Minimalist Extremism

Apple originally sold Safari 15’s unified tab bar as a way of saving space. When it became clear that defaulting to that design was, to put it mildly, problematic, they reverted to a redesigned separate tab bar that takes up more space than ever in both dimensions.

Safari 15 on Big Sur (left) vs Safari 14 on Mojave (right)

The thing is, saving space is a great goal for a UI! The vast majority of people using traditional computers are on laptops. Pretty much the entire computing world, excepting some professions, has converted to the equivalent of apartment living. Screen real estate is at a premium!

Unfortunately, the ultra minimalist design trend over the last 10 years has ignored this reality. Designers have steadily removed elements that can be used to create coherent, compact designs: borders, shadows, color, shading. All have been kicked to the designer shitlist.

We’re left with just a couple tools to convey hierarchy and structure: lots of negative space, and in some places, large header text.

This trend has eroded usable screen space. And like erosion, it has happened almost imperceptibly, through many small changes over the course of years. But the sum of the changes across the entire ecosystem of Mac apps has been that, simply put, I can fit noticeably less on screen today than 10 years ago.1 I used to regularly reference 2-3 windows simultaneously. These days, most apps and web pages require so much space that it’s one-at-a-time.2

When I saw Newsstand, the new RSS app for Mac OS 9, I found it a shocking reminder of how much information used to be conveyed, usably, in a small window.

I’m not suggesting that the primary goal of UI design should be to pack as much on screen as possible. Obviously design is a balancing act — usable hit targets vs. density, visual affordance vs. clutter, etc. But I do think that the pursuit of minimalism has caused us to ignore information density for too long.3

In short, while a redesigned Safari 15 for Mac can’t come quick enough, what I’m really wishing for is a broader shift away from minimalist extremism in UI design.

  1. To be fair, minimalist design is not the only factor here. Designers work on large screens, which often shields them from the effects of their work on normal screens. And of course the big one: touch devices require larger tap targets and spacing, and mobile design is understandably in the driver’s seat in general. ↩︎
  2. One of the advantages the Mac always had over Windows, dating back to the classic Mac OS days, was its windowing system. It encouraged having many windows on screen at once. Windows was so clunky that you were almost forced to maximize every window into full screen mode. Working on a Mac looks messy but feels fluid. Windows’s full screen & tiled layouts look tidy but feel rigid. ↩︎
  3. This is just one of a few maddening regressions that Apple has been leading the charge on when designing for, I have to stress, interaction. The evolution of Safari over the course of several versions of both macOS and the app itself is representative of a lot of Apple’s UI design in general. First color disappeared, then buttons, then pretty much any differentiation between different types of UI controls, then the differentiation between browser & content. It often feels like Apple approaches UI design as if they were designing a magazine. ↩︎

Private Facebook

Some people are sceptical that Mark Zuckerberg truly intends to shift Facebook's focus to private, encrypted communication.

I think we can take Zuckerberg at face value here. Product-wise it implies a shift in direction and a lot of work. But it doesn't require Facebook to alter its core business.

Whether users communicate publicly or privately with Facebook's products, the company will still have access to vast amounts of data on every user to sell ads against. And it won't necessarily change how un/ethically they use it. This wouldn't have any impact on, for example, using 2FA phone numbers to target ads at users. Or whether Facebook's algorithms promote clickbait conspiracy content because that's what people engage with.

Coincidentally, it sure helps them make the case for integrating Messenger/Instagram/WhatsApp.

There may be some positive changes that come out of this, but for the most part it seems like business as usual.

HomePod Strategy

Apple’s HomePod requires an iOS device, and people are speculating that this is part of a strategy to sell more iPhones and create platform lock-in. I’m not convinced. Some well-worn comparison points:

  • Apple tried this approach with the original iPod and failed. Once the iPod was independent of the Mac, both products became exponentially more successful — lower barrier to purchase for the iPod, halo effect for the Mac.
  • The iPhone required iTunes at first. After years of development effort, it left that requirement behind.
  • I imagine the Apple Watch could someday break free of its dependence on the iPhone. But the technological and UI barriers to moving the Watch from an accessory to a standalone device are significantly larger, so any transition is probably a ways out.

Apple may wield far more power today than they did when they debuted the iPod in 2001, but their business model remains unchanged and very simple: first they try to make best-in-class devices, then they try to sell as many of them as possible.

Requiring an iOS device to use HomePod isn’t profitable lock-in for Apple, it’s a barrier to purchase. If the HomePod is successful enough to stick around, I expect it will follow in the footsteps of the iPod and iPhone and eventually eliminate the requirement of owning a companion Apple device.

Some have pointed out that the Apple Music app is on Android, and so the HomePod’s exclusion of Android must be deliberate and evidence of Apple’s strategy tax. But the Music app doesn’t handle initial HomePod setup. And it sounds as though the HomePod doesn’t make calls, send messages, or sync iCloud data by itself. By requiring an iOS device, the HomePod can lean on iOS system frameworks, as well as the Home App, none of which exist on Android. This is a smart way of launching quicker, while still being able to sell to a large potential audience.

As for where Apple Music fits into all of this, Ben Thompson proposed that the service exists in part to push subscribers to buy the HomePod. I think it exists for a far simpler reason: playing music is a core requirement of any consumer device platform, no different than handling email, calendars, photos, and web browsing. People have expected their computers to be music players since iTunes debuted, and the transition to streaming didn’t change anything, least of all Apple’s belief that depending entirely on third parties like Spotify for core functionality creates long term risk.

The growing number of Apple Music subscribers gives Apple an initial audience to sell the HomePod to, but the service would exist with or without the HomePod. And conversely, like John Gruber hypothesized, nothing precludes the HomePod opening up to third party music apps in the future. Apple probably views their job as making the HomePod the best smart speaker for music so they can sell as many as possible. If one day they can sell to Spotify users with Android phones, I think they will.

Time will tell, I suppose.

iPad Growth

The uptick in iPad sales this quarter has caught people’s attention. One detail John Gruber noted is that:

iPad revenue was only up about 2 percent. That suggests to me, strongly, that this sales bump was driven strongly by the new 9.7-inch iPad that starts at $329.

In response to this, Michael Tsai commented:

I don’t quite understand why people are treating this as a bad thing. It’s good that Apple has made a more affordable iPad that customers seemingly like (unless they just didn’t want to be stuck on iOS 9). And more units sold will be good for the app market.

It is a good thing that Apple makes an affordable iPad that is selling well. I love seeing Apple compete at the low end of the market, something I’ve only truly seen them do a couple of times.1

At the same time, it’s important that the iPad continue to grow at the high end. So much iPad commentary over the past two years of falling sales has been about the fear that the device has already reached its peak potential utility. And if so, that peak has been far lower than what many dreamed of when it first debuted.

The iPad’s average selling price can be seen as an indication of whether the iPad has the potential to continue evolving into a more capable tool. If sales of the Pro line are weak, it’s a sign that Apple hasn’t succeeded in creating useful functionality that takes advantage of improved hardware. And if users don’t need improved hardware, Apple’s business model can’t justify continued iPad software development long term.2

For what it’s worth, iOS 11 seems to me to be the first sign in a long time that Apple can make the iPad significantly more useful for a wider range of people than it has served to date. So while I hope that low end sales continue to grow, I also hope that future quarterly reports show their Pro line growing strongly.

  1. The iPod lineup during its heyday was inspired, and even the MacBook Air had a long reign as an aggressively priced laptop. Both approaches are markedly different than the iPhone strategy of selling yesterday’s models at reduced prices. ↩︎
  2. Unless they manage to build a services business that allows them to profit from users regardless of whether they buy new hardware. ↩︎