Look Ma, No Title Bar!

Recently, Apple provided a preview of things to come in their highly-anticipated system update called Mac OS 10.7 also known as OSX Lion and after I got past the highlighted features such as the Mac App Store, Flick & Swipe Touch interactions (instead of Point & Click ), Launchpad, etc., I saw a screenshot of a Macbook Air displaying an application window and I noticed a basic design element, the Title Bar is no where to be found in the user interface. Indeed, that space above every application window which we have grown accustomed to and possibly taken for granted is gone. However, I've also noticed that this isn't exclusive to Apple after  launching Google's Chrome.

 

 

Aside from the Title Bar's main purpose of informing the user which application he/she is using, it also serves as a comfortable handle usually used to drag the window around and as the visual real estate that contains the Close, Zoom and Minimize control buttons. Although, the controls (close, zoom and minimize) are still there, gone is the application's title and the draggable handle area seems to have shed some. It's definitely a bit radical a move for Apple, one that begs lots of discussions to say the least. After all, one could present the case that since users already know the application by the looks of its interface or by the splash screen displayed during application launch, the Title Bar serves very little purpose. It's a fair and reasonable argument but what about user comfort? Doesn't ease-of-use when dragging application windows around or sorting out the correct application amongst several open windows count for anything anymore?

This reminded me a tiny bit of my recent experience of purchasing a lens for my dslr camera (I digress). Not only is this particular lens missing the aperture numbers which is acceptable for digital photography since most modern dslr's have the aperture settings built into the camera, but it also omitted the focus or depth of field scales which is essential for landscape or street photography (see Hyperfocal Distance Photography) simply because it is not necessary or so I was told by a few photographers.  However, unlike my lens experience, fortunately, it's not without a workaround. In particular, both Windows and Mac OS employ a dock and a taskbar which users could always resort to if and when they need to know which application they're using. All things considered, I feel that this Title Bar omission is an interesting design direction for software development and I can't wait to get a taste of it. Bring it on!