Leopard Mac OS X 10.5 Screenshots and Features

[Abstract]

let me see if i understand the resolution thing:

we'll be able to adjust the resolution of monitors to really high settings, but instead of everything having to be tiny (windows, menus, text, etc.), we'll be able to make them normal size without them looking crappy? sounds awesome to me.

You can't adjust a monitor so that it has a higher resolution than it inherently does. However, if you have a high res screen, it can behave at (seemingly) lower resolutions (eg: it can operate at a size similar to 1280x800 on the MacBook), except that it would be sharper than a MacBook's screen because the screen has 1920 x 1200 pixels trying to create a desktop size equivalent to 1280x800. So instead of the 110 dpi LCD screens we have now when a 1920x1200 screen operates as a 1920 x 1200 screen, it would operate with a dpi of like 150 dpi if a 1920x1200 resolution LCD was working to create a desktop similar to a 1280 x 800 workspace.


***But again, correct me if I'm either wrong, or not entirely correct, because I want to understand this as well. 🙂



But like MarkCollette said, this resolution independence thing does scare me a bit as well. I want things to looks smaller if I have a resolution independent screen. Sure I wouldn't want text to be so small that I can't read it, but if they had a way to scale the text larger while leaving other elements nice and small, it would be rather ace.

 

[CellarDoor]

The real deal on resolution independance, is that instead of the UI being made up of images, PDFs I believe, it will be drawn using vectors. so a OS can scale anything to any size, and it will never become pixalized, because it's being drawn fresh using math instead of images.

 

[MarkCollette]

Finder:

- Have an address bar so I can copy and paste file locations. Really useful to a developer, especially with working between the Finder and Terminal.

- Have a way of seeing how much disk space directories and their children take up, both with number sizes and graphically.

- Stop freaking putting every downloaded file in the bottom right of my Desktop, on top of the last downloaded file. Put the icon anywhere else on the free half of my Desktop.

- If I empty the trash, I expect to see that volume's space taken or available value update right away for its icon, on the Desktop.

- Tabbed Finder windows?

 

[ghall]

Oooh, what fun. I can't wait until Leopard comes out. Here's to hoping it comes out January.

 

[Chef Medeski]

So that'll be Quicktime 8.0 then.

Great, but Leopard just got £20 more expensive for Quicktime Pro users. 😡 🙁

SL

Are you joking? That is crap.

 

[Abstract]

Finder:

- Have an address bar so I can copy and paste file locations. Really useful to a developer, especially with working between the Finder and Terminal.

- Have a way of seeing how much disk space directories and their children take up, both with number sizes and graphically.

- Stop freaking putting every downloaded file in the bottom right of my Desktop, on top of the last downloaded file. Put the icon anywhere else on the free half of my Desktop.

- If I empty the trash, I expect to see that volume's space taken or available value update right away for its icon, on the Desktop.

- Tabbed Finder windows?

And what about all the really simple things. Like if I select a bunch of files (eg: 8 photos), I want to be able to see the size (in Bytes) of the 8 photos I selected. Right now, Finder tells me that I have selected 8 files, but also tells me the total HD space remaining rather than the size of the 8 files.

Just some very simple things, Apple. PathFinder works so much better than Finder. Too bad it was so much slower than Finder. 🙄

 

[rdowns]

Finder:

- Stop freaking putting every downloaded file in the bottom right of my Desktop, on top of the last downloaded file. Put the icon anywhere else on the free half of my Desktop.

My downloads take the next available free speace on my desktop.

- Tabbed Finder windows?

Pretty sure this is in Leopard. Didn't we see a pic somewhere?

 

[noservice2001]

so... new macbooks wont have this yet.. 🙁

 

[mark88]

I personally find this resolution independence thing kinda scarey.

Flash movies look awful when they are set to 100% and you view them at a huge screen. And no doubt developers are in for a lot of work if they have to make all their applications 'flexible'

 

[kainjow]

And no doubt developers are in for a lot of work if they have to make all their applications 'flexible'

From my understanding, hopefully not too much work. Basically, bitmap images need to be replaced with vector images if possible (or high resolution versions - I think I read app icons should be 256x256...). Same goes for any custom GUI components (which usually just use bitmap images). Everything else is handled by the OS.

 

[SMM]

The whole resolution independance thing terrifies me. I just know we'll see some vendor or Apple have these annoying huge UI's that we can't shrink back down to their proper size. I mean the reason we buy this huge monitors is to shrink the UI and maximize free space right???

Yes, good designers and programers are sometimes hard to find.

 

[dontmatter]

Interesting. None of these features are "big" as far as selling points/innovations go - no exposé, etc. I don't expect unreleased features to be huge for 10.5, and so it seems like the OS will probably not get great reviews or have a whole lot of possible selling points. But that doesn't mean I don't think these features are unimportant or won't help sell a bunch of computers -- actually, exactly the opposite. Leopard brings the software up to the hardware, increasing the overall user experience, and increasing the benefit of new technologies. Without these kinds of updates, more cores doesn't actually mean much faster, and higher resolution screens don't mean more readable, better screens. These innovations in software set the hardware free to do whatever it can. Will my powerbook get much better with the new OS? No. Will new macs look much better in apple stores, and run faster with the same specs? Yes. Even though techies will understand these features, it wil be nontechies who buy the computer because of them, because they don't have to turn anything on, but get a better feel in their computing experience.

Which brings up two questions-

1. Does anybody know how far this resolution independence goes? Meaning, if finder and the dock are the only things that are resolution independent, but office, ilife, etc. still turn tiny, no thanks. But does carbon and cocao mean that apps built on those (which/how many apps) will automatically be scalable?

2. How does resolution independence and multicore usage compare between leopard and vista?

 

[kainjow]

Does anybody know how far this resolution independence goes? Meaning, if finder and the dock are the only things that are resolution independent, but office, ilife, etc. still turn tiny, no thanks. But does carbon and cocao mean that apps built on those (which/how many apps) will automatically be scalable?

It's system wide. All system interface controls will be resolution independent out of the box.

 

[jephrey]

I'm curious about those who gave this news a negative review?? Are they not for resolution independence? An upgrade to openGL apps behavior? QT?

I assume that QT being 64bit will rock the encoding times for h264... woohoo.

Good news. Nothing gigantic, but good news.

J

 

[dontmatter]

You can't adjust a monitor so that it has a higher resolution than it inherently does. However, if you have a high res screen, it can behave at (seemingly) lower resolutions (eg: it can operate at a size similar to 1280x800 on the MacBook), except that it would be sharper than a MacBook's screen because the screen has 1920 x 1200 pixels trying to create a desktop size equivalent to 1280x800. So instead of the 110 dpi LCD screens we have now when a 1920x1200 screen operates as a 1920 x 1200 screen, it would operate with a dpi of like 150 dpi if a 1920x1200 resolution LCD was working to create a desktop similar to a 1280 x 800 workspace.


***But again, correct me if I'm either wrong, or not entirely correct, because I want to understand this as well. 🙂



But like MarkCollette said, this resolution independence thing does scare me a bit as well. I want things to looks smaller if I have a resolution independent screen. Sure I wouldn't want text to be so small that I can't read it, but if they had a way to scale the text larger while leaving other elements nice and small, it would be rather ace.

Are you saying that you will get an effectively higher dpi # when running a screen at a lower resolution? I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think it's a little off- as you said, you're never going to get higher resolution out of a screen than it's native resolution. What you can do with resolution independence is use a high resolution screen at it's native resolution without sacrificing that nice big look of the lower resolution. It arises out of the difference, mentioned by others, of vectors versus bitmaps. That means you say that you put black pixels between some distance and direction away from a given point, rather than saying white pixel, white pixel, two, white pixel. (I'm not sure if that distance is defined as a portion of the screen or an absolute distance or what).

And i agree, scaling some things and not others, done very intelligently, would be "rather ace"

 

[dontmatter]

I'm curious about those who gave this news a negative review?? Are they not for resolution independence? An upgrade to openGL apps behavior? QT?

I assume that QT being 64bit will rock the encoding times for h264... woohoo.

Good news. Nothing gigantic, but good news.

J

"nothing gigantic" is my bet for negative votes. A few are against resolution independene, but with any software update or release of a rumored product, negatives come from people who thought it should be more.

 

[digitalbiker]

Best news yet.

I think these are great improvements. I have been waiting forever for decent OpenGL performance on par with windows. Also resolution independence is the best thing since sliced bread.

Now the compaints against high-res screens producing small fonts can be put to rest forever. We can always opt for a higher res screen and not have to worry about going blind.

Now if only Apple would address the s-s-s-s-l--l---l---oo-oooo-----w---w--wwww finder. I'll be in heaven.

 

[parenthesis]

Always exciting to see some screenshots.... though these could have had a little more "oomph" to them.

I'd expect that the closer we get to MWSF and Spring in general, we'll be seeing more exciting details.

 

[Spagolli94]

One of the things I've always liked about higher res monitors is that my palettes and toolbars are very small. Thus I can fit more palettes on the screen at one time and not have them get in the way.

I hope resolution independence doesn't make my palettes huge, like they look on lower res monitors.

 

[bousozoku]

Well, it's still the most annoying, continuous issue with OSX. Steve keeps saying it has finally been improved, but it still sucks. 😛

Remember when they released the Finder with the side panel on the left side? Man, where were we without that? I can't even remember how bad Finder was in 10.2.x 😱

We used the Favourites folder.

so... new macbooks wont have this yet.. 🙁

After Leopard is released in 2007, the new MacBooks will have it.

 

[kainjow]

Incase anyone forgets...

... Leopard resolution independence screenshots

 

[digitalbiker]

One of the things I've always liked about higher res monitors is that my palettes and toolbars are very small. Thus I can fit more palettes on the screen at one time and not have them get in the way.

I hope resolution independence doesn't make my palettes huge, like they look on lower res monitors.

I don't know wy people are so worried about this. Everything will be exactly the same size that it currently is on your computer (1 to 1). The only difference will be that with Leopard and resolution independence you'll be able to scale certain elements larger or smaller. You don't have to scale the elements if you don't want to but the option will be there.

This is a good thing. Even a great thing. No more jaggies when enlarging fonts and other elements.

 

[pizzach]

I mean the reason we buy this huge monitors is to shrink the UI and maximize free space right???

I'm going to be overly picky on this one and it may have already been said but...


-You buy a larger monitor so that things shrink LESS at higher resolutions.

-You buy a monitor with a higher resolution so that you can fit more UI in there regardless of the size of the monitor.


If I remember from some knews a while back, isn't there some kind of slider to decide the scaling?

 

[McScooby]

UI & folders / icons..

Just as coloured folders were dropped and re-introduced due to popular demand, I'd find it useful with certain tasks if icons / folders could be graded according to importance just like the star system in itunes, ie, bigger folder more important smaller less etc.

Granted in day to day tasks it may seem overkill, but combine this with colours & use of "spaces" on a cluttered desktop and I for one would use it often.

 

[Eric5h5]

The real deal on resolution independance, is that instead of the UI being made up of images, PDFs I believe, it will be drawn using vectors. so a OS can scale anything to any size, and it will never become pixalized, because it's being drawn fresh using math instead of images.

No, you can still use bitmaps. They just get scaled to whatever size. (Of course, they need to be reasonably high-res.) It's impossible to do anything other than really basic textures with just vectors.

Anyone who for some reason doesn't understand resolution independence just needs to know one thing: there isn't a downside. Don't worry about it. A lot of computer games are resolution independent these days (including the UI) and nobody freaks out about that, eh?

--Eric