The obvious difference between Mac and Windows applications.
It is common knowledge that Apple pays close attention to design of their hardware as well as software. Mac OS X Leopard is by far a better designed OS than Vista ever will be. Apple’s iLife suite has no competition and the Mac desktops and laptops are the best designed in the world. And don’t mistake design to be ‘eye candy’.
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” Steve Jobs told the Times. “That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Now here’s the thing. The third party applications for the Mac also kick the shit out of their Windows counterparts in design and functionality. Developers of Mac applications generally pay a lot of attention to the design and aesthetics of the application. Whereas in the Windows world, it is features features features. A feature is not a feature until and unless you can use it.
Let’s take a look at some of the best apps in Windows and their mac counterparts. You be the judge (while I go on ranting). Mind you, I have not scourged the net finding the ugliest Windows apps and placed them against the pretty mac ones. I have googled my best to find the ‘best windows apps’ and compared them to what I feel are the best mac equivalents. Also, be sure to visit the respective websites. Mac app developers websites are 10 times cooler than their ugly cousins!
Windows: SmartFTP
All that I’ve said is clear in this example. Just look at that Windows app. It is so ugly! You can’t figure out where to login, where your files are, what the server is doing. Just blocks of areas placed together.
Mac: Flow
The difference is obvious! On starting up, you are presented with a login screen. Very pleasing colours are used. Everything is clear.
Once logged in, the application interface is so clean. This is the way an FTP app should be. You know where you are, you know what each file is. You press Spacebar and it will instantly Quicklook that file. And look at this gorgeous transfers view!
The guys at ExtendMac software actually added this to Flow’s homepage:
User Interface: We have an obsession with pixels. As a side effect, every pixel in Flow is simply lickable. Go ahead, lick away. Just be sure to clean the screen afterwards.
Windows: CoffeeCup HTML
I tried hard to find good apps for Windows, but this one seems to be the most recommended one. I’m pretty sure there has to be something better than this. Look at those countless number of buttons! What do they mean? Is this what ‘features’ means?
Mac: Coda
This is the best application out there. Hands down. Winner of last year’s Apple Design Awards for Best Mac application, this one is a stunner. The design is so streamlined, you can just work with you documents. Those little stickies are shortcuts to your sites. Just hit one and it takes you back to your work, with all the documents previously opened.
Windows: UltraEdit: Here’s one extra for kickers. What the hell are these guys thinking!
Windows: uTorrent
On Windows, this one is the king. I use it myself for downloading purposes. In all respects, it is a very good torrent client and the design is not too bad. Ugly, but functional to say the least.
Mac: Transmission
Suddenly you realise how cluttered uTorrent actually is. Transmission automatically resizes the window to fit your torrents, has a clean interface, and adds your download speed badge on the dock icon! You need more details? Hit the inspector. Need it when its there, not needed when its not. And I have no ‘functionality’ issues with Transmission. It has got all the features I need. And mind you, Transmission is an Open Source app.
Mac: Picturesque
There is no Windows counterpart for this one. This is a batch image resizer, and can add all kinds of smoking hot effects to your images with just a few clicks. And there's lots more of these apps for the Mac.
Here are some more Mac apps that just kick ass:
iBank. Winner of Apple Design Awards 2007. Wow! Banking never looked so good.
NetNewsWire
Times RSS reader
Screenflow
So what do you think? Convinced yet? Or did I somehow miss out on a well designed Windows app?
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” Steve Jobs told the Times. “That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Now here’s the thing. The third party applications for the Mac also kick the shit out of their Windows counterparts in design and functionality. Developers of Mac applications generally pay a lot of attention to the design and aesthetics of the application. Whereas in the Windows world, it is features features features. A feature is not a feature until and unless you can use it.
Let’s take a look at some of the best apps in Windows and their mac counterparts. You be the judge (while I go on ranting). Mind you, I have not scourged the net finding the ugliest Windows apps and placed them against the pretty mac ones. I have googled my best to find the ‘best windows apps’ and compared them to what I feel are the best mac equivalents. Also, be sure to visit the respective websites. Mac app developers websites are 10 times cooler than their ugly cousins!
FTP
Windows: SmartFTP
All that I’ve said is clear in this example. Just look at that Windows app. It is so ugly! You can’t figure out where to login, where your files are, what the server is doing. Just blocks of areas placed together.
Mac: Flow
The difference is obvious! On starting up, you are presented with a login screen. Very pleasing colours are used. Everything is clear.
Once logged in, the application interface is so clean. This is the way an FTP app should be. You know where you are, you know what each file is. You press Spacebar and it will instantly Quicklook that file. And look at this gorgeous transfers view!
The guys at ExtendMac software actually added this to Flow’s homepage:
User Interface: We have an obsession with pixels. As a side effect, every pixel in Flow is simply lickable. Go ahead, lick away. Just be sure to clean the screen afterwards.
HTML/CSS Editor
Windows: CoffeeCup HTML
I tried hard to find good apps for Windows, but this one seems to be the most recommended one. I’m pretty sure there has to be something better than this. Look at those countless number of buttons! What do they mean? Is this what ‘features’ means?
Mac: Coda
This is the best application out there. Hands down. Winner of last year’s Apple Design Awards for Best Mac application, this one is a stunner. The design is so streamlined, you can just work with you documents. Those little stickies are shortcuts to your sites. Just hit one and it takes you back to your work, with all the documents previously opened.
Windows: UltraEdit: Here’s one extra for kickers. What the hell are these guys thinking!
Torrent client
Windows: uTorrent
On Windows, this one is the king. I use it myself for downloading purposes. In all respects, it is a very good torrent client and the design is not too bad. Ugly, but functional to say the least.
Mac: Transmission
Suddenly you realise how cluttered uTorrent actually is. Transmission automatically resizes the window to fit your torrents, has a clean interface, and adds your download speed badge on the dock icon! You need more details? Hit the inspector. Need it when its there, not needed when its not. And I have no ‘functionality’ issues with Transmission. It has got all the features I need. And mind you, Transmission is an Open Source app.
Image Effects
Mac: Picturesque
There is no Windows counterpart for this one. This is a batch image resizer, and can add all kinds of smoking hot effects to your images with just a few clicks. And there's lots more of these apps for the Mac.
Here are some more Mac apps that just kick ass:
iBank. Winner of Apple Design Awards 2007. Wow! Banking never looked so good.
NetNewsWire
Times RSS reader
Screenflow
So what do you think? Convinced yet? Or did I somehow miss out on a well designed Windows app?
Saturday, May 24, 2008
24 Comments:
Nice post. Although, I think I would put Transmit in place of Flow, but it still fills the general idea. I'm not sure how some of these windows applications survive, and why people would even want to use them.
Complicated is an understatement. The menubars are way overfilled, and clogged with stuff that's not even used half the time.
Well can't help it, people use what is made. I am wondering why did goobi not dig out the famous toolbar filled IE screen shot image. Yahoo messenger for Vista is a beautiful looking application, Picasa for Windows is nice to use and look. Also you shouldn't be comparing utorrent & transmission. Transmission's Windows brother is SimpleBT.
Oh and one more thing, apps now made in MS WPF are quite beautiful to say the least, as a matter of fact, Yahoo's Visa messenger is made on WPF.
Wow! Didn't know macs were soo cool! What about music softwares? ne good ones?
I brought a Mac looking at the hip & cool factor. Now I'll buy a Mac looking at the amazing apps it has.
Windows Blasphemy good well. V.2 Safari was V.1 . Nice article.
Btw love the way you've used Skitch to display the screenshot instruction.
Good article but I thought the app selection was a little weird. In a snapshot, windows is clutter, Mac is clutter free!!
Well that's kind of true but developers need to wake up.
Windows Vista will have some better apps, hopefully, in future. MS Office 2007 & Yahoo Messenger for Vista are some of the examples. Developers need to follow that.
As Manan mentioned Applications made on WPF(http://windowsclient.net/) look pretty. Slowly but surely Windows will have apps which even you'll love to work on.
Well written :-)
nice article, its nice to see that mac has so many killer apps now, it was only until recently that this was the sole reason windows platform was preferred; the wide wide range of Microsoft and third party software that you could run, then there is one big advantage that the windows platform had and still has which helped it gain more acceptance; gaming but with the popularity of gaming consoles now it looks like this factor is becoming less and less important
I liked that, especially the 3 rows of buttons on one app, how ever can you see what you are working on with all that button clutter
Wow ... Windows apps look so last century.
I'd also pick CSSEdit on the Mac, as a great example of clean design that also has fantastic functionality. TextMate is more of a direct competitor to UltraEdit than Coda is.
I'd be interested to see what Windows TV software looks like compared to EyeTV or TheTube.
Its being said an written a zillion times b4...mac is better looking than windows.
A thing that dont even have 3% of the global market share can afford to be cute and sweet..the rest of the world is run by windows!
If u try to have a rational analysis of mac vs windows, on every field computers are used..windows leads the game miles in front...no one is even close..
and for users like me...features is the best thing than a colorfull interface.
Vineeth is a classic Windows Nazi. He still believes Mac market share is stuck at 3% and that Apple is barely surviving. Get a clue bro!
I use Windows (VM Ware Fusion) on one computer at work for one application (rest are OS X) and can never figure out what to do. Too many choices and none that are obvious—to me. Call me lazy or call me spoiled, I just want a computer that serves me. That's why I buy Mac.
Disclaimer: I own Apple stock. :)
3 days internet blackout in Goa! I don't know how I survived!
@stretch: I just love Flow.:)
@manan: Sure. Office and Yahoo do look good. My main point was small time third party apps. I can't for the love of God find a bad looking app for the mac.
@veneeth Jose: What TF are you talking about! Rational approach? Isn't interface a rational approach enough? Work with some of these apps and you will never be able to go back. I used to be a fan of Dreamweaver. Now I find it so cluttered and static.
Agree with you. Windows apps can't stand before mac one's. Though windows are rich in features most of people never use them. The apple UI is pleasing also increases productivity by presenting core functions on the front.
You have said what I've been trying to say all along. The Mac is not just about pretty looking things. It is much more than that. Mac developers understand human beings and design software accordingly. Good post.
mac rules...windows eat shit...
Haha! You nerd!
Although I agree that Windows is cr@p. The fucking thing doesn't even work for a day without giving me a problem. How much did you say that Mac costs?
Different people have different tastes na?
I am using macs and PC for 8 years now, that too PROFESSIONALLY! I still belive windows is very very very stronger than OSx..
btw...Interface is important....let me choose..cute interface or powerfull workflow and features..um...ill choose the later...
Dreamweaver CS3 has got an award winning interface dude...CS3 apps have the best interface in the industry now!
Dreamweaver has a good interface? Adobe apps have a good interface? Take a look at the first Photoshop ever released, and then take a look at the new one. Similarities? They seem to have carried over that legacy interface just cause they are afraid of the inconvenience it will cause pro-users (like MS did with Office 2007). Floating palletes, rusty controls are so last century. Something like Lightroom's interface incorporated into Photoshop would give it that edge.
Of course, this will cause widespread discourse among PS users, but gradually doing it by offering two interfaces on the coming few releases would do great for the CS3 packages.
@ Anonymous that called me a 'Windows Nazi'
Dude..the only thing that helps the mac os survive is the cool factor in it..the cute interface and stuff.. Apple knows very well if they port the mac apps on windows platform with the so called "exclusive interface" thats is the end of the tiny market share they are enjoying now. They dont even have the guts to port their picture viewer to windows platform:)
btw..i use both OSx and windows.
@Milind
Dude..the interface of lighroom looks cool..but it lacks flexiblity...u have to follow a particular workflow when we use lightroom or apps with the interfaces like in lightroom.
The cs3 interface is better from every other, i think, coz it is so flexible...i can change the workflow for every other project!
uTorrent is way better than Transmission. utor is not ugly its minimalistic.Its very very feature rich. I couldnt find how to add/edit trackers in transmission.Transmission is just pretty.. I'd prefer utorrent anyday.
@fudge: Granted uTorrent is more feature rich, but Transmission is just a baby compared to uTorrent which has been maturing for so many years. What I wanted to talk about was interface. I'm sure a little into the future, transmission will be able to edit the trackers list, with its pop up Inspector.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home