I think the most significant thing is how they seem to be playing down the prospect of any surprises, very clearly outlining what to expect: could this be a move towards using WWDC keynotes more for developer news, suggesting perhaps that there'll be a special event later in June for the iPhone v.3? And maybe with Steve?
No idea if they will introduce the next iPhone during WWDC or in a separate event. But as this event creates a lot of free publicity and world-wide coverage, it would be rather stupid to make it separate. If the keynote would be all about developers "only", Schiller would not really be the right person to present it. If a marketing guy is giving a keynote, there'll better be new products.
The UI has needed to be upgraded for a couple of years now and hope they leave no stone unturned. I'm glad to hear the finder is cocoa, the new interface to Quicktime X, but would have liked to see resolution independence.
I wonder what the real world performance increases will be. I hope the performance increase is very noticeable or I'll be a little disappointed.
I thought Schiller did well with what he had at Macworld. I would prefer to Jobs or Ive but Schiller will do just fine.
... take Mac OS X's Menu Bar, which has remained largely unchanged since its introduction a decade ago. Now, how often do you miss it on the iPhone? What if they replace it with something more visual, like a universal button bar similar to the iWork apps? I find I rarely use the Menu Bar in Pages and Keynote because there are icons and pallet windows for most tasks, which are far more intuitive than mousing over the Menu Bar's text-heavy drop down lists.
Replacing the Menu Bar alone would be a significant change that wouldn't necessarily qualify as a "feature."
No offence, but you are seriously dreaming here. The MenuBar is as integral to the Mac OS as the command line was to DOS, or the minimise button is to Windows.
It's not even part of the GUI in the sense of being some sort of "window dressing" as you imply, it's an integralfunctional part of the whole OS. The main difference between Mac OS/OS-X and Windows is that Windows is a document-centric OS and Mac OS/OS-X is an application-centric OS and the MenuBar has a lot to do with that. It's worth noting also that the menu bar is almost the only piece of the original Mac OS that survived the transition to OS-X. The whole damned interface, and the entire functionality of OS-X is tied into the fact that Macs have the MenuBar.
People are confusing the fact that there will be some kind of new "look" to Snow Leopard (because the Finder is completely re-written), and the idea that the GUI is going to "change." This might be why cozagada is questioning the idea above, because a couple of idiots are pushing this idea that the whole interface will change or some such rot. It's not.
Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales." The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar.
Naahhhh... Schiller is nowhere near the showman Steve was (is?)... Much, much prefer Jobs' presentations. He is a living legend in modern business (and not just because he says so).
Did Jobs say he himself is a living legend in modern business?
"Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales." The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar."
I wouldn't be to sure about that.. i've been using the development builds (adc member) And there a lot of elements changed that don't quite fit the current UI. i don't see it as a major overhaul but enough to really notice the change, even the beta 4 version of safari has a different page load effect not found in the current public beta version.
I'm sort of hoping for a little bit of a refresh myself, i'm hooked already on the new quicktime x interface..
Yes I'm sure the UI will be tweaked the same way it has always been between releases, but nothing tells me it will be radically changed, only vague rumors.
Marble ? \
Couldn't the same thing have been said about Leopard before Apple introduced the new UI? Leopard is pretty distinguishable from Tiger, is it not? 3D Dock, Stacks, unified window borders, CoverFlow in Finder, etc.
I don't think I said it would be a "radical" change, but I think we'll see something noticeably different because of the very fact that there are no TimeMachines or iChat Theaters this time around to dazzle people with. Apple can make the old seem new again with intuitive UI changes to the entire OS or individual apps. Then of course, they can introduce hardware that further sets the Mac apart like, as has been predicted by others, a replacing of MacBook's glass, MultiTouch trackpads with glass, MultiTouch displays, enabling direct manipulation of objects pulled down into the trackpad's display; just moving Dashboard into such a display would be quite useful and something competitors couldn't easily duplicate.
There are many things that could be done to Mac OS X to make it more intuitive for new users:
1) Look at the installation process for third party apps. Mount a virtual drive? Many inexperienced users run the app off the disk image itself and then when they save its icon to the Dock and eject the virtual drive, they wonder why the drive keeps remounting when they run the app (or if they didn't put its icon in the Dock, why the app just disappeared!). Introducing a Mac section into the App Store that works like the podcast directory where data is stored on the podcasters' servers with no real approval process would be a boon for developers. Meanwhile, the whole mounting of virtual drives could be streamlined for those apps that people download off the internet, i.e., apps Apple would block (P2P/torrent clients, porn apps, etc.)
2) Look at the way Mac OS X handles ejecting things in general: drag the item to the trash, which turns into an eject icon, or go into a Finder window. \ They have a keyboard button, but it only ejects discs. How about a HUD that appears when holding down the eject button?
3) The Menu Bar. I already discussed this, but it really is outdated. A button bar or pop-up HUD could be used to offer visual cues for common tasks so users won't have to navigate drop down menus full of text. Get all those actions buried in Services in front of the user.
4) The icons of apps could be replaced with more self-explanatory alternatives. The Finder is a fricken happy face for crying out loud! Safari looks like a compass, though MobileSafari for iPhone is much better simply because the land masses are well defined; those land masses are nearly invisible in Safari for Leopard. I can't tell you how many times at college I've had to help people by telling them the web browser "the compass." iTunes needs to get rid of that CD behind the music note, no one uses CDs anymore.
I'm waiting on Apple's dev license to come through to hook up to the camera and accel on a real phone but I thought the process was reasonably smooth.
No, that's the difficult bit.
Yesterday I discovered my certificate had expired. How did I discover this? A cryptic error message with "Application verification failed". After a while of searching, I saw it showed as expired in keychain. So I created a new one on the programme portal, and generated new provisioning stuff, but kept getting that message.
Turned out, after half an hour of getting more and more annoyed, that you have to manually delete the old certificate through keychain: it does a text match on the first certificate it finds with your name. The old one was still there so it was still using it, even though my provisioning profile was linked to the correct one.
Not documented anywhere. Also, the error I got is usually caused by an incorrect bundle identifier, so I spent a while trying various permutations of that.
For the record, I have already shipped an app, so it's not like I'm clueless here
Where the heck are you getting this stuff from? Unless you are an inside developer (and currently breaking your NDA), there is no way that you can know this stuff with any assurance.
It sounds to me like you're just dreaming and spinning some kind of "I wish" scenario but stupidly phrasing it as if you actually know what's going on.
If you're going to just make crap up, what's the point of posting? On the other hand, if you actually know this to be true, why not post some screen shots of the fantastic new UI? Your NDA is already toast anyway.
Sorry for the somewhat misleading wording: I have no inside info. I think, however, that the post in it's entirety makes it clear that this is an educated guess or wishful thinking, whatever you prefer.
There always are interface tweaks. Leopard vs Tiger was an interface tweak, not a new UI. Some of the reasons for this expectation are discussed in the previous posts.
More reasons:
1. Aesthetic.
The Aqua interface was made after the blue iMac and blue and white G3. I am pretty sure Steve hates it since the release of all-aluminum line. Some of the changes were showing up here and there, but Apple did not have the time for full change. Apple is definitely working on a new UI. The big question is whether it will be ready for Snow Leopard or not. The wording of the WWDC keynote press release brings my hopes up.
2. Competitive tactics.
When Apple said there will be no new features they could have two reasons: a) they were hiding their real plans (less likely) or b) they expected that Microsoft will be in a limbo how to fix Vista and will not be ready with the next release till late 2010 at the earliest. They could afford to keep the new development in-house and release lots of changes with a bang. Now that Windows 7 got positive reviews they need to speed up.
I also think they will market Grand Central and OpenCL and will make a couple of shiny demos during the keynote. They marketed AltiVec few years ago. This was not a user feature and it needed developer support to have effect. Grand Central and OpenCL are much easier to use then AltiVec BTW.
"Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales." The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar."
I wouldn't be to sure about that.. i've been using the development builds (adc member) And there a lot of elements changed that don't quite fit the current UI. i don't see it as a major overhaul but enough to really notice the change, even the beta 4 version of safari has a different page load effect not found in the current public beta version.
I'm sort of hoping for a little bit of a refresh myself, i'm hooked already on the new quicktime x interface..
Well we might even be on the same page here.
I'm arguing that the UI will look different/refreshed/etc. but that the main elements will remain the same (dock, menubar, windows).
I don't have access to the developer previews other than looking over a few shoulders, so I can't say for certain, but the idea that the menubar will be dropped is just not on at all IMO. Half of the Apple community would leave overnight if that happened. Similarly, the dock can't really be removed at this point and why would they want to? It would certainly be pretty much the opposite of what they said they wanted to do with Snow Leopard to radically change the major elements of the interface even though we all expect something a bit different from "regular" Leopard.
I'm thinking the interface will be greyer and more professional looking with less of the aqua gaudy (or none at all), and it sounds good to me as I happen to like grey interfaces that don't compete with the content for your attention. I've never been super keen on the Leopard GUI from an artistic point of view even though it's functionality is better than Tiger.
As lame as it might sound, the biggest disappointment to me in Leopard and the number one thing I hope changes in Snow Leopard GUI-wise, is ... the desktop wallpaper. It's the ugliest, most garish, windows-like backdrop for a Mac desktop ever IMO and everyone I know gets rid of it ASAP.
My private fantasy is that Steve Jobs agrees with me since when he demoed Leopard he pointedly used the green grass wallpaper and not the purple "space-smear." I'm hoping he was over-ruled by the other execs on that and has been fighting a rear-guard action all this time to get it changed to something more aesthetically pleasing (fingers crossed).
To me, Leopard was the big (and somewhat trashy) "consumer release" of OS-X that got a lot of people on board, but I'd really like to see the needle swing back to the "understated, classy and professional" part of the spectrum.
No offence, but you are seriously dreaming here. The MenuBar is as integral to the Mac OS as the command line was to DOS, or the minimise button is to Windows.
It's not even part of the GUI in the sense of being some sort of "window dressing" as you imply, it's an integralfunctional part of the whole OS. The main difference between Mac OS/OS-X and Windows is that Windows is a document-centric OS and Mac OS/OS-X is an application-centric OS and the MenuBar has a lot to do with that. It's worth noting also that the menu bar is almost the only piece of the original Mac OS that survived the transition to OS-X. The whole damned interface, and the entire functionality of OS-X is tied into the fact that Macs have the MenuBar.
Oh I disagree. For starters, much of what the Menu Bar does is provide redundant, text-based "shortcuts" to different functions that often have corresponding buttons in the application. That's the left side of the Menu Bar. The right side is more useful as it's all visual: BT, Wi-Fi, sound, battery (if it's a laptop), day and time (the only text) and Spotlight.
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Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2
People are confusing the fact that there will be some kind of new "look" to Snow Leopard (because the Finder is completely re-written), and the idea that the GUI is going to "change." This might be why cozagada is questioning the idea above, because a couple of idiots are pushing this idea that the whole interface will change or some such rot. It's not.
No no, I agree and I'm not one of those people. Many elements of Mac OS X's interface will remain largely the same, otherwise Apple would have given developers a heads up by now considering they said at WWDC last year that SL would ship "in about a year."
But that doesn't mean Apple can't change certain aspects of the UI to present data in a new, more visual and intuitive manner. I'll ask you the same question I asked cozagada: how often do you miss the Menu Bar (or perhaps more specifically, the left side of it) on the iPhone?
While I don't own an iPhone, I can tell from using my friends' and store models that I won't miss the Menu Bar. Sure, a small part of that is thanks to direct touch manipulation, like OS 3.0's copy and paste, but most of it is because there are visual UI elements or gestures, neither of which are unique to OS X iPhone. Many MT gestures are already present in OS X Leopard and that's going to be expanded in SL. Likewise, obviously, we've had buttons since object oriented operating systems materialized.
Very rarely do I use the Menu Bar because it's slow and requires far more mousing than keyboard shortcuts or just using buttons. Many users may never learn keyboard shortcuts, but that doesn't mean they prefer looking through text menus in the Menu Bar over intuitive gestures or buttons. If Apple introduces glass, multitouch trackpad displays to their MacBook line, this could go even farther.
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Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2
Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales."[/qu] The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar.
Haha, I'm not advocating moving the Menu Bar's text menus into the window as Windows does, I'm suggesting a more visual and intuitive menu.
When you right-click something in Mac OS X, a (GASP!!) contextual, text-based list of commands that AREN'T part of the Menu Bar appears, correct? Replace that simple, text-heavy menu with visual, intuitive actions. Would you be against that?
Oh and for the record, I never said anything about replacing the Dock. Look at the iPhone. It has a Dock. Why do I like the Dock? It's visual and intuitive.
The concept, while strong, doesn't lend well to screen space, or to concentrating on the actual work you're doing.
By adding icons, the menu-bar's height will almost certainly need to be changed, if only to actually see what you're clicking on on a 30" screen. This is distracting, and a screen waste.
Very rarely do I use the Menu Bar because it's slow and requires far more mousing than keyboard shortcuts or just using buttons. Many users may never learn keyboard shortcuts, but that doesn't mean they prefer looking through text menus in the Menu Bar over intuitive gestures or buttons. If Apple introduces glass, multitouch trackpad displays to their MacBook line, this could go even farther.
When using a new application I often use the menu to find out what I can do and to see the shortcuts. It works better for me than reading help files. Trackpad display is a bad idea IMO. The nice thing is I can navigate my apps without looking at the trackpad. And I will hate to clean it 15 times per day. Oh, and the menu bar works for the help search. Contextual menus do not, and can't.
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Originally Posted by wobegon
When you right-click something in Mac OS X, a (GASP!!) contextual, text-based list of commands that AREN'T part of the Menu Bar appears, correct? Replace that simple, text-heavy menu with visual, intuitive actions. Would you be against that?
Yes, I am definitely against that. It won't work for 90% of the users I guess. Contextual menu should always play supplemental role. One of the bad UI practices in Windows is that certain things are available only in the contextual menu. The developers and PMs who developed the app know where to look for it, but the new user doesn't.
I was lucky to have a NeXT Cube during my college days. When Apple bought NeXT along with SJ, I couldn't wait for the adoption of superior UI elements as detachable menus and column view. I think SJ wanted to morph NeXT's paradigm into Apple's OS pretty much as I enjoyed it, but long time interface elements ended up lingering behind, such as the menu bar.
It is a big change and takes a while to get used to. But being able to customize your Apps with the perfect set of commands around the window was a pretty powerful feature. Far less mousing and less confusion about active Apps.
We'll get there some day because NeXTStep was better. I think Apple fans sometimes are the last ones to really think different. Tabs on top caused quite an uproar for being such a minor tweak.
The concept, while strong, doesn't lend well to screen space, or to concentrating on the actual work you're doing.
By adding icons, the menu-bar's height will almost certainly need to be changed, if only to actually see what you're clicking on on a 30" screen. This is distracting, and a screen waste.
Bah, I'm not suggesting stuffing the Menu Bar with commands represented as buttons either.
Look at the iPhone's Menu Bar (if it can even be called that). Does it have drop-down menus? No, it's basically the right-hand portion of Mac OS X's Menu Bar: indicators. Indicators for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, battery, and time. You don't interact with those indicators, at least not directly because they're self explanatory.
I do NOT want those indicators to go away in Snow Leopard. But the text-heavy menus on the left side of the Menu Bar have not changed since 1984. Apple shouldn't just change things to change them, but there are alternative approaches to contextual menus (which is what the left portion of the Menu Bar is) that could make common actions more intuitive through visual, HUD-like visual menus.
I was pretty sure that this is the case. The fact that Snow Leopard will not be released this June is good news for me.
At this point I hope the hold up is due to quality control and nothing more. That would be a good reason for a longer wait.
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The fact that they say "a new Developer preview" instead of something between the lines of "the latest beta release" is even better. This gives a lot of credibility to the new UI rumor.
I think that is what is refered to as wishful thinking with little to no evidence to support you conclusion.
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As I mentioned in different thread, I hope that the new UI will bring resolution independence along the way.
Don't you think it is a little to late for that massive of a change. Not to mention if you want to build an entirely new user interface, with resolution independence you would want the features of Snow Leopard under your belt and stabie before implementing.
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And the other way around: if Apple is working on new UI there are zero chances they will spend time patching the aging Aqua. So the sooner the UI change - the better.
Just the oposite in my mind as you will want the current API stable and competitive while building up your replacement. Thus I could see minor tweaks to Aqua.
Besides that your negative attitude with respect to Aqua is misplaced. It really isn't that bad. Further Apple can go a lingvway to keeping developers happy by working on Aqua and it's stablization. Developers want to know that their choosen tool kit is going to be around for awhile and not grow wildly. I'm not against resolution independence by the way, I just see it as a bridge to far for Snow Leopard.
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The new UI would have lots of merits on it's own:
It will put to rest the "No new features" myth. The new UI alone will be the most significant change since Mac OS X introduction.
That would not be a merit but rather would indicate that Apples management was very misleading. Now that doesn't mean I don't expect new features visible to the user just that I don't expect major overhauls tied to a massive new User Interface.
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It will greatly increase the perceived advantage over Windows 7. The press spent a lot of time comparing Vista with Leopard and now, a couple of years later, Apple will look like puting on the table a completely revamped OS while Microsoft - an improved version of Vista. The real picture is not that simple because both companies are following different development cycles and even version strategies, but we are talking about the perceprion here (well, a bit oversimplified anyway).
Windows had nothing to do with my Mac choice. In anyevent I don't see this as a consideration at all.
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We all hope that if there is a new design it will be better than the current one. I am pretty sure it will take some time to get used to. Also. I know it will be critisized for certain details, but I believe we will all like the refresh.
Again how does that relate to defending your position.
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Regarding the timing, as far as SL is released in time for the Christmas shopping season, it does not matter whether it hits the market first or after Windows 7. The features of both OSes will be known by then and the press will be able to dance around. It better be stable and relatively bug free. Actually, this applies to both Apple and Microsoft. Neither shall rush the product out, just make it ready for Christmas. August or late November does not matter medium and long term. First or second does not matter either.
Well to an extent I'd have to agree. One big issue is the back to school crowd, having SL ready by the end of July for back to school would be huge. If not then maybe a free voucher system for an upgrade. In the long run it just doesn't matter who is first as they serve different markets.
When using a new application I often use the menu to find out what I can do and to see the shortcuts. It works better for me than reading help files.
If an application's UI is so sparse, or alternately, so convoluted that you have to search through its Menu Bar menus, that's called bad design. When I open GarageBand, most of what I can do is obvious because it's all at my "fingertips" rather than hidden away behind text menus.
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Originally Posted by shadow
Trackpad display is a bad idea IMO. The nice thing is I can navigate my apps without looking at the trackpad.
You would still be able to mouse around as usual. But when you wanted to directly manipulate something?pull down a Google Map, place pins, pan around with gestures; pull down a photo, doodle or use burn effects?you'd hit a hardware or software button and it would turn on the trackpad's display.
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Originally Posted by shadow
And I will hate to clean it 15 times per day.
This concern has kept you from buying an iPhone I presume.
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Originally Posted by shadow
Oh, and the menu bar works for the help search. Contextual menus do not, and can't.
Sure they could if you simply provide a visual shortcut to help files.
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Originally Posted by shadow
Yes, I am definitely against that. It won't work for 90% of the users I guess.
Pfft, where'd you pull that percentage from?
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Originally Posted by shadow
Contextual menu should always play supplemental role. One of the bad UI practices in Windows is that certain things are available only in the contextual menu. The developers and PMs who developed the app know where to look for it, but the new user doesn't.
News Flash: the Menu Bar is one BIG contextual menu. I would suggest looking over THIS guy's ideas for better, more intuitive, visual contextual menus to understand where I'm coming from.
When Apple said there will be no new features they could have two reasons: a) they were hiding their real plans (less likely) or b) they expected that Microsoft will be in a limbo how to fix Vista and will not be ready with the next release till late 2010 at the earliest. They could afford to keep the new development in-house and release lots of changes with a bang. Now that Windows 7 got positive reviews they need to speed up.
Whew, neither of those reasons make logical sense.
Apple won't be introducing a bunch of new features in Snow Leopard because there are few consumer-facing features/software left to introduce! With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard they finished covering their bases in that regard. Snow Leopard will offer a next generation foundation for future hardware advances, which includes custom parts from PA Semi. Then it's just a matter of refining and optimizing things until some new computing paradigm shift becomes possible.
The iPhone essentially represents a shift to direct manipulation and gestures. If MacBooks get glass, multitouch, trackpad displays in place of their current glass, multitouch, static trackpads, it will make direct touch manipulation of things pulled down into the trackpad display a standard for Macs (or at least MacBooks, but people are moving away from desktops more and more), putting Macs far ahead of PCs running Windows.
For instance, take Mac OS X's Menu Bar, which has remained largely unchanged since its introduction a decade ago. Now, how often do you miss it on the iPhone? What if they replace it with something more visual, like a universal button bar similar to the iWork apps? I find I rarely use the Menu Bar in Pages and Keynote because there are icons and pallet windows for most tasks, which are far more intuitive than mousing over the Menu Bar's text-heavy drop down lists.
Replacing the Menu Bar alone would be a significant change that wouldn't necessarily qualify as a "feature."
For any text heavy application and many others it's faster to access features through keyboard shortcuts than finding and clicking on buttons. If the menu bar goes it'll need keyboard shortcuts or it'll be a huge step backward.
If the menu bar goes it'll need keyboard shortcuts or it'll be a huge step backward.
What do keyboard shortcuts have to do with the Menu Bar? They're listed next to their associated Menu Bar commands, but they don't depend on the Menu Bar to work.
Anyway, I'm not against keyboard shortcuts and I certainly don't want to get rid of them, but many people don't know them by heart and some don't know they exist at all. Rather than making people memorize keyboard shortcuts or forcing them to navigate text-heavy menus in the Menu Bar, why not introduce a contextual HUD?
Hypothetical situation:
You select some text within a document and want to do something with it. Activate the contextual HUD and it will display different tasks you can perform in a visual way. Select one of the tasks and the OS will perform the operation, then drop the result back into the document when finished. Make sense?
I can see now I've made my argument far confusing than it needed to be by using the word "replace" rather than "change" or "rethink" in regards to the Menu Bar. Some of the Menu Bar is quite useful, namely the indicators for Wi-Fi, sound, battery, day and time, and of course, Spotlight too. I want those to stay. Perhaps Apple will keep the Menu Bar and simply introduce a pop-up visual HUD system for actions, but that would make the left-hand text menus of the Menu Bar even more redundant than they already are.
Comments
I think the most significant thing is how they seem to be playing down the prospect of any surprises, very clearly outlining what to expect: could this be a move towards using WWDC keynotes more for developer news, suggesting perhaps that there'll be a special event later in June for the iPhone v.3? And maybe with Steve?
No idea if they will introduce the next iPhone during WWDC or in a separate event. But as this event creates a lot of free publicity and world-wide coverage, it would be rather stupid to make it separate. If the keynote would be all about developers "only", Schiller would not really be the right person to present it. If a marketing guy is giving a keynote, there'll better be new products.
I wonder what the real world performance increases will be. I hope the performance increase is very noticeable or I'll be a little disappointed.
I thought Schiller did well with what he had at Macworld. I would prefer to Jobs or Ive but Schiller will do just fine.
... take Mac OS X's Menu Bar, which has remained largely unchanged since its introduction a decade ago. Now, how often do you miss it on the iPhone? What if they replace it with something more visual, like a universal button bar similar to the iWork apps? I find I rarely use the Menu Bar in Pages and Keynote because there are icons and pallet windows for most tasks, which are far more intuitive than mousing over the Menu Bar's text-heavy drop down lists.
Replacing the Menu Bar alone would be a significant change that wouldn't necessarily qualify as a "feature."
No offence, but you are seriously dreaming here.
It's not even part of the GUI in the sense of being some sort of "window dressing" as you imply, it's an integral functional part of the whole OS. The main difference between Mac OS/OS-X and Windows is that Windows is a document-centric OS and Mac OS/OS-X is an application-centric OS and the MenuBar has a lot to do with that. It's worth noting also that the menu bar is almost the only piece of the original Mac OS that survived the transition to OS-X. The whole damned interface, and the entire functionality of OS-X is tied into the fact that Macs have the MenuBar.
People are confusing the fact that there will be some kind of new "look" to Snow Leopard (because the Finder is completely re-written), and the idea that the GUI is going to "change." This might be why cozagada is questioning the idea above, because a couple of idiots are pushing this idea that the whole interface will change or some such rot. It's not.
Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales." The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar.
Naahhhh... Schiller is nowhere near the showman Steve was (is?)... Much, much prefer Jobs' presentations. He is a living legend in modern business (and not just because he says so).
Did Jobs say he himself is a living legend in modern business?
I wouldn't be to sure about that.. i've been using the development builds (adc member) And there a lot of elements changed that don't quite fit the current UI. i don't see it as a major overhaul but enough to really notice the change, even the beta 4 version of safari has a different page load effect not found in the current public beta version.
I'm sort of hoping for a little bit of a refresh myself, i'm hooked already on the new quicktime x interface..
Yes I'm sure the UI will be tweaked the same way it has always been between releases, but nothing tells me it will be radically changed, only vague rumors.
Marble ?
Couldn't the same thing have been said about Leopard before Apple introduced the new UI? Leopard is pretty distinguishable from Tiger, is it not? 3D Dock, Stacks, unified window borders, CoverFlow in Finder, etc.
I don't think I said it would be a "radical" change, but I think we'll see something noticeably different because of the very fact that there are no TimeMachines or iChat Theaters this time around to dazzle people with. Apple can make the old seem new again with intuitive UI changes to the entire OS or individual apps. Then of course, they can introduce hardware that further sets the Mac apart like, as has been predicted by others, a replacing of MacBook's glass, MultiTouch trackpads with glass, MultiTouch displays, enabling direct manipulation of objects pulled down into the trackpad's display; just moving Dashboard into such a display would be quite useful and something competitors couldn't easily duplicate.
There are many things that could be done to Mac OS X to make it more intuitive for new users:
1) Look at the installation process for third party apps. Mount a virtual drive? Many inexperienced users run the app off the disk image itself and then when they save its icon to the Dock and eject the virtual drive, they wonder why the drive keeps remounting when they run the app (or if they didn't put its icon in the Dock, why the app just disappeared!).
2) Look at the way Mac OS X handles ejecting things in general: drag the item to the trash, which turns into an eject icon, or go into a Finder window.
3) The Menu Bar. I already discussed this, but it really is outdated. A button bar or pop-up HUD could be used to offer visual cues for common tasks so users won't have to navigate drop down menus full of text. Get all those actions buried in Services in front of the user.
4) The icons of apps could be replaced with more self-explanatory alternatives. The Finder is a fricken happy face for crying out loud!
I'm waiting on Apple's dev license to come through to hook up to the camera and accel on a real phone but I thought the process was reasonably smooth.
No, that's the difficult bit.
Yesterday I discovered my certificate had expired. How did I discover this? A cryptic error message with "Application verification failed". After a while of searching, I saw it showed as expired in keychain. So I created a new one on the programme portal, and generated new provisioning stuff, but kept getting that message.
Turned out, after half an hour of getting more and more annoyed, that you have to manually delete the old certificate through keychain: it does a text match on the first certificate it finds with your name. The old one was still there so it was still using it, even though my provisioning profile was linked to the correct one.
Not documented anywhere. Also, the error I got is usually caused by an incorrect bundle identifier, so I spent a while trying various permutations of that.
For the record, I have already shipped an app, so it's not like I'm clueless here
Amorya
Where the heck are you getting this stuff from? Unless you are an inside developer (and currently breaking your NDA), there is no way that you can know this stuff with any assurance.
It sounds to me like you're just dreaming and spinning some kind of "I wish" scenario but stupidly phrasing it as if you actually know what's going on.
If you're going to just make crap up, what's the point of posting? On the other hand, if you actually know this to be true, why not post some screen shots of the fantastic new UI? Your NDA is already toast anyway.
Sorry for the somewhat misleading wording: I have no inside info. I think, however, that the post in it's entirety makes it clear that this is an educated guess or wishful thinking, whatever you prefer.
There always are interface tweaks. Leopard vs Tiger was an interface tweak, not a new UI. Some of the reasons for this expectation are discussed in the previous posts.
More reasons:
1. Aesthetic.
The Aqua interface was made after the blue iMac and blue and white G3. I am pretty sure Steve hates it since the release of all-aluminum line. Some of the changes were showing up here and there, but Apple did not have the time for full change. Apple is definitely working on a new UI. The big question is whether it will be ready for Snow Leopard or not. The wording of the WWDC keynote press release brings my hopes up.
2. Competitive tactics.
When Apple said there will be no new features they could have two reasons: a) they were hiding their real plans (less likely) or b) they expected that Microsoft will be in a limbo how to fix Vista and will not be ready with the next release till late 2010 at the earliest. They could afford to keep the new development in-house and release lots of changes with a bang. Now that Windows 7 got positive reviews they need to speed up.
I also think they will market Grand Central and OpenCL and will make a couple of shiny demos during the keynote. They marketed AltiVec few years ago. This was not a user feature and it needed developer support to have effect. Grand Central and OpenCL are much easier to use then AltiVec BTW.
"Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales." The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar."
I wouldn't be to sure about that.. i've been using the development builds (adc member) And there a lot of elements changed that don't quite fit the current UI. i don't see it as a major overhaul but enough to really notice the change, even the beta 4 version of safari has a different page load effect not found in the current public beta version.
I'm sort of hoping for a little bit of a refresh myself, i'm hooked already on the new quicktime x interface..
Well we might even be on the same page here.
I'm arguing that the UI will look different/refreshed/etc. but that the main elements will remain the same (dock, menubar, windows).
I don't have access to the developer previews other than looking over a few shoulders, so I can't say for certain, but the idea that the menubar will be dropped is just not on at all IMO. Half of the Apple community would leave overnight if that happened. Similarly, the dock can't really be removed at this point and why would they want to? It would certainly be pretty much the opposite of what they said they wanted to do with Snow Leopard to radically change the major elements of the interface even though we all expect something a bit different from "regular" Leopard.
I'm thinking the interface will be greyer and more professional looking with less of the aqua gaudy (or none at all), and it sounds good to me as I happen to like grey interfaces that don't compete with the content for your attention. I've never been super keen on the Leopard GUI from an artistic point of view even though it's functionality is better than Tiger.
As lame as it might sound, the biggest disappointment to me in Leopard and the number one thing I hope changes in Snow Leopard GUI-wise, is ... the desktop wallpaper. It's the ugliest, most garish, windows-like backdrop for a Mac desktop ever IMO and everyone I know gets rid of it ASAP.
My private fantasy is that Steve Jobs agrees with me since when he demoed Leopard he pointedly used the green grass wallpaper and not the purple "space-smear." I'm hoping he was over-ruled by the other execs on that and has been fighting a rear-guard action all this time to get it changed to something more aesthetically pleasing (fingers crossed).
To me, Leopard was the big (and somewhat trashy) "consumer release" of OS-X that got a lot of people on board, but I'd really like to see the needle swing back to the "understated, classy and professional" part of the spectrum.
When I say "new UI" I mean no blue buttons, no blue scroll bars, interface refinements, scalable elements (if no resolution independence, RI ready).
Removing the menu bar and the Dock does not count as a new UI. This counts as destroying the OS
No offence, but you are seriously dreaming here.
It's not even part of the GUI in the sense of being some sort of "window dressing" as you imply, it's an integral functional part of the whole OS. The main difference between Mac OS/OS-X and Windows is that Windows is a document-centric OS and Mac OS/OS-X is an application-centric OS and the MenuBar has a lot to do with that. It's worth noting also that the menu bar is almost the only piece of the original Mac OS that survived the transition to OS-X. The whole damned interface, and the entire functionality of OS-X is tied into the fact that Macs have the MenuBar.
Oh I disagree. For starters, much of what the Menu Bar does is provide redundant, text-based "shortcuts" to different functions that often have corresponding buttons in the application. That's the left side of the Menu Bar. The right side is more useful as it's all visual: BT, Wi-Fi, sound, battery (if it's a laptop), day and time (the only text) and Spotlight.
People are confusing the fact that there will be some kind of new "look" to Snow Leopard (because the Finder is completely re-written), and the idea that the GUI is going to "change." This might be why cozagada is questioning the idea above, because a couple of idiots are pushing this idea that the whole interface will change or some such rot. It's not.
No no, I agree and I'm not one of those people. Many elements of Mac OS X's interface will remain largely the same, otherwise Apple would have given developers a heads up by now considering they said at WWDC last year that SL would ship "in about a year."
But that doesn't mean Apple can't change certain aspects of the UI to present data in a new, more visual and intuitive manner. I'll ask you the same question I asked cozagada: how often do you miss the Menu Bar (or perhaps more specifically, the left side of it) on the iPhone?
While I don't own an iPhone, I can tell from using my friends' and store models that I won't miss the Menu Bar. Sure, a small part of that is thanks to direct touch manipulation, like OS 3.0's copy and paste, but most of it is because there are visual UI elements or gestures, neither of which are unique to OS X iPhone. Many MT gestures are already present in OS X Leopard and that's going to be expanded in SL. Likewise, obviously, we've had buttons since object oriented operating systems materialized.
Very rarely do I use the Menu Bar because it's slow and requires far more mousing than keyboard shortcuts or just using buttons. Many users may never learn keyboard shortcuts, but that doesn't mean they prefer looking through text menus in the Menu Bar over intuitive gestures or buttons. If Apple introduces glass, multitouch trackpad displays to their MacBook line, this could go even farther.
Apple is not going to change the entire GUI to a Windows oriented approach, or get rid of it's singularly successful and self-defining features just to "jazz up teh sales."[/qu] The MenuBar will stay, the Dock will stay, Windows will still look like Windows etc. Snow Leopard will look a bit "fresher" and more modern, but it will sell because everything runs twice as fast and it's full 64 bit and Cocoa everything, not because some widget designer ditched the MenuBar.
Haha, I'm not advocating moving the Menu Bar's text menus into the window as Windows does, I'm suggesting a more visual and intuitive menu.
When you right-click something in Mac OS X, a (GASP!!) contextual, text-based list of commands that AREN'T part of the Menu Bar appears, correct?
Oh and for the record, I never said anything about replacing the Dock. Look at the iPhone. It has a Dock. Why do I like the Dock? It's visual and intuitive.
The concept, while strong, doesn't lend well to screen space, or to concentrating on the actual work you're doing.
By adding icons, the menu-bar's height will almost certainly need to be changed, if only to actually see what you're clicking on on a 30" screen. This is distracting, and a screen waste.
Very rarely do I use the Menu Bar because it's slow and requires far more mousing than keyboard shortcuts or just using buttons. Many users may never learn keyboard shortcuts, but that doesn't mean they prefer looking through text menus in the Menu Bar over intuitive gestures or buttons. If Apple introduces glass, multitouch trackpad displays to their MacBook line, this could go even farther.
When using a new application I often use the menu to find out what I can do and to see the shortcuts. It works better for me than reading help files. Trackpad display is a bad idea IMO. The nice thing is I can navigate my apps without looking at the trackpad. And I will hate to clean it 15 times per day. Oh, and the menu bar works for the help search. Contextual menus do not, and can't.
When you right-click something in Mac OS X, a (GASP!!) contextual, text-based list of commands that AREN'T part of the Menu Bar appears, correct?
Yes, I am definitely against that. It won't work for 90% of the users I guess. Contextual menu should always play supplemental role. One of the bad UI practices in Windows is that certain things are available only in the contextual menu. The developers and PMs who developed the app know where to look for it, but the new user doesn't.
It is a big change and takes a while to get used to. But being able to customize your Apps with the perfect set of commands around the window was a pretty powerful feature. Far less mousing and less confusion about active Apps.
We'll get there some day because NeXTStep was better. I think Apple fans sometimes are the last ones to really think different. Tabs on top caused quite an uproar for being such a minor tweak.
I'm not sold on the idea of a icon-based menu.
The concept, while strong, doesn't lend well to screen space, or to concentrating on the actual work you're doing.
By adding icons, the menu-bar's height will almost certainly need to be changed, if only to actually see what you're clicking on on a 30" screen. This is distracting, and a screen waste.
Bah, I'm not suggesting stuffing the Menu Bar with commands represented as buttons either.
Look at the iPhone's Menu Bar (if it can even be called that). Does it have drop-down menus? No, it's basically the right-hand portion of Mac OS X's Menu Bar: indicators. Indicators for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, battery, and time. You don't interact with those indicators, at least not directly because they're self explanatory.
I do NOT want those indicators to go away in Snow Leopard. But the text-heavy menus on the left side of the Menu Bar have not changed since 1984. Apple shouldn't just change things to change them, but there are alternative approaches to contextual menus (which is what the left portion of the Menu Bar is) that could make common actions more intuitive through visual, HUD-like visual menus.
I was pretty sure that this is the case. The fact that Snow Leopard will not be released this June is good news for me.
At this point I hope the hold up is due to quality control and nothing more. That would be a good reason for a longer wait.
The fact that they say "a new Developer preview" instead of something between the lines of "the latest beta release" is even better. This gives a lot of credibility to the new UI rumor.
I think that is what is refered to as wishful thinking with little to no evidence to support you conclusion.
As I mentioned in different thread, I hope that the new UI will bring resolution independence along the way.
Don't you think it is a little to late for that massive of a change. Not to mention if you want to build an entirely new user interface, with resolution independence you would want the features of Snow Leopard under your belt and stabie before implementing.
And the other way around: if Apple is working on new UI there are zero chances they will spend time patching the aging Aqua. So the sooner the UI change - the better.
Just the oposite in my mind as you will want the current API stable and competitive while building up your replacement. Thus I could see minor tweaks to Aqua.
Besides that your negative attitude with respect to Aqua is misplaced. It really isn't that bad. Further Apple can go a lingvway to keeping developers happy by working on Aqua and it's stablization. Developers want to know that their choosen tool kit is going to be around for awhile and not grow wildly. I'm not against resolution independence by the way, I just see it as a bridge to far for Snow Leopard.
The new UI would have lots of merits on it's own:
Windows had nothing to do with my Mac choice. In anyevent I don't see this as a consideration at all.
Again how does that relate to defending your position.
Regarding the timing, as far as SL is released in time for the Christmas shopping season, it does not matter whether it hits the market first or after Windows 7. The features of both OSes will be known by then and the press will be able to dance around. It better be stable and relatively bug free. Actually, this applies to both Apple and Microsoft. Neither shall rush the product out, just make it ready for Christmas. August or late November does not matter medium and long term. First or second does not matter either.
Well to an extent I'd have to agree. One big issue is the back to school crowd, having SL ready by the end of July for back to school would be huge. If not then maybe a free voucher system for an upgrade. In the long run it just doesn't matter who is first as they serve different markets.
Dave
When using a new application I often use the menu to find out what I can do and to see the shortcuts. It works better for me than reading help files.
If an application's UI is so sparse, or alternately, so convoluted that you have to search through its Menu Bar menus, that's called bad design. When I open GarageBand, most of what I can do is obvious because it's all at my "fingertips" rather than hidden away behind text menus.
Trackpad display is a bad idea IMO. The nice thing is I can navigate my apps without looking at the trackpad.
You would still be able to mouse around as usual. But when you wanted to directly manipulate something?pull down a Google Map, place pins, pan around with gestures; pull down a photo, doodle or use burn effects?you'd hit a hardware or software button and it would turn on the trackpad's display.
And I will hate to clean it 15 times per day.
This concern has kept you from buying an iPhone I presume.
Oh, and the menu bar works for the help search. Contextual menus do not, and can't.
Sure they could if you simply provide a visual shortcut to help files.
Yes, I am definitely against that. It won't work for 90% of the users I guess.
Pfft, where'd you pull that percentage from?
Contextual menu should always play supplemental role. One of the bad UI practices in Windows is that certain things are available only in the contextual menu. The developers and PMs who developed the app know where to look for it, but the new user doesn't.
News Flash: the Menu Bar is one BIG contextual menu. I would suggest looking over THIS guy's ideas for better, more intuitive, visual contextual menus to understand where I'm coming from.
When Apple said there will be no new features they could have two reasons: a) they were hiding their real plans (less likely) or b) they expected that Microsoft will be in a limbo how to fix Vista and will not be ready with the next release till late 2010 at the earliest. They could afford to keep the new development in-house and release lots of changes with a bang. Now that Windows 7 got positive reviews they need to speed up.
Whew, neither of those reasons make logical sense.
Apple won't be introducing a bunch of new features in Snow Leopard because there are few consumer-facing features/software left to introduce! With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard they finished covering their bases in that regard. Snow Leopard will offer a next generation foundation for future hardware advances, which includes custom parts from PA Semi. Then it's just a matter of refining and optimizing things until some new computing paradigm shift becomes possible.
The iPhone essentially represents a shift to direct manipulation and gestures. If MacBooks get glass, multitouch, trackpad displays in place of their current glass, multitouch, static trackpads, it will make direct touch manipulation of things pulled down into the trackpad display a standard for Macs (or at least MacBooks, but people are moving away from desktops more and more), putting Macs far ahead of PCs running Windows.
For instance, take Mac OS X's Menu Bar, which has remained largely unchanged since its introduction a decade ago. Now, how often do you miss it on the iPhone? What if they replace it with something more visual, like a universal button bar similar to the iWork apps? I find I rarely use the Menu Bar in Pages and Keynote because there are icons and pallet windows for most tasks, which are far more intuitive than mousing over the Menu Bar's text-heavy drop down lists.
Replacing the Menu Bar alone would be a significant change that wouldn't necessarily qualify as a "feature."
For any text heavy application and many others it's faster to access features through keyboard shortcuts than finding and clicking on buttons. If the menu bar goes it'll need keyboard shortcuts or it'll be a huge step backward.
If the menu bar goes it'll need keyboard shortcuts or it'll be a huge step backward.
What do keyboard shortcuts have to do with the Menu Bar? They're listed next to their associated Menu Bar commands, but they don't depend on the Menu Bar to work.
Anyway, I'm not against keyboard shortcuts and I certainly don't want to get rid of them, but many people don't know them by heart and some don't know they exist at all. Rather than making people memorize keyboard shortcuts or forcing them to navigate text-heavy menus in the Menu Bar, why not introduce a contextual HUD?
Hypothetical situation:
You select some text within a document and want to do something with it. Activate the contextual HUD and it will display different tasks you can perform in a visual way. Select one of the tasks and the OS will perform the operation, then drop the result back into the document when finished. Make sense?
Mock up (note: this is not my handy work):
Source
I can see now I've made my argument far confusing than it needed to be by using the word "replace" rather than "change" or "rethink" in regards to the Menu Bar. Some of the Menu Bar is quite useful, namely the indicators for Wi-Fi, sound, battery, day and time, and of course, Spotlight too. I want those to stay. Perhaps Apple will keep the Menu Bar and simply introduce a pop-up visual HUD system for actions, but that would make the left-hand text menus of the Menu Bar even more redundant than they already are.
We'll find out soon enough.