Internet Explorer 9 has been awaited by many (especially developers) for a long, long time. Why you ask? Because previous versions (especially from a developer’s perspective) simply did not comply with the World Wide Web standards, and simply (from an end-user’s perspective) because the performance was really, REALLY bad.
So, finally Microsoft decided to release the Internet Explorer 9 platform preview 4. That’s pretty cool! Great performance, hardware rendering, and some serious standard-improvements. “I can’t wait!” I thought, but now, all my expectations are gone.
According to a blog writer on ZDNet, he got access to screenshots that may have been from the Internet Explorer 9 beta that is about to be aired the 15th of September. These screenshots have (by many sites around the world) indeed been declared real, which just makes it all a little bit more unbearable. The new beta does indeed feature a new interface as promised, but it doesn’t deliver the good look you would expect, even from a beta.
Yes, the above is in fact the actual screenshot that was taken. Okay, so first of all – what happened to the concept of saving user-interface space? Why does every Internet Explorer version have to use so much vertical space in the title bar? Yes, I see that you have “optimized” the space by moving the title bar next to the tabs – but you’re doing it wrong Microsoft!
If you have tried Google Chrome, you know what I mean. In Google Chrome, they optimized the space a lot, by incorporating the tabs as a part of the title of the window. Here (in IE9, they have a whole horizontal line just for displaying the window management buttons (close, maximize and minimize) to the right, and then (on a whole separate horizontal line), they have the general application-specific interface.
Positioning the address-bar to the left of the tabs is the dumbest idea I have ever seen for a browser design. What if I have a lot of tabs open? What happens then? Wouldn’t it just be lovely with the controls positioned like that? Come on. There’s no logic in that.
Another thing you notice at first (or at least I did), is the fact that the “Back” button cuts off at the display-area of the browser. This is really sad, considering that this looks worse than IE5.
The tabs look thin (though really light-weight), and there is no border separating content from interface. Wow. Just wow! This has to be the worst I have ever seen. The only really good thing I like about the new interface, is the setting-buttons to the right.
Normally this blog praises Microsoft-products (especially lately since Microsoft is in fact releasing a lot of cool software), but this has got to be the biggest failure in software design history. Sure, this may be a beta release, and even worse, the screenshot may be fake despite what everyone says. Only time will tell. However, if they do not change this design before the final release, I think they may very well lose even more browser share.
What do you think?
Internet Explorer 9 has been awaited by many (especially developers) for a long, long time. Why you ask? Because previous versions (especially from a developer’s perspective) simply did not comply with the World Wide Web standards, and simply (from an end-user’s perspective) because the performance was really, REALLY bad.
So, finally Microsoft decided to release the Internet Explorer 9 platform preview 4. That’s pretty cool! Great performance, hardware rendering, and some serious standard-improvements. “I can’t wait!” I thought, but now, all my expectations are gone.
According to a blog writer on ZDNet, he got access to screenshots that may have been from the Internet Explorer 9 beta that is about to be aired the 15th of September. These screenshots have (by many sites around the world) indeed been declared real, which just makes it all a little bit more unbearable. The new beta does indeed feature a new interface as promised, but it doesn’t deliver the good look you would expect, even fro
