So true:

“Unfortunately, because of the overlap between the area that triggers scrolling and the area that triggers spring-loading, I cannot have one without the other. And the end result is that I have to scroll down through the list of sub-subfolders first before I can reach the rest of the list of subfolders.

Fortunately, Mail doesn’t continue this silly behaviour ad infinitum. Otherwise, it would be a nightmare. It only confuses scrolling and spring-loading once, presumably because after that, since the drawer is scrolling down, I am not longer lingering on any given position long enough to trigger spring-loading, until I actually choose to stop the scrolling by lifting my selection back up a bit.

And once I’ve actually dropped what I was dragging in the desired location and released the mouse button, of course Mail collapses everything back up and I am back to normal.”

How do you solve this problem? Do you use Mail Act-on, Fastscripts or other utilities that integrate with Mail.app?

Thoughtful piece by Shawn Blanc, outlining many aspects of the rumored, upcoming yet nonexistent Apple tablet.

“While Patrick Rhone and John Gruber think the Tablet may be nothing short of the reinvention of personal computing, I’m with John Siracusa, who thinks the software will be so obvious it’s boring. Meaning: it will certainly be awesome, but not as breakthrough as the iPhone was.

[…]

Take the new Nexus One as a comparison. The Nexus One has great hardware when compared to the latest iPhone: faster processor, more RAM, gorgeous screen, better camera. For all intents and purposes it should be the best smartphone in the world. But it’s not because it runs second-tier software.

When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone he said he’d been waiting two and a half years for that moment. He also boasted the iPhone OS as being “5 years ahead of any other mobile software.” And after three years so far he’s still right. It’s amazing that even an original, 3-year-old iPhone is still one of the most advanced, powerful, and user-friendly mobile phones available today.”

Whether or not it will as breakthrough as the iPhone was, I’m sure Apple won’t release a “normal” product. Hopefully, we’ll know everything about it in just two weeks from today.

Great article over at AppleBits, which contains many questions I’ve been asking myself for a few weeks now.

I don’t agree on the keyboard shortcuts idea, but Cody brings some interesting discussions on the table, which are definitely worth a look. Here’s a brief quote:

“The first thing we have to think about is our actual desktop. What would it look like? How would we interact with it? I image the iPhone played a huge role in the development of this device, and possibly helped Apple kill two birds with one stone by being the “test” device that enabled them to study how people interact and want to interact with a touchscreen. Apple addressed the issue of menus (menus suck), by making apps front row and center on the home screen. I don’t have to page through a list of items or navigate into folders to launch an application – it’s immediately available with a tap and maybe a swipe or two of the finger. The iSlate’s desktop will be the most important element of the software, as it’s where we will spend most of our time launching apps and organizing data.”

Interesting post over at Macworld analyzing the text entries possibilities the upcoming Tablet could have. I still firmly believe the tablet won’t just copy text inputs systems from other devices, but Steve will unveil something totally original and that “makes sense”.

A vertical keyboard wouldn’t surprise me, anyway.

There’s a lot of buzz going on about the tablet Apple should announce in a matter of a few days. You know, every blog that I know has posted at least an article about it, so I decided to share my thoughts as well.

I believe that the tablet will be announced, and that it won’t be called Apple Tablet, iSlate, Macbook Touch, iPhone XL or whatever fake name you can think of. Now, this is not a post where I discuss specs, nor I will share my thoughts about prices, controlled leaks and other people’s opinion.

I want to focus on apps, and how I believe Apple is going to collaborate with 3rd party developers. Just like if it’s day one again.

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Link

“The underlying secret to beautiful user interface design is realism: making 2D objects on your screen appear to sit in 3D space with volume, surface properties and undulations that might appear in real life. These faux 3D objects have highlights and shadows just like objects on your desk might have, and they have textures that emulate real objects from glass to sandpaper and everything in between. Designing beautiful user interfaces has more to do with the why than the how.”

For everyone who’s interested in User Interface design, this is a great post. Go read it now.

As a part of the MacStories Apps Tree event, I had the chance to interview David Lanham, an icon designer working at the Iconfactory. You can check out some of his awesome works over at his website.

Enjoy!

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As a part of the MacStories Apps Tree event ,I had the chance to interview Steven Snell, editor of Vandelay Design and DesignM.ag.

This is 14th of many interviews and guest posts I’ll publish on MacStories during this week.

Enjoy!

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