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Apple Exploring 3D Desktop and Application Interfaces
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Cue morons talking about some absurd Dick Tracy or Batman technology where you can have a phone on your wrist or in your pocket. Better yet, cue some moron spewing off some form of communication that involves tapping on so-called "keyboards" in a world they call the "internet".
This kinda reminds me of the Playstation Home arugement...
Why would you want to walk around a virtual world to interact with people when you can have a nice, quick menu screen.
Why would you want to walk around a virtual world to interact with people when you can have a nice, quick menu screen.
The current implementation shown by Apple would be a disaster. A 3D GUI on a 2D display simply doesn't work. Like many have said here, it would be completely inefficient.
I'd rather Apple concentrate on making the current 2D UI better with a side project of creating a completely new 3D UI (not that 2D crap in a 3D environment seen in the patents diagrams) for future 3D displays.
I'd rather Apple concentrate on making the current 2D UI better with a side project of creating a completely new 3D UI (not that 2D crap in a 3D environment seen in the patents diagrams) for future 3D displays.
Apple has always been about usability first and style second. This strikes me as more form than substance, and I really hope it remains conceptual... until they invent a true 3D display, of course.
The concept reminds me of BumpTop. The idea of the app is to more naturally recreate the experience of dealing with papers on your physical desktop. Upon hearing this, I looked around my desk and wondered why anyone would want to mimic that, but to each his own I guess. The same goes for the 3D interface. However, unless designers are allowed to design their icons in 3D, I don't see the point. I think that would be the place to start.
The concept reminds me of BumpTop. The idea of the app is to more naturally recreate the experience of dealing with papers on your physical desktop. Upon hearing this, I looked around my desk and wondered why anyone would want to mimic that, but to each his own I guess. The same goes for the 3D interface. However, unless designers are allowed to design their icons in 3D, I don't see the point. I think that would be the place to start.
BumpTop has some clunky aspects to it, but I can see how it could be more intuitive to use for non-computer-savvy people (of which there are fewer and fewer). The lasso movements would be really natural on a multi-touch pad, much like the commands on many iPhone games (e.g., swipe-and-swirl). So I can see Apple developing this idea in a really user-friendly way. Then we'll all wonder how we lived so long with flat desktops.
I like how the bottom surface is depicted as working. Stacking windows like photographs in front of the traditional desktop. like the entire bottom portion of your screen becomes an extended dock.
This would work really well on larger screens like the 30" monitor, but I can see this being something you'd need to turn off on the 13" macbook or air.
I would hope that apps (especially pro apps with many palettes and tools) would be able to continue to access all of the screen real estate.
How cool would it be if the 3d part of the finder/desktop was activated like expose and your desktop zoomed back in 3d at the touch of a button to reveal the 3d interface elements.
Mmmm. Eye Candy. *drool*
This would work really well on larger screens like the 30" monitor, but I can see this being something you'd need to turn off on the 13" macbook or air.
I would hope that apps (especially pro apps with many palettes and tools) would be able to continue to access all of the screen real estate.
How cool would it be if the 3d part of the finder/desktop was activated like expose and your desktop zoomed back in 3d at the touch of a button to reveal the 3d interface elements.
Mmmm. Eye Candy. *drool*
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I think that this technology is really close to becoming a reality. I'm anxious to see how Apple implements it. I think that it may be a bust if you have to wear some sort of glasses but everything that I've seen seem to point to not having to wear anything. We will see.
I think that this technology is really close to becoming a reality. I'm anxious to see how Apple implements it. I think that it may be a bust if you have to wear some sort of glasses but everything that I've seen seem to point to not having to wear anything. We will see.
On a flat screen, yes - it's all just more simulation. However, imagine it in a 3D holographic environment where your screen is all around you..
That's what I was thinking - not necessarily all around you but it would be more natural - I don't think the world is ready for this but imagine you "walk in" to your desktop and go to your file cabinet to open the finder - everything is 3d doesn't mean space that everyone is unfamiliar with - it's more like very real virtuality - forget ichat - actually see the person on the desktop talking to you (they obviously can do that with the new alpha out effects)
This could be a very natural way of computing.
I'm not against changing things. Change is good, and constantly trying to improve or evolve designs is a great thing, and something apple is famous for.
I don't think a psudo 3d environment is a great idea. This isn't really three dimensional, as we are still using 2d displays. So displaying 2d information that has been skewed to represent a 3d plane, seems counter productive. All you are doing is making that information less legible and less useful.
A real 3d environment, however, has great potential. Productivity could be increased by working with layers in a real 3d space, or perhaps working with a whole landscape.
Just a thought, but if 3d can prove to increase productivity, what about 4d? Perhaps in the future we will be working in poly-dimensional space, inconceivable to us at the moment, but surely very usefull!
Isn't the 4th dimension time? We have that - at least one way - TimeMachine
None of those situations you cite violate the laws of physics. Unfortunately, this laser-beaming-thing (which I thought up on the spur of the moment as something I thought everybody would instantly recognise as being indefensible and patently absurd) will require a constant line of sight between the iPhone3D and both eyes, which is very difficult to maintain. When it's behind your back, it can't beam into your eyes (fair enough), but when it's on your far left, the path of sight may require firing a laser beam through the bridge of your nose.
Lets stick to actual physical reality.
Maybe we'll see a redesigned Finder and Desktop with 10.7. Possibly some extra peripherals to use with it. I would think they'd want to have the system optimized first, as they're doing with 10.6. This experience wouldn't be attractive unless it ran completely fluid, IMO.
I completely agree with you. Look at how much of the screen is wasted so it can have a 3-D appearance. If that screen belonged to a MacBook then the application window is only going to be a little over 11". The smaller the screen, the less cluttered it needs to be, so Apple should make it so we can ditch the dock and use the old style menu bar.
I can imagine this type of UI, but would be useless with today's positioning devices. Mouse is about moving your hand, trackpad about moving your fingers.. but both can control only X Y axes at a time. To be able to effectively control 3D enviroment, we need to move hand for X Y, and finger up and down for Z axis.. Like using the wheel on mouse as left click and eventually scrolling when dragging (but this is not a very comfortable way).
You know, it looked like it would be good for people who were intimidated by computers, but M$ made such a screw-up of it that instead of helping, it became a big disastrous joke!
The Edsel was supposed to be a revolutionary great car, but look what happened to that. I'd also put the Segway in the category of great ideas that underperform in reality.
i rated this negative because our screens are overloaded with stuff as it is. making it 3d makes everything more complicated. it might look cool but what good does it do when you work with EXCEL 90% of the time or PS. Individual apps like games or itunes could use something like this for fun but not for serious work.
Looks cool! Reminds me of some software i saw on windows 3.1 which gave a living room kind of environment to managing files on the PC. I dont remember the name. Anybody?
Dock
I've been experimenting with Apple's new 5-dimensional desktop, it can get complicated though...
Take the Dock Preferences for example, in 10.5 it can be bottom, left or right...
In 10.7 it's bottom left, bottom right, back left, back right, intermediate middle left, intermediate middle bottom or left back front, or combinations of rear, left, middle, side, back bottom, side or middle of the screen (intermediate hasn't yet been implemented)
It's quite good, but because it's multi-dimensional, you have to be careful when you use Dock Magnification, easy on a 10.5 Mac I know, but the Dock icon expands into the fourth dimension, becoming invisible or expanding into an unknown realm, opening up a black hole, spilling your documents into the delta quadrant...
The new Windows version is great though they have this...
C:\>_
I've been experimenting with Apple's new 5-dimensional desktop, it can get complicated though...
Take the Dock Preferences for example, in 10.5 it can be bottom, left or right...
In 10.7 it's bottom left, bottom right, back left, back right, intermediate middle left, intermediate middle bottom or left back front, or combinations of rear, left, middle, side, back bottom, side or middle of the screen (intermediate hasn't yet been implemented)
It's quite good, but because it's multi-dimensional, you have to be careful when you use Dock Magnification, easy on a 10.5 Mac I know, but the Dock icon expands into the fourth dimension, becoming invisible or expanding into an unknown realm, opening up a black hole, spilling your documents into the delta quadrant...
The new Windows version is great though they have this...
C:\>_
You're kidding right? AFAIK Apple has always taken aesthetics first; take the MacBook Air for example; seriously. Or the new MacBook. IF you're telling me removing FW and using a proprietary video adapter isn't about improving aesthetics (by not having more ports on the right side). I doubt that's improving functionality.