[billybobsky]

I was flipping through the leopard preview site on apple.com and couldn't help but feel that they are moving away from the simple software model -- that is each software title does one thing very very well... Why in the world will the new ichat have desktop sharing built in let alone presentation software? Does that make sense at all? why is mail suddenly note taking?

It's just so weird...

My obvious preference is for their to be one piece of software that you can't possibly confuse for another -- is it keynote that allows me to give presentations online? that sort of question should never cross the typical users mind...

[Kickaha]

You know, I've had the same feeling... I prefer small, focussed apps instead of swiss army knives.

The only thing I can think of to calm my concerns is that these are glimpses of a larger picture - that Keynote's ability to share the presentation and iChat's ability to share the desktop are facets into a more generalized collaboration system, that ties in with iCal, etc, etc. That Mail's Notes are tying in with a GTD-esque workflow approach, where quick snippets of jotted notes become ToDos with a click - and while it wouldn't occur to me to put them in *Mail*, I guess if you're looking for a central iCal-aware place to put them where they will be integrated with communication from others, it makes more sense than iChat. *shrug*

Like I said, I'm grasping at straws here, but... I still feel like we're seeing a very small piece of the larger picture.

[World Leader Pretend]

It shall all be revealed.......................................... .................................


for only $79.99

[SilentSpectre]

Dreaming, and I know it's only dreams and maybe some drug induced...but please let the big thing be that Apple is going to go against M$ and sell it's OS to consumers who build their own rigs.

[aranhamo]

Originally Posted by billybobsky I was flipping through the leopard preview site on apple.com and couldn't help but feel that they are moving away from the simple software model -- that is each software title does one thing very very well... Why in the world will the new ichat have desktop sharing built in let alone presentation software? Does that make sense at all? why is mail suddenly note taking? It's just so weird... My obvious preference is for their to be one piece of software that you can't possibly confuse for another -- is it keynote that allows me to give presentations online? that sort of question should never cross the typical users mind...

Personally, I'm excited about sharing desktops in iChat, because so far I've been unable to get my mom to configure VNC on her computer. I'm hoping the new iChat will make it easier to fix stuff when she calls me at all hours with computer problems.

[AWR]

I don't know if this counts, but all of those Mail templates look pretty ridiculous to me.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by SilentSpectre Dreaming, and I know it's only dreams and maybe some drug induced...but please let the big thing be that Apple is going to go against M$ and sell it's OS to consumers who build their own rigs.

Don't start that pointless discussion again. We've been over this hundreds of times. That woudl be the dumbest possible thing for them to do.

[MagSafe]

Originally Posted by SilentSpectre Dreaming, and I know it's only dreams and maybe some drug induced...but please let the big thing be that Apple is going to go against I'm stupid and sell it's OS to consumers who build their own rigs.

They don't just do 'I'm Stupid', saying that is stupid.

I'm fed up with people saying the 'I'm Stupid' crap, sure theres programmes included in iLife that are basic, and combined with that and the appearance of OS X people might just think "oh, its a simplifed version of Windows" ... that might be correct in some sense but have you ever used Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Photoshop, Flash 8 Pro, XCode and the thousands of other pro applications that pro-users use? What is the point of having to go over 5 hurdles to do something when you only need to go over 1? That justs shows well thought-out designing.

I personally can't wait for Leopard, there bringing so many advanced features to an operating system that doesn't require a huge amount of computer knowledge to use, Time Machine for example ... I don't want to go home after a long day of work and do complex incremental backup plans. I want to be able to share photo albums over iChat whilst talking to my parents when their abroad, and be able to have fun whilst doing it, and when i need too I want to be able to use photoshop, dreamweaver and flash pro without thinking my system might crash, freeze or blank out.

Apple aren't trying to do to much, there just keeping up with the natural progression of technology.

[Chellovek]

Originally Posted by aranhamo Personally, I'm excited about sharing desktops in iChat, because so far I've been unable to get my mom to configure VNC on her computer. I'm hoping the new iChat will make it easier to fix stuff when she calls me at all hours with computer problems.

Reverse VNC is your friend.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

I guess I'm the only one that thinks virtual whiteboarding/desktop sharing is a natural fit with iChat/AV. Look at it, you can videoconference with 3 other people and audio conference with 10, why not add active collaboration between iChat participants into the mix?

If you've ever been involved in an InterWise web meeting then you know this can be done more elegantly. Apple has always been about making complicated tasks easier. Adding these new features into iChat will make these tasks easier.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend I guess I'm the only one that thinks virtual whiteboarding/desktop sharing is a natural fit with iChat/AV. Look at it, you can videoconference with 3 other people and audio conference with 10, why not add active collaboration between iChat participants into the mix?

No, I completely agree. Collaboration goes hand-in-hand with conferencing. This will be immeasurably beneficial for businesses.

Hopefully it'll mean we can finally put WebEx to rest where I work. That thing is a monster to try to set up. Although, at least WebEx is cross-platform.

Originally Posted by AWR I don't know if this counts, but all of those Mail templates look pretty ridiculous to me.

Hear, hear! Mail.app is indeed becoming the posterchild of unusual design. I'm hoping that there is a bigger design overhaul for Mail (hidden as one of the "top secret" features) that will justify some of its additions.

[Kickaha]

The only problem is, as I understand it, this isn't really collaboration like I (and many others, I'm sure,) would like to see it, it's a push-broadcast model, where you can give a presentation or show a document.

[Wyatt]

Now that I have a bit more time, I'll give a more detailed reply.

I actually agree with Brad that the iChat features they added are wonderful. I think remote presentations are a natural extension of iChat's video functionality.

I also agree that Mail.app is getting silly, especially with the note-taking features. It feels like they wanted to add that to the OS but didn't want to add an application, so they just threw it into something else.

All-in-all, I don't think Apple's doing "too much" with Leopard. If anything, they're not doing enough. Time Machine is great, but it's of limited use as most people don't have a spare external hard drive to dedicate to backups. Spaces will be great, but there are free desktop managers out there already. I don't see anything in Leopard yet that makes me yearn to buy it. I'm hoping the "secret" features they haven't shown yet make me want it. I want to want Leopard. I just don't want it yet.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

I want Xcode 3.0 (with X-Ray) & Obj-C 2.0. CoreAnimation sounds like it could be quite fun to work with as well. Obviously for most normal users the Developer enhancements don't sound like much, but wait until the developers start using them in their apps. Man I wish I had more time to code!

[chucker]

Originally Posted by fcgriz I don't see anything in Leopard yet that makes me yearn to buy it.

A few reasons:
1) a lot of developers go by the mantra of supporting the current and previous major OS release. Therefore, when Leopard gets out, many developers will start being able to take advantage of Tiger technologies that have thus far been obscure, such as Quartz Composer and Core Data.
2) some developers have already announced making leopard-only releases. When developers start actually using Core Animation, the new Core Text features, etc., you'll eventually feel left out and will want to jump on the bandwagon.
3) as usual with Mac OS X updates, there's a lot of subtle but highly useful additions, such as a grammar check next to the spell check.

[Gizzer]

Yeah, I watched the State of the Union video from WWDC 2006 that's flying around at the moment and I can see that Core Animation is going to add a whole new level of gloss & interactivity to applications.

The general jist of the video was for developers to make people want to use their apps because they want to, not just because they need to.

Personally I'm shallow enough to be suckered in by a neat graphical effect every time

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by MagSafe They don't just do 'I'm Stupid', saying that is stupid. I'm fed up with people saying the 'I'm Stupid' crap, sure theres programmes included in iLife that are basic, and combined with that and the appearance of OS X people might just think "oh, its a simplifed version of Windows" ... that might be correct in some sense but have you ever used Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Photoshop, Flash 8 Pro, XCode and the thousands of other pro applications that pro-users use? What is the point of having to go over 5 hurdles to do something when you only need to go over 1? That justs shows well thought-out designing. I personally can't wait for Leopard, there bringing so many advanced features to an operating system that doesn't require a huge amount of computer knowledge to use, Time Machine for example ... I don't want to go home after a long day of work and do complex incremental backup plans. I want to be able to share photo albums over iChat whilst talking to my parents when their abroad, and be able to have fun whilst doing it, and when i need too I want to be able to use photoshop, dreamweaver and flash pro without thinking my system might crash, freeze or blank out. Apple aren't trying to do to much, there just keeping up with the natural progression of technology.

AN Automatically substitutes M $ (without the space) for "I'm stupid." So he's not saying "I'm stupid," nor are most of the people who end up inavertently posting that.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Kraetos So he's not saying "I'm stupid," nor are most of the people who end up inavertently posting that.

Oh, they are saying it, albeit in a different way.

[AWR]

I'm stupid (innit?) Wow, it actually does do that. Carry on.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by Brad Oh, they are saying it, albeit in a different way.

Hehe, yeah, I thought about saying something like that, but I figured you'd probably swoop in for me.

[Hobbes]

The Notes feature in Mail is the only thing that stuck out for me as a little.... strange. It had that special "Jobs wanted it and we couldn't talk him out of this feature" vibe more than anything else.

iChat for desktop & presentation sharing makes more sense to me.

[AsLan^]

Lots of people keep notes by sending emails to themselves. I even do it myself!

That's all this notes feature really is. I'm not sure why it's considered a feature of Leopard because presumably this kind of functionality could work on any version of OS X.

Nonetheless, if it works with gmail etc. then I'll use it.

[dfiler]

Notes in Mail.app works great for me. I already use email in this manner. Sending myself email is the easiest way to ensure that I don't lose important info. It gets immediately time-stamped and backed up.

Granted, I've had the same email address for over a decade now. This makes it even more valuable. I can access notes from any location. They're also searchable and even searchable in conjunction with any notes (email) that others have sent me.

Taking a note is very analogous to emailing yourself.

[rasmits]

Originally Posted by dfiler Taking a note is very analogous to emailing yourself.

That's a very good way of putting it.

[aranhamo]

Originally Posted by Chellovek Reverse VNC is your friend.

Thanks. I bookmarked that page for later.

[BuonRotto]

I suppose it raises the question of the direction of any future GUI considering all these apps are hooking into the same frameworks and trying to access the same data for different uses, like what we're atlkaing about with Mail and iChat (nevermind the many mediums in iTunes). It kind of throws the whole concept of application into question, doesn't it? I mean, I know there have been first attempts at some sort of collaboration tool, though they mostly seem to make Venn diagrams, not act like them. Bah, the problem is too big for my feeble mind.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by BuonRotto I suppose it raises the question of the direction of any future GUI considering all these apps are hooking into the same frameworks and trying to access the same data for different uses, like what we're atlkaing about with Mail and iChat (nevermind the many mediums in iTunes). It kind of throws the whole concept of application into question, doesn't it? I mean, I know there have been first attempts at some sort of collaboration tool, though they mostly seem to make Venn diagrams, not act like them. Bah, the problem is too big for my feeble mind.

From my understanding, this was MS' train of thought when creating ActiveX/COM objects. Instead of every program creating a spell checker, why not have a spell checker object that could be accessed by any program. You can see pieces of this in the Office suite where things like Charting are separate mini-programs, made to be accessed by the main Office programs.

I think Apple is doing it better with the frameworks they're providing in OS X. Instead of having to buy Office in order to use the Charting program in your app, you just need to code to the various APIs which exist in OS X. You don't have to write your own RAW/JPEG/whatever import/export routine, just call the appropriate CoreImage API routines and call it a day. Same thing with sound and CoreAudio and soon CoreAnimation.

[BuonRotto]

Yes, Apple back in the bad old days tried a similar idea called... what? I can't recall now! Cyberdog was the only thing to come out of that lab IIRC. Anyway, with the NeXT reverse-takeover, the idea went to smaller, specific apps working in tandem via the pasteboard and frameworks (the knife set approach) rather than some universal do-everything app (the swiss army knife approach). It still begs the question ultimately of how you interact with a bagillion little apps, and with stuff like Mail adding UIs for cross-referenced data within them, I wonder if that's still the direction Apple is taking.

Apple's UI designers have a LOT more freedom these days to experiment, not just with appearances. I recall there was some report of how Apple's UI guys were saying that the menubar, for example, was very inefficient and archaic and ideally an app's tools were much more closely tailored to the functionality. That becomes more difficult if you keep adding more data types into one app. On the other hand, maybe you don't worry about the data type, but if you say that notes are like emails to yourself, then they deserve the same UI so you can handle them the same way. It doesn't mean those notes can't be handled completely differently in another app like iCal or if you access them in Excel. Maybe the data accepts all input and the apps aren't means of accessing certain data, but means of manipulating the same data in different ways. Fewer data types, more UIs? I dunno. I babble.

[Reid]

Originally Posted by BuonRotto Yes, Apple back in the bad old days tried a similar idea called... what?

OpenDoc.

[dfiler]

OpenDoc is what you're thinking of. It sported a common document format in which applications could simultaneously edit the same document.

An interesting thing to note is that apple recently changed the way email is stored on disk. Each email is now a separate file in the filesystem. Yet they went the other direction with Aperture and it's data storage.

Perhaps it isn't necessary to be dogmatic on the issue? I really haven't decided yet.

Really, i haven't seen a definite trend one way or the other with apple. There doesn't seem to be a rapidly increasing number of applications. Nor does there appear to be a trend toward swiss-army knife style applications with tons of features.

Feature grouping into particular applications aren't divided exactly like what I would view most logical. But it doesn't seem that Apple has changed strategies with regard to this matter.

Either way, I am eagerly anticipating being able to share my screen while video chatting with family and friends. This extension to iChat seems entirely appropriate and intuitive.