Patent: Multi-Sized Icon Interface for Mac OS X?

[MacRumors]

Appleinsider points to a recent patent application published from Apple which explores the use of different sized icons within one window. The relative size differences in the interface are said to reflect the relative importance of each icon.

Right now, users can globally change icon sizes in Mac OS X in all windows, but with the newly described system icon sizes could be used to adjusted based on user preference.

"To this end," Apple wrote, "a user's arbitrary sizing of various icons in accordance with the present invention generates icon representations that can advantageously represent categorization of application or file importance, and/or the size of a file represented by an icon."

Apple's files patents for many ideas that are never actually implemented, but Apple's early multi-touch patents did first reveal technologies that made their way into the Apple iPhone.

 

[aricher]

I have actually always wanted this to be a feature in the OS. It would allow for easier visual browsing for me. This in combination with color labels would make me very happy.

 

[odedia]

Apple really became patent-fanatic. I guess they don't want 1984 to repeat itself.

 

[p0intblank]

This is actually one of those less important features I've wanted for a while now. I doubt it'll be implemented, but it'd be nice. 🙂

 

[glennyboiwpg]

Does anyone notice that the diagram looks like OS9?

any reason why this is?

 

[MongoTheGeek]

Presented for you consideration...

Imagine a *large* transparent icon where the click mask doesn't match the transparency.

Imagine placing it onto of other icons.

Imagine if it does something nefarious when opened.

 

[Durendal]

Does anyone notice that the diagram looks like OS9?

any reason why this is?

My thoughts exactly. This patent must have been drawn up years ago and only recently went through.

 

[AriX]

Whoa... What is up with Apple using the platinum interface in their patent? Aqua anyone?

 

[DStaal]

Presented for you consideration...

Imagine a *large* transparent icon where the click mask doesn't match the transparency.

Imagine placing it onto of other icons.

Imagine if it does something nefarious when opened.

Imagine you don't bother, and just have the icon you see do the same something nefarious.

I like the theory behind this patent, but how to implement the resizing of icons intuitively, that's the hard part.

 

[tk421]

Presented for you consideration...

Imagine a *large* transparent icon where the click mask doesn't match the transparency.

Imagine placing it onto of other icons.

Imagine if it does something nefarious when opened.

Couldn't this happen now (not the size, but the transparent icon sitting on top of another one)?

Anyway, what could really happen? If it was something bad, you'd still have to download it or have it copied onto your computer before you could double-click it. And if it were to do anything too "nefarious" it would require you to put in your password. Seems like a pretty weak way to do something sinister.

 

[lancestraz]

ZOMG! It's Leopard's top secret GUI!
It… It… It's so… B-B-Beauuuuuutiful.


Seriously though, it looks like it was drawn on a napkin.

 

[clonenode]

Can you say 3-D?

Don't look at the illustration as being flat. What if this were a 3 dimensional interface... not bigger and smaller icons, but CLOSER and more DISTANT icons!!! Look at Front Row and the Apple TV interface. Very similar!

Maybe this is the big SECRET in Leopard - moving through, in and around your icons to manage things or gain feedback!

Cool!

 

[dazzer21]

I'm sure there are many here that do see the point in all this, but I only EVER use the list view in order to easily find groups of file that start with the same letter/digit in one hit rather than taverse a large window to find that synchronous files are miles apart from each other...

 

[QCassidy352]

great idea. Makes me wonder why nobody has done this before - it seems so intuitive.

 

[mustang_dvs]

Does anyone notice that the diagram looks like OS9?

any reason why this is?

My thoughts exactly. This patent must have been drawn up years ago and only recently went through.

Whoa... What is up with Apple using the platinum interface in their patent? Aqua anyone?

Considering that BBedit 5.0 was introduced in late 1998, yeah, I'd say this was an older drawing. I originally thought that this was intended to be part of Rhapsody, but considering the BBedit vintage, it's after Jobs' return, once Rhapsody was officially dead.

I would guess it was an idea that seemed great at first glance, but the idea of a user having to individually size every single icon, on top of retaining a size preference for every single icon has put this in the circular file.

 

[Chris Bangle]

Don't look at the illustration as being flat. What if this were a 3 dimensional interface... not bigger and smaller icons, but CLOSER and more DISTANT icons!!! Look at Front Row and the Apple TV interface. Very similar!

Maybe this is the big SECRET in Leopard - moving through, in and around your icons to manage things or gain feedback!

Cool!

ooooohhhhhh Sounds interestng. does anyone remember the menu system on the PS1 demo disc. That was sort of 3Dish

 

[pgwalsh]

Does anyone notice that the diagram looks like OS9?

any reason why this is?

It does, but I think more like a system 8 with output of system 1.

 

[Mgkwho]

I like this, but I think a lot of users will make their folders junky with this!

Does this mean no other OS can have different size icons inside a window, or is the patent specific enough to one or a few techniques? I didn't read it 😛.

-=|Mgkwho

 

[clevin]

its good, right now finder's image thumbnail is horrible.
But
Patent? is that necessary? don't be that greedy, this sort of thing does not deserve a patent.

 

[Ino]

Could it be that Apple will incorporate multi-touch into Macs? Imagine if all cinema/portable displays were multi-touch capable and you could either pull or pinch to make icons/files bigger/smaller...that would be cool. Put that together with the "piles" file management system...I'd love for those to be the super secret features in Leopard that haven't been announced yet...

 

[blimundus]

Gnome has had this for a while

In Gnome, you can resize icons in the file manager windows, and on the Desktop. For example, I always put a very big trash can on my Desktop, so I can easily drag something to it. However, I don't think Gnome supports icons that resize automatically based on some properties such as file size. I think the reason for that is that this would be quite difficult to get right, and maybe it wouldn't be that good an idea either. Not very novel or patentable, I would say.

 

[Henriok]

I can't see how Apple can get this patent. Workbench in AmigaOS has been able to do this since late 80s or early 90s at least. What's new is that they also describe a mechanism to resize individual icons according to some criteria such as file/folder size. I don't think Workbench did that.

 

[jole]

great idea. Makes me wonder why nobody has done this before - it seems so intuitive.

This has been implemented for years in Gnome and if I remember correctly, also OS/2 implemented this in 2.0 version of the presentation manager 15 years ago.

 

[iMeowbot]

Does anyone notice that the diagram looks like OS9?

any reason why this is?

Because it's an old filing from 2000. The only thing new is that Apple split these claims off from an earlier application.

 

[zblaxberg]

Don't look at the illustration as being flat. What if this were a 3 dimensional interface... not bigger and smaller icons, but CLOSER and more DISTANT icons!!! Look at Front Row and the Apple TV interface. Very similar!

Maybe this is the big SECRET in Leopard - moving through, in and around your icons to manage things or gain feedback!

Cool!

wouldn't surprise me...maybe this is why they didn't release leopard as early as we all thought...however as someone else said it looks like they drew it years ago and maybe it just now passed