Install lots of stuff on Windows (I can’t comment on Vista but definitely for earlier versions) – end up with crap-filled machine that runs slowly, even when it’s uninstalled.

Install lots of stuff on Mac, delete the apps – end up with a Preferences folder full of text files (and the odd irrelevant entry in Open With).

Please clarify. You’ve mentioned before that programmers shouldn’t design UI. You are a programmer. So, by your own definition, your opinions and ideas on application UI are invalid. Therefore I must strike everything you’ve said in this post from the record.

But you say, I’m special and have UI training. So, its OK for a programmer to comment on UI if that programmer thinks their special. Hmmmm. Who’s ego are we really talking about here?

But, iTune is just the biggest crap I ever used.

Elliotte, I think the type of L&F Kirill is offering is something that users can turn on if then want. We’ve seen many apps who provide this, which is much more flexible than say your options using iTunes. I suspect your main objection is that Kirill’s visual implementation of his look and feel is something of an eye sore. On that, I would totally agree, but I have to say he has some cool ideas and apparently there are some people who like it because he does have users. It’s also apparently very customizable, so that Dali can go in it and change the colors to his liking.

Uhhh… well, there are two main bands, GNOME and KDE, but each band does play the same tune to a pretty good extent:

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/

http://usability.kde.org/hig/

So let’s be fair…

There are non-native-looking applications that are far easier to use than many native-looking applications, simply because they can provide a UI that works better for the features they offer. Locking you into a native look and feel just for the sake of it brings you a lot of constraints that are not necessarily good for the users.

And yes, it is hard to come up with good design for user interfaces and it should *not* be the job of the developers. I do believe that most developers are smart enough to know when they can drive away from the “standards” and when they can’t. Unfortunately there are many applications that show the contrary

With technologies like AJAX, Adobe Apollo, Flex and Microsoft’s WPF you will see less and less native-looking applications. That doesn’t mean they will all be hard to use or hard to learn.

My very favorite thought, brings a smirk of happiness every time, is the joy of knowing all the people who are “being different” just like everyone else.

Apple has indeed caught some flack for being inconsistent with iTunes, QuickTime Player, and so forth. However that seems to be a function of changing to a new tune instrument by instrument rather than all at once. The brushed metal L&F you see in these apps is the new tune.

Of course there’s also the issue that if you’re Itzhak Perlman or Pavarotti you can indeed tell the conductor what tune to play. In UI design this is called the Kai Krause rule. Most of us aren’t that talented though.

There are two separate issues here: custom looks, and custom behaviour. For example Mac users don’t care that most Apple products look different, but the get all angry about apps that don’t do drag and drop properly. This is why native L&F has been a big red herring in desktop Java adoption.

P.S. correlation != causation (RE: application usage on Macs and PCs)