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Mac OS X 10.7 to Get iOS Scrollbars?
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Not for me. It's blue, but it's not Aqua. Look above for an indication of the color/shading/transparency that combined to make the Aqua interface. It was nice when it came out, although I always felt it looked too much like a toy, but they've been moving to more muted colors for a while now. I don't want the blue to go away completely, but transparent bright blue doesn't belong in those types of interface elements. The current matte blue in the URL bar is nice, however.
EDIT:
Monochrome may be distracting, but there's another principle in play here. Colors help to visually distinguish interface elements, making it quick to identify, for instance, which button to press or which icon represents a particular program. A limited, muted color scheme is good, but I would never advocate a monochrome OS. Just look at the early Mac OS to see what that looks like (even if it'd be far smoother now, there are principles at work there that actually reduce productivity).
jW
Just one more step towards making OSX into iOS in the future. I hope those "bars" will be wider than on the iPhone because I'd like to be able to easily drag them if I want. Those ones from the photo there look awfully tiny.
then they would probably implement that too. Like how you quickly get to your artists/contacts in iOS with the alphabet.
Nope, people do. I use a Wacom tablet for my interface... I dragged a scroll bar down to read your comment.
the iOS scrollbars = not gonna happen. they function in that manner in iOS for spacial purposes. On a desktop/laptop where the screen is larger, especially with the higher resolutions we have today, there is no point in the scrollbar "hiding". However i do like the behavior and i could see that coming to Mac OS X but i doubt it as well.
My personal theory is that obviously "Lion" will be the final iteration of OS X so any iOS integration etc will be cased for the next OS from Apple. At best we could expect and iTunes 10 GUI and more multitouch gestures. I seriously doubt Lion will iOS ported to the PC - I hope not anyway.
Either way I am excited for tomorrow and glad to see Apple finally paying some much needed attention to their other business, personal computers.
My personal theory is that obviously "Lion" will be the final iteration of OS X so any iOS integration etc will be cased for the next OS from Apple. At best we could expect and iTunes 10 GUI and more multitouch gestures. I seriously doubt Lion will iOS ported to the PC - I hope not anyway.
Either way I am excited for tomorrow and glad to see Apple finally paying some much needed attention to their other business, personal computers.
My guess is smaller, faster OS
Xcode 4 uses the LLVM compiler which makes smaller and faster executables. Xcode is in Developer preview state right now and my guess is that it will go public in the next Mac OS. So.... why not start the ball rolling with recompiling the OS using LLVM so we have a smaller and faster OS?
Another WAG? Built-in ability to run Windows programs. That is something the business community has been wanting for some time now and would go far to advance Mac sales. It would give business buyers fewer worries to make the switch. Home computing is decreasing in importance as most people only need an iPad for what they do. The future for power users who still need desktop horsepower, is in business users and power home users.
Just my guesses for some radical, yet subtle, changes.
Xcode 4 uses the LLVM compiler which makes smaller and faster executables. Xcode is in Developer preview state right now and my guess is that it will go public in the next Mac OS. So.... why not start the ball rolling with recompiling the OS using LLVM so we have a smaller and faster OS?
Another WAG? Built-in ability to run Windows programs. That is something the business community has been wanting for some time now and would go far to advance Mac sales. It would give business buyers fewer worries to make the switch. Home computing is decreasing in importance as most people only need an iPad for what they do. The future for power users who still need desktop horsepower, is in business users and power home users.
Just my guesses for some radical, yet subtle, changes.
Scroll bars won't be the big news (duh!). I'm predicting that Mac OS 10.7 will include a new feature that will allow you to store your home directory (documents) and "personality" (settings, configuration, extensions, etc.) on a SDHC/SDXC flash card that can be moved freely between Macs and eventually -- possibly -- to any iOS device. What this means is that you can move your environment to another Mac by just exchanging the SD card. Thus, if you have multiple Macs (desktop/notebook) or one Mac at home and another at work you'll just need to "move" the SD card and you'll be right back where you left off on the other computer. It will also make sharing a Mac pretty easy since you'll just swap the SD card to switch users.
I suspect that this is going to be the future of computing anyway (that and cloud-based storage). The advantage of the SD storage over the "cloud" is speed, it could easily be an order of magnitude faster (or much more) than relying on the internet.
The disadvantages, well there are some. They'll be issues with security, backup, and compatibility with existing software but Apple will have to "fix" those when they release 10.7. They will also have to provide a mechanism to sync between cards or between a card and a workspace that exists on the Mac's internal drive. Storage capacity will also be an issue (for some users), since I think the largest SDHC cards at present are only 32GBs (but SDXC supports up to 2TBs). In any case, as the cost/GB goes down and the speed goes up on SDHC/SDXC, these cards will be a natural for storing your personal data. Then, all you will need is a super fast flash drive in your computer for the OS store and you'll have an essentially instant on system that can be quickly reconfigured for any specific user.
Of course, this will be an optional setup and you'll still be able to use the internal drive for local storage if you don't want to rely on the SD cards.
I suspect that this is going to be the future of computing anyway (that and cloud-based storage). The advantage of the SD storage over the "cloud" is speed, it could easily be an order of magnitude faster (or much more) than relying on the internet.
The disadvantages, well there are some. They'll be issues with security, backup, and compatibility with existing software but Apple will have to "fix" those when they release 10.7. They will also have to provide a mechanism to sync between cards or between a card and a workspace that exists on the Mac's internal drive. Storage capacity will also be an issue (for some users), since I think the largest SDHC cards at present are only 32GBs (but SDXC supports up to 2TBs). In any case, as the cost/GB goes down and the speed goes up on SDHC/SDXC, these cards will be a natural for storing your personal data. Then, all you will need is a super fast flash drive in your computer for the OS store and you'll have an essentially instant on system that can be quickly reconfigured for any specific user.
Of course, this will be an optional setup and you'll still be able to use the internal drive for local storage if you don't want to rely on the SD cards.
"iOS Scrollbars" = multitouch OS X 10.7
Once you get past all this silly babble about old scrollbars vs. new scrollbars, you'll realize that it's not about the scrollbars at all:
OS X 10.7 will be designed to include full touchscreen / multitouch devices.
Yes, there is a touchscreen Mac in the near future.*
Yes, there is an iOS / OS X integration or convergence sometime in the future. (But it's not as simple as let's make one like the other.)
You see, it's never about where Apple "is" at any given time or how this compares to what "was." It's all about where Apple "is going" in the future. You are being led down a very thoughtful, well-planned path to future device interaction.
*Yeah, I know there have been third-party modded touchscreen Macbooks around for a while. Apple is going to do it right, as they usually do, with a fully integrated hardware+software experience as they've done all along the way. It's not going to be an existing Macbook with a touchscreen feature, and it's not going to be a souped up iPad with a keyboard. It will be the best of both worlds, as Jobs and co. don't usually settle for less. And yes, they have screwed up before. They are not perfect. But they will get a whole lot right, and do so much better than most anyone else.
Once you get past all this silly babble about old scrollbars vs. new scrollbars, you'll realize that it's not about the scrollbars at all:
OS X 10.7 will be designed to include full touchscreen / multitouch devices.
Yes, there is a touchscreen Mac in the near future.*
Yes, there is an iOS / OS X integration or convergence sometime in the future. (But it's not as simple as let's make one like the other.)
You see, it's never about where Apple "is" at any given time or how this compares to what "was." It's all about where Apple "is going" in the future. You are being led down a very thoughtful, well-planned path to future device interaction.
*Yeah, I know there have been third-party modded touchscreen Macbooks around for a while. Apple is going to do it right, as they usually do, with a fully integrated hardware+software experience as they've done all along the way. It's not going to be an existing Macbook with a touchscreen feature, and it's not going to be a souped up iPad with a keyboard. It will be the best of both worlds, as Jobs and co. don't usually settle for less. And yes, they have screwed up before. They are not perfect. But they will get a whole lot right, and do so much better than most anyone else.
Good! I hate, hate, HATE the aqua scrollbars. They look like something from a terrible website from 1999. Good riddance!
Really?
Is Jobs losing his sense of color? Just because the Apple logo went to silver doesn't mean the whole OS needs to follow! I mean come on, does anybody actually think the new grayscale iTunes interface looks better than the previous version?
Is Jobs losing his sense of color? Just because the Apple logo went to silver doesn't mean the whole OS needs to follow! I mean come on, does anybody actually think the new grayscale iTunes interface looks better than the previous version?
If the rubber band scrolling is coming into OS X then it's not only for the benefit of people using the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad.
The touchscreen Mac is coming ... maybe even as soon as tomorrow, albeit in demo form.
The touchscreen Mac is coming ... maybe even as soon as tomorrow, albeit in demo form.
I like the idea of iOS scroll bars. I never use the scroll bars anyway.
I'm more interesting on what they will do to Quick Look, as I use that everyday.
I'm more interesting on what they will do to Quick Look, as I use that everyday.
while we're discussing scroll bars..
I've always(since the iPhone is when time started for me) wished they'd put the alphabetical letters in the scroll bar of iTunes like it is on iOS so that I could skip to a section quickly. Just subtly in the scroll bar behind the scrolling piece. Ok this has nothing to do with anything, but I figured this was my one shot at discussing the scroll bar and any feature I could add to it.
Jake
I've always(since the iPhone is when time started for me) wished they'd put the alphabetical letters in the scroll bar of iTunes like it is on iOS so that I could skip to a section quickly. Just subtly in the scroll bar behind the scrolling piece. Ok this has nothing to do with anything, but I figured this was my one shot at discussing the scroll bar and any feature I could add to it.
Jake
I agree, though that assumes you're using a notebook computer.
What does the rubber banding add? Calling this a useful addition seems about as silly as calling a change in UI color a new feature.
I honestly do not understand what would be so bad about "Mac OS X turning into iOS". Apple is would never limit the functionality of their computers. Even if the visual interface changes, you're not going to lose functionality or compatibility. If anything, merging Mac OS with iOS is a good thing because it will bring more functionality to the iPad, making it a legit computer rather than a glorified iPod touch. I guess I can see the negatives if you just don't want the visual interface to change that drastically, but I'm honestly open to giving it a try before slamming it. The UI that is standard today is great, but just because it's what we've always had doesn't mean something drastically different couldn't be better. Rather than just making slight changes to the typical UI we're so used to, drastically changing it could prove to be really beneficial, especially with interactive touch screen technology becoming increasingly popular, and possibly (probably) becoming standardized in the future.
