Briefly: Apple TV and gaming; Piles; Apple VP Johnson adds to fortune

[AppleInsider]

The creator of Xbox Live Arcade, now employed by one of Apple's gaming allies, has let it slip that Apple TV is a future platform for the casual gaming market. Meanwhile, Apple is still sorting through a potential "piles" interface for Mac OS X. And would you know it? The company's retail chief has reaped nearly $50 million from stock options and grants in just over two years.

Apple TV's future as a casual gaming platform

PopCap Games, the first authorized iPod game developer, has reportedly lured Microsoft's Greg Canessa to head up its console and handheld divisions as the vice president of video game platforms.

In an interview with Wired, Canessa, who gave birth to Xbox Live Arcade during his time at Microsoft, singled out Apple TV as a platform he expects to embrace casual gaming over the next five years.

As part of his new position, Canessa said he will be "taking the stable of franchises and games out of PopCap's studio and adapting, customizing it for different platforms -- adding multiplayer, new play modes, HD, customizing the user interface and display for Zune, ipod, Apple TV, Nintendo DS, PSP."

"[Casual games] are going to continue to grow into non-core demographics," he added. "This is relevant as it pertains to devices that are not currently earmarked as gaming devices: mobile, set-top boxes, Apple TV, MP3 players and other devices in the home that will reach the non-gamer --* people who don’t think they want to play."

Apple's still sorting through "piles"

Meanwhile, a recent Apple patent filing turned up by MacNN suggests that Apple has yet to abandon its "piles" software interface concept that it first conceived back in 1991.

Essentially, piles would offer a visual representation of a stack of files in the Mac OS X Finder, similar to a stack of papers on a desk. Unlike with folders, users would be able to approximate the number of files in the pile by simply viewing its representative height on the Desktop.

To find a specific file in a pile, a user drag the top of the pile upwards and then cascade through the stack, viewing a thumbnail of each document along the way.



Apple retail chief livin' large

Over in Cupertino, Apple senior vice president of retail Ron Johnson recently added to his multi-million dollar fortune by exercising options to buy and then sell 130,000 shares of Apple stock.

According to regulatory filings first discovered by Macworld UK, Johnson purchased the shares at $23.72 each on February 2nd, at a cost of $3,083,600. The Apple retail chief then sold that clutch of shares at prices between $84.36 and $84.50 the same day, turning a profit of nearly $8 million.

In May of last year, Johnson exercised a similar allotment of 150,000 options for a profit of approximately $7 million. That followed a gain of $22.6 million from 750,000 shares in October of 2005, and nearly $10 million from the exercise of 300,000 options in November of 2004.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Ireland]

Woot woot woot!!

[SpamSandwich]

...Piles?...

I don't want my computer become just another messy stack of papers! I think that might be taking the metaphor/icon too far.

[quinney]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

...Piles?...

I don't want my computer become just another messy stack of papers! I think that might be taking the metaphor/icon too far.

Don't worry. If piles get too big, there will be a utility called
prep H to shrink them.

[sthiede]

i kind of like the idea of piles. i think they are nice in Aperture. i think they would be better than folders in some instances for text documents (like my school essays; all school work in one folder, courses stacked into piles.) i like the idea

[donlphi]

NO NO NO... If the PILES get too big you can put them in what I like to call... a FOLDER.

eh? eh?

[sthiede]

Originally Posted by donlphi

NO NO NO... If the PILES get too big you can put them in what I like to call... a FOLDER.

eh? eh?

i dunno, theres a different feeling to a pile. i never really liked folders though so maybe prejudice. seriously, i like the idea of stacks, im probably alone though

[age234]

I think piles could be a cool addition to the interface. I assume it would work alongside folders, so that, for example, a pile of docs on the Desktop would still be in the Desktop folder, just a better way to organize large numbers of files within folders? (probably would only be useful in the Icon view)

I guess you could just make subfolders for everything, but just like real life, for some reason it's more convenient to just organize things in piles than folders, even though it's just as easy. Or maybe just for schlubs like me.

[John French]

I kinda like the idea of piles. I have a lot of things on my desktop. I used to store them i na folder, but it was to inconvenient to access them quickly. A pile system would work a lot like spring-folders: drag + hold = Core Animation-like display. Imagen this: the screen fades dark like it does when dashboarad opens, but all the items in the stack are displayed in icon view.

Folders are tools for organizing lots of files, not hiding them from sight. GO PILES!

[davidbaldwin]

Piles?
kinda like this eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ

-Baldwin
ThinkShoppingOnline.com

[dimplemonkey]

(in my best Don LaFontaine voice)...

In a world where gaming platforms engage in total domination of your children...

Comes something old... (a flash shot of Atari Console, fade to black)

Something new... (a flash shot of Apple TV, fade to black)

Something borrowed... (flash shot of Xbox 360, fade to black)

Something ... (heart beat thumps, flash )

(thump thump, )
(thump, thump, )

ticked at you! (Flash shot of "I'm a Mac" Guy with sly grin, holding up game controller like a butcher knife behind "I'm a PC" guy playing secretly on Nintendo Wii, then turning around and shouting, "NOOOOOO")

Apple TV: Pippin's Revenge

This film is not yet rated.

[Galley]

I'm psyched for games on the TV. Will we use the Apple Remote, or will there be some kind of simple controller?

[halhiker]

When Apple introduced what was then called iTV I mentioned on a CNET forum that if Apple brought out a controller for this device they could use it for gaming and it would not bode well for Xbox or PS. If you could download games on your computer and play them without a supplemental gaming device people would love it.

I won't go into the responses I received to such an idea but most thought I'd been smoking crack. I wonder what those folks will be thinking now. Of course, this is not to say that Apple will bring out such a device but if and when they do, look out. It'll rock.

[iPeon]

Originally Posted by davidbaldwin

Piles?
kinda like this eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ

-Baldwin
ThinkShoppingOnline.com

I'm dizzy from looking at such disorganize junk.

My desk is clean, my desktop has not a single folder or icon in it. I like to put things away when I'm done with them. Piles? What use will they have? How are they better then folders? Well, if it's anything like Cover Flow on iTunes I might have a use for it.

I'm sure if Apple uses it, it will be a useful tool, unlike the garbage I just saw from that link above.

[ajmas]

Looking at piles, it kinda reminds me of the idea that was behind Hypercard.

I know people have attempted to make Hypercard clones, but I have never heard of a really good one, or anyone really improve on the concept.

[zanshin]

Before personal desktop computers were common office appliances (and even after), we had folks with piles on their desks. We couldn't find anything there if we had to, but they could. "Pile Management" was an art in a paper-bound world that exceeding cabinet filing systems. Interesting to see that it's now being reborn as part of the desktop metaphor.

In answer to this methodology. I totally anticipate MicroSocks to reintroduce the "Bob" operating environment. Or is that what Vista is?

[dacloo]

I don't see the additional value of piles to smart folders and regular folders.
It'll look messy too. Now folders have just one type of icon.

But I can imagine, especially with media containing folders, a visual representation can come in handy...

I guess its more useful in an app (Aperture as someone mentioned here) than in the Finder.

[MacGregor]

Originally Posted by iPeon

I'm dizzy from looking at such disorganize junk.

My desk is clean, my desktop has not a single folder or icon in it. I like to put things away when I'm done with them. Piles? What use will they have? How are they better then folders? Well, if it's anything like Cover Flow on iTunes I might have a use for it.

I'm sure if Apple uses it, it will be a useful tool, unlike the garbage I just saw from that link above.

You are not the norm.

[MacGregor]

I think smart folders took most of the positive attributes that i saw in piles years ago. However why not have it as an interface option for people who don't like the "folder" metaphor? As processors get faster and multi-core, I can see on core devoted to the UI enough to allow these as optional actions or environments that many people may not use, but some would. The video shows way to many options inho.

Given the possibility of future tablets, piles may work better for them. If they are a standard option in OSX, then they are there for people to use if needed.

[Cake]

Piles - here's how they work.

[coreyweb]

I think it would be really cool if they let you go through all your documents like they let you scroll through your music albums/artwork on itunes and the new iphone. I forget what its called.......but I think it would be pretty sweet.

[MacGregor]

Originally Posted by Cake

Piles - here's how they work.

Thanks Cake! Now I remember why I thought they were cool.

The thing for me is about deskstop space with 10 windows open. What is the best way to access groups of files in a situation where the actual desktop is always hidden. Expose is the best for this and Apple's Dock also solves this problem in its own way because you don't have to move things around to find them.

But I like folders and files on my desktop. When Spaces come out, I'm going to use them big time and I can see having each Space with a few folders and a few piles of docs or photos sitting on the desktops. With Expose they would be all accessible in one mouse gesture (I don't function key anything) and one mouse click. That would be great!!

And with Spaces my above note regarding optimising the one core of a multicore processor to keep the desktop actions fast and smooth is even more important. BTW when we get 8 core processors do you think each will be in charge of one of the Mac OS Core features? One for audio, video, animation, etc.? I know it is not set up for this, but the naming resemblence is intriguing.

[iPeon]

Originally Posted by MacGregor

You are not the norm.

That's correct.

Originally Posted by Cake

Piles - here's how they work.

That I like.