Submitted by Apple appears to be accelerating seeds of Mac OS X Leopard to developers. After only 5 days since the last seed (9A500n), Apple has issued a new version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to developers. The latest seed is listed at build 9A527 (client) and 9A528a (server), and reportedly list a number of less significant ‘known issues’ compared to prior seeds.
Someone on MacRumors posted a screenshot of the latest build. See it here: http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/5461/picture4sp9.png
Perhaps most noticeable, the menu bar is only slightly transparent. It is far more readable and even looks better. The previous iteration was poor for usability and ugly when multiple windows were open. It suggested to users that it wasn’t solid and windows could be moved under it and was difficult to read (not to mention it was superfluous and gave me nightmares of Vista). It also looked horrible if you weren’t staring at the desktop background because it looked completely out of place with the window decoration and other aspects of the OS.
Another change is the window controls. The color is now deeper and this may help for those who don’t see well. However, it looks a bit too saturated for me and the main problems remain. The are still very small targets that are difficult to hit and the function of each button is only clear on rollover. It is poor design to force users to move their mouse over every option just to find what they need. There is no need to make this learning curve.
The dock is now no longer transparent. This was a problem with some light backgrounds because the neon glow on a light color is difficult to see. Even now, it is not so clear. However, it was not necessary to completely disable transparency and instead, only a little could be left (or they could stop using the neon glow). Maybe they also wanted to get rid of the visual noise many have complained about (people were especially distracted by reflections). Still, problems remain. The perspective of the icons is wrong, the dock now looks wrong on the side and it suffers from most of the same problems it had from day 1 (although there are advantages to their approach as well).
Some of the criticism for Leopard’s GUI (and especially Stacks) is still not addressed, but it’s getting better:
http://macnewsonline.com/wp/2007/07/09/5-leopard-gui-gripes/
http://blog.turbomilk.com/archives/000164.html
http://www.thinkmac.co.uk/blog/2007/08/hint-how-to-redesign-leopard…
http://watchingapple.com/2007/06/apples-gravity-lessons-learning-fr…
Edited 2007-08-25 22:20
Pic of desktop, sans clutter
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1743/picture1uq9.png
Also, pic of Preferences, much more polished icons now
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3170/picture3vy7.png
It looks to me, even with an empty desktop, that the dock still looks “busy” with unnecessary (and odd looking) reflections. Apple seem to have wanted to introduce some sort of a 3D appearance into the desktop, and it just doesn’t work. I can’t believe that Steve approved this?
I would just wish, they would dump and go back to the old look. It’s clean and clear to look at. They _have_ dumped features that were shown at a keynote before, when OSX was before beta, so hopefully they will go for it.
When you see a red sign coming up towards you while driving, do you not know already that the sign will read, “STOP”? Or do you need it glowing and readable from any position within your viewing port?
It’s different, but so is a rectangle, underscore and X to learn that they mean maximize, minimize and close.
After repetition the brain recalls their purpose.
You can reason that way, but it is not so obvious. In fact, Apple even concedes this by showing a more descriptive function when the mouse hovers over each button. Of course people will learn after just a few minutes, but the key is to be so intuitive that it wouldn’t even take that long. This is why the iPhone is so amazing.
This is not only my complaint. Many usability experts dislike this design as well. But I suppose it’s impossible to get modded up on OSNEWS if one provides constructive criticism of Apple. How dare I say the Dock has issues, the menu bar was a mess and that the window controls could be made friendlier?! Seriously, even as a relatively happy Mac user, this bias is getting annoying.
I’m not a big fan of the dock. I preferred the Shelf and the ability to double click an open app icon in Openstep while all the other app windows just instantly disappeared.
The intuitive interface of Keith Ohlfs hasn’t been surpassed in OS X.
Keith is happy in marriage, but I just wish he’d accept that forever open offer to work with Steve once more.
I’m not completly sure what you mean. I never tryed Openstep but
Option-Click (on dock icon)
Might be what you are looking fore.
In Openstep the command-key depressed in combination with a double-click left mouse button would make key and order front that applications open presentation (windows and menus) while simultaneously autohiding all other windows from other open applications.
Option-Click on a dock icon is different behavior and not very useful.
Actually it’s Command-Option-Click to get hide all others and make active window.
It suggested to users that it wasn’t solid and windows could be moved under it and was difficult to read (not to mention it was superfluous and gave me nightmares of Vista).
Can you explain your logic to me on this one? It’s still more transparent than Vista’s bar and Vista’s bar at least displays its text as opaque and not the whole thing as transparent.
It’s better but it’s different.
If you don’t like change, it’s going to bother you.
If you own an Intel-based Apple machine you’re going to love it because it finally taps the performance that’s been hidden for so long.
Good question I have – whats the performance like on the x86? for me, I’m looking at upgrading my laptop at the beginning of next year – most likely a Macbook Pro next year.
Just wondering what is the performance boost like? are they using the LLVM compiler? Lots of questions – I’m wondering just how close to completion it is; I hope that Apple holds back and takes their time with the release – get it really stable so that there isn’t the ‘I’ll wait for 10.5.1’ issue.
With that being said, a Mac loaded with 10.5 plus iWork ’08 will be awesome.
yay!! more bubbly colors!!111
I wuv shiny things!!1
if those evil lawbreakers who are running Tiger on their pc will do
the same thing with leopard?
if those evil lawbreakers who are running Tiger on their pc will do the same thing with leopard?
It’s either that, or pay the Apple Tax on the hardware, unless they sell a boxed version that can be installed clean
The “tax” are mostly for the software anyway, but then you DO have to buy the OS bundled with hardware, and that sucks.
I’ve seen torrents of the Leopard betas for the PC out there, so I’m pretty sure that the answer is yes.
The huge window shadows are still present. I wonder why apple did this change. There was nothing wrong with the old. At best they simply don’t look good, at worst they are in the way. And if I know apple correct there will be no option to change the shadows without using hacks.
They did it to make it more obvious what window is the active/selected window. There aren’t too many options to accomplish this task, and I like having a larger shadow rather than making inactive windows black/white, faded, or other usability attempts I’ve seen.
Slightly unrelated at first, but I have always believed that Apple will sell their OS to non-Apple PC’s in the future.. I now think we are no more than 6-12 months away from that.. I think there has been indications that this is on the way and it would probable have a beneficial impact on sales of ITunes music, IPods and even Macs….
How on Earth would releasing OSX for generic PCs help Mac sales? Do you think Apple want Dell PC sales skyrocketing with OSX on them? The Windows versions of Safari and iTunes are only tools to help people migrate to the Mac, not to bring the entire of OSX to the PC.
It would bring them more cash than selling it bundled with Macintosh hardware ever.
But less cash from Macintosh hardware and more hardware compatibility problems.
Biggest fallacy ever and often citied by many.
Selling OS and apps only would destroy Apple.
Well, if Apple had $50billion in cash floating around, thehy could easily do it – the problem is, is it really worth it. Give that Mac sales are growing double digets, it isn’t as though its a need as to spur adoption.
It would bring them more cash than selling it bundled with Macintosh hardware ever.
Actually Apple make the most money from the hardware. The profit margin for Macs, iPods and iPhone is roughly 50%, give or take a few percent. One source cites this:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB…
That’s a huge margin, and that’s how they can sell their software as cheaply as they do.
If they were to sell OSX alone for PCs, it would not cost 129$, but probably closer to 4-500$ and that would run Apple into the ground quicker than you can say “Commodore, April 1994”. I won’t mention all the technical driver issues this would bring along, because that is old news.
iTunes for Windows is there to sell iPods. Safari for Windows is there to make people buy iPhones and let people take a sniff at some more Apple software. If they didn’t have any profit margin on iPods and iPhones they would definitely not have released iTunes and Safari for Windows.
“It would bring them more cash than selling it bundled with Macintosh hardware ever.”
Well, in the 90’s there was a Mac clone market. Companies like Power Computing made their own hardware that ran Mac OS. When Jobs returned to Apple, one of the first things he did was to kill the program because the Mac clones were cannibalizing Apple’s Mac sales (many were of the opinion that the clones were not only less expensive, but indeed better than Apple’s own offerings). If Jobs were to now decide to sell OSX to PC makers, it would be complete reversal of his policy (not that it isn’t possible).
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Computing
Edited 2007-08-26 19:36
But all of that was before Apple found the holy grails of IPods, ITunes (and soon ITV and IPhone), right?
Having worked during the NeXT/Apple transition and beyond it was clear that the sales Power Computing generated was cannibalized pre-existing Apple sales. Steve had more than one Town Hall Pow Wow about this reality and canned this program as it didn’t “expand” the Mac platform.
While that is true, this is a little different.
The Power clones were PowerPC based and so expanding the potential base of Mac users was still an uphill battle. Switching to the Mac platform still required you to purchase a new machine.
Now OS X could be made compatible with the great majority of machines already out there with virtually no effort. Switching to Mac would be as simple as an OS purchase.
Personally I don’t think Apple need to do this but it’s not the same as the PowerPC based clone days.
Rule # 1
Never question a Mac fans loyalty.
Apple could drop GMA 950 support six months into Leopard and the loyalists would scarcely blink an eye.
IMHO
If macbooks can run variants of windows, it’s only fair that some Pc’s can run OSX86 as well.
BSD with a slick/functional GUI is a winner in my books. Only Apple has he potential to keep it on less than 5% of the computer market.
Never question a Mac fan’s loyalty? I don’t know about you, but I have no loyalty to one brand or another. If Apple dropped GMA 950 support six months into Leopard you’d see a LOT of pissed off people. Sure, you’ll always have the ass-kissers trying to tell the community that “Apple knows best”, but every brand has its fanatic fanboys (witness the range of reactions to WGA screwing up yesterday).
Still, people tend to put up with Apple because they’re often the best option in a market where most offerings are sub-par (in my opinion). If something better came along, I’d certainly consider it the next time I was making a computer purchase. Brand loyalty is silly… go with what works. If a brand maintains a consistent standard, all the better for that company and its customers. if not, it’s time to go looking for something that better suits you.
Edited 2007-08-26 16:52
You must have missed the news
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/08/21/appleshare/index.php
5.9% and climbing.
A transparent menu bar is what… 1 line of code? One flag set somewhere. Big deal. Apple should be ashamed of the wording “A new desktop”. Transparent menu, slanted docker background, glowing dots instead of arrows. 2 hours worth of work for a KDE hacker. I use OS X exclusively and I like it a lot, but what the h*ll…