The two skeuomorphic apps which ship with OSX Lion, iCal and Address Book, offer some frustrating form over function compromises which obscure content.

iCal has relegated your list of Calendars to a recessed button top left. Clicking this pops up a semi-transparatent overlay with a list of your calendars which you can then toggle on/off, but there’s no way to make this list of calendars viewable at all times.

For the general user, this won’t be a concern, but in the office we’re all synced up to our iCal server so we have a handle on vacation schedules, meeting scheduling, and so on.

I don’t always want to see everyone’s calendar, so I generally toggle everyone off unless I’m looking for someone or need to book a group meeting. Dealing with this popup is doubtless going to be a pain.

Thankfully, Mail handled this right.

By default Mail loads with quick links to mailboxes and filters just under the primary toolbar, obscuring your complete list of folders.

However, there’s a lovely little show/hide button which drops a third column into mail and shows all your mailboxes.

This would be an easy addition to iCal without compromising the desktop leather; just show/hide my calendars in a column running down the left side.

Address book follows this pattern of obscuring data by default with no way to view the Address Book groups, contacts list and an individual contact all at the same time.

In this case, the two page spread of skeuomorphic address book means maximum two columns. Apple’s hacked this interface limitation to include a red tab which you use to toggle between a groups/contact list view and a list/contacts view. Form over function. Such a shame. It’s the content I’m after here, not stylized stacks of non-functioning pages.

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A couple of weeks ago, my excitement was ratcheted up a notch or two with the prospect os OSX Lion presenting us with a new unified skin for “the world’s most advanced operating system.”

For years we’ve had inconsistencies between the design and icons of the various native OSX apps, even being left with version 1.0 scrollbars in most apps, long after Apple’s aqua interface was otherwise replaced.

While OSX Lion’s introduction was relatively brief, and the screen shots on the teaser page don’t offer much (going so far as not even showing any non-fullscreen scroll bars at all), a little digging and we can find the following:

Toolbars
Mobile Me’s blue background and white icons will not be replacing the current metalic theme.

Mobile Me:

OSX Lion:

Mail
It does look like Mail will be getting a much improved, simplified icon set:

OSX Snow Leopard:

OSX Lion, from AppleInsider:

(Sorry for the blurriness, but I believe that was captured and enlarged from Apple’s keynote video.)

Scrollbars
Finally, we the keynote video also shows that scrollbars will be taking their lead from iOS. Aqua will be replaced with wispy wee scrollbars.

Interestingly, MacRumors is reporting that, “Like iOS, the scroll bars disappear when not in use, but reappear during scrolling or with mouse movement.” In other words, like iOS, if it’s not visually obvious you get to guess whether or not the page continues downward (or across) before you bother attempting to scroll. This would be a very odd decisions as it’s a bit of a nightmare for users and, at best, made sense on the iPhone due to limited screen real estate.

Of course, I’m sure we’ll see more in the months leading up to OSX Lion’s summer ‘11 release.

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Will Apple’s Oct 20 Back to the Mac event finally herald the unification of its OSX app designs?

While updates to iTunes over the years have hinted at some long needed aesthetic changes (such as shifting away from the aqua scrollbars), there has been a general divergence between all the standard OSX apps. Even the promised Snow Leopard tuneup ignored aesthetic refinement.

Where we’ve seen gains in this area is with Mobile Me. Compare the long standing atrocity of the OSX Mail toolbar with the latest version from Mobile Me (with Mobile Me on top in the images that follow).

A close up, comparing icons:

The difference being the icons in Mobile Me are recognizable at a glance as they have their own unique shape, rather than being suffocated by the recessed oval styling that was introduced with OSX Tiger. Removing the oval also has the added benefit of allowing the icons to be a little larger within the same amount of vertical space. Always helpful.

In addition, look at yesterday’s release of the new Mobile Me calendar along with Mobile Me’s address book app.

Consistent across all the apps. (Though the calendar is back to using icons on buttons, they’re much more subtle than OSX Mail’s oval icons.). So, will this style be adopted across the desktop apps? Or is this Web savvy design too radical for your everyday OS?

With the only new OSX feature I’m clamouring for being always on syncing with my iOS devices, and performance still being an issue in many apps (see: iTunes, Time Machine backups, Aperture and iPhoto), it would really be nice if Apple just wowed us with some strong application design and an OS that looked and worked as well as their hardware. It’s been a long time coming.

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