This is why I think Apple is being modest with an October release. They're not going to be working on refining the GUI if they're that far off from releasing the product. They aren't going to be concerned with the polish yet if they have things being worked on under the hood. I'm still holding for a June/July release of 10.5.
the squares are still rounded, it's just the Leopard screen capture tool that fails :-)
I would suggest it is the way in which the captured image was cropped either pre or post use of the screen capture tool. In other words, it was not the capture tool that failed, but the way the user took the image.
Notice that there is no shadow on either and I doubt highly that this is intended as well.
I really don't get how it makes sense to have the active app to be darker than inactive apps, as in, I think of an active app and I'm thinking that the OS should "highlight" it. It's a little bit better contrast than now, the contrast between active and inactive windows is too slight.
At least this isn't trying to be an all-black UI. I think that would be too harsh looking, and I think that of the iPhone UI, I'd rather that the iPhone UI be varying shades of gray.
The shown images look kind of like a lightly textured powder coat to me.
I think it would be neat to have a selection under "Appearance" where you can decide the look for the overall os. Like Uno does right now...switch between brushed metal or the more plastic look...heck even change the contrast...
I really don't get how it makes sense to have the active app to be darker than inactive apps, as in, I think of an active app and I'm thinking that the OS should "highlight" it. It's a little bit better contrast than now, the contrast between active and inactive windows is too slight.
At least this isn't trying to be an all-black UI. I think that would be too harsh looking, and I think that of the iPhone UI, I'd rather that the iPhone UI be varying shades of gray.
The shown images look kind of like a lightly textured powder coat to me.
At first I thought it was my screen but you're right, there's a texture to those plastic windows. We've got Pinstripe, Brushed Metal, Smooth Steel, Plastic (of varying shades)... what should we call this one?
I wonder if this is a follow through on the idea that iApps get lighter shades of grey and ProApps darker shades?
I really like the fact that stripes are finally completely gone!
Hear Hear
I'm not sure if Apple is going to make huge inroads in the GUI unifcation. I tend to think the changes they will make will be more operational. Hell...they could always make some people really happy but offing a "Shapeshifter" killer that is actually safe.
I feel like this so called "update" to the UI is a front. From the screen shots it looks like somebody took the application and crumpled it like a piece of paper and then smoothed it out on the edge of a desk. The UI needs an update bad but I don't think this is the right path that Apple should take. I am banking on the fact that this is just temporary and they are really going to release something with a lot more suave.
Shapeshifter is still going to be the only solution for me... I cannot stand the boring GUI skin Apple has mutated since 10.0. They should move away from Aqua since Vista had so heavily copied their Glass theme. It would be revolutionary to change how we interface with the computer, but I guess we have to wait for the mouse and keyboard to die.
I WONDER WHAT APPLE WILL RELEASE IN NAP AND WWDC07 THEN!? No Leapord, iPhone and iTV are already old, MacPro has already been released, hmm.. it HAS TO BE NEW iMACS OR/AND MACBOOK F'N PROS!
First, don't get used to that new look. It's just the iLife '06 theme, and clearly it's just a placeholder. Any fancy new theme will be debuted at the hands of His Steveness, it won't just appear in a developer seed.
Second, why is Apple unifying the look now? Considering how bad it is usability wise (and in Expose) for all different applications to look identical.
A few sources have popped up on various message boards recently, and the speculation is that, given the switch to vector graphics and resolution independence, this new look is just set up for a proper theming engine in Leopard, allowing the user to dramatically customize the looks of their applications. Someone went so far as to say that Leopard would support dynamic theming, allowing windows they change their 'theme' dynamically, say to match the time of day, or to pulse red when showing an alert. He based his speculation on some prior patents granted to Apple.
Anyway, things should 'look' very exiting in June when this stuff is finally disclosed, but for now, we have the iLife '06 theme to look at.
i dont like the multi-sized icons. supose you can change that though...
I don't like it either although it only appears in Safari as far I can see from looking at all of the screenshots. It seems appropriate in something like iTunes where the play button is bigger, but in Safari it just looks sloppy.
Personally, I hope they remove the faux wood from the sides of the Garage Band window. It makes me feel like I fired up a program from the early 90's since it looks like it was created with a very limited palette. It could at least look like real wood (or simulated wood for that matter). Not something that makes me wonder if the system requirements for it are 16-color EGA or 256-color VGA.
First, don't get used to that new look. It's just the iLife '06 theme, and clearly it's just a placeholder. Any fancy new theme will be debuted at the hands of His Steveness, it won't just appear in a developer seed.
What makes you say it's "clearly it's just a placeholder...". I don't see it being clearly that case at all. I am willing to bet this is the theme they ship with. I was saying it before leopard released builds, that they would move to this theme next. Mainly because of iPhoto, iTunes... iLife. Those apps usually get the new ui first, then the OS goes along with it. This new theme is very nice on the eyes... you can finally see where an inactive app is vs an active one.
They have been slowly converting the rest of the built in apps to this theme before this build, terminal, automator, Netinfo... the rest of the utilities. One by one have been going to this theme. That takes a lot of time to do. I seriously doubt they are going to suddenly change the themes on every one of those apps and Leopard as well. It's been a long drawn out process just to get here. I wouldn't get your hopes up for a different theme than this on Leopard.
Interesting if you look at the link in the article there is a finder.jpg, with what appears to be a thumbnail/preview button. So finder gets a long await update.
And I wonder if Leopard will do anything about thread-hopping (my own term). If you have MenuMeters and a Quad-something you can see what I mean. If you run some app that only has one thread you can see that thread execute first on one core for a bit, then another, and another, etc. It's got to be a bit inefficient since it will be reloading the processor cache every time it switches cores (or at least switching between chips).
Quote:
Originally Posted by unother
My feeling is this has more to do with distibuting load. MenuMeters et al. probably have low priority threads and thus they are likely to be bumped when a higher-priority process wants processor cycles. If you'll notice, OS X tends to try and disribute processor load pretty evenly--at least when you're in an "idle" situation.
This is exactly what's going on. Threads run on a single core until the scheduler rolls the whole process off the CPUs and back into the ready queue. If there were exactly zero waiting processes at a high enough priority then there is no context switch and the thread can stay on the same core (core affinity is the technical term). If there was another process waiting, the previous process and it's threads are swapped off the CPU(s) and the new process swapped in. Just priority handling going on here. During a single quanta the scheduler will try to maintain core affinity for a thread within a single process, but since the thread context is already swapped off it doesn't make much difference unless it can get back on while it's register set is still in L1 cache.
As for more generic cache issues, the L1 will almost always get clobbered when swapping processes, so that's not an issue. The L2 cache on the Intel CPUs is shared and large enough that unless the interspersing process ripped through a buttload of SSE4 data the lines will almost always still be valid for the returning process/threads. So performance issues are minimized here as well.
Comments
http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/comments...ard_interface/
the squares are still rounded, it's just the Leopard screen capture tool that fails :-)
I would suggest it is the way in which the captured image was cropped either pre or post use of the screen capture tool. In other words, it was not the capture tool that failed, but the way the user took the image.
Notice that there is no shadow on either and I doubt highly that this is intended as well.
At least this isn't trying to be an all-black UI. I think that would be too harsh looking, and I think that of the iPhone UI, I'd rather that the iPhone UI be varying shades of gray.
The shown images look kind of like a lightly textured powder coat to me.
I really don't get how it makes sense to have the active app to be darker than inactive apps, as in, I think of an active app and I'm thinking that the OS should "highlight" it. It's a little bit better contrast than now, the contrast between active and inactive windows is too slight.
At least this isn't trying to be an all-black UI. I think that would be too harsh looking, and I think that of the iPhone UI, I'd rather that the iPhone UI be varying shades of gray.
The shown images look kind of like a lightly textured powder coat to me.
At first I thought it was my screen but you're right, there's a texture to those plastic windows. We've got Pinstripe, Brushed Metal, Smooth Steel, Plastic (of varying shades)... what should we call this one?
I wonder if this is a follow through on the idea that iApps get lighter shades of grey and ProApps darker shades?
EDIT: Eggshell?
Give it some time...Apple always make their stuff look pretty - it's not going to be any different this time.
This link summarizes the graphic history of the OSX visual interface design:
http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/comments...ard_interface/
Very nice page and excellent site design.
I really like the fact that stripes are finally completely gone!
Hear Hear
I'm not sure if Apple is going to make huge inroads in the GUI unifcation. I tend to think the changes they will make will be more operational. Hell...they could always make some people really happy but offing a "Shapeshifter" killer that is actually safe.
The latest development build of Mac OS X Leopard finally tackles issues with consistent style that many say have plagued the Apple software for years.
Second, why is Apple unifying the look now? Considering how bad it is usability wise (and in Expose) for all different applications to look identical.
A few sources have popped up on various message boards recently, and the speculation is that, given the switch to vector graphics and resolution independence, this new look is just set up for a proper theming engine in Leopard, allowing the user to dramatically customize the looks of their applications. Someone went so far as to say that Leopard would support dynamic theming, allowing windows they change their 'theme' dynamically, say to match the time of day, or to pulse red when showing an alert. He based his speculation on some prior patents granted to Apple.
Anyway, things should 'look' very exiting in June when this stuff is finally disclosed, but for now, we have the iLife '06 theme to look at.
i dont like the multi-sized icons. supose you can change that though...
I don't like it either although it only appears in Safari as far I can see from looking at all of the screenshots. It seems appropriate in something like iTunes where the play button is bigger, but in Safari it just looks sloppy.
Personally, I hope they remove the faux wood from the sides of the Garage Band window. It makes me feel like I fired up a program from the early 90's since it looks like it was created with a very limited palette. It could at least look like real wood (or simulated wood for that matter). Not something that makes me wonder if the system requirements for it are 16-color EGA or 256-color VGA.
First, don't get used to that new look. It's just the iLife '06 theme, and clearly it's just a placeholder. Any fancy new theme will be debuted at the hands of His Steveness, it won't just appear in a developer seed.
What makes you say it's "clearly it's just a placeholder...". I don't see it being clearly that case at all. I am willing to bet this is the theme they ship with. I was saying it before leopard released builds, that they would move to this theme next. Mainly because of iPhoto, iTunes... iLife. Those apps usually get the new ui first, then the OS goes along with it. This new theme is very nice on the eyes... you can finally see where an inactive app is vs an active one.
They have been slowly converting the rest of the built in apps to this theme before this build, terminal, automator, Netinfo... the rest of the utilities. One by one have been going to this theme. That takes a lot of time to do. I seriously doubt they are going to suddenly change the themes on every one of those apps and Leopard as well. It's been a long drawn out process just to get here. I wouldn't get your hopes up for a different theme than this on Leopard.
See more Leopard build 9A410 screenshots supplied by hackint0sh and Flickr.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Interesting if you look at the link in the article there is a finder.jpg, with what appears to be a thumbnail/preview button. So finder gets a long await update.
And I wonder if Leopard will do anything about thread-hopping (my own term). If you have MenuMeters and a Quad-something you can see what I mean. If you run some app that only has one thread you can see that thread execute first on one core for a bit, then another, and another, etc. It's got to be a bit inefficient since it will be reloading the processor cache every time it switches cores (or at least switching between chips).
My feeling is this has more to do with distibuting load. MenuMeters et al. probably have low priority threads and thus they are likely to be bumped when a higher-priority process wants processor cycles. If you'll notice, OS X tends to try and disribute processor load pretty evenly--at least when you're in an "idle" situation.
This is exactly what's going on. Threads run on a single core until the scheduler rolls the whole process off the CPUs and back into the ready queue. If there were exactly zero waiting processes at a high enough priority then there is no context switch and the thread can stay on the same core (core affinity is the technical term). If there was another process waiting, the previous process and it's threads are swapped off the CPU(s) and the new process swapped in. Just priority handling going on here. During a single quanta the scheduler will try to maintain core affinity for a thread within a single process, but since the thread context is already swapped off it doesn't make much difference unless it can get back on while it's register set is still in L1 cache.
As for more generic cache issues, the L1 will almost always get clobbered when swapping processes, so that's not an issue. The L2 cache on the Intel CPUs is shared and large enough that unless the interspersing process ripped through a buttload of SSE4 data the lines will almost always still be valid for the returning process/threads. So performance issues are minimized here as well.