[Rob van dam]

Whilst apple is busy working on 10.5 what are your thoughts on something along the line of project looking glass appearing in 10.5. It blew me away the first time i saw it.


here is a link
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/

[Rob van dam]

Originally Posted by Rob van dam

Whilst apple is busy working on 10.5 what are your thoughts on something along the line of project looking glass appearing in 10.5. It blew me away the first time i saw it.


here is a link
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/

apolgies please delete this thread didnt realise this was previously discussed

[cla]

Keep the thread - this is an interesting discussion.

Some ten years ago (when interaction design was just a hobby) I thought 3D interfaces really were the coolest things around, and longed for the day they could be found in average computers.

Today I just pray I'll never have to see one.

Interaction design is associated with a number of problems that most of us fail to even recognize: Inconsistencies, dependency of visual attention, utilization of screen estate, lack of spatiality, lack of research, lack of guidelines and much more. Additionally there are a lot of issues that even interaction designers can't agree upon. Some claim preferences is a good thing, while I think in nine cases out of ten its just the result of poor design. Some claim freedom of choice is a good thing. I claim there should only be one way of performing a basic, atomic task. Contradictionary, by all means.

A 3D interface however solves none of these issues. Screen estate won't increase. Spatiality could but suffer since we would then be trying to control a 3D environment with an input device featuring only two degrees of freedom.

Accompanied by a 3D screen and a 3D mouse, on the other hand. But then again, most people are having enough trouble as it is trying to cope with our 2D interfaces...

[Rob van dam]

Some ten years ago (when interaction design was just a hobby) I thought 3D interfaces really were the coolest things around, and longed for the day they could be found in average computers.

Today I just pray I'll never have to see one.


I pray for the day this happens as well.Hopefully sooner rather than later

[andreas_g4]

No 3D with 2D input devices - cla said it. I'd love to see one of those semi-3D interface ideas in Windows afterVISTA, and all it's users crapping around with that.

[CaptainHaddock]

I'd like to see GUI enhancements that make use of CoreImage. For example, they could have the wallpaper be blurred a bit behind the dock, or use other graphical transitions when doing user switching. It would render on the video card and not affect system responsiveness at all.

With Quartz 2D Extreme, all the windows and GUI elements will be drawn and composited on the GPU. That means you could do cool stuff like have pages and windows "roll up" or ripple like real paper when moving them or doing other things. Imagine telling Textedit to make a new document and have it roll or uncurl into existence on the desktop.

[Rob van dam]

finally i have found some people who would like to seem more eye candy rather than less.Not that apple hasnt all ready done enough.But i guess you cant have 2 much of a good thing

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

I'd like to see GUI enhancements that make use of CoreImage. For example, they could have the wallpaper be blurred a bit behind the dock, or use other graphical transitions when doing user switching. It would render on the video card and not affect system responsiveness at all.

With Quartz 2D Extreme, all the windows and GUI elements will be drawn and composited on the GPU. That means you could do cool stuff like have pages and windows "roll up" or ripple like real paper when moving them or doing other things. Imagine telling Textedit to make a new document and have it roll or uncurl into existence on the desktop.

Eye-candy for the sake of it is not a good thing. If the effects begin to play a detrimental role and waste a user's time (like waiting for a the ripple effect caused by dropping a new widget onto the Dashboard desktop), they're not welcomed (by most people.)

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Rob van dam

finally i have found some people who would like to seem more eye candy rather than less.Not that apple hasnt all ready done enough.But i guess you cant have 2 much of a good thing

Ok...I'm gonna leave you people with your discussions...it's already clear where this is going but it's never gonna happen. Eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy will never happen.

[cla]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy will never happen.

The ripple effect did... :>
Overall, I experience the eye candy in X constantly a bit too slow. Seems one fruit company hasn't understood that the best cue of providing feedback to an action is the result of the action itself. If the result is instantaneous, a cue as to where the result went should suffice.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy will never happen.

The Ripple Effect, transparent menus and brushed metal. OS X is all about eye candy for the sake of eye candy.



cheers

W-Y

edit: add scaling of windows when you open folders in the Finder. Zoom rectancles work just as well.

[SirCastor]

I must be missing the Ripple effect. How do you cause it? I've been playing around with Dashboard quite a bit, not to mention other things. Oddly, 10.4 makes my system seem a lot quicker. A LOT, and I had not more than 10 days ago reinstalled 10.2.8 (I skipped over 10.3). All the visual effects I'm getting are quite smooth and not getting in the way of my User Experience.

As for a 3D interface, I played around with a little 3D navigator. It was kinda dumb. Of the things I saw in project looking glass, I liked the concept of turning a webpage over and making some notes on it. Those comments could be good for Spotlight.

All in all, I think the statement of 3D UI with 2D input is correct. It's not a great idea. I don't really think we're going to graduate beyond the mouse and keyboard for a while either. The next generation might dive into speakable commands...

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by SirCastor

I must be missing the Ripple effect. How do you cause it? I've been playing around with Dashboard quite a bit, not to mention other things. Oddly, 10.4 makes my system seem a lot quicker. A LOT, and I had not more than 10 days ago reinstalled 10.2.8 (I skipped over 10.3). All the visual effects I'm getting are quite smooth and not getting in the way of my User Experience.

As for a 3D interface, I played around with a little 3D navigator. It was kinda dumb. Of the things I saw in project looking glass, I liked the concept of turning a webpage over and making some notes on it. Those comments could be good for Spotlight.

All in all, I think the statement of 3D UI with 2D input is correct. It's not a great idea. I don't really think we're going to graduate beyond the mouse and keyboard for a while either. The next generation might dive into speakable commands...

Looking at your system specs, your desktop wont do the ripple as its not CoreImage supported.
Your laptop, however, should be (IIRC it has a GeForce go 5200).

[Anubis IV]

One could argue that the ripple effect is NOT just pure eye candy though, since it distracts the user's attention while the widgets load their data. It's the same as when a magician draws your attention to one hand and then does something with the other. You could argue that the flashy stuff he does with one hand is pointless, and, indeed, taken by itself it is, but when considered alongside other events it doesn't seem nearly as unimportant.

Brushed metal, I'll admit, is a bit much, but it did enhance the user experience a bit since it helped to get us away from the strictly flat look that we were all used to and into a more modern age of UI design. There are plenty of problems with the metal though, and as the years go on the look seems more and more passé, but it did help to modernize the UI where before it seemed a little bit too utilitarian.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

The Ripple Effect, transparent menus and brushed metal. OS X is all about eye candy for the sake of eye candy.



cheers

W-Y

edit: add scaling of windows when you open folders in the Finder. Zoom rectancles work just as well.

Yeah but as you can see transparencies have been greatly reduced since 10.0...because, as I said, people don't like eye-candy when it holds no purpose or function.

Zoom rects and scaling windows have exactly the same function/purpose...it's eye-candy with a purpose, not eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy (one could argue scaling windows actually lets you see the contents of the window as it scales to full size as opposed to zoom rects which gives you no hints about the content of the window until it's full size.) That is considered useful. Same with icons scaling and windows minimizing to the Dock. If the eye-candy is un-intrusive and has a purpose, it's generally accepted by everyone.

Brushed-metal on the other hand is not eye-candy...it's an eye-sore.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

edit: add scaling of windows when you open folders in the Finder. Zoom rectancles work just as well.

Yeah, but since scaling a window is a "free" operation in Mac OS X, you can afford to do the right thing and scale the actual object, which is superior usability-wise.

tooki

[loki74]

personally, I think that looking glass looks kind of ugly...

As for only 2D with 2D input devices, as a 3D animator, I would beg to differ... it is quite possible to operate in a 3D environment with 2D input devices. Of course, it would be much more complex to learn, and thoroughly unnecessary for a typical user. Hell, it would be unnecessary for a power user.

I think the farthest 3D implementation should go is 3D icons. That would be cool--not only could they bounce, they could rotate, squash & stretch, etc. And you could emply refraction and reflection. It would HAVE to have transparency/antialiasing though, otherwise forget it. And it would have to be disableable, so that the computer would render its default state once and treat that like a normal 2D icon, sotre in in a cache or something I guess.

my $0.02

[lookmark]

Ripple effect aside (too much!), I think the UI effects in Dashboard are beautifully done.

Flipping over widgets to see their preferences, widgets being sucked into their close box, swirling a widget when you reload ... all these animations visualize the action you perform in a pretty delicious way.

AFAIK, flipping a window to see its "other side" was pioneered in Looking Glass ... but Apple used the effect in a much smarter way. Flipping over a small widget to set options makes a whole lot more sense than flipping over a (much larger) browser window to write notes (notes?) about that site location.

I think Leopard will be taking the lessons of Dashboard and applying them across the UI, I hope (expect) in a restrained and tasteful way.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by tooki

Yeah, but since scaling a window is a "free" operation in Mac OS X, you can afford to do the right thing and scale the actual object, which is superior usability-wise.

tooki

Yeah, but since it serves no added purpose and is there just because it is "free", I'd call it eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy.

cheers

W-Y

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

Yeah, but since it serves no added purpose and is there just because it is "free", I'd call it eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy.

cheers

W-Y

But it does. As the window scales you already get an idea of the window's content. And the idea is much more elegant. It makes a lot of sense for the window to scale to size...much more so than seeing zoom rectangles which finally becomes the window.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

But it does. As the window scales you already get an idea of the window's content. And the idea is much more elegant. It makes a lot of sense for the window to scale to size...much more so than seeing zoom rectangles which finally becomes the window.

It scales way to fast to get any idea of its contents.

cheers

W-Y

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

It scales way to fast to get any idea of its contents.

cheers

W-Y

Haha...you're just too slow.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Haha...you're just too slow.

Thank you for that helpful insight. This is the tech forum, you mistook it perhaps for the Lounge, where helpless input is appreciated.

Regardless, you are wrong. The computer scales the windows way to fast for anyone to get an idea of its contents before it is actually open. If that were the case then this eye-candy would be really obnoxious because every window would open so slowly you'd lose patience with the system.

No, the scaling effect is a useless piece of eye-candy that is there only because it is "free".

I can not understand why some people frequent the tech forum when they seemingly cannot provide any useful information or insight.

cheers

W-Y

[tooki]

I think you're both wrong: it's not eye candy, but it's also not because anyone could be expected to actually recognize the window's exact contents.

It's because of a concept called abstraction. Zoom rectangles are an abstraction: they are a slimmed-down version of reality, because that's just about all the hardware could do way back when. Being able to scale the real window simply removes the abstraction: it completes the connection between a window and its parent item.

tooki

[cla]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

No, the scaling effect is a useless piece of eye-candy

There was an OS 9 app (dunno its name) which would let you turn of the zoom rects. Doing so would soon enlighten you as to their purpose:
Providing a cue that something happened here and the result went there. Giving such a cue a non-linear lapse also allows the user to visually track the destination of the event - for instance: drag an icon into the menu bar and release the mouse button. The icon will snap back to its original position in a decelerating manner.

I think this behaviour is important for a user's understanding of the interface: A folder opens into a window.

[mAxximo]

I'd like a well designed “Black Plastic” theme in 10.5 like here.

But only after they had fixed this, of course.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by cla

There was an OS 9 app (dunno its name) which would let you turn of the zoom rects. Doing so would soon enlighten you as to their purpose:
Providing a cue that something happened here and the result went there. Giving such a cue a non-linear lapse also allows the user to visually track the destination of the event - for instance: drag an icon into the menu bar and release the mouse button. The icon will snap back to its original position in a decelerating manner.

I think this behaviour is important for a user's understanding of the interface: A folder opens into a window.

I'm talking about the scaling effect, not zoom rectangles.

The zoom rectangles are more than enough to visually explain what is happening. Scaling the contents of the folder inside the zoom rectangle is just eye-candy and serves no added purpose than just to show OS X can do this. Eye-candy for its own sake.

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

cheers

W-Y

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

I'm talking about the scaling effect, not zoom rectangles.

The zoom rectangles are more than enough to visually explain what is happening. Scaling the contents of the folder inside the zoom rectangle is just eye-candy and serves no added purpose than just to show OS X can do this. Eye-candy for its own sake.

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

cheers

W-Y

Yeah, well by your definitions, windows and icons are eye-candy. Since you're a lost cause, I'll just ignore you from now on.

[Millennium]

As long as we're talking about eyecandy and not nessarily usability, then I put forward Gravité, arguably one of the coolest useless hacks for OS9 ever. Of course, this kind of hack tosses usability completely down the drain, but the cool factor is off the scale.

[cla]

Originally Posted by Millennium

As long as we're talking about eyecandy and not nessarily usability, then I put forward Gravité, arguably one of the coolest useless hacks for OS9 ever. Of course, this kind of hack tosses usability completely down the drain, but the cool factor is off the scale.

Ooooo I remember that one! As you said, one of the coolest hacks for OS9 ever. As for use, at least it taught you where the hot spot was :>

[cla]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

You're right. I did.

Whether scaling is eye-candy compared to zoom rects is a nil discussion. OS X has some serious usability issues, and scaling window content isn't one of them. Nor is the genie effect or even the ripple effect.

[CaptainHaddock]

If you think things can be improved, send your suggestions to Apple's bug report team. As a fairly recent switcher, I think it's the greatest OS ever made, but I have submitted one usability suggestion already. As for "serious" usability issues, I haven't noticed any.

Back to eye-candy—many effects, like Dashboard's ripple or windows expanding from folder icons, may not have function value; but they provide metaphorical value, drawing connections between OS components and the real world. This helps users understand the system more intuitively. In the case of the ripple, for example, it demonstrates that Dashboard is a layer that floats over the desktop, instead of being right on the desktop.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by cla

You're right. I did.

Whether scaling is eye-candy compared to zoom rects is a nil discussion. OS X has some serious usability issues, and scaling window content isn't one of them. Nor is the genie effect or even the ripple effect.

nor was that implied. Horsepoo!! said OS X would never feature eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy.

Scaling is no problem, nor are the rest of the effects I mentioned - but they are eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy. i.e. serve no discernable purpose (nor damage for that matter).

@Horsepoo!!

why would I care whether you put me on an ignore list? Thanks for sharing, err I guess..?

(p.s. if you ever reply to me again you'll look really stupid )

cheers

W-Y

[smithz4096]

Originally Posted by cla

The ripple effect did... :>
Overall, I experience the eye candy in X constantly a bit too slow. Seems one fruit company hasn't understood that the best cue of providing feedback to an action is the result of the action itself. If the result is instantaneous, a cue as to where the result went should suffice.

[cla]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

As for "serious" usability issues, I haven't noticed any.

[removed oversize image --tooki]



More at
http://juicability.blogspot.com

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by cla

[don't quote oversize images --tooki]



More at
http://juicability.blogspot.com

Wow...if someone is stupid enough to use his Dock like that, it's not Apple's problem. Next thing you'll pull out is a screenshot of Exposé with 2000 windows?

The graphite buttons could be a problem...but not really. Muscle memory is good enough for that kind of thing. The Graphite theme is normally used by pros who probably use their machines day in and day out. If they're still confused where the close, minimize, fit-to-content buttons are, they should maybe revert back to Aqua.

I don't know why that last one is a problem.

Whoever wrote up that blog really hasn't a clue about GUIs and how they should behave. He's just as opinionated as anyone else.

You're gonna have to do better than that.

[cla]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Wow...if someone is stupid enough to use his Dock like that, it's not Apple's problem.

I've even seen worse docks than that. I guess it depends on what you use your computer for.

Enlighten me. How should I use the dock? When should I minimize a window and when should I hide the entire application? There's no way of remembering which applications are minimized, which are hidden and which are visible but hidden by other windows.

So far this may sound trivial, but whenever I want to bring that lost window into focus again, I can:
1) Try exposé (all visible windows)
...fail...
2) Try the dock
...fail...
3) Bring the window's application into front, which will also fail if the window WAS minimized while its application was hidden; the window won't show up when I activate the application.
If this was the case, the window should now have shown up in the dock.

Now, how should a learning user reach "autonomisation" in such an unpredictable environment? If you always minimize windows, you will always find them in the dock.
Predictability.

The graphite buttons could be a problem...but not really. Muscle memory is good enough for that kind of thing.

If you're serious, I'd like to hear you define "muscle memory".

I don't know why that last one is a problem.

...

You're gonna have to do better than that.

...

[mpancha]

Originally Posted by lookmark

Ripple effect aside (too much!), I think the UI effects in Dashboard are beautifully done.

Flipping over widgets to see their preferences, widgets being sucked into their close box, swirling a widget when you reload ... all these animations visualize the action you perform in a pretty delicious way.

AFAIK, flipping a window to see its "other side" was pioneered in Looking Glass ... but Apple used the effect in a much smarter way. Flipping over a small widget to set options makes a whole lot more sense than flipping over a (much larger) browser window to write notes (notes?) about that site location.

I think Leopard will be taking the lessons of Dashboard and applying them across the UI, I hope (expect) in a restrained and tasteful way.

Actually, I read through the link provided in the first post about Looking Glass, the purpose of flipping the window to the "other side" was to 1) set user preferences, as seen in the screenshot of Netscape and its preferences, and 2) to take notes on documents/pages/etc. so you can keep track of what you're doing.

Hopefully Leopard takes that and incorporates it OS wide.

[cla]

Assigning the flipside to preferences wouldn't be suitable in multiple window applications. Document specific meta data on the other hand - Spotlight comments.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by cla

I've even seen worse docks than that. I guess it depends on what you use your computer for.

Enlighten me. How should I use the dock? When should I minimize a window and when should I hide the entire application? There's no way of remembering which applications are minimized, which are hidden and which are visible but hidden by other windows.

So far this may sound trivial, but whenever I want to bring that lost window into focus again, I can:
1) Try exposé (all visible windows)
...fail...
2) Try the dock
...fail...
3) Bring the window's application into front, which will also fail if the window WAS minimized while its application was hidden; the window won't show up when I activate the application.
If this was the case, the window should now have shown up in the dock.

I'm not quite sure I understand...because when I perform step 3, my hidden windows and minimized windows show up.

Now, how should a learning user reach "autonomisation" in such an unpredictable environment? If you always minimize windows, you will always find them in the dock.
Predictability.

Frankly, I think the minimize to dock idea to be stupid but some people like it. Apple is offering choices. There's nothing unpredictable about anything you said (unless I'm not understanding).

If you're serious, I'd like to hear you define "muscle memory".

Muscle memory is what helps you remember things by position. The classic example is people coming from Windows, they always reach for the right side of the window in OS X to close or minimize a window only to realize there are no buttons there (or there's a toolbar button). But after a few minutes or hours, they can get quite comfortable with the buttons on the left side of the window and even learn that the left-most is the close button, middle is minimize, and right-most is fit-to-content by position. They don't need colors or symbols to guide them.

Having 3 graphite buttons is no more confusing that 3 differently colored buttons...we attach meaning to the colors just like we can attach meaning to the position of the buttons.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Funny to see Horsepoo!! advocate muscle memory as he hates the spacial Finder which is all about muscle memory. About as consistent as the OS X Finder UI.

cheers

W-Y

[kent m]

Regarding the 3d GUI chat - I'd love to see a 3d interface - but it seems to me that trying to implement such an idea is useless when it's ultimately confined to a 2d screen space. When GUIs move into actual 3d space - via visual goggles or what have you - then there'll be a real reason to develop spacial effects - true spacial effects - for all the demo ballyhoo the Sun system is really just 2d tricks (scaling and cornerpining, and a comp trick, transparency) and the result, as shown in the demo, only makes the screen space more cluttered and confusing. I think it's great they're trying something different, but what are the ultimate reasons to bring a GUI into 3d space when the GUI lives in a 2d screen?...

[DeathMan]

Originally Posted by cla

Assigning the flipside to preferences wouldn't be suitable in multiple window applications. Document specific meta data on the other hand - Spotlight comments.

DING DING DING!

[EFFENDI]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Muscle memory is what helps you remember things by position. The classic example is people coming from Windows, they always reach for the right side of the window in OS X to close or minimize a window only to realize there are no buttons there (or there's a toolbar button). But after a few minutes or hours, they can get quite comfortable with the buttons on the left side of the window and even learn that the left-most is the close button, middle is minimize, and right-most is fit-to-content by position. They don't need colors or symbols to guide them.

Having 3 graphite buttons is no more confusing that 3 differently colored buttons...we attach meaning to the colors just like we can attach meaning to the position of the buttons.

I have actually been using a Graphite theme (on my PC) ported for WindowsXP (using Windowblinds), and I much prefer the look of the three metallic buttons vs. the colorful Aqua equivalent. Colors are distracting sometimes. Positioning is easy to remember.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by cla

The ripple effect did... :>
Overall, I experience the eye candy in X constantly a bit too slow. Seems one fruit company hasn't understood that the best cue of providing feedback to an action is the result of the action itself. If the result is instantaneous, a cue as to where the result went should suffice.

You have to wait for the widget to load anyway.

[DigitalEl]

I'm all for eye-candy, but that Sun stuff is just a frakkin' mess. UI needs to be designed with the common user in mind... Not us geeks (discussing UI on an Intarweb message board). That Sun system would be wicked confusing to most people.

When Apple can provide eye-candy without slowing down the system, go for it. The ripple effect in Dashboard, for one, takes too long. A better example of useful eye-candy is items warp-shrinking into the dock. Quick and easy and it shows the user where their window went. More stuff like that, please!

[cla]

Originally Posted by DigitalEl

I'm all for eye-candy, but that Sun stuff is just a frakkin' mess. UI needs to be designed with the common user in mind... Not us geeks (discussing UI on an Intarweb message board). That Sun system would be wicked confusing to most people.

I would really like to see Apple design for common users. As of now, I think they're targeting beginners and switchers. Beginner or experienced - perhaps "That Sun system" would be wicked confusing regardless...

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by JLL

You have to wait for the widget to load anyway.

What about some fancy waves or some incredible visual effect while applications load?? I can't believe Apple hasn't done that!

cheers

W-Y

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

Funny to see Horsepoo!! advocate muscle memory as he hates the spacial Finder which is all about muscle memory. About as consistent as the OS X Finder UI.

cheers

W-Y

You really haven't learned a thing have you.

Muscle memory can only go so far. For simple, repetitive tasks like button posititioning or menus, it's fine...but for a spatial Finder the size of a frickin' encyclopedia, it's not. Try remembering exactly where you put everything, in every window, Yutani...I dare ya.

[cla]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

I'm not quite sure I understand...because when I perform step 3, my hidden windows and minimized windows show up.

Only the last used, minimized window in that application will show up. The others will suddenly show up minimized in the dock. Try this in a multiple window app:
Create two new documents
Minimize them both
Hide the application
Work with something else for ten minutes
Locate the very first document you created.

Frankly, I think the minimize to dock idea to be stupid

Interesting. I'd like to hear you elaborate on that. (no irony intended)
I find minimizing useful but the dock "stupid", so minimizing to the dock, to me, is like... like this metaphor:

You're holding the jack of spades in your hand.
You need to look at another card from on top of the deck.
In order to do so, you have to temporarily get rid of the jack.
The only way to get rid of the jack is to insert it into the deck at a random position (because YOU won't get to choose the position).

So how are you to find the jack again, 10 minuters later?
Easy! You KNOW it's the jack of spades! So all you have to do is search through the 52 cards of the deck until you find it! Unless of course all the spades were hidden, which you realize after having browsed the remaining 39 cards...

Every time for every minimized window! Bah.

but some people like it. Apple is offering choices.

Given two or more choices of interface methods and no rational method of choosing one above the others, I have seen the problem "solved" by expediently putting all of the proposed methods. This is rationalized as giving the user a choice, as if the user were an interface expert and will make the most productive choice

Speaking of muscle memory: Muscle memory rhymes bad with choice. On the contrary, escaping choice is a prerequisite.

Muscle memory is what helps you remember things by position.

Muscle memory is what helps you access, manipulate and move things without bringing the action into consciousness. As soon as you "remember" something, you've already gotten past muscle memory and into consciousness, giving the user's brain yet another problem to wrestle.
In the case of the buttons above, muscle memory can at most guide you in the right direction (or left direction in the Macintosh case) for the very first milliseconds of the process of closing a window.
The rest of the process, however, demands consciousness and 100% visual attention, briefly taking away focus from the task at hand. Briefly taking away focus every time you need to close, move, fit-to-content, minimize or resize a window. Rediculous.

Windows are so fundamental that you should be able to manipulate them without thinking, without bringing anything into consciousness, without letting go of the task at hand.

Having 3 graphite buttons is no more confusing that 3 differently colored buttons...we attach meaning to the colors just like we can attach meaning to the position of the buttons.

Are these your personal presumptions? Because you make them sound very much like facts.
(I don't mean to be rude, just don't write stuff as were they carved in stone unless you can point me to the research to back it up.)

There is nothing in that design appealing to sensory visual memory.
There is no natural mapping between their positions and their purpose.
There is no natural mapping between their colors and their purpose.
There is no cue whatsoever as to predicting the action of each button, unless you hover the mouse pointer on top of the buttons, which is plain, bad ui design.

(If I were to wake you up in the middle of the night and ask which color the fit-to-content button has, how long would you need to think? Probably not at all if there truly is a "meaning".)

As for "attaching meaning": Instead of assigning arbitrary colors that look good to the buttons, they might as well have attached arbitrary icons: the bear for closing, the bottle of rum for minimizing and the flesh wound for fit-to-content. I dare state even this design would be more efficient. At least the user would be urged to make (somewhat bizarre) associations.

( Normally I'm against icons... :> )