Apple Dock, The

From Zanecorpwiki

I finally understand the Apple dock. In most comparable GUIs, there's a segregation in the dock-like widgets between things. Executables (aka application short cuts, or just applications) go in one place. Documents go in another. Open windows in another.

The thing I hated about the dock is that it munges everything together. A firefox icon in the Apple dock could the application, an open web page, or a link to start the application.

From the point of view that the application, application windows, and running application are all very different things, the Apple dock is not only bad, but incredibly stupid. But the dock is conceived under a completely different paradigm.

I think it's actually a going back to basics kind of thing. The dock is really just eye candy on a pure idea of the desktop. You put the things you're working on in the dock. What those things are from a technical standpoint doesn't matter. It's the stuff you're working on and that's all that matters.

So now I shake my head and say, Oh!. I give kudos to Apple for keeping it (metaphorically) real, and I no longer think the dock is stupid.

I still, however, don't think it's very good. In the standard desktop--no menus or widgets, just a graphical space--you put the stuff you use. There's no distinction here between what the stuff is, it's just stuff.

Which leads me to a better conception of the dock. It's not just an extension of the desktop, but it's your prime desktop. In other words, I use the the dock like this: all my stuff goes on the desktop. Links to applications, commonly used documents, etc. No application links or documents in the dock.

Now the dock becomes what it really should have been all along: the space for stuff that's happening right now. As a visualization of open files and running applications, the dock is brilliant.

The problem is that it succeeds in spite of Apple who insist as pushing as a widget crammed full of shortcuts. Go into an Apple store and look at the machines. Without exception, the docks are crammed as full as the screen is wide. Same with official pictures.

I submit that the reason is not because it makes sense to do this, but because it's good marketing. The dock allows Apple to show off everything a Mac can do very quickly, and still keep a tidy looking desktop. It's perfectly in their aesthetic visually. It's such good marketing and such a good aesthetic match, that it's hard to imagine them not using the dock in this way.

For the average user, however, that usage pattern really kills everything that makes the dock good. It hides what you're working on in the noise of stuff you might work on later. It's distracting, not very helpful, and while a full doc looks good on a clear screen, on a screen actually being used, it's visually very distracting.

Beyond this particular story, there's one big lesson to be learned here: be careful that marketing interests don't blind you to the larger picture. At the end of the day, Macs are just that much inferior to what they could because Apple has sacrificed usability for marketability. In this case, there are workarounds, so it's not that bad.

I do believe, however, that Apple has left money on the table by not producing the best product they can. Also, if one thinks of the dock not as fancy desktop marketing device but visualization of what's happening now, you can refine the dock even further and make it even better.

As it is, the dock is the is not a visualization of what's happening now, it just happens to be able to work as such. What Apple's done here, though, is to cede the more important idea to someone else (like me). I was inspired by something Apple did, but I'm the one that beat Apple to the punch. Not that I have the resources to capitalize on it, but that doesn't mean someone else doesn't. It's a vulnerability that a more honest look at what the dock should be would not have left open.