Why I Like PixelMator
There are several capable, low cost images editors available for Mac OS X. Acorn, Naked Light, Pixen, Seashore, and soon Iris. I’ve tried all of them, and use/prefer PixelMator. Why? Because the PixelMator team understands that Photoshop is the interface that just about every graphic artist already knows. When they created their UI, they use Photoshop as a starting point. Sure, you can fault them for lacking the originality to come up with something new (like Gus did with Acorn). But I think it was a stroke of genius.
If you were designing a car, which would make more sense – to completely redo the cockpit and the steering wheel position, even if you could make it more efficient for the driver, or to keep the basic instrumentation exactly where the driver would expect it to be? If you picked the first option, you should be designing space craft or airplanes, not cars. If you picked the second option, you understand that there are times when rethinking a UI makes sense, and there are other times where emulating what your target audience is already familiar with makes more sense.
Category: Software
