Alan sent me this link to Engadget’s review of Jobs’ Macworld keynote. Nothing new here for Macolytes, but I thought the email UI was very interesting.
To save space, they only display sender name and timestamp in the main message list; the message subject is bumped into the detail pane. This is a great example of feature prioritization, in terms of the UI and the audience. Apple is making great strides by targeting casual (non-business) users across their product line, rethinking commonly-accepted features that were originally designed to meet business users’ needs. Subject lines are very important in email-heavy business environments, but many personal emails are little more than Facebook-esque nudges, where subject lines are really only useful for identifying spam. A spam warning icon, though, might be useful…
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