But that aside, we are still left with a 1970's interface. I think natural language and gesturing will provide the basis of an operating system's interface. The question is when?
This is an "AI Complete" problem. We'll have an interface like this when we have an Artificial Intelligence capable of interpreting language and gestures.
Until then it's keyboards and clickpads as far as the eye can see.
what i would love to see is the ability to run windows programs in mac os x, without paralleles or the need for the windows os, just the single program on its own. now *that* would make sense to do. apple would have the market sown up, if thats the right expression...
i know its been mentioned before, but still, worth bringing it up.
btw... how easy would it be to do this? or is it impossible?
it would be do-able. trouble is that a most programs hook into the windows API's and the like. In essense, they simply invoke templated routines and procedures that windows offers as standard ( such as open file boxes etc ). The code for those standard API procedures is likely copyrighted such that you cant re-use them. Windows programs aren't all encapsulated blocks of code that run in their own right.
As such, if you wanted to get a windows program to run, you would have to provide all those features that Windows supplies . . . now, you could either try and license the copyrighted code from Microsoft, emulate it, or try to re-write it from scratch to do the same function.
The 1st is not likely to happen too easily
The 2nd is a major performance hit.
The 3rd is a huge exercise, which when compared to buying the existing Windows XP license and running parallels, its unlikely to a viable proposition.
what do you think are the OTHER "Top Secret" things planned for Leopard? and will we hear about any of them in 4 days time?
For some time now I've been anticipating some sophisticated presentation additions to either the Finder paradigm or the Spotlight paradigm or both. Two such additions could be called the "workspace" and "chart" concepts. Allow me to explain.
Both the Desktop and the Contents Pane of each folder window are 2-dimensional arrangements of objects that represent either files or folders. List variations of the Contents Pane are essentially one-dimensional sorts based on basic file and folder parameters.
But what if you could have automatic means of arranging files and folders in three-dimensional space? To an extent this already exists in both Desktop and Contents Panes in the layering of icons therein. But if you were to add a third dimension to the icon-oriented presentation in these panes, and then add facilities that allowed more sophisticated automatic arrangement of said icons according to both existing and new parameters, then you'd be able to look at a collection of files as though they were blocks or points in a 2-D or 3-D chart, and the files and folders that are significant to you would stand out much as significant data stands out in a regular chart diagram.
The Desktop and Content Panes of the current Finder are fully compatible with a 3-D workspace concept, in that they can be seen merely as orthogonal 2-D projections of a 3-D space (see http://g.bookpool.com/covers/567/0465026567_500.gif). So the transition from Desktop to Workspace could be made gradually by simply adding it as an optional view.
The enabling technology for this paradigm extension is Core Animation (CA). And to get a better idea of what I'm talking about, try looking again at Apple's CA demo (http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/coreanimation.html). Only this time, think of the squares and blocks as file and folder icons. Then, as they form towers, think of each tower as one category of Desktop item (folders, movies, pictures, pdfs, others), and think of each icon as being arranged so that the most recently modified ones are at the top of the tower. This example not only begins to give you an idea of the new ways you could look at your files; it also shows just how readily this concept can now be implemented in Leopard.
Sounds almost like the re-birth of the Piles rumor
As a fellow Mac user since 1984 (I bought a 128K Mac instead of a Lisa -- hence my moniker), I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm not familiar with "the Piles rumor." Could you enlighten me? TIA
While I was once dubious of Spaces, new to Leapoard, I am fast becoming a believer in how this may evolve the Finder and consumer computer interfaces, in general.
The file/folder/window approach that we're used to is document-centric. Built around the original computing task, how to store and retrieve information. And while that's still the underlying kernel, it's not what users aim to do, today. They aim to download their pictures, make a video, surf the net, etc...
I think that, by organizing applications, documents, and UI elements according to user-defined tasks, Spaces may take over as the primary way users chose to interact with the mac os.
I was thinking about the finder and how everyone hates it and wants it fixed or what have you and I realized something - maybe Apple IS fixing it ... slowly but surely. I know with Spotlight I don't wade through windows nearly as much, just spotlight the App or file and go. But what if I don't remember the name of an app or file - I still have to go through a file tree of sorts to find them. Spaces will help us arrange multiple desktops (while Linux users laugh at spmthing they've had for years...) and organize material, making it easier to multi-task. Imagine having one space to do your work in, one space to edit a video of your summer vacation, one space to play a few games. Maybe whatever is coming in Leopard will be the next step until finally, and OS X 10.6 or 10.7, etc. will add the next pieces until the Finder is merely forgotten, kind of like CLI. It'll be there, like CLI, but you won't use it.
Face it, when Apple introduced the current GUI, complete with the clicky plastic rodent it esentially revolutionized the way people interacted with their computers, but since the PC was a relatively new concept and working in CLI wasn't for everyone, they could afford to take that risk. What happened? We have an infestation of clicky rodents and "pretty" or "cute" or "sexy" GUIs with windows flying everywhere. I don't think you can radically change that this time. People know what computers are now, they know that wether it be Windows or OS X, you navigate hrough windows to find things. The user base is entrenched and I think it'd be an awfully big gamble to recreate the GUI in one fell swoop. SO - just my opinion - Apple is heeding the FTFF calls, just not immediately.
On another note, I have no idea what will be in Leopard. iChat is getting a significant makeover - feels a lot like Adium now, but you know, with animated GIFs. While Time Machine and spaces are cool, I would like to see more - maybe a big enhancement to Grapher and the death of Sherlock. Grapher has huge potential, but I would like to see support for data sets, trendlines, error bars, and a host of other data representation abilities. Right now it's little more than a prettier "Graphing Calculator" from OS 9.
One thing that we can always be sure of though - MORE PRINT DRIVERS!!!!!
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYrP...x=1&playnext=1
you should see the other one with the disabled kid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYrP...x=1&playnext=1
Jeez... was that Phil Schiller dancing around on the ledge at the beginning?
Only joking Phil, we love you really!
But that aside, we are still left with a 1970's interface. I think natural language and gesturing will provide the basis of an operating system's interface. The question is when?
This is an "AI Complete" problem. We'll have an interface like this when we have an Artificial Intelligence capable of interpreting language and gestures.
Until then it's keyboards and clickpads as far as the eye can see.
-B
i know its been mentioned before, but still, worth bringing it up.
btw... how easy would it be to do this? or is it impossible?
As such, if you wanted to get a windows program to run, you would have to provide all those features that Windows supplies . . . now, you could either try and license the copyrighted code from Microsoft, emulate it, or try to re-write it from scratch to do the same function.
The 1st is not likely to happen too easily
The 2nd is a major performance hit.
The 3rd is a huge exercise, which when compared to buying the existing Windows XP license and running parallels, its unlikely to a viable proposition.
what do you think are the OTHER "Top Secret" things planned for Leopard? and will we hear about any of them in 4 days time?
For some time now I've been anticipating some sophisticated presentation additions to either the Finder paradigm or the Spotlight paradigm or both. Two such additions could be called the "workspace" and "chart" concepts. Allow me to explain.
Both the Desktop and the Contents Pane of each folder window are 2-dimensional arrangements of objects that represent either files or folders. List variations of the Contents Pane are essentially one-dimensional sorts based on basic file and folder parameters.
But what if you could have automatic means of arranging files and folders in three-dimensional space? To an extent this already exists in both Desktop and Contents Panes in the layering of icons therein. But if you were to add a third dimension to the icon-oriented presentation in these panes, and then add facilities that allowed more sophisticated automatic arrangement of said icons according to both existing and new parameters, then you'd be able to look at a collection of files as though they were blocks or points in a 2-D or 3-D chart, and the files and folders that are significant to you would stand out much as significant data stands out in a regular chart diagram.
The Desktop and Content Panes of the current Finder are fully compatible with a 3-D workspace concept, in that they can be seen merely as orthogonal 2-D projections of a 3-D space (see http://g.bookpool.com/covers/567/0465026567_500.gif). So the transition from Desktop to Workspace could be made gradually by simply adding it as an optional view.
The enabling technology for this paradigm extension is Core Animation (CA). And to get a better idea of what I'm talking about, try looking again at Apple's CA demo (http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/coreanimation.html). Only this time, think of the squares and blocks as file and folder icons. Then, as they form towers, think of each tower as one category of Desktop item (folders, movies, pictures, pdfs, others), and think of each icon as being arranged so that the most recently modified ones are at the top of the tower. This example not only begins to give you an idea of the new ways you could look at your files; it also shows just how readily this concept can now be implemented in Leopard.
Sounds almost like the re-birth of the Piles rumor
As a fellow Mac user since 1984 (I bought a 128K Mac instead of a Lisa -- hence my moniker), I'm embarrassed to admit
Sounds almost like the re-birth of the Piles rumor
sounds like it needs iCream
The file/folder/window approach that we're used to is document-centric. Built around the original computing task, how to store and retrieve information. And while that's still the underlying kernel, it's not what users aim to do, today. They aim to download their pictures, make a video, surf the net, etc...
I think that, by organizing applications, documents, and UI elements according to user-defined tasks, Spaces may take over as the primary way users chose to interact with the mac os.
That's 2 cents.
Face it, when Apple introduced the current GUI, complete with the clicky plastic rodent it esentially revolutionized the way people interacted with their computers, but since the PC was a relatively new concept and working in CLI wasn't for everyone, they could afford to take that risk. What happened? We have an infestation of clicky rodents and "pretty" or "cute" or "sexy" GUIs with windows flying everywhere. I don't think you can radically change that this time. People know what computers are now, they know that wether it be Windows or OS X, you navigate hrough windows to find things. The user base is entrenched and I think it'd be an awfully big gamble to recreate the GUI in one fell swoop. SO - just my opinion - Apple is heeding the FTFF calls, just not immediately.
On another note, I have no idea what will be in Leopard. iChat is getting a significant makeover - feels a lot like Adium now, but you know, with animated GIFs. While Time Machine and spaces are cool, I would like to see more - maybe a big enhancement to Grapher and the death of Sherlock. Grapher has huge potential, but I would like to see support for data sets, trendlines, error bars, and a host of other data representation abilities. Right now it's little more than a prettier "Graphing Calculator" from OS 9.
One thing that we can always be sure of though - MORE PRINT DRIVERS!!!!!