Where the Firefox 3 Beta is going, interface-wise. My opinion is; it’s going nowhere. Fortunately, Mozilla backs me up with proof.

Following up on my previous post showing a few design novelties in OS X 10.5.2, here are some quick observations on novelties in Aperture 2.0, which Apple released just today, on flickr. The Apple Pro Apps design team has gone far on customizing the look and feel – you’ll barely recognize the Aqua interface!

Although already out for a solid four days, I just got around to listening to the lastest episode of the Mac Developer Roundtable, in which Scotty, Andy Matuschak, Dave Symonds, Dave Nanian, Rich Siegel and Marcus Zarra discuss interfaces and interface design. Some interesting related experiences and opinions are also thrown over the table.

A listening recommendation for any developer. Grab it here, or subscribe to iTunes while you’re at it.

It’s nice to see Apple finally updating the canon of Mac inteface design – the HIG, or Human Interface Guidelines – that you can read or download in PDF form here. I particularly liked the revamped section on icons, including a ‘Creating Icons‘ (albeit very basic, gives a good idea of the process of adding realism to icons) and the ‘Designing Toolbar Icons‘ section. A good read either way, as it’s very low on jargon and very high on interesting gotchas.

From the same source as the stack drawers, I found that a new little application had been released that turns Leopard into the premiere point release of OS X when it comes to desktop customization. Susumu Yoshida, a talented icon designer, released his very elaborate set of brightly colored and nicely textured stack drawers, which I tested during the last week and thoroughly enjoyed. See this desktop screenshot;

Click for original and fullsize at Flickr.

I found that a software company, CocoaMug, has put together a tool to customize every aspect of your dock. It’s called Palette, and costs a mere $6.90 for a full license. It doesn’t just allow you to choose a color for the background of your 3D dock, but it also allows you to set these beautiful ‘drawer’ icons for individual stacks – making using stack drawers as simple as drag and drop. Click here for an impressive video demo on Susumu’s blog. Thanks for sharing, Susumu!

It’s been a bit silent around here lately, but this is just incredible. I’m going to get me one of these. Via Infosthetics.