Engineering the Windows 7 Boot Animation | Hacker News Reader

Engineering the Windows 7 Boot Animation

blogs.msdn.com

14 pointswyday5 comments

I like the new animation, gives me the feeling that something is being created rather than running one way down a limitless train track like I've been doing since ... Windows 95 still had a horizontal scrolling animation.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/startupshutdown/spl...

"Words such as “bioluminescence”, “organic”, “humble beauty”, and “atmosphere” came up frequently in our brainstorming sessions. We know that in isolation these might sound a bit corny, but this is all part of the overall goals of Windows 7."

You heard it here first - being corny is one of the goals for Windows 7.

Somebody downvoted you, but I agree entirely. Perhaps it's because I'm used to the Mac's ultrasimple boot - colorless Apple logo, then boot - but the focus on the boot logo isn't well-placed.

It's better than the Vista one, but the team misses that I don't want any fancy boot. The lack of something fancy is a statement itself - Apple gets that, Microsoft doesn't.

Well, they always suffer from the same dilemma: someone else gets it first, and they then can't just do the same even when its the right thing, they somehow gotta 'top' that, add to it so that where less was more, more is now less.

I hate that mindset. One company I really respect is Nokia, because when they decided to rip off the iPhone their CEO said so directly - he said something like "We know to steal something good if we see it." I'd much rather Nokia have innovated to begin with, but at least acknowledging that influence is something respectable.

A flat Windows logo - no gradient, single-color blocks - would look incredibly nice, and it might manage to convey the message of an easier, faster new operating system. Complexity is never likable: even good complex things are things that on the surface would appear very simple.

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