the next step in GUI (sub top: we've got too much power)

[TrenchMouth]

Today I was thinking about the shear number of advances in computing capacity that I have witnessed in the fairly few years that I have been really using computers. I started on a Mac years back when a IIsi was good. It had a 40MB internal and 80MB external drive with 17Megs of Ram and a slick 28Mhz processor (if i remember, I think thats how fast the 030 went). I loved it because it looked so much different than other non Mac OS comps out there. What I am getting at here is that a friend of mine recently picked up a dual 2.0 G5 with 2 Gigs of mem and 250Gig HD, and as far as we have come the GUI is not that much different at its core.

Granted that I KNOW it is great. I LOVE the OS X GUI, but really, we have so much power that the average user will never fully utilze. We use it sometimes when we play games, and its great to be able to import 85 pictures into iPhoto in a snap while i update my 15Gig iPod with 8Gigs of music on it. But honestly what am i to do with the rest of this power?

What I want in the next 3 years is a dynamic desktop. I know that it will not appeal to everyone, and I know that much of the power waisted on it would go to better use doing film editing or rendering and such, but its just something that i have wanted for a while now, and now that we have the power to do it i dont see any reason as to why someone with some spair time wouldnt make one. i dont want pictures of the beach on my desktop anymore, i want the water to move and trees to sway in the wind and the sun to set and rise. people spend so much time organizing and adding things to their desktop to make it look all personal and stuff, i figure it should mirror a place that you feel comfortable in, whats more personal then where you would like to be or what you would like to see? its really just and idea. all i do on my computer is type papers, play one or two games, browse and listen to music. i dont think it would be that hard to make and i think its not something that would be just a novelty, i think there could be a market for this sort of thing.

sorry for the rant but i am sure there are people out there that think likewise. i love the mac os, pretty much always have. i dont think this is something apple needs to do or anything, just something i would like to see. if anyone out there wants to make it, just mail me or something, i will gladly give some ideas on things i would like to see. peace, and happy computing.

 

[Makosuke]

Why wait? Download Background Saver and have a desktop with as much motion as you want. Run any of a variety of very attractive, 3D screen savers (I like Flurry or Red Pill), or use one that plays movies and have a nice, long film of a beach or whatever looping away.

As for what to do with all that power, I have a slightly different perspective. This is coming from someone whose first Apple was a //c, and who remembers when the 20MB hard drive on an LC seemed like a neverending expanse, and who now is one of those souped-up G5 dual owners.

I'd say, "nothing". There are many interesting new 3D directions the desktop could be taken (ala some of that supid waving window eye-candy in Longhorn demos, or something much more practical), but I wonder how many of them would provide real benefit in terms of efficiency.

I think for most people the question is not what to do with all that power, but why to buy the power in the first place. The average consumer seems to be caught up in Intel's MHz-driven marketing hype and goes out buying far more computer than they'll ever need. The truth is, 95% of computer users could do everything they'll ever need with a 1GHZ AMD or G4 processor and a half-decent, last-generation video card. That'll be more than enough to surf the web, check their e-mail, bang out a Word document and listen to some tunes (which is all most people ever do), it'll still be enough to play with their digital photos and edit some DV video if they decide to go the iMovie route, and anyone who doesn't fancy themselves a gamer can enjoy a little fun.

Most computer users (and by most, I don't mean the people here) just don't need more than that, and probably never will. Sell them something nice looking, with an easy GUI, and a reasonable processor (an iMac or eMac, that is), and they're basically set for life.

Software companies seem to have gotten carried away finding ways to waste the power that was created with professionals and psychotic gamers in mind, but Joe-blow consumer is buying for lack of better information.

Heck, I run my computer hard, and I have trouble getting the little CPU meter on my G5 to even look like it's breaking a sweat.

 

[Apple //e]

my first comp was an apple //e , 1mhz, 576kb (gigantic at the time) with two 5 1/4 floppies (back when they really were floppy), a dot matrix epson printer, green monochrome screen

my fastest computer now is a pentium 4 2.3 (overclocked), 1gb ram, 2 ata133 raid, geforce4, live 5.1 sound, hp7550 photoquality printer

speed is good, you can never have enough of it. 3d rendering never is fast enough

 

[yamabushi]

More speed would be useful for better AI and I/O enhancements such as reliable natural speech command and response. Also for rapid interpretation of visual data.

A while back an experimental industrial cleaning robot was attempted that would be able to navigate rooms and hallways based on interpreting a sampling of visual cues. The only limiltation at the time was insufficient computing power. They were using a 500Mhz Mac and needed a bare minimum of 2GHz in order to be succesful.

I'm not worried about having too much power. I know I will find a use for it.

 

[SiliconAddict]

I don't see my desktop 90% of the time so it'd be wasted on me. I would like to know Apple's take on the future of their GUI beyond just the desktop...
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