04/30/2008, 4:25pm, EDT
Wednesday, April 30thAdobe Lightroom worker to mend Windows UI
An influential Adobe programmer has been tapped to help develop the interface for the next version of Windows, according to an observer at Photoshop News. Lightroom and former Photoshop programmer Mark Hamburg has been recruited by Microsoft to work on the "user experience" of the operating system and has reportedly been given an exceptional offer that persuaded him to switch to the Redmond-based company. The move is also said to have been spurred on by a desire to change fields and comes out of a desire to potentially resolve Windows design decisions.
"Now, given that I find the current Windows experience really annoying and yet I keep having to deal with it, this opportunity was a little too interesting to turn down," Hamburg says.
What elements of the interface would be addressed are unknown and unlikely to be revealed, though the Adobe staffer's experience in designing Lightroom is believed to have a significant part to play in the role, CNET photography expert Stephen Shankland adds. While Photoshop is built on a legacy design, Lightroom provides a context-sensitive interface that adds or removes features to the screen.
Microsoft recently began embracing a similar interface with the "ribbon" interface in Office 2007 and a similar element in Office for Mac 2008, suggesting wider adoption of the concept by the company. The ribbon largely replaces traditional menus with buttons and other controls that change depending on the situation.
The next version of Windows, so far known only as version 7, is planned for a 2010 release and in very early test builds continues to resemble Vista, with more substantial changes unlikely to occur until the beta stage.
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"Turd Polisher"
That would look great on his business card.
Doofuses.
Perhaps you'll have to call Adobe to unlicense your old machine so you can license your new machine?
Maybe Microsoft Version Queue will crap out on you and take all your work with it?
Come to think of it. Aren't Adobe and Microsoft the same company anyway?
If ribbons are any indication, MS is doing a great service driving users away from windows.
While certainly Adobe probably paid him a decent amount, I'm certain that MS was waving a whole lotta cash in front of his face, stock options, and a healthy benefits package - which is far more than Adobe would have done.
It's an age old game - go to a competitor, get paid a ton more, then move on after 4-5 years, and return back to your old job, at twice the pay and benefits.
More than anything else, this was just about money, and he doesn't care about what difference he can make. I wouldn't.
I'm so sick of every time some column compares Mac to Windows and they always talk about the GUI. Never the underlying code and functionality.
I'm sure the next Windows will look beautiful… the OS just won't work right!!!