It was with a slight smirk in the Fluendo offices as the Moovida team looked at the latest 3.0 update to Apple’s ‘Hobby’ project the AppleTV. What caused us to smile was the new changes to their ‘Main Menu’ with Apple declaring that it ”…features a simpler and faster interface that gives you instant access to your favorite content” [1]. Haven’t we seen this somewhere before and came to the same conclusion?
It is interesting to see someone like Apple struggle with the complexities of a media center and despite its ‘hobby’ status it stands out as one of the poorest products in their inventory. How do you transport desktop features and methodology to a TV set and offer a simple interface that everyone can understand and find easy to use? Apple is failing at this. Some of the Moovida team has been doing this media center gig for nearly ten years and we feel we have the answers. We have been wrestling with interface ideas and that healthy balance of power versus simplicity as we continually ask ourselves that very question. I feel we are getting it right and on the verge of making it even better.
When Moovida replaced Elisa, we redesigned our Main Menu. The reason for this was to remove clicks, to make the experience as speedy and intuitive as possible and more importantly put a real emphasis on ’simpler and faster’. In fact, at the time I highlighted the AppleTV as a shining example of what NOT to do! (hey, I don’t like everything Apple does!). However, Apple updated their Main Menu and in effect ‘borrowed’ one of the key aspects that make our media center so much more intuitive. Is Apple following in our footsteps? In many ways they are, but in a smug way it is nice to see a ‘competitor’ as big as Apple trailing behind us and yet still not achieving the level of user experience standard we feel Moovida offers (but maybe we’re just full of ourselves?).
Still, the good thing about our project being open source is, we have the chance to move faster and more importantly for us, it isn’t a hobby!
[1] Apple Introduces Apple Tv 3.0 Software With Redesigned User Interface – Eddy Cue VP of Internet Services: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/10/29appletv.html
Filed under: Design, General Tags: apple, center, david, Design, ergonomics, mcleod, media, menu, mucx, TV
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the hunt is on
Comment by Jimy — November 17, 2009 @ 02:48
True words, some truthful words dude. Made my day!
Comment by Wresitessolla — November 27, 2009 @ 01:28