Latest Leopard build from Apple suggests much work ahead

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  • Reply 181 of 213
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    As things are going, we'll all probably continue to have our lists of disappointments.



    I think it would be nice if all the secret features addressed all the complaints listed here.



    To be honest about this, I would expect that the list of complaints would remain, though what is on the list might change. No business of any size, much less one with a large customer base, is going to please everyone completely, it is simply impossible. The best thing they can hope is to try their best to improve the system's experience for most people such that their update sells. I really don't think that the typical members of any Mac forum properly represent the user base, I'm going to be honest in saying that I'm on the fringe there as well.
  • Reply 182 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I think it would be nice if all the secret features addressed all the complaints listed here.



    To be honest about this, I would expect that the list of complaints would remain, though what is on the list might change. No business of any size, much less one with a large customer base, is going to please everyone completely, it is simply impossible. The best thing they can hope is to try their best to improve the system's experience for most people such that their update sells. I really don't think that the typical members of any Mac forum properly represent the user base, I'm going to be honest in saying that I'm on the fringe there as well.



    I have a feeling that it's going to be a long time yet before Leopard sees the light of day. We still haven't had 10.4.9 get released yet, and as this thread is named, "Latest Leopard build from Apple suggests much work ahead" I'm not holding my breath for it to be released this Spring. Seems to me that WWDC is where they'd show the rest of these secret features because the developers would need to be clued in to them for their own products. I think they are all silently shooting for September when the kids go back to school and the parents are buying all new school computers. I hope everyones complaints get addressed with Finder and I hope they do something to improve the look far beyond what they've done in iTunes.
  • Reply 183 of 213
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    Kickaha, I already find OS X usable. I am just amazed that I am such a minority in all of this. Like I'm the only one that looks at the OS and sees that it's bland visually speaking. Furthermore, please don't direct me to other operating systems to get what I want in this one.



    Er, why not? If a tool doesn't meet what you need, then you choose another tool. I wasn't being flip, or sarcastic. If eye candy really is that important to you, then another OS that leans more in that direction might make you happier, that's all. I wasn't being dismissive, but pointing out that there are options.



    Quote:

    I'm well aware that the other operating systems are far more visually appealing than what Tiger provides. I understand, as you stated above that the current team in Cupertino is only focused on a minimalistic aesthetic.



    Yup. You see more visually appealing, I see clutter and annoyances. *shrug* I'll take minimalist any day of the week. It flows with the general philosophy of the Mac - do what I say, don't try and be overly helpful, only get in my face when something goes wrong, and basically be my technological butler. UIs that are less interface and more in-yer-face just seem like hyper children on espresso trying to prove how much they're helping you by never leaving you alone. (cf. XP - god I hate using that at work.)



    Quote:

    To use a metaphor, the car drives great, it just doesn't appeal to me visually.



    Fair enough. Luckily, just as with cars, there *are* 'body shops' out there willing to help you do custom work via haxies and such. Like I said, knock yourself out having fun with them, that's what they're for, after all, right?
  • Reply 184 of 213
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    I've seen some amazing stuff recently with Linux and the Beryl Desktop Manager:



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6kd42jIaHk



    There are a lot of cool things in it that I'd like to see in Leopard. There are a lot of people who want Leopard to look just like Tiger and not have any cool new look to it. Sure they'll say that there'll be some slight changes to look, like what we've seen in iTunes, but those don't impress me. I'm hoping Leopard really changes things up from what we see in Tiger. I'd much rather use the word "daring" to describe Leopard than "conservative". The look of Tiger is getting boring and I don't want this look to continue in Leopard.



    It's difficult to make major changes in an OS's interface all at once. While you might want to see them, most people won't. Having to re-learn the OS's daily tasks isn't something most people want to do.



    I'm hoping that there will be major improvements under the hood that will eliminate most of the problems that, quite frankly, should have been fixed long ago.



    But, in so far as the desktop itself goes, unless a change makes for a much better usability factor, I'd rather they left it alone.



    Even going to rez independence won't make for a different visual experience, other than to make it easier to read.
  • Reply 185 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    It's difficult to make major changes in an OS's interface all at once. While you might want to see them, most people won't. Having to re-learn the OS's daily tasks isn't something most people want to do.



    I'm hoping that there will be major improvements under the hood that will eliminate most of the problems that, quite frankly, should have been fixed long ago.



    But, in so far as the desktop itself goes, unless a change makes for a much better usability factor, I'd rather they left it alone.



    Even going to rez independence won't make for a different visual experience, other than to make it easier to read.



    I'm all for fixing the problems documented on the various threads here. I will go the modification route if Leopard doesn't offer significant visual changes. The OS already works fine for me, I just want to push it a little and make it work for me. Because as it is, Tiger isn't coming close to challenging my MBP.
  • Reply 186 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    Er, why not? If a tool doesn't meet what you need, then you choose another tool. I wasn't being flip, or sarcastic. If eye candy really is that important to you, then another OS that leans more in that direction might make you happier, that's all. I wasn't being dismissive, but pointing out that there are options.







    Yup. You see more visually appealing, I see clutter and annoyances. *shrug* I'll take minimalist any day of the week. It flows with the general philosophy of the Mac - do what I say, don't try and be overly helpful, only get in my face when something goes wrong, and basically be my technological butler. UIs that are less interface and more in-yer-face just seem like hyper children on espresso trying to prove how much they're helping you by never leaving you alone. (cf. XP - god I hate using that at work.)







    Fair enough. Luckily, just as with cars, there *are* 'body shops' out there willing to help you do custom work via haxies and such. Like I said, knock yourself out having fun with them, that's what they're for, after all, right?



    Kickaha,

    I haven't used XP so I'll take your word for it. I'm not going to use another OS because this is the one I like using the most. That doesn't mean I find it visually appealing. I'll hold off for Leopard, but if there aren't changes that are more appealing to me, I'll go the modification route.



    It seems like they'll be working on Leopard forever so who knows, we all might get our wish.
  • Reply 187 of 213
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    I'm all for fixing the problems documented on the various threads here. I will go the modification route if Leopard doesn't offer significant visual changes. The OS already works fine for me, I just want to push it a little and make it work for me. Because as it is, Tiger isn't coming close to challenging my MBP.



    Ok. But, you just said that it works fine for you, but you want to make it work for you. Which is it?



    How is it supposed to challange you MBP? That isn't its purpose.



    I find it to be amusing that when X came out, right after 2000, PC users accused us of having "eye candy", and that X wasn't a serious OS partly because of that. When XP came out, and its "eye candy" came closer to X, but didn't quite match it in the visuals, PC users still degraded X because of it, especially because you could turn most of the effects in XP off for slower computers, or if you simply hated it.



    Now that Vista has much more of what Apple itself is slowly moderating, and for the most part can't be turned of, though the $99 version doesn't have it at all, their tone is changing out of necessity.



    I find too much diddly things in a desktop to be not only distracting, but also subject to abuse.



    An OS should disappear in your mind when you're using it. If it constantly brings itself to your attention, then it's failing in its purpose.



    More things mean more beta testing, which means more bugs, which means poorer security, etc.



    Apple seems to try hard to walk the tightrope between features and simplicity. We know Job's design goal with every product is to KISS.



    If you really want to add those diddly things, then you can get them for free, or buy them for little money. Do so at your own risk!



    But, while Apple should add items that integrate seamlessly, and add important features, and security, they shouldn't add those that just make things unnecessarily complex for most users, just for the purpose of adding them.



    It looks to be the way various Linux distro's are going. They can't seem to get it together on the big things, so they are adding little things which just degrade the experience, but give the talking points.



    I'd rather Apple not go in that direction.
  • Reply 188 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Ok. But, you just said that it works fine for you, but you want to make it work for you. Which is it?



    How is it supposed to challange you MBP? That isn't its purpose.





    The OS works fine for me. It does everything I want it to do. That doesn't mean that it looks the way I want it to. I want it to be far more graphically stimulating (in a very G-Rated sense). If I want to have a forest on the desktop and see the branches sway in the breeze, or a field with a stream running through it and see the water moving and grass swaying, I already have a computer with the power to do it, but I don't have the ability for something like that. I dislike a static desktop. I understand that there are folks out there, namely http://mydreamapp.com/ working on something similar to what I'm looking for. I'll probably buy their product when they are done with it.



    The challenge to the MBP I mentioned above is just such a challenge. Animated desktops, different color schemes. I'm a firefighter, so I think it'd be cool to have the page burst into flames and turn to ash that blows away when I close a window or quit an app. I just like that kind of thing. Or why not have the page visually crumple up when I'm going to Trash a document and then have it drop into trash? Why not have the trash can turn into a shredder and see paper shredding if you secure delete the trash? It's stuff like that that I'm trying to explain to you all. Stuff that is visually appealing. The Genie Effect is a great first step, but that's all it was in that regard.
  • Reply 189 of 213
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    The OS works fine for me. It does everything I want it to do. That doesn't mean that it looks the way I want it to. I want it to be far more graphically stimulating (in a very G-Rated sense). If I want to have a forest on the desktop and see the branches sway in the breeze, or a field with a stream running through it and see the water moving and grass swaying, I already have a computer with the power to do it, but I don't have the ability for something like that. I dislike a static desktop. I understand that there are folks out there, namely http://mydreamapp.com/ working on something similar to what I'm looking for. I'll probably buy their product when they are done with it.



    I can't possibly understand why you would want a constantly moving desktop. That would be very distracting, and make it difficult to read anything on the desktop.



    But, I don't see your problem in doing it.



    My 15 year old daughter has put movies on her desktop years ago. No problem there. I believe that there is even a way to put a live feed as your desktop, should you really want to do that.



    Quote:

    The challenge to the MBP I mentioned above is just such a challenge. Animated desktops, different color schemes. I'm a firefighter, so I think it'd be cool to have the page burst into flames and turn to ash that blows away when I close a window or quit an app. I just like that kind of thing. Or why not have the page visually crumple up when I'm going to Trash a document and then have it drop into trash? Why not have the trash can turn into a shredder and see paper shredding if you secure delete the trash? It's stuff like that that I'm trying to explain to you all. Stuff that is visually appealing. The Genie Effect is a great first step, but that's all it was in that regard.



    Very few people want to go that far. Even the normal effects are too much much of the time.



    It shouldn't challange the machine though. It won't be doing anything else while the effect is playing. It's just a canned effect. It's not being done in realtime.



    Going back to System 8 and 9, I used to leave the sound effects on, and even installed my own. But after a short time, they became so annoying, that I turned them all off.



    Why do you want all of these tacky effects? Won't they become annoying after the first few times?
  • Reply 190 of 213
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    Kickaha,

    I haven't used XP so I'll take your word for it.



    Consider yourself lucky.



    Quote:

    I'm not going to use another OS because this is the one I like using the most. That doesn't mean I find it visually appealing. I'll hold off for Leopard, but if there aren't changes that are more appealing to me, I'll go the modification route.



    It seems like they'll be working on Leopard forever so who knows, we all might get our wish.



    Perhaps. My guess is that the best you can wish for from Cupertino is supported hooks for modification by third parties, not the modifications themselves. Who knows, they may surprise both of us.
  • Reply 191 of 213
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    Consider yourself lucky.







    Perhaps. My guess is that the best you can wish for from Cupertino is supported hooks for modification by third parties, not the modifications themselves. Who knows, they may surprise both of us.



    Those of us who were around in the '90's remember the themes that Apple released, as well as those of other parties. For a while, when Windows had little customization other than color changes from the Control Panel, Apple seemed to want to show how much friendlier they were to the user.



    Apple seems to have lost interest in them because of its more serious customers. Business, government, universities, and the sciences aren't interested in that. Actually, they don't want it. They want uniform desktops. They don't like each user having something else floating around on the screen.
  • Reply 192 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    I can't possibly understand why you would want a constantly moving desktop. That would be very distracting, and make it difficult to read anything on the desktop.



    But, I don't see your problem in doing it.



    My 15 year old daughter has put movies on her desktop years ago. No problem there. I believe that there is even a way to put a live feed as your desktop, should you really want to do that.







    Very few people want to go that far. Even the normal effects are too much much of the time.



    It shouldn't challange the machine though. It won't be doing anything else while the effect is playing. It's just a canned effect. It's not being done in realtime.



    Going back to System 8 and 9, I used to leave the sound effects on, and even installed my own. But after a short time, they became so annoying, that I turned them all off.



    Why do you want all of these tacky effects? Won't they become annoying after the first few times?



    By all means, enlighten me about the movies on my desktop. What's the max resolution? I've never heard anything about this option. I'll have a forest movie running in no time flat unless it can't handle High Definition.



    I don't consider them to be tacky in the least. You do. My guess is you don't want anything changed, and you probably don't use the scant features offered now because you see anything not directly related to what your doing as a distraction. And that's cool if you need everything buttoned down. I want all of the special features, and I wouldn't want them canned either. The burning of the pages shouldn't look the same everytime. We have awesome CPUs and GPUs to handle the rendering there. Let them burn and let it be unique each time. I agree with you on the sounds though. I never have been big with the sounds. It's the visuals I like.
  • Reply 193 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Those of us who were around in the '90's remember the themes that Apple released, as well as those of other parties. For a while, when Windows had little customization other than color changes from the Control Panel, Apple seemed to want to show how much friendlier they were to the user.



    Apple seems to have lost interest in them because of its more serious customers. Business, government, universities, and the sciences aren't interested in that. Actually, they don't want it. They want uniform desktops. They don't like each user having something else floating around on the screen.



    Gee, what a lousy reason to be a conformist. I'd much rather have the ability to be an individual and have my computer reflect that.



    Damn the man!
  • Reply 194 of 213
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    Consider yourself lucky.







    Perhaps. My guess is that the best you can wish for from Cupertino is supported hooks for modification by third parties, not the modifications themselves. Who knows, they may surprise both of us.



    I can hope. The more customization I can do, the better I'll like it. I want to do my own thing, not be limited by what is provided. I love cool visual effects. The more the merrier. But that said, if there are issues with the OS, then they ought to get all of those nailed down first. I'm in agreement that looks shouldn't be the priority, but they ought to be attended to eventually. We're soon to be at 10.5. It's time to start focusing on the visual side of the house a bit more than they have been.
  • Reply 195 of 213
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    I find it to be amusing that when X came out, right after 2000, PC users accused us of having "eye candy", and that X wasn't a serious OS partly because of that. When XP came out, and its "eye candy" came closer to X, but didn't quite match it in the visuals, PC users still degraded X because of it, especially because you could turn most of the effects in XP off for slower computers, or if you simply hated it.



    Now that Vista has much more of what Apple itself is slowly moderating, and for the most part can't be turned of, though the $99 version doesn't have it at all, their tone is changing out of necessity.



    Speaking of MS fanboys attacking Apple with shortsided, slanted opinions: I love how they refer to Apple's new OS versions as merely service packs that MS dishes out for free and Apple charges $129 for. It just amazes me that people can actually relish the fact that MS is so slow to update it's software.
  • Reply 196 of 213
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    Yeah, it's called the Stockholm Effect.
  • Reply 197 of 213
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    The moving background appears to be a modified version of xsnow, which has been done on unix systems before Linux came along. I think a Cocoa app can do that, it's just a matter of finding a developer that wants to do it.



    I really don't know what those Beryl effects will do for people other than induce motion sickness. I think they look cartoony and gimmicky. I know it's easy to enable or disable effects, but I think Apple keeps it minimal because it's easier to maintain and involves fewer things that are likely to break.



    I think I understand what you mean, but frankly, you are the only person I've come across that calls OS X "bland". To abuse a metaphor, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but you need to find more squeaky wheels.



    Frankly, if I were you, I'd advocate a bigger leap ahead by asking that the OS integrate multitouch, then maybe adding some more effects would make sense, and it would probably help push a major overhaul in the appearance. I want multitouch such that I'd be willing to install Linux to get it if that's what it takes, or install it on my Windows system, just to experiment with it.



    You can already have fully animated desktop backgrounds. Anything that is written as a screensaver can also be made to run as the desktop. There are several small apps like Backlight that will automate launching the animated desktops without having to invoke the one terminal command that does the same. That's been around since 10.2!





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    I can't possibly understand why you would want a constantly moving desktop. That would be very distracting, and make it difficult to read anything on the desktop.



    But, I don't see your problem in doing it.



    My 15 year old daughter has put movies on her desktop years ago. No problem there. I believe that there is even a way to put a live feed as your desktop, should you really want to do that.



    Writing almost anything into a screensaver is terribly simple if you have any Cocoa programming work at all. Even a live feed is easy, just dump it to the GL context in the screensaver and bang! That might take an extra few minutes but not too long.









    Now we have to ask: If this capability has been around for more than three and almost four years (in OS X) and got a bit of buzz at the start, where did the interest go???



    We all got bored with it after the first couple weeks because it just sucked up cycles and wasn't sexy anymore.
  • Reply 198 of 213
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hobbes View Post


    Yeah, it's called the Stockholm Effect.



    haha, I actually think you may have something there.



    Back in the day when I did tech support, I discovered that there is a type of Munchausen Syndrome where one goes out of there way to be techtarded--and purposely hose their system--just to get assistance. Or maybe it was just to get out of working.
  • Reply 199 of 213
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brian Green View Post


    By all means, enlighten me about the movies on my desktop. What's the max resolution? I've never heard anything about this option. I'll have a forest movie running in no time flat unless it can't handle High Definition.



    This isn't as straightfoward. I haven't done it for a while myself. I'll get back to you on it.



    Quote:

    I don't consider them to be tacky in the least. You do. My guess is you don't want anything changed, and you probably don't use the scant features offered now because you see anything not directly related to what your doing as a distraction. And that's cool if you need everything buttoned down. I want all of the special features, and I wouldn't want them canned either. The burning of the pages shouldn't look the same everytime. We have awesome CPUs and GPUs to handle the rendering there. Let them burn and let it be unique each time. I agree with you on the sounds though. I never have been big with the sounds. It's the visuals I like.



    I don't mind having things change. It's just as I said though. Having things change for the sake of play isn't something most people are interested in. Apple even gives us a way to turn off most of the animations that the OS does now, because people don't like the second here and there that it takes, or gives the impression that it takes.



    I think that if third parties want to have these things, it's fine. I don't want to see Apple spend time on them though.
  • Reply 200 of 213
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    You can already have fully animated desktop backgrounds. Anything that is written as a screensaver can also be made to run as the desktop. There are several small apps like Backlight that will automate launching the animated desktops without having to invoke the one terminal command that does the same. That's been around since 10.2!









    Writing almost anything into a screensaver is terribly simple if you have any Cocoa programming work at all. Even a live feed is easy, just dump it to the GL context in the screensaver and bang! That might take an extra few minutes but not too long.









    Now we have to ask: If this capability has been around for more than three and almost four years (in OS X) and got a bit of buzz at the start, where did the interest go???



    We all got bored with it after the first couple weeks because it just sucked up cycles and wasn't sexy anymore.



    Dang! I took so long in getting to finish my reply to Brian that I never saw your post, as you sent it while I had to go away from my computer.



    Yes! That's the way to do it. I couldn't remember offhand. Embarrassingly, I was going to ask my daughter when she comes home tonight. Now, happily, I won't have to!



    I agree with your last two sentences as well. It's what I've been saying.
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