While this does look very pretty I'm kinda concerned that they're throwing a lot of good stuff away. I'm running Firefox 5 and it really feels polished, there's so many things I'm still discovering and thinking "hey, that's cool". It's a feeling you most often get when a design has been iterated, and tweaked, and worked on for a long time... I get the same feeling frequently on the Mac I have to use at work.
This is prettier, yes. It's also a lot curvier and wastes a lot of space compared to Firefox 5. In particular, vertical pixels are at a premium for me, and Firefox 5 has done a lot to improve this... this is a step backwards, as the main bar at the top is larger.
And seriously, those curves take up a ridiculous amount of real-estate - compare those tabs to Chrome or FF5, how many can you get on your screen?
> In particular, vertical pixels are at a premium for me, and Firefox 5 has done a lot to improve this... this is a step backwards, as the main bar at the top is larger.
Really? Looks like an improvement to me, because tabs have now consumed the titlebar area. The tab area itself is larger, but the total change is a reduction in the amount of vertical space used.
> And seriously, those curves take up a ridiculous amount of real-estate - compare those tabs to Chrome or FF5, how many can you get on your screen?
The curve is only on the active tab, so I don't see how it's reducing the amount of tabs you can have.
> Really? Looks like an improvement to me, because tabs have now consumed the titlebar area.
I compared FF5 and these screenshots on my screen together, FF5 uses slightly less real estate. It's only a minor regression though, and hey, this is Firefox - I can customise it! It's just that prior to the current look, I had to modify Firefox quite a lot to optimise vertical real-estate, and it's quite nice that it's now good out of the box, so I selfishly want it to stay that way!
What OS are you on? Comparing my FF5 install on OSX to the mockups, the mockups use less space due to the tab / titlebar merging. I don't recall if FF5 is already doing that merging on Windows or not. Looking at screenshots online, it also looks like the mockup is smaller than stock FF5 on Windows, but I haven't confirmed myself.
This is prettier, yes. It's also a lot curvier and wastes a lot of space compared to Firefox 5. In particular, vertical pixels are at a premium for me, and Firefox 5 has done a lot to improve this... this is a step backwards, as the main bar at the top is larger.
And seriously, those curves take up a ridiculous amount of real-estate - compare those tabs to Chrome or FF5, how many can you get on your screen?