No, you don’t deserve a coherent “401 – Unauthorized” error page. I am Kinja. I know better than you.

The PowerBook G3 – my very first Mac.

Well, as everyone is celebrating 30 years of Macintosh, I thought  I just briefly bring up my very first Mac – the Powerbook G3 (Wallstreet). I saved for ages, waiting for the first Mac that seemed like the right one to buy – almost settling on the PowerBook 5400, but simply feeling like there was something missing…

I still remember sitting in a park, on a sunny spring day in 1997, and reading in Macworld magazine about the brand-new PowerBook G3: Checking out the specs, checking out the pictures, and simply being joyous that I had found the exact Mac I had been waiting for! “Kensington cable lock slot!”

I got the base configuration a few months later, as I could not afford more, with no internal modem (I think six months later, the Pismo revision came out with an internal modem as default, and that was the only thing I regretted, because modems at that time were big and chunky) – but it was an amazing, beautiful computer, and I could not have been happier. This was a computer unlike anything before, with its smooth and sensual curves, and the raw power and endless possibilities it offered. I had it for over three years, using it for anything I could imagine, and it went with me literally all over the world.

I loved my Book of Power. And I have been on Macs ever since.

So – happy anniversary, Macintosh – let’s see, where the next 30 years will take us!

I have now spent more than a month with iOS 7, both on my old iPhone 4S as well as recently my new 5S.

So here’s my question. In which world is this:

…in any shape or form better than this:

The original iBooks shelf is a rich, vibrant design, calling in mind old book shelves and dusty libraries, with depth and shadows. It is beautiful, but also, it makes complete sense as a design.

The recently updated iOS 7 iBooks (oh, it was a silent update, so I did not even have choice about installing it) looks like something a housewife whipped up in Windows Paint. Seriously, what is this? It is literally lines of horizontal drop shadows. That’s it. That’s all.

I could have given much more, and maybe better examples, but I do not have the time nor the inclination to go into details. People who do not see the deficiencies will likely not see them even if I point them out.

Apple was heavily criticised for more than a year prior to iOS 7, that their iOS design was “stale”, that “skeumorphic” design was out, and that Android had taken the lead in user interface design, and so on, and so on. But the fact is, Apple is being criticised by the usual suspects all the time – and it usually ignores the noise, and just sticks to its guns.

(And granted, some of the skeuomorphism – e.g. the stitched leather and the green felt – may have indeed been over the top. But in those cases, it was design completely seperate from function, which is not even the definition of skeuomorphism. The design in Garageband for example was a logical consequence of its form. The design in the Find My Friends app was arbitrary.)

But on this occasion, it seems that Apple blinked, and then went completely over the top in the other direction. And not only that, but it did a rush job – something which is so unlike Apple.

Everything is harder to read, harder to see. The text and lines are thin, the symbols look like clipart straight out of Microsoft Word, everything is grey on grey, blurred and smeared.

And worst, every developer feels forced to update their apps to adapt the new look, leading to more completely indistinguishable apps, which lose in functionality and readability.

It’s awful.

I have been amazed by the response to iOS 7 from respectable, and usually intelligent and discerning Macpundits – there has barely been any criticism, and everyone is enamoured by it. I literally cannot follow their thinking here – I have rarely had such an contrasting experience compared with the rest of the Macworld.

I have given it time to get used to it – and I have, but never to the point of liking it. At present, I am mostly tolerating it. I am noticing that I am actually consciously not updating apps like Tweetbot and Fantastical – although they are great apps, and I wish to support the developers -, simply because I do not want to use the new design.

And I am amazed that I seem alone in this. Apple is flaunting the huge adoption rate of iOS 7 – but that does not mean, that people updated because of the new design, or that they like it. Most people I know do not like or, like me, merely tolerate the new look. The only criticism I can see is from the usual suspects – in most cases the same people, who criticised the previous look ad nauseam, or anything Apple ever did or did not do.

The guys, whose opinion I usually trust, or at least, whose opinion I can understand if not agree with – none of them see any problems with the new direction. There are a lot of excuses going on sometimes – the look of Newsstand, which is similar in bareness to iBooks, was initially defended as a placeholder due to rushing out IOS 7 to the market, and future updates would fix things. Well, these excuses are gone now, and now we all simply love the bareness.

A lot of it is US-centric. The “text instead of icons” approach of iOS 7 may work in English, but in other languages the type becomes so small, or needs to be abbreviated in such a manner, that it becomes unusable. But of course, no one outside English-speaking countries even considers this. (Similarly, by the way, to how Maps still sucks outside the US.) And yes, Apple has always been amazing at localising its OS – but even the best would struggle with this current approach.

Jony Ive is a fantastic hardware designer, but he has, as far as I know, no experience as a software designer. I find it strange that people just assumed that different skills sets could just easily translate – it’s like expecting that someone who excels at golf, should just as well be a great race car driver. I am not pulling out the stale “it would have been different under Steve Jobs” argument – no one knows that, and Steve reportedly himself had made some bad design decisions himself in his time. But Steve Jobs was a perfectionist, and it is my unsubstantiated gut feeling, he indeed would not have allowed some of this to pass in this form.

And it’s worrying what will happen to Mac OS X because of this. Mavericks has a lot of evidence of a rush job as well (on the GUI front; many other changes, mostly under the hood, are solid, and the result of long term planning and development) – some apps have been changed just by stripping out things without any thought to design or function, as if in a panic. Some which should have had similar changes have strangely remained the same. I am worried that the iOS 7 design will eventually leap over on the Mac OS X design. I would not like that.

I am hopeful that iOS 8 may dilute some of the changes, or maybe bring back some aesthetics and beauty. But I am worried we will be stuck with the current design language with all its deficiencies and ugliness for many years to come.

Harry Marks over at Curious Rat writes about rejection letters. It is a good article (Harry’s blog is full of thoughtful and well argued posts like this, and I check it out regularly – I do not necessarily always agree with him, but I can never dispute that he is presenting his point well) and this little sentence struck me:

Rejection takes all forms, but the message is clear: Do better.

Yes.

I think this is applicable to much more than writing. Rejection is a part of life, and the fear of being rejected can be paralysing. And even if you overcome that fear, and open yourself up to another person, and show them a part of you – be it a poem, a novel, a piece of art, or maybe just your heart – being rejected can feel almost like being killed. It is like being told that the best of you was not good enough.

And yet – this is not what is being said. The message of rejection is not that you are not good enough. It is that you should do better. And being a human being, with an endless potential for development, you can always do better.

As the man once said: “There is no failure – only feedback.”

I am on high seas right now, fighting waves and sea sickness, and the Internet connection is dodgy (surprising that there is any at all!). I was going to be off the grid this week, but I heard the sad news and just wanted to mark the occasion.

It was not unexpected, but on some level everyone hoped we would have longer. RIP, Mr Banks!

I watched the new Star Trek movie yesterday. I thought it was really suspenseful and I liked it.

Checking out some online reviews afterwards, I just found it funny, that changes to a classic Star Trek villain are met with universal uproar, while utterly screwing up a classic villain in Ironman 3 is just shrugged off.

Nerds do not equal nerds.

But no worries: I have made my peace, and am moving on.

(Oh, but this is just friendly teasing – I love io9, probably the best website for Science and Fiction (and I loathe their comment system – but I digress…))

P.S. Oh man! Researching for this post, I found this – which was freakin’ hilarious. I now will become a better person, and let this topic be.

This is the Mandarin.

He is not silly. He is not racist. He is a great and classic comic book villain.

Ever since he was teased in the first Ironman movie, I have been looking forward to see him on the screen. I was weary when I heard who would portray him in the third part, and concerned when I heard the ridiculous discussion about him being potentially offensive to Chinese sensibilities. I thought that discussion was political correctness (and financial greed) gone mad as usual, and that he could easily be adapted to work in a contemporary context (as he had been adapted decades ago in the comics themselves).

Yesterday I watched Ironman 3. I was disappointed. It could have been great – RDJ was fantastic as usual -, but the portrayal of the Mandarin ruined the entire movie for me. I know that I am pretty alone with this impression, even amongst die-hard comic fans, but I do not expect anyone to agree either.

Update 20/05/2013:

After intensive digging, I discovered the script for a post-credits scene, which seems to have been deleted from the movie before the official screening. As the script contains major spoilers for the movie, I will discuss it after the break.

more →

Comicbookresources reports that AOL has pulled the plug on ComicsAlliance, one of my favorite comic sites, and basically the only one I have been checking regularly for news and great articles (mainly the inimitable Chris Sims). They apparently were not even given the chance to post a final good-bye.

(No official word yet if this is true, so I shall hold back with my opinions. After all, this is the honourable internet where people tend to gather and review all the facts before they offer objective and constructive comment.)

Update 30/4/2013: I think we can safely assume that this has happened. It’s been confirmed by a number of authors on Twitter, and the website has had no further updates since last week.

What a shame. It’s not only sad to see a great website disappear – a site, which simply was great fun to read, showed me that there were still interesting comics out there, and made me laugh. But it’s even more annoying the way they did it – without any official word from AOL, and without giving the authors any chance to react and say good-bye.

AOL sucks. Never, ever liked them anyway – still remember how they covered the entire country with their stupid “Free Trial! CDs” and the gangrenous user interface they wanted to sell as the Internet. I am in fact amazed that they still exist, but I am convinced, not for very much longer.

Bye, CA.

Happy birthday, Man of Steel!

(I may have more to say in a future post but for now I’ll just leave this here.)

Update: I believe this ComicsAlliance gallery is the perfect celebration.  The greatest comics artists in the world interpreting the greatest comics mythos in the world.

(Even my favourite “70s costume puffy sleeves Supergirl” is there – and thankfully, no Jim Lee 52 revamp rubbish.)