Cover Flow is Pretty, but Fairly Useless
I had many different reactions to Jobs’ recent keynote, chief among them being surprise, joy, and excitement. However, when he finally got around to discussing the new Finder, disillusionment decided to make its entrance. I do think that this improved Finder is better than the current version, but that isn’t saying a whole lot. I suppose after all of this time I was expecting something a bit more revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Because as nice as this new Finder is, I just refuse to believe that that is the best Apple’s designers could come up with. But what has annoyed me the most about the new Finder is Cover Flow. My thoughts on Cover Flow can best be summed up in four words: “Don’t believe the hype.”
Eye candy isn’t very useful
Why such harsh words? Because, as nice as Cover Flow is in iTunes it is completely wasted on the new Finder. Not to mention the time wasted coding that could have been better spent on other issues (like including an option to make the freaking menu bar NOT transparent). Yes, Cover Flow bothers me greatly. I don’t like it already because I know I will virtually never use it. And Jobs’ cool demo aside, when will your average user actually use this feature? Well, if they want to look through their music they would use iTunes, if they wanted to view their photos they would use iPhoto, and so that leaves what for Cover Flow to do? Flip through Word documents? I don’t think so. Why, then, are we now touting eye candy as anything other than it is? Don’t lie to me and talk about how useful this will be.
Ah yes, my dream has finally come through! I can now flip through Word documents that are 1/8th their normal size! Hot damn, I can practically feel my work flow getting faster! Or better yet, PDFs! Who hasn’t dreamed of the ability to scan through tiny versions of the first page of a PDF document. Good luck reading the text that will be in size 2 point font. Yep, you will be zipping right along…until you run out of data in the cache. Which brings me to my second point.
Not as fast as you think
Does anyone remember during Jobs’ demo when he was flipping through files and accidentally viewed one file too many? What happened? Yeah, he got lots of blank slots because these images weren’t in the cache. So what did he do? He reversed course as fast as possible to revisit the images that had already been loaded. He did this instead of waiting around for the rest of those files to be loaded from the disk. Now, he was running a brand new machine with lots of RAM with the newest version of the OS on it, and he still had noticeable paging issues. Granted, this isn’t really his fault; after all, you can’t load the entire hard drive into main memory. But it does illustrate the inherent problem with Cover Flow, it is only as fast (and thus useful) as the amount of memory you have. But remember, we aren’t talking about some heavy duty application that slows down due to lack of memory, we are just browsing files! Say that with me again, we are just browsing files. We aren’t editing images, making movies, or playing games—we are looking at the files on our hard drive. This really shouldn’t be a taxing operation. Oh, and that piece at the end where he showed using Cover Flow over a network to access a remote machine? If you really think that is how it’s going to work on your Mac then I have some property on the Moon to sell you.
The band aid solution
In the final analysis, I distrust both Cover Flow and this new iTunes-like Finder because they are just band aid solutions. The Finder needs a real, honest-to-goodness overhaul. Bolting on more eye candy and calling it a solution isn’t really going to fool anybody. And I don’t care how pretty it looks if it isn’t functional! OS X is already sleek and beautiful enough, it doesn’t need more transparent menu bars or flashy icons. What it needs is a better way to access files. Making the dock 3D was nice, adding stacks was cool, but that still doesn’t change the fundamental shortcomings of the Dock. The Finder is no different. All of the slick animation in the world isn’t going to change the fact that a better way of doing things is needed. Is Apple now taking a page from Microsoft’s playbook? Have they really decided to use the old “If we can’t make it useful at least make it pretty?” I would hope not. This is one Mac user who is hoping that 10.6 will finally address these problems. Or maybe the Redskins will win the Super Bowl first. One is looking about as likely as the other.
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Comments
One thing you touch on, James, worth noting is the slowness to load the files’ images.
This has been a major problem in Finder. It annoys me when I visit a folder of many images and have to wait for all their thumbnails to load.
It’ll be interesting to see if people prefer Cover Flow.
After all, I can scroll through a file list heaps faster than flicking thru them in Cover Flow (I never use Cover Flow in iTunes for this reason)
Sure the view in Cover Flow might be bigger than in icon view (Did anyone else notice how huge Steve’s icons were in some folders? They looked 512. Which we know they’ve been working on.)
But if you’re looking for a file, wouldn’t Spotlight be quicker? Then use Quick Look. (Quick Look I reckon is going to be sensational.)
I just can’t see myself browsing the Cover Flow way for any type of file. It’s a one at a time process.
Its metaphor is flicking thru a book. It’s good for casual, half-interested browsing, but if you’re looking for seriously information, you’d go to the index or contents.
However, we all demand a dose of eye-candy in each new version of OS X (and Windows if you’re of that persuasion), and Cover Flow is 10.5’s main eye-candy.
I am very curious though whether it is a portent of things to come mutli-touch.
Oz-nom, curious to know who you read and recommend now?
Hadley, what scenarios have you found Cover Flow in the Finder useful?
<i>The Finder needs a real, honest-to-goodness overhaul. Bolting on more eye candy and calling it a solution isn’t really going to fool anybody.<i>
Well said, James. Ironic how Steve admitted we get confused with all those overlapping windows, so they’ve made it easier to distinguish the front one. Yet adding tabs to Finder would have helped address the problem directly. As you say, these other things are bandaids.
Guys, I think what James is trying to say is that Cover Flow as of right needs to get some serious bugs worked out or better take advantage of the available resources and that it won’t work be need for 99.9% of the people who buy Leopard. I was fairly unimpressed with Cover Flow for the Finder but I do use it in iTunes to view Album Art. I think Apple should’ve gone a few steps up to truly differentiate Cover Flow from the other 3 viewing options by including a full screen mode or at least a full window mode and say you click a file in Cover Flow it show the contents of that file in Cover Flow.
How many of you have actually worked with the new finder? I mean no offense, but it’s a different thing to use it than to talk about it. Does anybody know if Cover Flow will work the same with vector graphics from Illustrator or FreeHand for instance? Previewing Bitmaps or PDFs is not really a big deal.
Tanner
“Cover Flow is Pretty, but Fairly Useless” isn’t a headline that seems to posit that Cover flow is worthy regardless of bugs or resource management. I am fairly unimpressed with the performance of my hammer when used in lieu of a screwdriver. Silly? Yes, but the analogy holds when you have articles written about tools that focus on the inappropriate use for such tools. Cover Flow isn’t about caching every icon in your system. It’s about another method for viewing your files within a particular hierarchy. Simple as that and each of us has the right to be impressed, unimpressed or indifferent. However when James rights an article from his PoV we have the right to refute his arguments if they don’t match our own particular values.
So I think we fully understand what he’s trying to say and we don’t agree. The burden is on James to persuade us and not the other way around.
James,
You seem to think people are agreeing with you, but I don’t see that.
Of your statements:
1) Eye candy isn’t very useful
I think there have been numerous disagreements, including my own, that Cover Flow is *not* eye candy. As I and others have stated, leafing through document previews to find the one you want is *very* useful in certain circumstances.
Based my own computer usage, I’d probably use Cover Flow about once per day when I’m file searching. At my job, I often deal with large collections of criptically named files. In those cases, Cover Flow / Quicklook are *very* usefuls.
2) Not as fast as you think
Well, the jury is still out on this one. Until we actually get to use Cover Flow in its final non-developer-release form, we can’t say for sure how fast or slow it will be.
I agree that loading folders with hundreds of files in the current Finder can be onerous. Obviously, we’d all like to see that sped up, but that is not related directly to Cover Flow.
3) New iTunes-like Finder
I’m not certain Cover Flow is the “default mode” of the new Finder. I actually think the Leopard Finder will look and work similarly with the current one, but with some new options/views (like Quicklook and Cover Flow).
Now, if the article had been entitled “New Finder is Not So New”, or “Everything Old Is New Again”, or “Meet the New Finder, Same as the Old Finder” then I might have been more agreeable. Some opportunities may have been missed in overhauling the Finder (assuming that was the intended topic here).
But you posited that Cover Flow was useless. That is an entirely different point with which I do *not* agree.
Because as nice as this new Finder is, I just refuse to believe that that is the best Apple’s designers could come up with.
Really? Because taking a flawed feature and “improving” it by slapping a shiny bell or whistle on it seems to be their typical modus operandi. That’s what works on the fanboys. Over at Macitt, someone was telling me that turning that black triangle on the Dock into a glowy blue dot was an “innovation.” Uh huh.
I don’t have an issue with Coverflow per se, unless Hadley is right that it is the default view. If you like it, then use it. If not, then don’t.
But I do agree that it obscures the deeply flawed crapplication that is Finder.
Meh, everyone’s a critic.
You sure point a lot of fingers, but I don’t see you coming up with many solutions. What I consider “useless” is an article like this: one full of complaints, and not one constructive idea on what to do about it.
“I suppose after all of this time I was expecting something a bit more revolutionary rather than evolutionary”
Like what?
“The Finder needs a real, honest-to-goodness overhaul.”
Like what?
“What it needs is a better way to access files.”
Like what?
“All of the slick animation in the world isn’t going to change the fact that a better way of doing things is needed”
Like what?
“This is one Mac user who is hoping that 10.6 will finally address these problems.”
Like what?
I suggest you spend less time bitching, and more time thinking of something worthwhile to say. Try answering some of your own questions.