Comment 88 for bug 527458

@Mark Shuttleworth.

Honestly, I completely disagree on this matter. The tooltips in question actually increased usability and provided desirable functionality to things like volume control and battery status. Now, we have *some* panel applets, apparently blessed by you and whatever process you use to bless them, and others that don't at all. This is an inconsistency in the interface. Yet you chose to remove them....why? To look more like a Mac? There is no value in that.

Ubuntu can be beautiful AND functional. Yet, in your quest for (Steve) "Jobs-hood", you have taken away elements of functionality AND configurability away from users over the last 18 months or so. It should not be this way. Linux can still be attractive to new users while remaining the OS of *freedom*. It is that freedom which draws your users in the first place. Let's face it...both Windows and Mac are already pretty, so that is never going to be a value proposition. Pretty matters only inasmuch as the OS in question doesn't look like trash. It is a combination of usability and *choices* in that usability that always have been the value propositions of Ubuntu, and Linux in general, and changing that cannot achieve your dream of making Ubuntu, or Linux for that matter, the OS of choice for the "average" user. I understand that you want to make it usable for the "never used Linux before" crowd, but you can do that and still leave the options for more advanced users (perhaps in an "advanced" settings section or tab), and everyone is then happy.

You state that "less is more" is a well established principle. Perhaps it is, but even more well established is, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." You and your team would do well to heed that principle when deciding what to change or remove. Currently your decisions appear counter-productive, in that you are actually driving users (and possibly customers) to other distros. Is this really the road you wish to take?

Please restore the tooltips. Sooner is better. Thanks,