---
title: A More Realistic Desktop Metaphor
categories:
- work
content-tags:
- design
- technology
- apple
- memories
- photography
- software
- ui
- usability
---

The recent attention to [Apple's patents on "piles"][1] reminds me of an entertaining conversation [Ryan][2] and I had in 2005.

We were caught up in the [HDR][3] fad, and lamented how poor iPhoto is at managing photos meant to be grouped, as when auto-bracketing exposure or shooting for panorama stitching.  As I said aloud that the problem seems to be there's a need for grouping items at a "less than album" manner, I recalled the original piles patent and lamented that they hadn't moved forward on that, and here's a perfect opportunity for them to actually innovate in user interface.  I believe I went on to complain that if [Tognazzini][4] were still there they would've solved this problem already.

What makes this conversation memorable is the punchline: later that week I decided to look into [Aperture][5] and discovered that it has stacks.  Exactly the feature we longed for.  And it'd been there for a few months already.

   [1]: http://www.macnn.com/blogs/?p=260
   [2]: http://nopaper.net/
   [3]: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/
   [4]: http://www.asktog.com/
   [5]: http://www.apple.com/aperture/
