tools, has given way to a world where people expect their apps to look and peform at least as good as any one of the polished, Flash-driven web pages they view online all day. (And hopefully much better.) Modal interfaces have given way to layers of information, with real-time updating of data. Increases in computing power and storage space now allows ways of presenting and interacting with information that could only be dreamt of in years past. Our interfaces need to adapt as well. So I don't mind if an app is glitzy, as long as it's well designed glitziness. In the real world, we need to remember that substance is all very well but sizzle does a lot of the selling. Ideally, our apps should have both. (*seniority means nothing in this game. The only thing that matters is having good ideas, good implementations, good marketing and actually shipping your product. That can be done whether you're a grizzled veteran who wrote 68K ASM in Lightspeed or you've just bought your first Mac and a copy of Javascript For Dummies).
TommyW
Tue Nov 7 18:03:20 2006 An interesting sidebar to this. A review of Delicious Library on the Mac Observer last week led to a bit of a spat between the developer, Will Shipley, and the developer of one of it's competitors, the (to my mind) more streamlined and better-featured DVDPedia. http://www.macobserver.com/review/2006/10/30.1.shtml
jenkins
Wed Nov 8 12:16:02 2006 As pretty much just a Mac user, I'm entirely with David. I am impressed by the number of people willing to develop seemingly random things for the Mac, which is not new. Even in the OS 7 days ("savvy" anyone?), the number of free or inexpensive applications with specific one- or two-use goals was pretty nice. So a group of developers is discovering that people like The Pretty just as much as The Thing Done. Can you blame them? Can you blame Apple? If you do, you might as well blame YouTube, or Google, or Flickr. Users on the whole don't think about the experience, certainly not on the level that the developers do. (Or I hope they do.) As for hype working, you could also blame Bungie ("I Love Bees"), and comercial television, and Vegas. Really, you guys should be blaming us, the users, for wanting it so much. The "Delicious Developers" are no more amoral than P.T. Barnum. I'll let the reader decide how amoral that is.
barry
Wed Nov 8 13:30:27 2006 There are some good points here but I think if we are honest with ourselves as developers, part of it is that we are scared by elegant flashy design because we don't know how to do it. Personally I don't even have the visual skills to craft the "old-school UIs" found in NNW and the like, so I have understood being intimidated by superior design ability for a while now. (I just stick with writing APIs).
Chad Armstrong
Thu Nov 9 16:00:57 2006 So would Quicksilver go under the lines of the Delicious Generation? I primarily use it as a keyboard-based application launcher, yet nearly everything about it's interface seems custom-built. There are certainly a lot of gee-whiz-bang effects, but it is also impressive to see what can be done that not many people have attempted.
sapere
Fri Nov 10 11:13:07 2006 I can't disagree enough with those in the mac development community that believe a few flashy or gimmicky apps will strangle the platform or somehow become "infamous for being a sign of the fall of the Mac". This alarmist interpretation helps no one. New consumer growth draws new developers. New developers perhaps bring new ideas (and, yes, some bad) to the fold. But aren't mac apps are subject to natural selection, just as all other applications -- mac or not? Criticism of an app is one thing, sowing seeds of FUD are quite another. The new generation of apps are, on the whole, a very positive thing for mac platform.
Jon
Tue Nov 14 11:56:53 2006 I'm going to agree with Barry; I see part of the issue being less that there are lots of fancy applications which have little more than fluff to them, and more that those applications which are exceedingly powerful or massively feature filled but don't have a GD on staff will be overlooked. As a developer, it's humbling to think that you can't get on the platform if you don't have a BA in graphic design...
David
Tue Nov 14 20:04:18 2006 Problem isn't so much the new look of the UI, but what an application actually does. You have mentioned VoodooPad as an example of "the good". I have tried it, it's a very cool app, but what is it for? MacUpdate is full of voodoo this, voodoo that, pad this, scrapbook that, catalogue this ... but try to find a descent photo editor, and the list suddenly slims down. How about an application for authoring flash content? Apart from Adobe Flash, nothing. I think that cocoa framework gave mac developers a relatively easy way to create simple apps, and that's what we have. I would like to see more tools like Cheetah3d or CSSEdit rather then all these useless pads and database cataloguing stuff.
John Doe
Fri Nov 17 01:47:58 2006 "Disco's smoke effect is now infamous for being a sign of the fall of the Mac." I couldn't stop laughing after reading that line. By the way, I think I just saw your credibility go flying out the window.
William Henderson
Tue Nov 21 15:50:16 2006 <a href=http://whenderson.blogspot.com/2006/11/on-software-pricing-and-productness.html">My own</a> thoughts on the issues of pricing and conveying productness through flash.
Joe
Fri Nov 24 17:27:48 2006 I completely agree with everything said in this article. I have nothing else to say.
DTNick
Sun Nov 26 03:12:48 2006 @ John Doe: You clearly failed to read the very next sentence in the article: " I certainly won't go that far, but I think it's clear that it's a "triumph" of style over substance." I've discussed this in a couple articles recently on my site. I really think a merger of the two--good looks and good functionality--is application nirvana for end users. The thing to keep in mind, of course, is that an application can look cool without being flashy. I think the new version of CSSEdit is a great example. It's not exactly flashy. It's very functional. But it's one hell of a sexy app. This post is archived, and commenting has been closed. |
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This realization came at 
Perhaps the most prominent current example of the Delicious Generation is 
There's plenty of good to take away from the aforementioned applications and sites. To start, they're beautiful. There are plenty of talented graphic artists doing great work here. Given the choice between two identical applications, one that's beautiful and one that's plain, the beautiful one doesn't just look better, it's more usable. Adding some flash to a solid application is certain to be a good thing.
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