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104 Comments
- billdcat, on 10/12/2007, -18/+238Wrong, the secret feature is that time machine isn't backup software at all! It's a global undo - and by that I mean a LIFE undo. Drank too much last night? Time Machine! Wake up next to someone who didn't exactly match your expectations? Time Machine! Car accident? Speeding ticket? Blown test? Said something stupid? Wrong career? Kids? Time Machine, Time Machine, Time Machine, Time Machine!
- fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -7/+193If Adam Sandler comes out with a movie based on this idea, I am hunting you down and... and... make you watch it, or something.
- wonderchemist, on 10/12/2007, -5/+61Technically, OS X is already 3D. If it wasn't 3D, OS X's eye candy wouldn't be as nearly as cool is it is. That little flip you do dashboard widgets? Just OpenGL rotating a (very thin) box around 180 degs.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+42"Could the secret feature in Mac OS X 10.5 "
odd, the title says that it IS
can we stop presenting rumors as fact? - vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -3/+44Yeah, but everything in the Tiger GUI are bitmaps and not true vector which doesn't scale very well with 3d. Supposedly, Leopard addresses this so it will have infinite resolutions and DPI settings etc etc... Otherwise know as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_independence - resinoth, on 10/12/2007, -3/+43This is all heresay. Leopards are not three-dimensional.
- uptown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39Each copy ships with a unicorn......
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34so that explains how a leopard managed to slip under my door the other day...
- theGOG, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32"Honey?"
"Yes dear?"
"I have to get something off of my chest."
"What is it dear?"
"I've been living a lie!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I.. I... I'm secretly... THREE DIMENSIONAL!!!"
"OH DEAR GOD! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?" - writerboyVSgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23Ignignot: You and your third dimension.
Frylock: What about it?
Ignignot: Oh nothing, it's cute. We have five.
Ur: Th-thousand.
Ignignot: Yes, five thousand.
Ur: Don't question it!
Frylock: Oh yeah? Well, I only see two.
Ignignot: Well that sounds like a personal problem. - DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22In case you guys didn't know, Apple is currently converting all interface widgets to vector objects in Leopard. (That doesn't include file icons, which will stay as bitmaps, now up to 512x512)
The old OS X interface from 10.0 to 10.4 was contained in the Extras.rsrc file, which is an obsolete "resource fork" file dating back to the Classic Mac OS ResEdit days. This file contained bitmaps for just about every interface widgets. There was two different bitmaps sets for the "blue" and "graphite" themes. Overall, despite some visual changes in the interface over the years, the structure of this file didn't change much, and it was messy and outdated, leaving little room for changes.
In Leopard, the interface is contained in a neatly organized xml based bundle called "Aqua.bundle". Just about every standard widgets is vectorized in there, and more are added with each new build. Some people have speculated that this will bring the possibility of having other interface bundles, and that Apple might indeed be also working on an alternate interface to ship with Leopard.
So even though the interface might look the same on the surface, drastic changes went under the hood to modernize the interface framework. New internal APIs for the interface dubbed "CoreUI" have been added to Leopard.
While it was a pain for Apple to keep duplicate sets of bitmaps to enable the graphite theme, vectorized widgets can simply refer to a global color variable and be colorized dynamically. So switching to the graphite theme in Leopard would simply involve changing some global variable.
But why stop there? Since it will now be easy for the OS to change the global color of the interface, they could easily add new color themes, or even a way to chose precisely any color you want. I know that Windows has been able to do this for years in some way when you used the classic windows interface (which didn't involve many bitmaps), but I suspect Apple could take it a step further.
Apple has been recently awarded a patent involving dynamically shading the interface according to variables like time of the day. So you could have a bluish theme with black text for day-time, and as the day progress, and the theme would gradually shift toward a white text on black backgrounds when you get to the evening. Maybe a window needing your attention could glow in red? There's tons of possibilities that the new interface framework can bring to Leopard, and many of them don't necessarily require warning developers in advance. - EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20The author doesn't understand 3D graphics if he thinks GARBAGE COLLECTION is the key ingredient that's missing. Real-time 3D graphics programmers generally hate garbage collection and we've generally done without it for 20 years. The reason is that when you're trying to get a solid frame-rate, you don't want system tasks like GC taking a big unknown amount of time, which would be most noticeable as a hiccup every so often. Some GC algorithms are better than others, but most 3D apps have very careful allocation schemes to make sure they don't need GC, or they implement their own with known heuristics.
And by 3D, it'd better mean 3D interactive objects, or it's not fairly called 3D. Special effects does not make a UI 3D. Even Windows 3.x was 2.5D (like Vista, like Aqua at a fundamental level). Adding nicer special effects is definitely appealing. But the fundamental PARC "windows and icons" metaphor hasn't changed, so far at least.
An example of a more correctly-labeled 3D UI is that "physically based blocks" interface that passed through Digg a while back, where they were flipping and stacking icons, throwing them around, and so on. The physics wasn't critical, but things acted like objects, not paper cut-outs with a nifty-but-useless "spin me" feature. - DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Why would it? It's not like there's ever been a 3-D interface thats been the least bit intuitive.
- lordthor, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22useless without pics.
- ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23If Apples does one thing well, it's UI -- and let it be known, I'm a long-time MS guy, with some Linux experience, and almost no Mac experience, so this isn't rabid fanboy-ism. Perhaps they'll finally give us a 3D interface that's as usable as it is sexy?
- imikedaman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16For the record, this guy doesn't seem to know what garbage collection or Core Animation actually are. He should probably do some actual research next time.
- Zatko, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I hope the secret feature is file cut and paste.
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14vertinox: Resolution independence has nothing to do with everything being vectors. Common misconception. Its actually just about things being scaled, but the bitmaps being high enough resolution that they shouldn't get blocky unless people use ridiculously high DPIs. Its going to take Leopard actually being released until people realise this, I know, but its worth pointing out.
- colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@cacoe
WPF runs on Mac OS X too:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8B6B1524-ECD9-4FF2-BB0F-D9156F570C5B&displaylang=en - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Jobs is a usability nut. Holding your arms up to a screen for any length of time is a usability problem. We are not getting touch screen iMacs anytime soon.
- justnick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+93 1/2 dimensions. Time machine only lets you go back in time.
- Ishiguro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yuck doritos finger prints on my screen.
- DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14From the same company that brought you this dialog: http://img.worsethanfailure.com/images/200703/error'd/copyfiles.png
- sdbryan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Gawd, what a patheric dweeb. jimv, feel free to not purchase it if you don't want it. No one is being forced, in any sense, to purchase the next version of OS X unless you want the new features. Your current Mac and OS do not stop working because something new is being sold. All you are seeing is Moore's Law and a company actually trying to keep pace with it rather than have delivery deadlines drag out for years. Of course you probably don't even own a Mac and only lurk here to complain about people who mysteriously don't make the same choices you've made.
- gimmeslack12, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8The source of this ArsTech article does not say one thing about 3D GUI's. This article is just reaching for some traffic based on absolutely zero proof or reason to believe in a 3D interface.
We have seen Time Machines, Spaces, and a few other things. And we ALL know the interface is nearly identical to the Mac OS X we know now. - jav1231, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I wondered if this might be true to. You gotta know Jobs has seen Looking Glass, Beryl, and the 3D effects in Vista and wants this for Leopard.
- signal15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That would make me want to go to Candy mountain.
- MBX1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10No. It's 4-Dimensional, while the fourth dimension is time. And time-machine let's us travel through it.
- chongli, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6You should take a look at Jeff Han's videos.
http://multi-touchscreen.com/
Tablet PCs can't do anything even remotely close to this. Multi-touch is completely different from regular touchscreens. They cannot be equated in any way. - bobcorrigan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Apple's product release schedule this year feels like a perfect storm:
1. Leopard
2. iPhone
3. Apple TV
Throw in some wild-cards from your favorite rumor site, lather, rinse.
I'm curious if we see any other applications of the iPhone's "multi-touch" technology. - thecosas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5perhaps with resolution independence, that "enhance" button the TV police use all the time will actually work in real life haha.
- FKnight, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@jav1231
"I wondered if this might be true to. You gotta know Jobs has seen Looking Glass, Beryl, and the 3D effects in Vista and wants this for Leopard."
--
Dude, Steve Jobs sits there and looks at Beryl and laughs is my bet. I'm sure he's quaking in his boots, not. - mikm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"Will it be pink?"
Yeah, but unfortunately, it will also be invisible. - Iwantawii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@Tyrlone
You could say that OpenGL, which is the balls behind and effects in Tiger, IS representing all the data in 3D before it's rasterized onto the screen, which happens very last in the graphics pipeline.
Each vertex will have 3D coordinates that stay with it (including Z, depth) during any transformations and visual effects until the last moment that is has to be flattened onto the screen for drawing. Even then, most implementations utilize the z-buffer to handle layering, which is an entirely different thing but it goes to show that 3D information is at least retained. - SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The only facts here are no-one knows the answer because it's a secret feature. This speculation is all good idle talk but it doesn't amount to jack on release day unless someone by some extraordinary fluke actually guessed right - hey it happens!
- stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Will it be pink?
- serpicolugnut, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I tend to be a realist, so the following is pure speculation. But I believe the delay has nothing to do with the software, and everything to do with the hardware, which will be tied to the software. I believe that the Leopard will have a touch interface, that when used in conjunction with a new iMac with a touchscreen, or one of the new touchscreen Cinema displays, will allow you to do amazing Jeff Han-meets-the-iPhone-like things with the OS.
I'm probably wrong, but it somewhat makes sense that Apple would want to capitalize on this new, easy to interact with a computer paradigm, and push it as the next "big thing". Well all know how Steve loves to take something he sees as revolutionary and bring it to the masses.
Again, I'm probably 100% off the mark, but what the hey. There are secret features in Leopard, and the sooner we know what they are, the happier we all will be. - pixelbender, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Wrong? WRONG!?
You just ruined the excitement of the thought of getting my cardboard blue and red 3d glasses out just to use OS X! SHAME! - NeoRicen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This sounds alot like people expecting 'the next big secret' of the Wii before it came out, look how that turned out, nothing.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It's possible I guess but I can't imagine even Apple would rock the boat on 30 years of GUI design. Any major switch in their interface design would require developers to step up and basically start from square one -- are they prepared to do that right now after the x86 transition? I kind of doubt it. I guess it is possible they might indulge on more 3D UI effects but that won't change the fact the GUI space is still fundamentally 2D.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Marked as utter *****
- wush, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Really informative comment, Delmonte. Thanks for the info.
- tempusrob, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8@drlha:
If I can't scale it to *any* resolution without creating artifacts then it's not exactly resolution independent, now is it? - onidraky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm sure he's not laughing as Beryl has every major window effect in OSX already in it. Plus, many from Vista, and it's own. I'm sure Steve Jobs is watching Beryl, not shaking, but looking to see what he can copy or make better.
- Phatlip012, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Ugh...alot of the effects in Beryl were taken from OS X. Personally I think Beryl is cool but a little too much. I like an operating system that looks great. Im a Mac user, I love the UI in OS X. I'm also digging the new UI in Vista. Beryl on the other hand is just too much for me. I always find myself watching the Beryl videos and thinking "yea, thats cool but why do I need a UI that lests me do that?"
- lfernandez91, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5this is a given, come on, why else would they develop core animation if they were not giong to use it?
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I'm sure he's not laughing as Beryl has every major window effect in OSX already in it."
Way to not get the point, dude.
Apple's design cycle for anything is as much about what it *shouldn't* do, as what it should do. There's a reason why Apple avoids bloat.
-jcr - Escamillo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Who said it's not a concern on an iPhone? I hate fingerprints on screens, which is why I don't like touchscreens, regardless of whether it's a phone or a computer monitor.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Thanks Delmonte. You pretty much confirmed what I said (but with more information). I still got dugg down even though I am right.
- lopla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I do not know what the big secret is but I can assure you that on announcement Ballmer will throw another chair.
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