My Dream App

Also known as BBX (a name interface geeks will surely recognize), Billy is the lead artist and creative director with The Skins Factory, where he has developed advanced application interfaces, storefronts and promotional skins for the who’s-who of the technology and entertainment industries, including companies like Microsoft, Motorola, Warner Bros. and Disney. His work has become widely known for its unique futuristic style, tight execution and jaw-dropping runtime animations. He currently dreams of hooking up with Apple and taking a stab at making the next-gen Aqua look every bit as slick as Apple’s hardware offerings, but he would settle for getting his hair back.

Now this is both simultaneously interesting and frightening. Half of me loves the idea and knows it would help me get infinitely more done, the other half almost shudders thinking about the amount of work involved to develop the interface for this thing. Russell has presented us with a concept that is essentially an OS within an OS. Unfortunately, it would need to be approached this way in terms of graphics implementation in order to facilitate end-user skinning and module development by third parties. Dashboard utilizes entirely freeform entities to present its functionalities, so the visual inconsistencies and lack of integration from widget to widget are irrelevant. On the flip side, GC presents us with a continuous visually integrated control surface - this is in fact its key selling-point. Maintaining the lab-perfect look shown here would require the development of a substantial library of graphics covering a wide range interface elements so that I, as a developer, could create any module I might imagine and be confident that not only would it look like part of the default GC interface, but that it would also comply with any user-applied skin.

When one considers the sheer number of control and display possibilities that would need to be covered in order to present the incoming developer with the near-limitless development possibilities Dashboard currently provides, that’s where things get daunting. I would imagine that this approach, while friendly to module developers, might also present a deterrence to skin developers due to the sheer scale of the task of designing graphics for each and every element and associated state. One alternative might be to build in (and therefor allow skinning for) only the most common UI elements (buttons, tabs, radios, checks, sliders, scrolls, frames and text entries). In this case a visual style guide would need to be developed to aid in the development of unique UI elements from scratch - however, there would be no assurances that these resulting original graphics would integrate well with every skin. A compelling concept but a challenging one to be sure.

A really really neat idea… beyond the plant, this is the sort of thing where the interface should be dead-simple, like screensaver simple (how’s that for input!). Either that or something completely over the top like the KPT Fractal surfing interfaces of old. Behavior-wise, I think it would be amazing if it were possible to ensure that no two plants looked alike by using random seeds and a genetic evolution as previously suggested. I’d also like to see the plant from an almost top-down but 3D perspective shooting runners randomly out across the desktop rather than just sitting in a pot. I would also hope that some sort of continuous sense of life be given to the plant through subtle cycling movement or something. Unfortunately, it does seem like the sort of app that could lose its novelty rather quickly if it’s birthed half-baked and isn’t mind-blowingly cool from the get go. Still, a very original and inspiring idea if done properly.

All I have to say is if this ever comes out, I’ll probably be making a career change. Like countless millions I compose timeless masterpieces in my head while taking out the garbage but am unable to retain them as I can’t write a single note. This concept is pure brilliance incarnate. It looks in the comp as if the current note being whistled is lit up and as the next note is registered, the previous fades, drifts down and streams back into the cloudscape. Wow. How on earth can anybody not love this one. I would find the Cookbook concept the most practical, but this is the one I’m most dying to play with by far. This one is almost borderline revolutionary.

This would be a useful app to those who participate in a number of forums and as someone who’s been flamed to death over the years it would be nice to be able to keep track of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. Having said that, I’m a bit confused as to how this app works - the contestant himself states that certain key aspects of it’s operation remain ‘nebulous’. Unfortunately I also find the main app interface as it currently exists a bit confusing - it’s very unintuitive and I’m not sure the benefits of the application are compelling enough to make me want to go through the hassle of figuring it out rather than just launch a browser and go. In terms of appearance, the controls and graphics as they stand are rendered in a style I would find jarring in the Aqua environment… I like the colors, but the appearance effects (implied depth and virtual materials) of the buttons and display regions seem out of place on the Mac. I really really dig the Front Row style ‘play’ mode sample - in fact, I’d rather see the entire app integrated into this style of interface somehow.

As a bit of a chef myself (a Macbook Pro lives on my kitchen counter in support of this habit), I would have to say that this is the one concept I’m truly amazed it hasn’t been done already. Michael has taken a great deal of time to think this one through and it shows. Overall I think the app design is well laid out, but for those of us with dozens or even hundreds of recipes, it would be great if one could group recipes in the sidebar into (user-definable with a set of defaults) categories and subcategories via some sort of collapsible tree-view. I’m constantly nagged for recipes by friends, so I’d really like to see the ability to share recipes with individuals in one’s Address Book incorporated. I could also see a larger social aspect to this take off - what if the user could opt to submit a personal recipe to a central database (the Cookbook equivalent of the iTunes Store, but free to registered users) and search through and rate a repository of stored recipes contributed by the Cookbook user community. I also think more emphasis should be placed on grocery lists as opposed to online ingredient shopping as the only ingredients readily available online are dry goods and any good recipe is going to require a trip to the market or grocery store for fresh ingredients anyways. I’m also thinking there should almost be a ‘pantry’ category for the truly anal among us who would like to keep track of ingredients on hand (the ability to auto-fill grocery lists based on what’s missing would be nice as well), but maybe that’s asking a bit too much for version 1.0. There is some serious potential in this one.

I like this idea as I’d probably use it often and have been clamoring for some solid workstation mirroring for many years. Nice layouts for the most part (although I detest the bits derived from direction iTunes7 has taken - the scrollbars are particularly hideous and that blue induces vomiting, but that’s hardly contestant’s fault). I guess some might consider the vortex itself a bit much, but anything that makes my PC friends feel like they live in the past is good by me. The concept seems to almost be a no-brainer given Apple’s Time Machine, but the execution is solid and well thought-out. Yet another concept I would like to see become a real app - it’s becoming difficult to choose a favorite.