

- #Designing software for mac mac os
- #Designing software for mac mac
- #Designing software for mac windows
Apple also maintains a really nice gesture and short-key suite, which is seamless across their different products, yielding an extremely intuitive and predictable experience.
#Designing software for mac mac
It was first previewed in 2003, and more than 10 years later, it continues to be a core component of the Mac product. An excellent example of this is the Mission Control functionality (formerly known as Exposé).

In more recent years, designers have fallen in love with smaller features that conform really well to design workflows and assist them in accomplishing their tasks with ease. It is no surprise that these early UX practices were present in the development of a system that was respected for it’s User Experience. This began Apple’s high level task prioritization for System 7. In this brainstorming session, ideas were written on index cards features that seemed simple enough to implement in the short term (like adding color to the user interface) were written on blue cards, longer-term goals (like true multitasking) were written on pink cards, and “far out” ideas (like an object-oriented file system) were written on red cards. A famous occurrence of this was the “Pink and Blue” meeting that Apple managers held in March of 1988, shortly after the release of System 6. It included a drastically improved user interface and functionalities, which were developed through UX processes that Apple was putting into place before most companies even knew what UX was.
#Designing software for mac windows
User ExperienceĪpple’s System 7 (released in May of 1991) was considered to be much more user friendly than Microsoft’s Windows 3.1 (released in April of 1992). In this respect, the designers that I spoke with felt that Apple has always seemed to respect the design community more than Microsoft. In more recent times, Apple has demonstrated the desire to include classic typefaces in their OS, while Microsoft has continually commissioned “knock-off” typefaces like Arial (from Helvetica) and Segoe (from Frutiger). The Mac was also the first computer with multiple typefaces built into the OS.
#Designing software for mac mac os
The basic idea is that Windows renders for readability (resulting in a sharper type style), while Mac OS renders for visual appearance (resulting in style more similar to what you might see on a printed page). But in the past, Microsoft and Apple took somewhat different approaches to how they chose to render fonts, and it made a pretty big impression on designers. Whether or not that’s still an issue today is up for debate. Font Renderingįrom a design perspective, the Mac has classically been better at rendering fonts. The Mac was developed for designers, the design software was developed for the Mac, and the designer was trained to design on the Mac. This further reinforced the necessity for designers to use Macs, especially as studios and universities continued to become “Mac only” operations. In fact, Adobe products were originally only available on the Mac. As Apple continued to create a more design-centric product and OS, software companies followed suit and started producing design software exclusively for Macs. It would remain as the architectural basis for the Mac OS through 2001. With the release of System 7, they brought color to the user interface and introduced new networking capabilities. In fact, it has been suggested that through leveraging PostScript, PageMaker, and the LaserWriter, Apple were effectively responsible for creating the desktop publishing industry as a whole.īy the early 1990’s, Apple had cornered the premium and consumer markets. The Macintosh sold well, users loved it’s GUI (Graphical User Interface), and companies loved it’s desktop publishing abilities. The race to develop a usable personal computer was under way and by 1984, Apple answered the call with the first Macintosh, which was accompanied by one of the strongest marketing campaigns in history. This was the first and most common answer that I received. What I ended up with was a mix of hilarious, honest, and insightful commentary. But why is that? What exactly has afforded the Mac this coveted title? I set out to find the answers to those questions by directly asking a bunch of designers why they think the Mac has been positioned as the superior tool. No matter where you go and no matter what kind of design you practice, Macs are commonly heralded as the tool of choice. Being used by visual designers, illustrators, UX designers.
