Anticipating Leopard
Apple has a unique problem, Tiger is too good. How is that a problem you ask? Simple, how do you climb higher when you are already at the top of the mountain? How do you make the best OS in the world better?
Ask your self this question, “what more do I want in an operating system?”
Hard question isn’t it?
Forget minor bugs, tweaks and glitches I am talking about major upgrades. Expose, SpotLight, Core Image, Dashboard, Automater, RSS, Quicktime 7, etc. After looking at that list one might ask, “what is left?”
Let’s look at what might be in OS X 10.5 shall we?
Quicktime just received a major upgrade so I can’t imagine that much is going on in that department. Expose, Dashboard and the dock already work very well so while they may get some slight updates I also don’t foresee much happening there either. Maybe iCal, iChat, Mail, Font Book and the rest will be updated but to what extent? I mean, how much better can you make a calendar? And the list goes on.
Safari is already fast, though I suppose it could get faster. What about iChat? They might add more people to its video conferencing feature. And while that would be nice it won’t be that unexpected. Expect the iLife suite to be updated and upgraded but so what? It was great before and it will be great after. What else is there?
Here are my predictions as to what definitely will be in Leopard:
Finder: Expect a revamp of the Finder. Cleaner design, updated features, the works.
3D: I expect Apple will go nuts here. Anything that can be 3D will be. Will it improve performance? No. Will it make things easier? No. Will it look cool as hell? Most definitely. But that isn’t the only reason they are going to give Leopard 3D steroids, no no no. They are going to do it because Longhorn will be coming out around that time. And I can guarantee you Jobs is going to have a ball on stage showing off these awesome graphics. This will be directed entirely at showing the world how outdated Longhorn is.
Speed: Expect OS X to take full use of Intel’s new chips. I think 10.5 is going to be light years beyond Tiger speed wise. And I think Jobs will back this up by showing off ultra low render times in Photoshop and Final Cut. This will also be used to invite the major game developers to port their games directly to the Mac and optimize them more. Because if gamers always go to the fastest system and that system happens to be a PowerMac running 10.5 . . .
Spotlight: It’s only going to get more powerful both in precision and scope. I expect Spotlight will be able to pick out parts of a word like “suck” in Microsuck. Also I expect that they will give you the option of using Spotlight like your own personal link to the web. Need to find something? Don’t use google hit Apple-Space and type it into Spotlight.
64 Bit: This entire OS should be fully 64 bit. Apple made a huge step with Tiger and I refuse to believe they will not follow that up with Leopard.
Here are my hopes as to what might be in Leopard:
Podcasting: I expect podcasting to have hit record proportions by this time. Thus it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple made its own little spin off application dedicated just to using/managing/recording podcast.
Voice Recognition: It has only gotten better as the years have passed. Don’t expect Hal to talk to you just yet but don’t be surprised if it responds in a much more mature voice.
Games: I just want more games for OS X that’s all. And so maybe Apple will surprise us and create its own game division?
Dual Boot: Wouldn’t it be nice if Apple were to include a nifty little utility that allowed one to easily setup one’s Mac to dual boot into another OS, be it Linux or Windows I think this could be a big selling point for certain people.
Only the future will tell whether I was on target or way off base. Regardless I want to hear your views on the matter. What do you want to see in Leopard?
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I think that Apple should indeed make sure the OS is as bug free as possible and they should also work to make the OS/their apps as consistant as possible in both form and function.
1) I think Mail is terrible and in need of vast improvement. For goodness sakes, please add a *simple* way to show/hide unread messages! I could write a long list of needed improvements here…
2) will a fully 64-bit OS be feasible with Intel chips? Does Intel *have* 64-bit personal computer microprocessors?
3) Dashboard needs an option to allow individual widgets to float in the regular environment, not just the Dashboard area. Dashboard-only Stickies are useless: how are they supposed to remind me of things when they’re invisible all the time
4) Games: Apple should buy Aspyr
how much better can you make a calendar?
groupware-functionality! read-only webdav is for 10people+ companys no solution. and an isync-version, that can support calendar-groups an palm/symbians units. at present my 10 ical-calendars will be flattened to one on my phone.
I agree, the Finder is in need of a major rewrite. I also agree it’s time Apple began to show off OpenGL 3D stuff in the GUI. I think Repairing Permissions should be added to the nightly maintenance cycle, just as reasonable PM. Spotlight needs more configuration options, and an easy way to trash/reindex when things don’t seem to be working right (It still doesn’t find everything, even in Mail and the Finder). I think an option for running animations on the Desktop would be useful (i.e., to REPLACE the static/cycling Desktop picture using, e.g., the RSS News feed screen saver).
Tiger is good but let’s make Leopard GREAT.
I think Leopard will primarily be optimizations to core functionality in Tiger. Thus I expect to see.
Dashboard- I think further improvements in Webcore/Webkit will allow for faster widget performance and more functionality. I think Dashboard really has potential that has yet to be discovered. Performance though is going to be key. Widgets need to be fast and functional yet take up little resources when not in use.
Spotlight- I think Apple is building in hooks to the HFS filesystem that will strengthen the capabilities of Spotlight. The Uniform Type Indentifiers and extended attributes should fulfill the goal of Spotlight which is to accurately and efficiently search huge hard drives and pull what you need. Apple needs to offer more preferences for dealing with volumes that you do not want indexed and dealing with drives that you want to mount but not index. Also dealing with network shares is a biggy too.
OpenGL 2.0- Longhorn’s Avalon 3D is a nice api. Apple has OpenGL 2.0 to leverage. What they need to do is create an smaller API set for developers that allows them to easily create 3D that is guaranteed to work across the OS in any application. Leverage Quartz and Quicktime here with GPU acceleration at all times.
Resolution Independence- We need to be able to scale the UI to match any dpi or lpi on screens. Believe it or not I believe the next “cool” thing will be actually using a front projector for daily computing if you have the space. Being able to scale your UI to match is huge. Icons and other UI elements need to be tweaked. It’s already half-baked in Tiger and we’re likely to see it shipped before 10.5 but improvements are always welcome.
I just see further improvement and full 64-bit EM64T(Intel 64-bit) support. I also see support for some of Intel’s underlying technologies that Leopard will likely support. Tech like remote management, virtualization, Power Management and Trusted Computing. Leopard will be “required” for some things. Consumer will complain but there’s a method to Apple’s madness.
Ha ha ha ha! Are you baiting us? (I guess I’ll bite). How could Tiger be better? Are you serious?
First, the Finder, from a UI perspective is gaddawful, almost tragic. Spotlight, again from a UI perspective is almost as bad.
Second, there are TONS of problems with Tiger. “Minor bug fixes” is all you want? Don’t you read macfixit.com? How about an installer that actually works, or full Bluetooth support no matter which bluetooth adapter you install, or AFP server connections that don’t cause kernel panics, or fan management software that is sensible. Maybe Tiger runs well for you, and, it runs pretty well for me too, but a good operating system is, to me, defined first of all by predictability (broken by the horrid UI in Finder), and second of all by stability (which in all too many cases is absent).
http://www.macfixit.com
Did you overlook John Syracusa’s review. Maybe you should look at Tiger from a thoughtful computer user’s perspective.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars
Okay, I took the bait.
My major wishes in Leopard: 1) Fix the Finder and Spotlight; 2) Implement and utilize the capabilities for working with file meta-data for all they’re worth; 3) Make it stable, and not just for casual users.
And hey, I’m with you on the 64 bit question. Full 64 bit support would be nice.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that I would like Apple to just focus on fixing things and improving performance instead of adding toys like “Dashboard.” Ooof, what a stinker.
On pet peeve level: Why do the default icons for HOME and FAVORITES look like they designed them for nine year olds?
Fire away!
Mac fan: Not because it’s perfect but because it’s the best thing we have at the moment.
I agree with (most of) the last. Finder and Spotlight are a problem more than a help in Tiger.
If we had a better Finder, we wouldn’t need the current incarnation of Spotlight. Yes, I’ve heard the comments before “Well if you don’t like the Finder, tell us how it could be made better.” Others, much smarter than I have already answered those comments.
My predictions for Leopard: Large improvement for Spotlight, no improvement for Finder.
And one other of note: Performance increases for apps compiled for Intel.
Now on to my rant:
Why do we need 64bit support? Really… let’s be truly honest. I’ll go out on a limb and say 90% of current Mac users do not ever need 64bit computing. Give me an everyday, everyperson need for 64bit computing and I’ll take it back. We don’t even have full 64bit support NOW, why are you missing it??
Hell, if Apple itself can’t ever release a Pro-level 2-3 button mouse - why in the world do we need 64bit chips before other more needed features? *cough*Finder*cough*
I say Altivec should higher on everyone’s list than 64bit.
I say UI performance should be on Leopard’s shortlist.
How about proper iDisk performance and features?
Or a unified user interface?
Hmmm? Everyone is proposing how to tweak what is already there. Apple doesn’t just do that. They innovate too. Expose for example.
Yeah sure improve Finder, Spotlight and
Dashboard but what would you like in that is *NOT* already there? What innovative features would you like in Leopard?
Here’s a couple from me:
1) Screen partitioning. With screens getting bigger, it would be nice to be able to split your screen and have some apps in one, and others in another, rather than having to have a second monitor.
2) FOSS. Fast Operating System Switching. i.e. not having to reboot your Mac to switch OSes. This would possibly be something the hardware would have to handle, so not technically an OS feature.
I think the iLife suite will be more integrated within the OS.
iPhoto and iTunes for example. Why have them as separate applications when you could have a function in the finder, say like the tabs which appeared in OS 8, appear with the iPhoto functionality? Just speculating…
Oh, and Scott _ R: There is an article at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050422172929402 about how you can detach widgets from the Dashboard. It’s really easy once you know how.
What Apple ought to do is take a real hard look at the state of OS X’ GUI and begin doing intensive repair work. Right now it is a mess, from concept to implementation. And oh there are so many little things done wrong is like being devoured by a miriad little pirañas.
And I hope they start being less condescendent: in this day and age of internet search how come we don’t have a documented way of doing simple boolean searchs (and-or-not)and must rely on some gracious developer to give us notice of some esoteric symbols to be able to do that? Not only it is not that difficult for an user to understand booleans: it simply wouldn’t affect those that do not to have those capabilities. One would wish that Apple would provide an “Advanced User” option for most preferences and settings, giving us more control if we feel up to it, instead of seeing us all as, well, one button mouse guys (I know, I know, and I agree, but you know what I mean
)
If they really want to advance the Finder, they just need to pursue the web browser metaphor to the logical end: tabbed Finder windows, bookmarks, history. Plus file Cut’n’Paste. That would help a lot.
What I am afraid of is things like searchs that don’t wait for me to end typing my query and start giving me results with just a character or two in the search field, which is ridiculous most of times. That is the kind of misguided eyecandy that Apple commits to so often nowadays. We’ll see how many of those Leopard brings to the table.
I think it would be nice to have a makeover of iMovie, as the interface is good and all, but it makes massive files! And there are a limited amount of formats you can create.
Maybe QuickTime could support the formats that iMovie makes to avoid you booting up iMovie all the time just to watch a 2 minute movie.
There are the improvements that would be nice, but as for ‘new’ features i’m low on ideas....
The idea of having two OSes is good!
I think it would be nice to have a makeover of iMovie, as the interface is good and all, but it makes massive files! And there are a limited amount of formats you can create.
Maybe QuickTime could support the formats that iMovie makes to avoid you booting up iMovie all the time just to watch a 2 minute movie. (correct me if this is already possible.)
There are the improvements that would be nice, but as for ‘new’ features i’m low on ideas....
The idea of having two OSes is good! And I think laptops definetly need a better fan management system!
Finally, the price has to be low. It is essential! Because if LongHorn is being released that time, and Microsoft soft are flogging LH for $500 odd, it will make Apple look… better! if theirs is selling for… what… $50?
What do iMovie, Mail, and Safari have to do with Leopard? These are applications, not the operating system. Yes, I know Safari, for example, uses WebKit, which, as a framework, is “part” of the OS, but improving iMovie has nothing to do with improving the operating system it runs on.
Ok, here is something “new” for Leopard: Multiple desktops. I want to be able to switch to as many different desktops as I feel I need. You can do this via the program “Desktop Manager” but I want this to be built in.