Reeder has been pretty much the definition of slick UI on the iPhone and iPad, and for the first time (for an iOS app), is available on the Mac. Early draft in many ways, but quite polished in others. There are still some weird things about its UI that I’d like to point out.
The first thing you notice when you launch Reeder for Mac, is how different it looks from apps we’ve seen so far. It’s very iOS-like, and very what’s-going-to-be Lion-like. We’re of course basing this on an early preview of Lion, where UI styles might change. But amongst your selection of apps right now, it looks very different. I do like the general layout of the app. Things are very clickable, and keyboard navigation makes things mighty easy (missing some shortcuts though). What’s bothersome about Reeder, is the amount of non-standard UI chrome it adds.
The titlebar has background noise applied to it. When you click an icon, it adds a white glow instead of a depression. Also, since there is no titlebar anymore, the problem of click-through is going to be a nuisance — you have to click empty locations in the titlebar or it’ll trigger an action. Note that since it’s a custom titlebar, it doesn’t behave to the Cmd + drag feature of moving windows in the background (update: for certain regions of the title bar at least). In terms of that sidebar, I’m not sure what to make of it. Even with all sites showing an icon, it’s still confusing as to where you are in your list. Moreover, the tiny little triangle to expand the group is just nuts. I know you can pull out the sidebar (apparently many don’t, which means it’s hard to discover), but I think defaults show you the true intentions of the developer. It might just grow on us though.
This makes me wonder. Will Lion be the OS that makes all windows and apps inconsistent? iOS so far has sported a myriad number of UI styles, but it works on that platform because when you launch an app, the app takes up the entire screen, thereby being the only UI style you see. But on the desktop, you have free floating windows, and when such non-standard UI presents itself, it can potentially lead to one big mess.
Reeder is a fantastic RSS reader, and if I did want to use a client on the Mac (I think it’s silly when the iPad exists), it’d be Reeder. And I wholly understand that this is an early beta and that things are going to be fixed soon; just consider this my early feedback.
What do you think about the Reeder for Mac UI? Send in an email to contact@beautifulpixels or @beautifulpixels us on twitter.