Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, Reviews
Dissing Disco
Rory Prior has some not-so-nice things to say about Disco, and I agree with most of his assessment. While everyone else seems to be jumping on the Disco bandwagon, I'm hopping off. Disco is a CD/DVD burning app that positions itself as a viable, better-looking and much less expensive replacement for Roxio's Toast. After spending a week with Disco, I am once again hungry for Toast. Rory says Disco is the "triumph of eye candy over usability." That's a good start at what's wrong with it, but the much-hyped "eye candy" itself really proves the point that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To my eyes, this is one ugly app. Its looks actually make it less usable, in fact. Smoke screens and shooting flame effects don't impress me much when the app doesn't do what it is intended to do exceptionally well - and Disco really fails at that task. Disco is a triumph of is hype over deservedness. Let me add that I was one of the many who pre-ordered Disco when it first started it's viral marketing campaign. For $5 I'm not saying I didn't get my money's worth, but I wouldn't have purchased it at any price had I tried the beta demo before handing over the cash.
One of the first things that struck me is that the UI is inconsistent and confusing. The glossy black-and-gray translucent theme is only interesting to look at for the first 5 seconds of the first launch. After that I found myself staring at it and noticing how unappealing it really was. Thinking an app's UI is ugly normally wouldn't dissuade me from using it as long as the app performed well, but It took me a good minute to figure out how and at what point to name the disc I was about to burn, which is not a good sign. In fact, the very first disc I burned ended up being named "Untitled" because I forgot to name it at all. I wouldn't have forgotten if Disco had prompted me at some point or had a visually obvious place for me to have named it. But with all that translucent black and gray everything just looks muddy on my busy desktop and the title field just blends in with the rest of it.
Prior also says he's impressed by Disco's "simplicity and functionality." But I don't see it as being simplistic or functional - at least not in the ways I've come to expect from a media burning application. The second thing to strike me was that Disco didn't recognize my .toast image as an image and instead burned it as a straight data file. Once again, there was no obvious prompt at any point to alert me to exactly what kind of disk I was about to burn. The DMG file I tested was recognized properly and I suspect I could have renamed the .toast file to avoid the first issue, but I shouldn't have to. If Disco is going to compete with Toast in any meaningful way, it should at least recognize Toast images and know what to do with them.
The one feature I do like is the Discography function, which could be very helpful, although I will admit to not having even really played with it yet - but the Spandex feature for spanning data across multiple discs failed miserably for me every time, splitting up groups of data in odd ways, wasted a lot of disc space and didn't allow me to split a single file across multiple CDs.
Before I get flamed to high heaven, I am fully aware that Disco is currently in BETA and it's not a final release candidate. Some of my gripes may be addressed in future builds. The above isn't intended to be an in-depth review, either. But Disco toots its own horn the loudest about the user interface and that's the one feature that makes it hardest for me to use. The visual effects are impressive from a development standpoint but they seem to focus more on form and far less on function. Here's to hoping Disco dances its way into better shape before version 1.0.
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Louis said 7:44AM on 11-04-2006
Toast is one of the best out there. It has been on Macs for as long as I can remember, so it definitely has experience under its belt. I've also found it to be the fastest, and the one with the most features. Toast is the first program I turn to if I'm faced with an unusual burning situation. Like hybrid audio/data discs, then at the same time making the data section a Mac/PC hybrid. Toast is also the only app I can think of that will emulate a second optical drive and physical cd out of a disk image.
Its also extremely easy and intuitive to use - and it's interface isn't ugly. Eye Candy is only important if it makes the app look nicer, or if it helps to make the user understand what is going on or what is going to happen if I click this or do that. The only parts of Disco's eye candy that help out are the slick diagrams, however the weird looking black windows look like someone has done Shapeshifter overkill, which can totally throw your user off.
This has been the mistake of Apple a few times. They've slowly streamlined their iLife together to make more sense. Remember the uproar of the return of the platinum/smooth gradient metal kind of what the hell is that? At the moment we have 4 types of window faces. Old Skool Aqua (pinstripes & standard toolbar), New Skool Aqua (smooth gradient white & combined toolbar), Old Skool Brushed Metal (Safari), New Skool Space Odessy 2001 Platinum Metal (iTunes). This has confused many.
And as for the smoke effects - thats there for a w*nk or to show off to your windows friends.
Btw, Burn is a very cool simple app thats a nice alternative to toast.
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Angel said 7:46AM on 11-04-2006
@Mark - They're charging for beta software because they know people will buy it. Don't blame them, blame the people who pay for a product that's not finished and then complain about its shortcomings.
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Howard Satinsky said 8:57AM on 11-04-2006
I downloaded it, looked at it, trashed it. What a piece of crap. I have been using toast for years. What's the problem? Most of you folks develop software. Roxio is the "standard" and they get paid. They certainly aren't the first or the worst. Their software works. I agree with the posting. That app was crap....
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henrrrik said 11:04AM on 11-04-2006
Just use Burn, it's free as in speech and it does the job.
http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/
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MJD said 11:01AM on 11-04-2006
Me too.
I was starting to think I was terribly out of touch with the Mac community. It is refreshing to read of people who feel the same as me.
I think people need to stand back and ask themselves "What have these people done to deserve *so* much attention?"
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Dave M. said 11:58AM on 11-04-2006
Blair: Thanks man, I didn't know that they had implemented the .ISO burning in the last update. They didn't mention it in the changelogs or I missed it, probably the later. Anyway, thanks!
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David Butler said 12:14PM on 11-04-2006
This is the problem with over-hyped software. *Everyones* talking about Disco, so it gets prominent enough in the community for someone to write a critical article on it. Then *Everyones* trashing Disco. The fact is, Disco is a useful application with flaws. It doesnt suit everyone. Because a program has been overhyped doesnt mean it needs to be viciously critised. You're taking a cheap shot at a young developer.
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PixelNurse said 1:17PM on 11-04-2006
In response to the comments bemoaning the criticism, I have to point out that what goes up must come down. If you're gonna play the hype game then you can't be surprised if comes back and bites you on the ass.
I can see this app being very popular with the teenage boys who like to stick blue LEDs in everything and bastardise the Mac UI with ShapeShifter et al, but in terms of being good value it simply isn't. There are free alternatives that are more functional, and look better to my eye.
I often have to create Hybrid CDs often and also require CD-ROM emulation so I'm a Toast boy, but if I didn't need those features I'd go with the free and more feature packed alternatives.
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Donald Burr said 11:20PM on 11-04-2006
I got on the Disco bandwagon rather late (only bought it the day before halloween). I've already burned several disks with it, and only made one coaster, when I tried to use an external USB 2 burner (this may not be Disco's fault, as this burner seems to behave oddly in all apps, even Toast). Spandex is handy but still needs work, and the devs have admitted so. I am already loving Discography.
One thing that I still need Toast for is for
When I record shows with my EyeTV, I can click the handy "Toast" button, and EyeTV will send the video files directly to Toast, which will create a DVD out of them (menus, transcoding, and all). Other than that, I've been using Disco to burn my data disks, and DMG/ISO image files. No problems. Haven't tried an audio CD yet, though I suspect that should work pretty well too.
So, no, this app is not (YET) a Toast-killer, but it has a lot of potential ahead of it. I'd say it was well worth the $15 price of admission, and I'm looking forward to where this bandwagon will take me.
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Sam said 11:26PM on 11-04-2006
I downloaded Disco, fired it up, looked at it for a few minutes, and decided it was not for me. Its freaking ugly, and seems light on features. Eye-candy will only take you so far, and it's debatable whether it even has this.
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Jim said 11:16AM on 11-05-2006
There's a reason Toast is the king of the hill in disc burning. It's because nobody has even come close to the ease of use, reliability and flexibility that Toast offers. Yes it's a giant download – but that's because you're getting a bunch of free software with it (DeJaVu for backups, disc labeling apps, etc.).
For me, nothing even comes close to Toast for ease of use... I would LOVE it if someone did though.
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LKM said 12:12PM on 11-05-2006
I have to agree here. My first CD came out as "untitled", too. You can't resize any screens. It's unclear how to drop files if there's a CD inside the drive. The UI is inconsistent and confusing. Lots of missing features. but, uhm, smoke...
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Niklas said 4:34AM on 11-06-2006
Laurie@TUAW: It's sad that you TUAW people always seem to equal aesthetics with usability. Please figure out that usability is more about behavior than looks.
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Bryan said 5:31AM on 11-06-2006
I have to say I agree with the majority of comments here. Not that I needed it, but I thought this might be a Toast alternative. But spandex doesn't even split files across the discs, try spanning a 1gb file and use CD-R... no worky! I bet they are choking on the Toast they say they're eating for breakfast.
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Bryan said 5:36AM on 11-06-2006
>>45. This is the problem with over-hyped software.
>>*Everyones* talking about Disco, so it gets
>>prominent enough in the community for someone to
>>write a critical article on it. Then *Everyones*
>>trashing Disco. The fact is, Disco is a useful
I tried posting suggestions without trolling on their blog and they keep deleting my comments as well as those of other people who aren't fanboys, even the ones who are saying it's a great app but point out a small flaw.
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lloyd said 9:53AM on 11-06-2006
Disco is form over function.. for me, it crashed on its first burn.. rendered the disc and drive useless - i couldn't get the disk out without rebooting.
what is the point of those shitty smoke effects?
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DrWatson said 7:53AM on 11-06-2006
Am I the only one who wants to edit a folder after I dropped it into disco? Maybe I've been doing it the complicated way all the time, but I often drag a folder to toast and then delete some files or folders from within this folder (because I don't need all of the folder's content on the disc). But disco doesn't let me do this, once the folder is dropped, I may delete the whole folder or burn the whole folder. That is what made me diss disco even before the very first disc.
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paul said 1:33PM on 11-06-2006
I'd just like to go a week without having to read a half-dozen posts about Disco on TUAW. We know it's there if we want it! Quit shoving it down our throats!
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brad said 7:11PM on 11-07-2006
I was another mac zotter on this and I also thought "cool" when I got it. Then it burned a DVD into a coaster and wouldn't eject it, just like someone above. Then I too burned a CD named untitled. While I personally like the UI (though the smoke effect doesn't work on my GeForce FX 5200 graphic card), I'm not going to make any more coasters until the next version comes out.
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Eric said 11:17PM on 12-10-2006
Disco is ugly.
In it's attempts to have a beautiful UI, they forgot what goes first: a useable UI.
What's with the transparency? Why would I want a transparent app?
I would be interested if they decided to keep the app uniform with OS X, and make a stunning interface without clashing with the general "look" of cocoa apps.
Oh, and for what it does, it should be donationware. It's basically a repackaged Disk Utility.
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