Wednesday, December 11, 2002

The Future of Desktops

Steven Johnson, whose books I have read and admired, has written an interesting article on the new (and divergent) UIs for Windows (Codename "Longhorn") and Mac (OX10 and iApps). Microsoft is trying to make one interface for all types of data, while Apple is trying to provide different interfaces for different data types. Interesting.

I'm of two minds about this. First, I can understand easing the learning curve. Learning how MS Word works helps you with Excel. There are millions of people who only need to do unsophisticated things with their machines and should only have to know a limited amount of things to accomplish their goals.

But...the data is different. I need to do radically different things with my MP3s than I need to do with my Photoshop files. Thus, I need different tools to manipulate such things. I'm sure people use Excel in much more sophisticated ways than I do, much as I'm sure I use Visio in more sophisticated ways than many.

Is the answer the dreaded modes? Stay tuned, I guess...

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