Mac OS X Lion Discussion


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Sorry guys I meant iPhoto '11 not iPhone. wacko.gif The progress bars are new when you import some photos.

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Pic is broken. I'm curious to see these iPhoto '11 progress bars. Seems to me that Apple is going to be adding yet another UI style to Mac OS X and its apps.

Maybe this time around all Aqua elements will be updated with matte versions like that. Not holding my breath though.

I would hope, but yeah, I doubt they'll actually do this. It's kind of funny, really. Apple makes such a big deal about UI consistency and they even claimed Leopard would have a "unified interface," yet all they really meant was they were getting rid of brushed metal. There's still unified toolbars clashing with matte scroll bars, Aqua scroll bars, various dark elements mixed with light elements, etc. And now Lion is coming to introduced iOS-themed elements into the system.

They do a good job of evolving Aqua as a whole, yet they continue to ignore many of the minor things that need to be updated. Mac OS X hasn't had a shiny, gel-like look since at least Tiger or so and yet we still have the scroll bars and progress bars reflecting this. (Good thing Max Rudberg fixes what Apple will not.)

Pic is broken. I'm curious to see these iPhoto '11 progress bars. Seems to me that Apple is going to be adding yet another UI style to Mac OS X and its apps.

I would hope, but yeah, I doubt they'll actually do this. It's kind of funny, really. Apple makes such a big deal about UI consistency and they even claimed Leopard would have a "unified interface," yet all they really meant was they were getting rid of brushed metal. There's still unified toolbars clashing with matte scroll bars, Aqua scroll bars, various dark elements mixed with light elements, etc. And now Lion is coming to introduced iOS-themed elements into the system.

They do a good job of evolving Aqua as a whole, yet they continue to ignore many of the minor things that need to be updated. Mac OS X hasn't had a shiny, gel-like look since at least Tiger or so and yet we still have the scroll bars and progress bars reflecting this. (Good thing Max Rudberg fixes what Apple will not.)

Here's the pic again, I deleted it my mistake. whistle.gif

454434912.png

With Leopard Apple unified the interface by getting rid of all the different window styles. In the end it's only iTunes and iLife being inconsistent with the rest of the OS, for whatever reason. At least we only have one real window style left (again, with the exception of iTunes) and no legacy icon styles.

Here's the pic again, I deleted it my mistake. whistle.gif

454434912.png

That actually looks pretty nice. It's what I would have expected if Apple took their current progress bars and simply made them darker and more matte to match the Leopard-era UI. I hope these are taken systemwide in Leopard.

With Leopard Apple unified the interface by getting rid of all the different window styles. In the end it's only iTunes and iLife being inconsistent with the rest of the OS, for whatever reason. At least we only have one real window style left (again, with the exception of iTunes) and no legacy icon styles.

iTunes seems to be where they do all the UI experiments before they go systemwide. I remember that when they introduced a new Finder for Panther, it had the sidebar concept first seen in iTunes and then later iPhoto. When the Finder was changed again in Leopard, the new sidebar style was once again reminiscent of changes first seen in iTunes. With iTunes having new vertical traffic lights and no title bar, and iPhoto having a new progress bar style, I suspect both of these new UI ideas will become system-wide in Lion.

What we saw of Lion at the keynote was clearly unfinished. I doubt we'll see any UI changes at all until WWDC '11 at the earliest.

  • 3 months later...

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/mac/whats-new.html

pop-over.png

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Aqua defines the look and feel that users come to expect from Mac OS X. Lion takes this experience and brings it to a new level with popovers, overlay scrollbars, and powerful Multi-Touch gestures and animations.

Mac OS X Lion introduces overlay scrollbars similar to those in iOS. These scrollbars appear as an overlay on top of the window's content while the user is scrolling and remain visible briefly to allow scrollbar dragging.

If you have a document-based application, Lion offers an efficient, built-in auto save feature that stores changes to the working document instead of creating additional copies on a disk. Versions automatically records a history of changes made to your documents and lets your app display a Time Machine like interface so users can browse through previous versions.

Resume in Lion allows users to restore your app exactly where they were prior to logging out or restarting. Apps that were last running launch automatically and all open document windows return to where they were. The system automatically manages apps and conserves resources by closing apps that are not being used.

I'm not really sure how I feel about these changes. Take the Mail for example. On the one hand it looks nicer visually but on the other hand it looks like they have taken some functionality away or hidden it somewhere else (Where are the Folders?).

I'll withhold judgement until I try it personally but right now I can't really say if I think this is a mistake or a slam dunk from those screenshots.

From Mac Rumors:

Update: Here are some additional features we've learned:

- In 10.7, windows may be resized from all edges and corners, and the resize indicator has been removed.

- Support for OpenGL 3.2 on capable hardware.

- Application persistance. Apps and their states are saved when you logout and back in. Background apps may be terminated by Mac OS X and will restore if the user picks them again. Basically the concept of open and closed apps is gone.

Mission Control will probably finally make me bother with Spaces. :)

I haven't used it before, but only because it was implemented "besides" Exposé. This looks much better and friendlier.

I really like where they're going with the OS - they seem to keep their word with taking ideas from iOS, but still not going overboard with stuff that don't make sense.

I'm happy to see Versions too. Windows has Shadow Copies since earlier, but this seems to be a more feature-rich and refined version of that. And I'm not just talking about Time Machine-style visual fluff, but being more approachable and usable with side-by-side comparisons.

Wow, with this new info (and I can only imagine more info to come) I'm actually starting to get a bit excited.

My only reservation is the whole elimination of the "open and closed apps" concept. I think I'm a bit of a traditionalist in that sense, because I would like to still fully terminate an application and have it start fresh when I want it to.

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