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Does a particular feature really need it's own 'window' to be manually opened and closed? Is there a way for the interface to be context sensitive and eliminate the operation of manual open/close? That's what is brilliant with a few products on the market; and not talking about Apple stuff here. Garageband on iPHone - elegant; less so on Mac OSX. One bad part about the iOS Garageband: you have to shake the device to delete the most recent take. Yes, shake - like an etch-a-sketch!

Think of any 'junk' manipulation process by the user and eliminate them. Unnecessary clicks, scrolls, menu picks, etc. etc.




My take - Windows 8 is not as bad as they say, but it is DIFFERENT enough to upset lots of people. It may very well go the route of Vista, and Windows "Blue" will be the more successful launch (e.g. XP to Vista to Win7 will be mirrored by Win 7 to Win 8 to Win Blue). Since the Win8 is such a copy of Apple's model, MS has a lot of growing pains to go through. But they have the deep pockets, persistence, and corporate culture 'copy and kill the competition' model that will eventually allow them to compete with products comparable in quality.

Love your point about built-in support for Audio and Midi - that is critically important for music enthusiasts and their associated 3rd party vendors.

Lastly - I agree entirely that the amount of navigation and clicking can be reduced in BB/RB, and it would make it easier to use the product. Although you refer to Garageband on iPhone, I do feel Apple products nailed it with their user interface (especially the iPad - the navigation I can do with my fingers is often faster than with the mouse - and that was no trivial design task !)

Lastly/lastly - I believe the PG UI guys (? who are these guys ? - they never comment on all these posts) should be closely studying the best of breed UI music technology and general computer application products to the point of going from novice to advanced users. Quite often, the UI which is most efficient to the power user is a cryptic, barrier to entry for the novice. Thus, 2 modes are very important.