Apple website Apple Gazette is reporting rumouring that Leopard will come with an all-new interface, supposedly with lots of black glossy things (similar to Vista, indeed): “Apple Gazette has received a tip from an apple insider that the Mac OS Aqua User Interface will be replaced with a new UI named Illuminous. The source goes on to say that we will see a demonstration of Illuminous at Macworld 2007.” I have never heard of this website, so I cannot make an assessment of its reliability, but suffices to say that it is highly debatable. Interesting nonetheless. Update: More info.
Well, we haven’t seen anything yet, but I hope that Jobs doesn’t go against his commentary against Microsoft.
Anyway, it’s good to know that the UI skin is going to change, it has been present for a good time. I hope they keep Aqua as an option though, it is in my opinion really one of the best skins ever devised for desktop computing.
Edited 2006-12-11 23:18
Frankly, considering that the current developer release doesn’t sport a new UI, I think I’m not alone to have thought during the last keynote that they were preparing a completely different UI, but were hiding it until the final release next year (and vista would be a good enough reason to do so…)
After all, they did exactly the same thing with rhapsody — the API were the same than OSX, but the UI profoundly changed (aqua).
Perhaps we’ll simply have a slightly more refined UI theme with “dark gloss” as previously reported, but I would more expect something really different, not just a new theme. (and hopefully they’ll trash the finder while they are here)
If they refactor the Finder I for one will be supremely pleased.
Your argument doen’t make sense. You suggest that the absence of changes to the UI indicate that…there will be changes to the UI. How is the absence of a thing evidence for its presence? And is the inverse true? If there WERE changes to the UI in the developer seeds, would that be evidence that the UI will be staying the same when 10.5 ships? You know, change things up in the previews to mess with the copycats in Redmond, and then leave everything the same in the final product.
Isn’t it a little late in the game for a completely file manager redesign?
I would love to see some major changes to the Mac OS UI just to keep things fresh, but I don’t think Aqua is tired yet, I think we need two things:
1. Consistency (love Uno!)
2. Many long overdue Finder features
The Aqua interface has been around for a while. When it came, it was revolutionary, and over the last few years it has gone through necessary revisions.
I am not surprised that Apple wants to leap ahead Windows Vista and present us with the next generation GUI at this time. It only seems logical. This is good news for future competition!
Somehow Apple seems to always be one step (or five) ahead of Microsoft in the usability department.
Somehow Apple seems to always be one step (or five) ahead of Microsoft in the usability department.
Apparently not in the design department, though – I mean, Vista’s black, so OS X should have been black three years ago!
vista has the look of the apple dashboard widgets so YES they are always ahead
And Apple had the look of Konfabulator widgets and those were similar to…oh christ…don’t this arguments ever get old? Anyone who has used more than one OS over a number of years can see that they have all influenced one another. And what they didn’t get from each other…they took from BeOS!
And BeOS took it from NexTSTEP and AmigaOS and OS/2 and Mac OS Classic which again took it from earlier systems, incl. DOS-based systems and from elements in applications for the Apple II.
### BEGIN IRONY ###
Oh dear, it’s a rotten industry.. they are all “stealing” from each other.
### END IRONY ###
And Windows stole the taskbar from RiscOS’s iconbar, and…
Edited 2006-12-12 11:31
And perhaps RiscOS stole it from Windows. Windows 1.0x actually had a taskbar-thingy
Apparently not in the design department, though – I mean, Vista’s black, so OS X should have been black three years ago!
That’s not right… Black iPods, black MacBooks, now black GUI. It seems that black is the new white.
Colors aside, there’s no doubt that the major GUI changes would be more than a re-skin. Anything else seems silly. My guess is – even sleeker, even easier to use and sexier than ever. It will be a Vista killer.
It will be a Vista killer.
You’re wrong on that one. People still have to make a conscious decision to buy (and spend extra $$$) a Mac. Vista will be comping pre-installed in the vast majority of PC out there…
Vista will be comping pre-installed in the vast majority of PC out there…
This is purely speculative and harkens to the days that “No one got fired for buying IBM.” Vista requirements are definitely demanding and when the Enterprise markets are holding off; and the DirectX 10 cards being on the highend you won’t see it in the standard configuration without the OEM Vendor making some disclaimers about the Vista experience being limited.
Mac OS X already is the Vista Killer. People just don’t know yet.
“When it came, it was revolutionary…”
How the heck was it revolutionary? I mean, honestly, how? It was an updated ‘Mac’ interface. With technologies from NEXTSTEP and some new stuff.
Considering the big slump in UI developement, probably that already counts as revolutionary?
“I am not surprised that Apple wants to leap ahead Windows Vista and present us with the next generation GUI at this time. It only seems logical. This is good news for future competition!”
If the rumours are true, that means they are staying ahead of MS by copying MS, seems pretty hypocritical, considering Jobs’ remarks about photocopiers at redmond
Well Apple’s preview of Leopard on their website certainly doesn’t indicate any drastic changes.
I somehow doubt Apple wants to throw in a whole new interface and set of bugs midway through beta stage.
I do, however, agree that the Aqua interface is aging. It was cool in 2001 but now shiny, gradient icons and widgets are pretty standard on GNU/Linux and Windows Vista.
The name Illuminous suggest light shining spilling from a (dark) glass surface, which is exactly what Aero is about. Vista is Light pulsating from Dark, which is quite fresh. Hope to see Apple add some twist to this idea.. And, darker colors are easier for eyes.
What a load of crap, not even a stinking word. Darkness also means eye strain.
I just hope they have more color schemes.
I can think of nothing worse than looking at a black-themed GUI. Depressing. Vista’s taskbar looks like it was designed by a Goth committee!
I can think of something far worse.
The abomination called Luna.
seems a shame if its just a copy… I would far prefer something NEW esp if they want me to pay for this upgrade (which they will)
innovate not imitate as they say
I doubt Apple will stoop to Microsoft’s level when it comes to style ideas on any product, let alone their OS, so I’m going to have to go ahead and call BS on the websites prediction. Their (Apple’s) whole business model is built on the fact that they know how to bring the “cool” to their hardware such that it will entice people to pay the premium for it. Microsoft is anything but “cool”.
I would also believe that the new UI should come in OS XI (11, for all you non-roman numeral types), not an update of OS X. Plus, IMO, the whole “black UI theme” is just garbage….glossy or not, it’s just plain dark and depressing. That’s great if you like The Cure, but sucks if you have to stare at it day in and day out. At least Vista has the ability to change the color option to other colors.
@Phloptical
I doubt Apple will stoop to Microsoft’s level when it comes to style ideas on any product.
Apple steals ideas all the time. The Finder is almost the same as XP’s Open/Save dialog windows. Even the GNOME and KDE folks have implemented the very concept into their respectives DEs.
Only Apple makes it a big deal out of it (elitism).
What are you talking about? The Finder has had the shortcuts in the window since the public beta two years before XP was released. All they did in Panther was to move the shortcuts to the left hand side of the window.
They modeled the Finder’s main interface after Windows’ open/save dialog window.
When Win2K & WinME was released, MS added a row of shortcuts to the left of the open/save dialog. I think ome versions of MS Office had that UI design even earlier.
Up until Jaguar, the Finder window had shortcuts on the toolbar much like NeXT. Only starting with Panther that Apple adopted the Open/Save dialog look for the Finder.
Need screenshots too?
*chuckle* Yes, I am sure the Apple UI team said to themselves “darnit, it’s hard to come up with a UI”, “Hey guys! Check out the open/save dialog box on Windoze!”, “Bingo, we have our new design!”
Ms office got that side bar with office 2k.
But they did get the side bar idea from xp i think, and made it better. Its system-wide and configurable. XP’s, and the open/save are not.
I need screenshots yes.
I want proof and I want them now!
Bullshit. XP’s open/save dialogues are no different than those in Windows 2000 and they are not even remote related to anything in Gnome/KDE or the NeXTSTEP-based OS from Apple.
The Open/Save dialogues in Gnome are radically different than those in XP. However, Vista actually have implemented major parts of the Gnome Open/Save dialogues and file manager windows (like the bread crumbs).
you realise that the Finder had those dialog boxes before XP was released
(Yes, the Finder existed before OSX. Heck, there were Macs before OSX! Truth! 
In other news they also all use windows (not Windows), menus, buttons, and a mouse pointers. This all was in MacOS before Gates even started Windows 1.0.
Also, it existed before the first Apple computers. That’s also true.
links:
http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/usd/cts/ol/os/mac_osx/Panther/images/OS9_op…
didn’t find the screen with OS’s 9.2 Favorite inside the dialog though, and don’t have this stone-age OS anymore
Edited 2006-12-12 13:44
Actually Finder behaviour is “copied” from NEXTSTEP, made by NeXT, which was founded by Steve Jobs. I wouldn’t call that copying.
Since we’re on the topic of Tea in China, I think I’m going to have to agree with one of the guys in the thread that claimed MS had pseudo-Finder first in Office2k. I distinctly remember coming across that, the first time, and thinking, “Hmm, that’s different.”
Saying things like “Finder is a rip-off of a MS feature that pre-dates OS X” is not really what I was going for in the post. I mean, I personally would have gone with the “Apple stole the mouse idea from IBM” argument before getting nit-picky with XP’s save dialogs, but that’s your preference….it’s cool. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not short-changing Windows features. I’m actually one of the few that like the Start button. Always did.
Let’s just say that I’ll leave it up to those, who know the early Mac OS far better than I, to list all the ways MS has “adopted” ideas from them. I’ve heard the allegations, and I really can’t even begin to know where to start.
I think I’m going to have to agree with one of the guys in the thread that claimed MS had pseudo-Finder first in Office2k.
iirc office 97 already had this feature
Edited 2006-12-12 03:41
“I doubt Apple will stoop to Microsoft’s level when it comes to style ideas on any product, let alone their OS”
Oh look, a True Believer(tm)
To be the Vista killer it needs to run on commodity hardware and I don’t think this is the big surprise Apple is cooking.
Even being a Linux and FreeBSD addict (and I really like KDE) I have to concede, the Mac interface is gorgeous and to me the new Vista one is not even close. Also, is a pleasure to have Unix tools and feeling under the hood (have played in a Mac Pro of one friend).
Maybe, I will extend my interest to Macs too.
Had someone played with any Intellicad for OS X? If so, can you share your experience? (thanks in advance)
To be the Vista killer it needs to run on commodity hardware and I don’t think this is the big surprise Apple is cooking.
I disagree, because most people don’t buy OSes. They buy computers. And if a very appealing OS X makes them choose a Mac over a PC with preinstalled Windows, OS X could actually become a Windows killer for certain market segments.
Both MS and Apple are very well aware of this, and for the FLOSS movement it can seem a bit unfair. Sadly.
The UI is pretty decent as it is, what really needs to occur is a re-written finder. Not just some bug fixes, but a complete re-write. It’s showing its age badly, and it’s one of the most counter-intuitive file management systems I’ve ever used. Very un-apple-ish.
Yes! Every single folder on my system seems to have ended up with a different view setting, and I’m too numb to even care anymore. Finder is just weird, there is no other way to put it.
Apple love making a song and dance about being copied by MS. I suspect it will be sufficiently differentiated from vista.
Also – I think dashboard does show alot of dark gloss as was said in a comment earlier. Whatever the reasoning(and look) its probably safe to assume the design direction was detirmined some time ago.
It took much longer than anticipated, but I’m looking forward to it.
Ha ha! I was thinking the same thing! “We’ve made the interface darker and more angular, and moved the dock to the upper right… the application menubar? Who needs it? GONE!”
We really need that, I miss the vertical menu bars on the left side of the window that had detachable submenus, the app menu bar is a pain in the biggest displays.
but how does it make things easier to use? What about text in the dock so that I don’t have to mouseover to know what I’m dealing with?
This would probably cause violent street riots for all Apple users. Eventually the economy would collapse to the point that gangs and bandits roam the dusty highways in beaten up armored cars. Trust me, that’s the background to Mad Max.
(Hopefully they have an option to go back to the old scheme, otherwise a lot of people would probably complain).
Whoever faked this story probably meant “luminous”, which is an actual word. “Illuminous” sounds like something out of a Dan Brown novel.
Clearly, you’ve not read RAW much. Brown is a hack.
I hope it isn’t something from the medieval dark times…
Just a joke
http://event.asus.com/review/events/vista_ready/index.htm
“Vista Premium Ready meets Vista premium hardware requirements.”
The powerful and dependable ASUS motherboards are the best choices for building Window Vista™ systems. With a wide range of new and friendly features, the combination of the latest operating system and ASUS motherboards dramatically enhances the overall computing experience.
http://event.asus.com/review/events/vista_ready/models.htm
Note: Two models for basic Vista.
check this: http://www.rad-e8.com He is one of great icon/web designers on deviantart.
1. He used to use WHITE always, now he switched to BLACK.
2. He is now working in Apple.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html
Check out the icons for selecting the feature to see. As you roll your mouse over the icons, they are illuminated with a white glow behind them. I’m guessing if this rumor is correct, we will see something like this.
I thing we will see reflections of the icons (like in iTunes) as well.
Just two things I think we’ll see…
most people already have pc’s. why would they buy a new one when they still work?
Oh, they buy new pc’s because they want to play better games. But even that will not help Mac. Or PC for that matter because everyone is into the game consoles.
Remember that the big revolution in getting new computers was because of the Y2K scare. That’s not going to happen again.
<< Remember that the big revolution in getting new computers was because of the Y2K scare. That’s not going to happen again. >>
But it is (32 bit software on UNIX will fail in 2038)
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem“
Anyway the amount of installed computers (servers, desktop, laptops) has only gotten larger ever since y2k.
So is the amount of computers sold/year
Is that right? Its exactly one alternative theme? The kind of thing one finds a few hundreds, maybe a few thousands, on
http://themes.freshmeat.net/
Is this what it is, and if so, is it really supposed to be news? Sitting here shaking my head and thinking, I must have missed something here, but what?
If really IS a theme, that would definitely ve not much of a feature, still I believe there’s probably much more under the hood. Resolution indipendence aside, the rumors concerning new full-screen modal modes for applications are interesting, and might denote a new course of action for application appearance in OSX (Maybe they’ll get more apps running in frontrow, but that’s just a guess)
As far as black is concerned, I tend to like black and have all my Xp boxes running a black theme. Still I really wish to have at least the twos (black an white versions of the same theme, that wouldn’t be much of a problem to do) available. One side note though, have a look to “time machine”. How would that work with a black theme? mmmmh…
So Microsoft takes 5 years to copy Aqua and now Apple is going to change the rules? Shame on you Apple!
Microsoft logo (Aqua anyone?)
http://ascii24.com/news/i/topi/article/2006/08/08/thumbnail/thumb32…
Apple WWDC 2006-Windows Vista Copies Mac OS X
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-2C2gb6ws8
Microsoft rips off Apple’s Workgroup Manager icon
http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/microsoft_workgroup_manager_icon
Honestly those who compare Apple’s new Illuminous UI with Vista are totally biased… for one thing nobody has yet seen this “Illuminous” version, how can you say something like “similar to Vista, indeed” ?! Just because it is based on the color black? Maybe Microsoft has patented black and we didn’t know it…
What it does look like is that Microsoft based most of its black UI on Apple’s Dashboard, Aperture navigation window, iPhoto’s Adjust Window, Front Row’s sliding dark glass, iTunes album preview… even on NeXT if you want.
The Appleology link gives an “This Account Has Been Suspended” message. Anyone care to fill us in on what was there?
I just want to be able to resize windows from
any size or corner.
Nah, I don’t want that, at least not the Windows way. Inadvertently grabbing a non-corner only to drag horizontally or vertically one too many times in Windows makes me furious.
What I’d rather see in OSX would be to use a hotkey with the left/right mouse button to resize or move the entire window. When the hotkey is held, clicking and dragging anywhere in the window with the left mouse button moves the entire window. When the right mouse button is held down, the window is divided into 4 equal sized zones and depending on which zone you are in, the window resizes via that corner. There are a few shoddy hacks that do this, but they are not stable.
If the hotkey isn’t held, only the right lower corner could be used for resizing.
WindowMaker does this and it’s a very nice and damn fast way to arrange windows with.
Right. If you think about it, Tablets, Tablet PCs and Touch Screens get cheaper and cheaper every day, the now 30 year old workflow of having one whole hand that translates into a little cursor is old and should be abandoned better sooner than later. Things have to change and the idea that the UI has to be controlled through a little cursor is the first thing that should go.
I’m pretty sure that Apple starts making their UIs more accessible and user-friendly and not just look different. A good looking UI is one thing, but what I’d really like to see in Leopard are these kind of changes, in the sense of not having to go somewhere with a cursor just to change a setting, but to change things ‘on target’ or on a more global level without the user moving his hands like nuts and causing RSI after like a few years of working on a computer.
I also think that things will go towards a black interface and way more full screen editing and controls. They’ve done some of that work in Apps like iPhoto, etc. already and I’m pretty sure Jobs likes using every inch of their 30″ Cinema Displays for working. Pretty sure that Apple will do the right thing, they’ve got some components developed already.
Edited 2006-12-12 18:46
Why should I put thought into what new skin/UI some guy at apple comes up with?
I could watch a talkshow and make more out of my time…
did I miss the pics?