Comments on: UNO: Unifying the OS X Look

By: Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson — Thu, 17 May 2007 17:10:45 +0000

No, at least I don’t think it does. What bugs me about it is how it messes with the system. I’m trying to find a technical explanation online, but I’m coming up empty-handed. I’ve noticed that some speed issues were resolved by uninstalling APE, as well as some stability issues.

By: Brad Strickland

Brad Strickland — Thu, 17 May 2007 14:38:15 +0000

I agree with Bruce on Platinum I loved and miss that UI.
But I’m curious about his distrust of APE. Does it phone home with info?

By: Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson — Thu, 17 May 2007 03:01:42 +0000

I can’t quite bring myself to love Uno. I avoid ShapeShifter because it relies on APE to do its voodoo, and I don’t trust APE any more than I’d trust a politician who told me the sky is blue.

Uno just…I don’t know. When it’s active, stuff doesn’t seem quite right. I’m content to carry on with the default UI for everything until Apple decides to unify it themselves.

What I really want is Platinum. It was smooth, suave, sophisticated and MATURE. I’ve been playing with MacOS 9 under SheepShaver a lot this last week and it’s like seeing an old friend I didn’t even known I missed. I’m not saying Aqua doesn’t have some nice tricks up its sleeve, just that even after six years it feels pretty amateurish compared to what came before it.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 16 May 2007 01:11:10 +0000

If you’re not a Shapeshifter user, this is really the only theme worth having. Getting rid of brushed metal is sweet!

By: Gerald Llorence

Gerald Llorence — Mon, 14 May 2007 22:38:24 +0000

I wanted to review this myself, but I use this program now, its great. I have problems reading things in wikipedia now for some reason, but other than that, I love it. Everything looks great, and unified.

By: Marvin Sum

Marvin Sum — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:23:50 +0000

@Scott & Miles: Yea, 520px is really constricting, it was hard trying to fit more than three windows together.

By: Jens Bonk

Jens Bonk — Mon, 14 May 2007 16:47:10 +0000

I love me my ShapeShifter, bit expennsive of course, but as a fan of customizable intefaces it’s the best I could get out of my Mac in that respect. Didn’t know about Uno back when I bought it though, maybe I should check it out sometime.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:04:56 +0000

i love uno. downloaded it a while back and I like having a unified look in all my apps except for garage band.

By: Miles Evans

Miles Evans — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:33:37 +0000

@Scott: Good point. Working within the confines of 520px screen shots is getting old fast. Watch for the next post to go off today to help address this with a variation of the Lightbox technique. As for UNO...Thanks to Marvin for posting this as I would likely never have come across it. I agree that the effects are subtle but once you see it on screen it's really quite nice. Here is the only screen shot I could find on their site, which shows the changes a bit better.

By: Scott Hoenig

Scott Hoenig — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:17:02 +0000

Thanks for the info about Uno, but I really don’t see much of a dramatic difference here–a few slight changes in shades of gray. Even the Aqua lines on the app on the right are still there.

I’m guessing that the product does more, but the image used here doesn’t really show that. Here’s a case where a link to a larger image might have worked better, since in the larger image, there would be room to show more dramatic changes in appearance. The best thing MacApper can do is show people exactly what the key features of a product are, instead of giving a brief overview and providing a link for the reader to do his or her own research.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 14 May 2007 13:48:58 +0000

You should have included a “normal” app in your screenshots, one that doesn’t already sport a pseudo-unified interface. Like Transmit, or FireFox. What UNO does to them is what I love the most — it gets rid of the line along the titlebar and makes them look truly unified like Safari and Finder.