Origin of the Mac OS X Dock Poof Animation

Chris Hynes:

On the piece of paper, he drew a series of frames similar to what is pictured above. A quick, five frame animation. The intention of the designer was that these drawings would stoke further discussion. That it would get cleaned up and refined later.

But that never happened. It shipped as is. And the rest is history.

Update: My pal CHOCK made these animations. When you look at the poof slowly, it really does look crude:

Slow motion animation of the 5-frame Mac OS X poof animation.

Speed it up, though, and your brain does the work of making it look good:

Same 5 frames, animated without delay.

★ Monday, 8 March 2021