Horrible looking program icons - rubaiyat

It actually goes beyond that.

The GUI of the Stone apps break all the conventions and then some. The new user spends considerable time just trying to work out how the author has done things <b><i>his</b></i> way.

I periodically have a look (I confess, not recently) because potentially the apps could be useful if I could only get past the bits that don't work or work so oddly I can't figure out how to do it.

I think Mr Stone has very definite ideas of how to do things, he is an ex-Architect, so appealing to his "aesthetic" better half is not going anywhere.

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Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:12 PM PDT

Horrible looking program icons - brindsley quives

i agree. in this case you CAN judge a book by its cover. i've downloaded and test-driven this suite of apps several times over the years and found them horrible, unintuitive and poorly functioning.

having said that, i know we're in a minority here. for some reason i've never been able to fathom, the stone apps [along with graphicconverter] seem to have the rest of the mac community falling to their knees in adulation - and anyone who dares to criticise is treated like a lunatic.

personally i think the king has no clothes!

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Wednesday, August 02 2006 @ 03:26 AM PDT

Horrible looking program icons - CaptFinn1

Trust me, don't judge a book by it's cover, or a software app by it's icons. the asking price is worth it for Create alone. Create is InDesign (or Quark) plus Illustrator for the masses, and upgrades are free for life. If you've found the Adobe style menus and palettes hard to get around in, try Andrew Stone's apps for a month, and you'll wonder why all software isn't written this way.

Everything is all native, btw, and Andrew Stone has been developing for OS X before Apple even thought of it.

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Wednesday, September 13 2006 @ 05:00 AM PDT

Horrible looking program icons - rbltx

I bet you're the kind of person Jedi mind tricks work well on. Do you buy products for the slick packaging or the value they contain? I shudder to think how you'll vote.

I've been a long time user of Stone's products. I believe he gives great value, innovative software and personal service when something is broken. I've reported errors and gotten fixes with 24-36 hours. Try that with a big software house.

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Wednesday, November 28 2007 @ 03:48 PM PST

Horrible looking program icons - rbltx

I bet you're the kind of person Jedi mind tricks work well on. Do you buy products for the slick packaging or the value they contain? I shudder to think how you'll vote.

I've been a long time user of Stone's products. I believe he gives great value, innovative software and personal service when something is broken. I've reported errors and gotten fixes with 24-36 hours. Try that with a big software house.

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Wednesday, November 28 2007 @ 03:52 PM PST

Horrible looking program icons - The Prairie Prince

This comment has the look and feel of a disgruntled competitor or wannabee icon designer. The icons look fine to me.

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Tuesday, January 01 2008 @ 11:38 AM PST

Horrible looking program icons - rubaiyat

I guess that is exactly the market Stone Design appeals to.

The aesthetically challenged. The icons are a minor issue, compared with the User Interface which I find inconsistent, jarring, oddball and totally unreliable.

Yes, you can get to learn anything, but that beggars the question as to why you need to negotiate your way through a design shambles JUST to do your work.

Simple, clear and obvious is always best as is using established conventions so you don't have to learn new ones and/or all the exceptions plus remember <i>"This doesn't work like anywhere else"</i>.

Apple may have strayed from its old simplicity but there is enough left to still make it extremely powerful because even if you don't know how to do something, due to the concepts and similarities you can make a good educated guess as to what might work.

Stone is living in part of the Mac world that doesn't really speak Mac.

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Sunday, August 10 2008 @ 09:23 PM PDT