Although the many and pernicious inconsistencies of light and cast shadows within Mac OS X remain mostly uncommented upon, let me draw your attention to iCal’s “current time of day” indicator with its own curious contribution.

When the timespan shown within the Day or Week view includes the current day and time, you see a horizontal line running the width of the calendar with a colored bulb on the left side.

Here’s a magnified view of the indicator:

Now, look at the cast shadow, whose distance from the bulb casting the shadow implies that the bulb itself hovers above the calendar’s surface by an appreciable distance. Because the horizontal line to which the bulb is attached has no shadow, an incongruity results making it difficult to believe that the bulb is attached to the horizontal line at all.

And note the direction of the cast shadow, which by its position to the left and below the bulb—7:30 on a clock were the bulb in the center—implies a light source to the right and above the bulb, at 1:30 on the same clock. However, the specular highlighting on the bulb indicates a light source directly above the bulb, at 12:00. Quite confusing, and inconsistent with other light sources within Mac OS X.

Lastly, why does this indicator cast a shadow at all? Such 3D styling is often a cue that an onscreen element is manipulable, which this indicator is not. Many users have probably attempted to click on this indicator, believing it to be a control.

Oddities like this exist throughout the OS. A catalog of them would make for a good read…

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Added: Reader Jordan Kay mentioned fixing the image in Photoshop, a great idea. Here’s a version of that image without cast shadow or red:

Sunday, January 11th, 2009, 1:56 pm    Trackback.