My OS X 10.9 Hopes and Wishes

Numbers correspond to those on your list.

1. Please, no. iOS is a touch-oriented OS.

3. Never gonna happen for Apple's OS.

4. iTunes Store should be in iTunes because it's called iTunes Store.

7. Why are system requirements included in a wishlist

9. Better multimonitor support.

What I hope, realistically. Obviously Apple isn't going to do things such as less iOS-ification:

1. Improved Safari
2. No skeumorphism
3. Less bloat, smaller framework, less memory usage
4. More unified UI (with the built in applications especially)
5. Improved graphics APIs, better and updated OpenGL support (this is especially important for the Retina displays, but GPU performance should be increased across the board)
6. Energy-saving safari-only mode without booting into Mac OS X
7. Unify iTunes Store with App Store
8. Better multi-monitor support
9. New iTunes, keep it a separate application, but integrate it with the UI
10. Siri
11. Improve Notification Center - make it more useful, let it know when you need to update, when battery usage is low, etc.

Why do I get the feeling that the OP had been using a Mac for less than a year, or a victim of Apple's Halo Effect...?

I only have one really and that is
BETTER MULTI MONITOR SUPPORT.

Everything else I don't care too much about. But that one got worse and needs fixing. Mission control and Full Screen Mode is what I am talking about.

1. Desktop functionality. I think this area is where OS X could really be innovative. Whether it be productive widgets or a notification center, it needs to take a step up from primarily being just a folder for files and shortcuts, which was innovative like 20 years ago.

2. Start to introduce touch-based elements. Perhaps a redesign of finder and window management for touch input. Possibly a touch mode alongside a mouse + keyboard mode would be nice. They need to make OS X an effective work OS capable of touch. Future hardware might be the iPad Pro running OS X.

3. Increase system efficiency in power usage and resources.

Basically unify iOS and OS X while keeping OS X's workflow experience.

TSE said:

What I hope, realistically. Obviously Apple isn't going to do things such as less iOS-ification:

1. Improved Safari
2. No skeumorphism
3. Less bloat, smaller framework, less memory usage
4. More unified UI (with the built in applications especially)
5. Improved graphics APIs, better and updated OpenGL support (this is especially important for the Retina displays, but GPU performance should be increased across the board)
6. Energy-saving safari-only mode without booting into Mac OS X
7. Unify iTunes Store with App Store
8. Better multi-monitor support
9. New iTunes, keep it a separate application, but integrate it with the UI
10. Siri
11. Improve Notification Center - make it more useful, let it know when you need to update, when battery usage is low, etc.

Click to expand...

You get update notifications.

MonkeySee.... said:

You get update notifications.

Click to expand...

Weird. I haven't received one yet, and my computer has been updated several times just by me manually checking it every couple weeks.

TSE said:

Weird. I haven't received one yet, and my computer has been updated several times just by me manually checking it every couple weeks.

Click to expand...

Whats weirder is I thought I'd search for an image to show you that I wasn't lying and nothing is coming up.

Curious. haha. It is there I promise!

53kyle said:

I have been using Mac since 2006

Click to expand...

It's okay... pay no attention because there are haters among us who take comfort putting others down.

1. Notification Centre I rarely get any notification of facebook or twitter updates via Notification Centre for some reason? It needs to work better. Plus possibly ability to add small widgets to it, like weather for example.

2. Lock Screen Notifications on the Lock Screen e.g. iMessage's, Calender, Facebook and Twitter. Newer and more intuitive way to unlock MacBook: maybe facial recognition or a multi-touch gesture defined by the user (+ the standard password lock)

3. Launchpad Firstly get rid of the ridiculous name! Secondly, make transitions smoother especially with Folders.

4. Dashboard and Desktop Move the functionality of Dashboard onto the desktop. Make the desktop a little more fun to use.

5. Icons and Finder Perhaps change the look of the standard Folder icons. They are getting old and outdated now. So is Finder. UI change needed.

There are way too many ways of opening an application: spotlight, launchpad, dock, application folder. If launchpad was any good, I'd say kill the dock. They should make a better launchpad, like integrate the finder into it. Also the top menu bar is superfluous, I never use it (and this is coming from a guy who cut his teeth on system 6).

53kyle said:

1. Huge redesign for apps to look more like iOS

2. Huge finder redesign:
Tabs
Split finder window
Pretty much everything TotalFinder has to offer

3. More customization for UI like themes, window colors, button colors

5. ZFS file system as HFS is getting old

Click to expand...

1. Huge redesign for apps to look more like iOS

Any rationale for this? Is it just the aesthetics you are looking for, or how you interact with apps as well as their behaviour?

2. Huge finder redesign:
Tabs
Split finder window
Pretty much everything TotalFinder has to offer

Very unlikely to occur as Finder works and if you need power user features, well then you get some other app (TotalFinder or Path Finder). Furthermore, Finder was completely re-written for Lion (or if it was for Mountain Lion, can’t remember everything ) to utilize Cocoa instead of Carbon, why do a complete re-design again after just one year? Seems very short-sighted to me, and being short-sighted doesn’t feel very Apple.

(Not that I, like you, wouldn’t want tabs and other nice power user features but that is just what they are; power user features.)

3. More customization for UI like themes, window colors, button colors

Please no, please don’t allow people to make their OS look like **** and make the OS a hundred time more complex and buggy. Oh wait, this is never ever going to happen while any sane persons is in charge at Apple? *exhales-like-I-just-dodged-a-bullet*

5. ZFS file system as HFS is getting old

This would be awesome, unfortunately it seems as if Apple have abandoned the effort to switch to ZFS. It is speculated that this was due to some licensing issues. One of the primary guys who were working on it have even left and started his own company (now bought by GreenBytes) which have released ZFS for OS X.

Their are however signals that we will get a new file system, maybe based on Brtfs instead.
----

Onto some of my wishes.

I would personally love to see an improved multi-screen implementation. Just allow me to move fullscreened apps/windows between screens and have one app/window per screen (e.g. Mail on left screen while Calendar is on the right screen, both in fullscreen mode). It could be managed by the user via Mission Control. Pretty please?

Better iCloud implementation and API. Also improve the documents in the cloud part, so many problems with it just on the conceptual level. Such as, how do I switch to a new text editor, what happens if I remove an app or it is pulled from the store (i.e. how the fudge do I get access to all my 186 text documents?) and so on.

RSL said:

There are way too many ways of opening an application: spotlight, launchpad, dock, application folder. If launchpad was any good, I'd say kill the dock. They should make a better launchpad, like integrate the finder into it. Also the top menu bar is superfluous, I never use it (and this is coming from a guy who cut his teeth on system 6).

Click to expand...

Launchpad is absolutely useless. The dock can hold aliases for those apps used regularly; Spotlight is more than adequate for opening those apps not used regularly but often enough that the names are remembered.

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53kyle said:

1. Huge redesign for apps to look more like iOS

2. Huge finder redesign:
Tabs
Split finder window
Pretty much everything TotalFinder has to offer

3. More customization for UI like themes, window colors, button colors

4. New iOS like apps such as separate iTunes Store, Maps, iBooks, etc.

5. ZFS file system as HFS is getting old

6. Siri (That would make the perfect OS itself for me!)

7. System Requirements:
5 GB Hard Drive Space Available
4 GB Memory

iMac 2009 or later
MacBook Air 2010 or Later
MacBook Pro 2008 or Later
MacBook 2008 (Aluminum) or 2009 (Unibody) or Later
Mac Mini 2010 or Later
Mac Pro 2008 or Later
Xserve 2009 or Later

In other words, any Mac with either multitouch capabilities, unibody, or other
currently supported macs that never had unibody

8. New cat name

9. More if you can think of any

Click to expand...

The LAST we need is for our computers to look like giant iToys.

What am I hoping for?

Giant performance increases.

"But why? OS X works so well..."

It does, but at this point Windows 8 just feels more responsive on my Macbook Air. It might be the large update that they did to help with responsiveness and battery life, I'm not sure.

The point is, OS X is no longer the best OS on my Mac. And that's something sad, all things considered.

All I want is some way or form to make it black themed with white text... not just pure white.

TSE said:

2. No skeumorphism

Click to expand...

This would be enough for me.

RSL said:

... the top menu bar is superfluous, I never use it (and this is coming from a guy who cut his teeth on system 6).

Click to expand...

Wow, that's surprising. I find that the Menu Bar is the best way to explore what an application can do, just by looking through the options. That is, after all, why it's called a menu bar. Discoverability would be hugely reduced without it.

To the poster wanting more iOS-like apps, I disagree. (Strongly. Vehemently. Furiously, even)! Every friggin' app has a completely different UI which one has to learn all over again. And some of them are just bad, sometime it's really hard to figure out how to do something which would be really easy to figure out if you could just look through the menu bar. I suspect that trying to implement really complex programs that have lots of menu options, lots of features which you could at any one time want to use, with an iOS-style interface, would lead to severe mental fatigue in the first phase, and then depression, anxiety and possibly uncontrolled twitching of eyelids or fingers.

I think the fundamental concept of consistency of interface which the Mac once had was (one of) its greatest strength(s). Command-Q is always Quit. One didn't have to re-learn every application. My experience in dealing with Windows-using colleagues, and even more so Unix-using colleagues, is that they just don't appreciate the concept of interface consistency. I do, and it really bugs me when things are different for no apparent reason. (E.g. those idiotic '70s era text editors like Vim, which so many people at my work still cling to. Why learn a whole new complicated program which responds to arcane sequences of 'commands' just to edit a text file? Idiotic!).

aggri1 said:

Wow, that's surprising. I find that the Menu Bar is the best way to explore what an application can do, just by looking through the options. That is, after all, why it's called a menu bar. Discoverability would be hugely reduced without it.

Click to expand...

Yup! I meant in the finder, not in apps

TSE said:

Weird. I haven't received one yet, and my computer has been updated several times just by me manually checking it every couple weeks.

Click to expand...

You get an update notification if you have the app store application open. Just like you only get mail notifications if you have the mail app open. Kinda dumb but I've just gotten in the habit of leaving everything open and that way I get all my notifications.

StintheBeast said:

You get an update notification if you have the app store application open. Just like you only get mail notifications if you have the mail app open. Kinda dumb but I've just gotten in the habit of leaving everything open and that way I get all my notifications.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Why do we need App Store open to get notifications? This makes notifications a rather half-baked feature. Next OSX should improve on this.