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Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’s top secret ingredient: 3D everywhere, including new 3D Finder?
Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 12:11 PM EDT

Apple Store"Ars Technica's Infinite Loop blog has, in my opinion, unraveled one of the top secret ingredients in Apple's upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 release, aka Leopard: complete 3D graphics and animations. Given what we know and have seen of Leopard features such as Time Machine and the new iChat and in existing apps like FrontRow, this would make perfect sense, especially if it were implemented in OpenGL. Applications get their own canvases in a 3D world, and the OS is responsible for keeping those canvases updated and visible in various orientations. One visual 3D imaging model for all apps that the OS manages and keeps sorted. Sweet," Carl Howe writes for Blackfriars' Marketing.

Howe writes, "What this means for Apple users is that we can expect a new Finder in Leopard. I've written before that I believe that Leopard will also support Multi-touch gestures and new sensors to take the user interface the next step for users. From a competitive point of view, this 3D Finder will probably be the biggest shot across the bow for rival Microsoft. Why? Because the Aero 3D interface is the major differentiator today for Vista over Windows XP; most of the other features of Vista are significantly less visible to average users. But on Vista, these features are usable only on the highest end PCs, while I believe that Apple intends its 3D features to become a part of every device it builds. That means we'll see 3D features on iPods, iPhones, Apple TV boxes, and of course in Leopard."

Full article here.

Iljitsch van Beijnum writes for Ars Technica, "Obviously the OS can simply move windows to the front and to the the back without support from the application itself, much like how Exposé works, but to really flabbergast us, applications would have to support the new 3D user interface and have different windows, inspectors, and requesters move around through Leopard's three dimensional space. Core Animation takes care of the movement, and resolution independence makes sure text and UI elements align and look good at different zoom levels. The only thing missing is an easy way to manipulate virtual objects in three dimensions. Or do we just pinch them?"

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Number 5" and "LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son" for the heads up.]

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Related articles:
RUMOR: Some Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard ‘top secret’ features leak out - January 26, 2007
RUMOR: Apple Mac OS X Leopard to replace ‘Aqua’ with ‘Illuminous’ - December 11, 2006
Apple confirms ‘resolution independence’ and more coming in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard - October 23, 2006

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Mar 27, 07 - 12:14 pm Comment from: WiseGuy

Now THIS I beleive!

ahhh being first is good.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:17 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

Thisis starting to sound like the interface in "Minority Report". Amazing!

Mar 27, 07 - 12:17 pm Comment from: WiseGuy

And second post too.

Am I special or what?

Mar 27, 07 - 12:17 pm Comment from: Buster

Sloppy seconds

Mar 27, 07 - 12:18 pm Comment from: Jeff

What a lame article.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:19 pm Comment from: WiseGuy

*shucks*

Well it has been well known for years that Mac OS X was supposed to evolve into 3D, the icons, the desktop and everything,

The horsepower is there with these new processors.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:21 pm Comment from: carlo

wow (if it turns out to be true)
we'd be talking about the biggest advancement of UI design since the original macintosh.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:21 pm Comment from: hs

This I don't believe. A 3D interface is quite simply counterproductive in most common applications. It might be usable in the Finder to some extent but it would have to be miles ahead of current 3D interfaces to be really usable.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:23 pm Comment from: No Squirt For You

Very cool!

Jeff? Is your last name Peterson by any chance?

Mar 27, 07 - 12:27 pm Comment from: Wealthy Industrialite

Sucks to have a PowerPC chip

Mar 27, 07 - 12:28 pm Comment from: loganson

Now they have gone and done it. If apple releases leopard with just a few tweeks to the finder, we will all be furious.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:30 pm Comment from: abqsocal

Pinch? Like what one does with those extra buttons on the side of the "Mighty Mouse"?

Mar 27, 07 - 12:30 pm Comment from: One guy from Finland

This is easy… You just take the mouse from the tail and then throw it to some direction and pinch the mouse by the tail. Instant 3D mighty mouse. That is how you get cheese.

Have anyone seen the Spielbergs AI?

LOL

Mar 27, 07 - 12:40 pm Comment from: Moo

All I want are tabbed Finder windows.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:48 pm Comment from: MPC Guy

I hope Apple does something with Finder. It's the single, ugliest, clunky piece of the OS. Aside from Spotlight, Windows Explorer is more useful and usable.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:56 pm Comment from: Jeff Edsell

This I don't believe. A 3D interface is quite simply counterproductive in most common applications. It might be usable in the Finder to some extent but it would have to be miles ahead of current 3D interfaces to be really usable.

No, I understand what you're saying, but this makes sense to me. At first, it's just a few neat tricks to strengthen visual feedback of used actions -- windows zoom backwards in 3d space when deselected, and forwards when selected, etc.

But putting the Finder in a 3D space opens up a new way of thinking about the virtual locations of files and folders -- much in the same way the desktop metaphor changed the command-line way of thinking. The more the new paradigm is out there, the more there will be uses discovered for this space.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:57 pm Comment from: Andy C.

Talk about pie in the sky! I'm not convinced, but if this is true, it could be really cool.

Mar 27, 07 - 12:58 pm Comment from: Dutch

This article was based on this blog entry from Mac developer Huibert Aalbers. I think that the author totally misunderstood the original article. What Huibert said (among other things) was that the delay in releasing iWork/iLife was probably due to the fact that these apps would use the new APIs available in Leopard (in order to bootstrap their use by other developers) and that the new "secret" features would probably not be new APIs but instead new end-user oriented "applications" like time machine that have no impact whatsoever over third party applications. Nice read.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:00 pm Comment from: Ballmer

Welalthie Industrialite:

Sucks to have a Power PC inside?

Well...now that i think, the trend is, nowadays, to have an intel inside (please, sing that intel music here, when reading the name of the brand)...yeah, that intel everybody despised before....yawn.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:01 pm Comment from: BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots

What would be the benefits of a 3-D finder? I so don't get it.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:01 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

This is the future. Bet on it.

MW: 'know'

Mar 27, 07 - 01:04 pm Comment from: MCCFR

All I ask for is the return of HotSauce/Project X (or something like it), if anyone can remember that far back.

Since HotSauce was originally developed, we now have a combination of OS, CPUs and GPUs that makes the concept practicable in the real world and being able to fly through the filesystem based on Spotlight metadata would be truly extraordinary.

For instance, you could fly through iTunes based on multiple sort classifications such as artist within genre within year or you could fly through iPhoto or Aperture using the various metadata parameters like keywords or film speed/sensitivity data.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:10 pm Comment from: R

True 3D interfaces are confusing.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:11 pm Comment from: MiniLover

My G4 Mac Mini is jealous!

MDN word= planning
As in "I wasn't planning on needing CoreImage to do basic navigation!"

Mar 27, 07 - 01:14 pm Comment from: JJ

I agree with Dutch. A totally new user interface cannot be rolled out without involving third party developers well in advance, since they would need to modify their apps in order to support the new capabilities.

This is just wishful thinking. Leopard APIs have been frozen long ago. What we have seen in AppleInsider and ThinkSecret is what will make it into the final release (with additional goodies, small apps like iSync or iChat).

Mar 27, 07 - 01:19 pm Comment from: steveH

Hey Ballmer;

No, it's not "that intel everybody despised before". Just in case you missed the memo, things have changed.

And Intel's architecture and implementation processes have changed a lot since back then.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:22 pm Comment from: Gil

My PB 550 just became obsolete....

Mar 27, 07 - 01:24 pm Comment from: IT Dud3

TRUE 3d interfaces are LESS confusing. However, this is impossible on a screen... which is always 2d.

Unless there's a holographic screen.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:32 pm Comment from: Chris

Late-breaking news from Microsoft: Anyone who upgrades to Vista by July 31 will receive the Microsoft Vista 3-D Power Upgrade free of charge! Illustration here: http://www.seaserpentproductions.com/images/RedBlue3DGlasses.gif

Another Microsoft innovation⁄!

Mar 27, 07 - 01:35 pm Comment from: R

Perhaps the confusion factor is a matter of preference. To me, it's a real-world comparison between a shelf and a drawer. Both hold thing, but when you have to "go deep" to seek something out, it creates an added thought/step/effort. Spacial thinking is far more cognitive intensive than 2D scanning.

Or, maybe I'm evolutionarily stunted. Peterson, I guess I know how it feels.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:35 pm Comment from: Wha

It would be cool if the next Macs shot out real Pez.. in 3D.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:36 pm Comment from: Lardlad

This sounds like the 'Piles' and 'Minimize in Place' patents Apple filed years ago. Although 'Minimize in Place' could have been meant for Exposé.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:38 pm Comment from: deja d

Apple is going to have a fully 3d touch interface since it is the way of the future. But they're not going to have it in 10.5 Leopard. It's too soon, software technology is almost there, but still needs a little bit more time. I expect to see this stuff in 10.6, but at that point they might as well call it Mac OS 11

Mar 27, 07 - 01:41 pm Comment from: No Squirt For You

I just hope I can upgrade my Mac SE.


re: HotSauce - I remember Project X! Pretty cool at the time. But then, I have clothes older than some of the posters here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotSauce

Check out the screenshot.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:41 pm Comment from: TenaciousDNA

A 3D interface would probably be construed as Apple copying Vista.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:45 pm Comment from: Twisted Mac Freak

"'Piles' and 'Minimize in Place'"

That sounds like Ballmer's wedding night.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:50 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

Perhaps this advance, if it comes, is a conceptual shift like the discovery of perspective in the Renaissance. Once unveiled, the only way to go would have to be to adopt it completely.

And as far as being evolutionarily stunted, bulls**t! It's our cognitive ability to comprehend the world in three (four with time) dimensions that allowed these human animals with poor claws and fangs to survive.

As the saying goes, don't aim for the target, aim for where iti's going to be!

Mar 27, 07 - 01:52 pm Comment from: Decrypt3

Some days I wake up feeling happy. Then I remember that people are gullible and dumb. Then I feel sad.

Mar 27, 07 - 01:53 pm Comment from: hotinplaya

If this is true

shouldn't this be OS11

Mar 27, 07 - 02:03 pm Comment from: Twisted Mac Freak

"Then I remember that people are gullible and dumb."


I firmly believe that but what does it mean?

Mar 27, 07 - 02:08 pm Comment from: Cubert

I think this will be in Leopard, however, I think Apple will enable this "3D" interface for anyone who has a Mac that currently supports 2D extreme (ex. the ripple effect when adding widgets). Try that with your Aero Micro$haft.

Mar 27, 07 - 02:10 pm Comment from: Cubert

Oh, yeah. Multitouch won't be coming to our desktops and laptops until OS 11.

Too early, not enough good uses, and awkward interface for a computer currently.

Mar 27, 07 - 02:11 pm Comment from: Twisted Mac Freak

"It's our cognitive ability to comprehend the world in three (four with time) dimensions . . ."

Or five, if you want to add some snappy and timeless R & B / soul music to the mix. This is the dawning, after all.

Mar 27, 07 - 02:30 pm Comment from: Ryan

These guys have their heads in the clouds.

"Aero 3D interface is the major differentiator today for Vista over Windows XP"

The only thing really 3D about Aero is Flip3D. Otherwise it's just a lot of transparency and glossiness.

Mar 27, 07 - 02:31 pm Comment from: TowerTone

3D? I don't know. Double Ds are plenty big enough for me, and I don't really require that much. But 3D? No wonder they call it Silicone Valley...

Oh, wait. That's Los Angeles.

Mar 27, 07 - 02:41 pm Comment from: TowerTone

'I firmly believe that but what does it mean?'

that is a classic. Belongs in the MDN Hall of Fame

Mar 27, 07 - 02:54 pm Comment from: dallas

This article is very wrong on a number of levels.

Don't get your hopes up. The "TOP SECRET" features in 10.5 are things we already know about.

Resolution Independence
The Glassy Image viewer.
The New tabbed Terminal
Ect.

We have already seen plenty of new "Top Secret" features that were not disclosed during the Key Note.

Really, if there were features like Multi-touch or 3d interfaces, they would be very complex and would need extensive beta testing. And we would already know about them.

Mar 27, 07 - 03:06 pm Comment from: Captain Curt

I think this rumor is credible but of limited use for the operating system interface. Simplicity and intuitive elements in the gui is what has made Apple software so successful. The 3d capability in time macine is a great idea because it provides a dramaticaly more intuitive function. Using 3d sparingly as eye candy to supplement eye candy provided by other animation in Leopard would be great. Games and data analysis programs could use 3d to great effect. If apple provides 3d in it's frameworks, I think it would be a great addition for developers.

Mar 27, 07 - 03:13 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

You know, I'm actually starting to get excited!!

Mar 27, 07 - 03:27 pm Comment from: 2Shae

First off,
I don't get it :S
What should I expect it to look/act like?


Secondly,
If this is true than I find it very stupid of this guy to say it to the world, because Microsoft will steal and or copy this idea of course.
If he kept his mouth shut. Apple would have gotten Microsoft completely of guard. Now if it's true or not M$ will of course try to implement this with there next OS

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