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OSX Features I'd like to see

F

fred_garvin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 6, 2003
102
49
In some of the Panther threads, I've seen people say they can't imagine what apple could add to the os beyond Jaguar. Once we have more muscle in the hardware, I think there are a ton of features that should be added over time. What features do you think we'll have in 5 or 10 years time that we'll take for granted?

For now, I'd like to see:

Artificial intelligence built into the OS:

The AI could track apps I've installed, and when they were used. Say I have a bunch of junk I installed 6 months ago and haven't used in 4 months. The OS could generate a report and bring this to my attention, suggesting that perhaps I should blow away, or archive these apps to maintain a clean system. I could manually select the ones to clean up. Blow away deletes them, archive automatically moves the app to a temp folder, tars/gzips it, and moves the gip to an archive area. A user could selectively restore an app from archive later on if needed.

The OS should also maintain a list of all my apps, and how they arrived on my system. This includes all upgrades/patches. The where could include CD with volume name, iDisk info, System update and url for downloaded apps/patches. This data should also be stored in my archive. If my system is ever trashed, I have a checklist of what apps I need to install, and where to get the installers. Also serial nums/keys could be stored here. For ease of use, I could tell the system to automatically download the apps that came from the web, .Mac, System Update, or the LAN. I could then install everything in a batch.

The OS should intelligently tar/gzip my the home directory behind the scenes. They could do a full backup, or use an incremental scheme to simply compress the modified files. This could be configured to daily/weekly/monthy. If you have 2 hard drives, the system should be smart enough to suggest putting the archive on the second drive to protect from failures. On occasion, the system should present you a message asking you to insert a dvd-r/rw to backup your archive offline. Allow users to specify a LAN location for backups as well. Optionally allow users to also backup the applications folder to save them from having to reinstall as stated above, at the expense of disk space.

The OS should optionally provide CVS services for my documents. I suppose the journaling filesytem does this, but I am not very familiar with it. Does journaling allow one to retrieve past revisions and perform a diff on the two versions? Can I select a doc, and in a user friendly ui, see all revisions and dates, and view any of them or view the diff between any two versions?

Apple should provide an "i app" that simply wraps mySql and allows users to easily create simple databases. They could have templates for movie collections, recepies, etc. With built in Apache and this i app, users could use a 3rd party tool to easily generate some php code to add simple database capability to their personal websites. .Mac integration could allow users to upload their mySql database with one click, and publish their db driven site. This would really add value and distinguish .Mac from the hundreds of website builders out there.

Apple should refresh plaintalk and put back finder sounds.
 
I opt for builtin backing up, and the record of installed apps (to make removing easier than cmd+f). Others,

1. Improved screen refreshing
This may be the apps, but it is most present in Mozilla and MS Office

2. Editible iTunes Radio lists

3. Fixed Premiere sync cature problem
I mostly blaim Adobe, but Apple fixing it would be grand (and QT6.3 does not fix this)

4. Finding a way to emulate DX or something so games could be ported easier

5. Finalize Safari
Yes!

6. Include MacJanitor

7. Include Audio recorder
Spark ME is a good free one that Apple could license/buy.

8. Build the Mac into a gold humanoid shell that can walk around and say "I don't know what all this trouble's about, but I'm sure it's your fault." Perferably a little trash can that could follow it around and beep would be a plus.
 
Make is able to make me breakfast....

The Tibook can allready kinda do this, all you gota do is flip it over and put the eggs and toast and wala.... allthought it does get the case kinda dirty and the spachla chips the paint:( but its the closest thing out there right now........

it would be nice if my computer would make me breakfast in the morning so all i would have to do is get up and eat......

They should inroduce appliances and little robot to go along with it........... by breakfast i mean sittting on the table waiting for me........its not that hard to make eggs and toast!!
 
Originally posted by Huked on Fonick
Make is able to make me breakfast....

The Tibook can allready kinda do this, all you gota do is flip it over and put the eggs and toast and wala.... allthought it does get the case kinda dirty and the spachla chips the paint:( but its the closest thing out there right now........

it would be nice if my computer would make me breakfast in the morning so all i would have to do is get up and eat......

They should inroduce appliances and little robot to go along with it........... by breakfast i mean sittting on the table waiting for me........its not that hard to make eggs and toast!!
Click to expand...
I aggree, it should have a juce despencer too.
but breakfast with a tibook is pretty easy
if you want waffels you can pour the batter on the keybord and than close the lid and you will have great key shaped waffels in a few minutes.
 
apple will never get directx, microsoft would lose one of their big advantages over apple if they let them have it.

iJon
 
im on a pc and i need the mac-ambulance

Well i dunno about y'all but im hella excited about the upcoming release of Panther. It's a whole new world of opportunity for Apple to strut it's stuff and show everyone else in silicon valley as well as the entire PC world just how innovative they really are. I think it's gonna be every bit as revolutionary as we've been lead to believe and then some. Counting the days to WWDC.

In terms of functionality, me being a PC user who is internally a mac addict there's something I wanna see come forth in the next few OS generations. I play a lotta flight simulator as well as other graphic intensive flight sim games. (That and the updating of the 15" powerbook being the only reason i haven't made the switch yet.) I'd like to see some kind of insertion of a directX compatibility from Mac OS X or RealPC/Virtual PC. If something of that nature is put into production what possibly could PC uses have left to complain about (especially those arrogant gamers)? They can play they're games while having the elegance and simplicity of OS X as well as the stability of unix. Apple would gain a huge share of the gaming industry; we all know that graphic intensive operations are one of the reasons macs are praised. I dunno whether it's possible or not due to licensing, patenting or software compatability, the whole .exe crap but im sure there's a way to work it out. It would be a dream come true for me to see something like that on the market one day. I need my flight sim, but even more so i need a mac. I plan to switch this august or this christmas depending on when the PPC 970 makes it into the Powerbooks. PUTTIN THE POWER BACK IN TO POWERBOOK.

My fellow Macs-men/woman lend me your ideas let our voices be heard and other heroic type stuff that mel gibson should be saying.

Im writin this post from a Dell POS so ur gonna hafta forgive me for still being tied into my PC nightmare. :mad::)
 
You know what needs to be in Panther?

The little Oscar-the-Grouch animation in the Trash Can from back in OS 6 or something. Even though it'd be kinda small doing that in the dock... But still, THAT was awesome. (For those of you who don't know, it was a little doohickey that made Oscar the Grouch pop up whenever you trashed something.)
 
piles is what i m waiting for...
and a better update function.
looking for instance all the appz in you applications folding, calling a centralized site, get the address of the single programms, and if there is a free update for the app you have installed point it out to be updated. that would be like debian, and that s what i really like most on linux. it just updates every single package if you want it to ;-)
 
wishlist:

-global setting for the view type. if i like the list mode, i want all the finder windows that ever come up on my screen to be in that view by default, including external drives, etc.

-i want the folder icon in the title bar of every finder window to function as an actual folder. it's a pain in the arse to move files one directory up if you are in anything but the column view.

-customizable icon placement on the desktop. if i have my dock on the right side of the screen (IMO, the most real estate friendly place to put it), i want all the icons to crowd the left side of the screen. sure, you can move "permanent" icons to the left, but whenever you stick in a removable media, it shows up on the right side, under the dock and thus hard to access.

-finder windows should be re-sizable from any part of the border

-built in PC-compatible multi-session CD burn.

-lock function on system config should work as intended. as of now, if you log out and come back in, things you locked can be unlocked. i think this happens when it's admin account, but it's still unacceptable.

-multiple login. (a.k.a. XP) i know they are working on this, and i hope they do it right.

-more responsive UI

these are very minor things... but they make a huge difference in everyday usability!
 
i'd like to have column view available after/during doing a search from a finder toolbar. right now it automatically goes to list view and it's not changable. this annoys the hell out of me. i'd like to see Mail.app improved, actually i'd like to see it totally rebuilt because it's garbage right now. i'd like to have the option for transparent finder windows without a system hack.
 
Originally posted by orangefoodie
You know what needs to be in Panther?

The little Oscar-the-Grouch animation in the Trash Can from back in OS 6 or something. Even though it'd be kinda small doing that in the dock... But still, THAT was awesome. (For those of you who don't know, it was a little doohickey that made Oscar the Grouch pop up whenever you trashed something.)
Click to expand...

I remember that little guy! It was called "The Grouch", and he would either sing "I love it because it's trash!" or "Oh, I love trash!" Probably wouldn't be too hard to do up something of the sort for OS X...
 
I've only got a couple of requests.

1. Most important - fix the crashing problem if you disconnect a volume that's network mounted on your desktop.

2. Ability to print to printers plugged into Windows machines. I believe you need to manually configure CUPS or something to do this at the moment.

3. Regarding DirectX, WineX for Linux has DirectX support. I believe the DX instructions have been rewritten by the WineX people, rather than running the MS code, is this correct? If so, it shouldn't be too difficult to recompile those DX instructions for OS X.
 
A faster help viewer, mine is incredibly slow.
It takes a few minutes to do a word search.
 
Re: OSX Features I'd like to see

Originally posted by fred_garvin
The AI could track apps I've installed, and when they were used. Say I have a bunch of junk I installed 6 months ago and haven't used in 4 months. The OS could generate a report and bring this to my attention, suggesting that perhaps I should blow away, or archive these apps to maintain a clean system. I could manually select the ones to clean up. Blow away deletes them, archive automatically moves the app to a temp folder, tars/gzips it, and moves the gip to an archive area. A user could selectively restore an app from archive later on if needed.
Click to expand...

so just an apple version of the WInXP add/remove programs menu?

By apple version, i mean take something crap and make it amazing ;)
 
one of my new favorite features of panther that they didnt advertise was system file reconition. i downloaded a screen saver, it gave it an icon and i clicked on it. it said this is a screen saver, do you want to install. i said yes and it asked if it should install for just me or everyone. same with fonts. asked if i wanted to install and i said yes and it opened font book and there it was.

iJon
 
That's cool iJon.

I really want the included iApps to be upgraded. Fix the quirks in mail, and more importantly, make iCal usable. For a serious upgrade to iCal, I would pay 129 bucks alone. Everything else is gravy.

Also, make it as close to bug free as possible. Don't make me wait for 10.3.1 or 10.3.2 to buy the upgrade.
 
oscar

Originally posted by Santiago
I remember that little guy! It was called "The Grouch", and he would either sing "I love it because it's trash!" or "Oh, I love trash!" Probably wouldn't be too hard to do up something of the sort for OS X...
Click to expand...
I remember that guy. I had him on my old Performa. Man, "The Grouch" was awesome!
 
Re: OSX Features I'd like to see

Originally posted by fred_garvin

The AI could track apps I've installed, and when they were used. Say I have a bunch of junk I installed 6 months ago and haven't used in 4 months. The OS could generate a report and bring this to my attention, suggesting that perhaps I should blow away, or archive these apps to maintain a clean system. I could manually select the ones to clean up. Blow away deletes them, archive automatically moves the app to a temp folder, tars/gzips it, and moves the gip to an archive area. A user could selectively restore an app from archive later on if needed.

The OS should also maintain a list of all my apps, and how they arrived on my system. This includes all upgrades/patches. The where could include CD with volume name, iDisk info, System update and url for downloaded apps/patches. This data should also be stored in my archive. If my system is ever trashed, I have a checklist of what apps I need to install, and where to get the installers. Also serial nums/keys could be stored here. For ease of use, I could tell the system to automatically download the apps that came from the web, .Mac, System Update, or the LAN. I could then install everything in a batch.
Click to expand...


If you did this developers might move away from drag-drop install and deletes. This would be a bad thing BTW. We would have a system like window. Believe that the Add/Remove Programs thihngy on windows takes forever to get its list.

I would like it if MacOS would email developers and tell them off for not having drag-drop installs everytime someone installs the software. (not really, this would be very very bad as some copmanies need this sort of stuff yada yada - devs here know what i mean)
 
personally i feel the panther build is running so well becuase it isnt that much different from jaguar. im not developer but it seems the same. there havent been many changes. ive seen improvments to a lot of the little utilities, mail, apple system profiler, expose, preview, and some more. nothing yet to justify a 129 dollar purchse but that is because its so early in production. also in my opinion, if you have a recent g4 you will see nwo speed increases. my 12 powerbook and dual 1.25 seem the same. although my 12 inch powerbook every other time boots up hella fast.

iJon
 
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