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Javalobby would like to welcome Daniel Mendes as the newest addition to our editorial staff. In this, his premier newsletter article, Daniel asks the question: Can anyone beat Apple at designing cool stuff? Between the iPhone user interface, and the OS X user interface, as well as the interface to many of Apple's applications, Apple has gained the reputation of being the leader in design. Is there anyone else out there that can compete? Daniel decided to do some research on this question and try to find out. -Mike
 Can Anyone Beat Apple At Designing Cool Stuff?
If there is one field of computer science that anyone, no
matter what level of education, can appreciate, it is 3D
computer graphics. People love to watch Disney/Pixar
movies on big screen. People love Mac OS X on the small
screen, and drool all over the slick iPhone interface.
What do all those things have in common? Great graphics
and good design. In a way, Apple invented a lifestyle--the
"iLifestyle"--that all design conscious people desire to
be a part of. Besides that, it's "cool stuff." Being an
engineer, I am more easily dazzled by technical features
than pretty graphics. This is the reason I will never
purchase an iPhone (at least in this form factor). That and
not having Java inside really turns me off to the platform
as a developer, and ultimately, as a user. Still, I found
myself thinking, "isn't anyone out there that can beat
Apple in terms of designing "Cool Stuff"? So I went
on a hunt, looking for some of the "Cool Stuff" and this
is what I found:
Fancy Desktop graphics
For most people, OS X is the top of the line in terms of fancy
graphics for the desktop. That was also the case with me. I
was so envious of all my friends that had their Macs do
all those fancy window manipulations... grrrrr. I was really
annoyed at MS for not having something like that on
Windows. Then a wonderful thing happened. I bought an
external HDD (very cheap, 500Gb for 85 euros) and released some
precious disc space so I could have: Windows, Solaris 10
and now with the free space OpenSUSE (yeah I am still not
sold on Ubuntu) all running on my slick VAIO laptop.
After installation, I started searching around the wiki
and found Compiz (window manager and a composite manager
using OpenGL for rendering). This featured many of the
effects found on OS X, without having to acquire any
hardware. Not only that, I also found Beryl; a fork
project that featured advanced plug-ins. Both of these
projects have now merged into an amazing little piece of
software that goes by the name Compiz-Fusion. This thing
can do amazing stuff! If you don't believe me go to youtube
and search for "compiz". Some of it is just eye candy, but
there are also practical uses to these advanced desktop
features. There are several modes to pick applications,
and many visual clues that really help to focus on desktop
management. Still, I have to admit I boot Linux many times
just to play with the desktop, not because it makes me
more productive.
Now all my Mac user friends want to have Compiz-Fusion. I
have to say it beats out both Windows Vista and Mac
OS X, not to mention project Looking Glass.
Fancy Mobile Graphics
Ok. There are now several J2ME clones of the iPhone
interface. And while Sun's Mobile Aerith demo application
is cool, along with several SavaJe (now part of Sun)
advanced 2D UI demo apps, the iPhone still is the state of
the art in this field--partly because it uses accelerated
graphics, but also because the user experience with the
device is very hands on, and very intuitive. The iPhone is the
first massively available "surface computing" platform.
Although it is technically less advanced than some phones by manufactures
like Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, it still holds the crown in
the mobile space as the coolest UI around. I hope that
this will change in the near term. SVG (tinySVG) is widely
available on the mobile platform, and there is great hope
for the JavaFX Mobile project.
The Croquet project
This is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. If you
think project Looking Glass is cool, or if you spend your
life in Second Life, then give the Croquet
Project a try. The Croquet project is a VM/platform from the
same people that gave you Smalltalk and Squeak. Alan Kay
and his buddies at The Croquet Consortium are at it again
using Squeak and OpenGL, the Croquet VM is capable of
producing shared virtual environments, similar to those
found on Second life and ActiveWorlds.
The idea of shared 3D spaces is not new. Since the early
beginnings of the Web, several attempts have been made to
create such shared environments. VRML, and several other
proprietary technologies have enabled web users to have
simple interactions across the globe in a shared 3D space.
Second Life (though I don't quite know why) is by far
the most successful application to feature this sort of
free 3D interaction environment. Behind the Croquet
project is an amazing team of innovators and thinkers
(David A. Smith, David P. Reed, Andreas Raab, Julian
Lombardi, Mark P. McCahill and others). It is easy to get
excited about this project. Not only is the expertise
present, but Intel recently joined the Croquet consortium.
I hate to have to learn yet another programming language
(perhaps a topic for another newsletter column: the boom
of programming languages), but I am definitely going to
tinker around with the open source Croquet SDK that I just
downloaded. Projects like this are the reason why I love
to be a programmer!
Until next time,
Daniel Mendes
daniel.mendes@dzone.com |
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