Apple’s changes to OS X in Leopard affected more than the basic desktop experience. The aesthetic changes permeate the applications and utilities of the operating system. Even applications that aren’t written specifically for Leopard take on the new look-and-feel to some extent. Here is a brief tour, in pictures, of how some of the bundled OS X application changed between Tiger and Leopard.

The Finder

The first major difference in the Finder is the total absence of brushed metal. The new Finder looks more lightweight, and it fits in with the overall OS X aesthetic much more naturally.


The Tiger Finder


The Leopard Finder

I am not a fan of the new folder icons, but I wasn’t too fond of the old ones either. Fortunately, they’re easy enough to change. The overall look is better, and I think the new sidebar is an improvement over the former. There’s not much else to say beyond that.

iCal

iCal also receives some slimming in the window department as it too loses the brushed metal motif that once adorned it. Some elements, such as the day-week-month buttons, are moved around, and I think the new calendar pane is easier to read.


iCal in Tiger


iCal in Leopard

Editing events in iCal has always been a bit of a hassle with an Event Drawer that would pop in and out as you selected events to edit. Now iCal will pop an editing dialog right next to the event in question. This new approach, while only slightly varied from before, makes adding and editing events a much quicker process.

Safari

Safari hasn’t changed much, but it’s yet another application to lose brushed metal in its chrome.


Tiger Safari


Leopard Safari

Safari has also gained security features that check for possibly malicious sites, and the interface for that feature is pretty neat.

Printing

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the improved printing sheets in OS X Leopard. Historically, it’s been easy for developers to use OS X’s standard printing services, but the results were usually pretty sparse. The Leopard printing sheet is much more robust that its predessesor’s, and it even previews the document without having to launch Preview (a feature Microsoft and Adobe have been offering in their applications for some time).


Printing in Tiger


Printing in Leopard

This improvement may be late to the party, but it’s welcome nonetheless.

Conclusion

This is hardly a comprehensive look at the visual differences between Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, but I hope it gives you a good idea of how Apple is improving the unified nature of the system’s user interface. It’s easy to pick nits over little details, but it’s obvious that Apple’s team has sweated the details when designing Leopard’s interface. It now feels like a unified system rather than a collection of utilities and applications. Hopefully, Apple will continue to prioritize the user experience as it continues to refine its operating system with the impending release of Snow Leopard next year.

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

As noted in the last post (which was longer ago than I care to admit), by the time Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was in the hands of users, the OS X interface had grown quite inconsistent. While not as glaringly distracting as the default Windows XP interface, it did seem evidence that Apple’s reputation as having an eye for detail was growing misplaced.

Leopard seeks to fix the growing divergence of UI elements, but some of the design decisions seem strange. Here are some comparisons and thoughts regarding some of the obvious interface changes between Tiger and Leopard.

The First Impression

For OS X veterans, the default Leopard desktop is immediately recognizable for it’s complete lack of blueness when compared to past OS X desktops.


TIger on my G5 and Leopard on my MacBook

Some of the change simply comes from the addition of a new desktop image, but other elements add to an altered user experience.

The New Dock

Tiger’s Dock


Leopard’s 3D Dock

The Dock has gone from a translucent rectangle to a glossy, reflective, three-dimensional plane. To me, it’s an extremely visually distracting piece of UI, and some icons don’t work well with this new Dock. (Read a detailed analysis of this issue here.) The Leopard Dock is a fantastic tech demo, but it fails from a usability perspective. Fortunately, a little command line work can restore the Dock to a more usable, two-dimensional state.


Leopard’s hidden 2D Dock. Much better.

The Leopard Dock also adds a new feature called Stacks, which bring their own share of positives and negatives to the OS X experience. I want to spend some more time of this feature, so I’ll be dedicating an entire post to Stack sometime later.

The Menu Bar

The menu bar in Tiger came under some criticism for its glossy appearance, even garnering some unkind comparisons to Windows XP. (Sorry if I’m criticizing XP too much, but I really don’t like its native UI.) The Leopard menu bar is a complete contrast to its former self.


Glossy and bright in 10.4


Translucent and subdued in 10.5

You can see the desktop through the menu bar with a slight Gaussian blur applied in Leopard. On the downside, while this menu bar is easier on the eyes, the translucency works better with some desktop backgrounds than others. Fortunately, you can make the menu bar opaque in the Desktop and Screensaver preference pane.

A strange side effect of this darker menu bar is that the menus themselves look out of place up against it.



The menus themselves look slightly nicer than in Tiger. The rounded edges are a nice touch, and the complete absence of pin-striping is welcome. I have to admit, though, that the slightly more translucent menus of earlier Leopard builds were even nicer. I know this seems to contradict my statements about the menu bar, but they were never quite that translucent.

Where’s the Love?

In the next post about Leopard’s interface, we’ll look at how some specific OS X applications have changed. It will be quite a bit more positive than this post, I promise. Windows and sheets have both been reworked in Leopard and with some very nice results.

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

In what is probably my latest OS X adoption ever, I finally picked up Mac OS X Leopard a month ago. As my Tiger overview demonstrates, I’m hardly a master at writing overly technical documents about a new operating system. However, I’m fascinated by some of the subtle and not-so-subtle user interface (UI) changes that have come with Leopard.

A Quick Retrospective

The interface of Apple’s Unix-based operating system has been in a state of constant flux since its introduction to consumers in 2001, and every release has seen changes to various parts of the UI. For some history, check out Steve Jobs introducing the new interface in Macworld 2000.



The bizarre thing about watching that video (outside of being reminded of what a pain dialog boxes used to be) is that OS X looks very little like that demonstration eight years ago even though many of the underlying principles remain intact. Take Mail and Finder, for example. Here’s how Mail evolved between OS X 10.2 and 10.4.


10.2 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.3 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.4 on my PowerMac G5.

Mac OS X 10.2 still looks very similar to Steve Jobs’ prototype of Aqua, but the interface begins to evolve in 10.3. Mail in 10.3 sports embedded widow controls as opposed to the floating jewels in earlier versions. Additionally, the pinstripes that once dominated OS X windows and menus are greatly subdued. Finally, Mail in 10.4 adopts an entirely new unified window style, loses the drawer, and sports a new style of pill-shaped toolbar buttons.

The OS X Finder has also seen its share of changes between OS X 10.2 and 10.4.


10.2 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.3 courtesy of GUIdebook.

If examining screenshots, I have to admit that I’d be hard-pressed to tell the 10.1 Finder and 10.2 Finder apart, much like Mail. However, the visual change to 10.3 is jarring. Mac OS 10.3 Panther marks the height of Apple’s infatuation with brushed metal, and metal windows seemed to randomly litter the interface. Again, note how widgets have gone from floating to embedded. In 10.4 Tiger (not pictured), the Finder retains the brushed metal look, but it’s slightly slimmed.

Where Is This Going?

By the time Mac OS X Tiger was released, the UI was an inconsistent jumble. While Apple had been slowly phasing out old ideas like pinstripes and drawers, several new interface ideas were being introduced – without a consistent pattern. With the introduction of unified windows in Tiger’s version of Mail and a dark version of the same window in iTunes 5, OS X apps could sport any one of four windowing styles. Combine this with a variety of toolbar options, a new HUD palette, and completely custom interfaces like those found in applications like GarageBand, and you have a system interface that is growing more and more fragmented.

In the second segment, we’ll take a look at how Leopard takes great strides in unifying the user experience of OS X as well as its share of interface oddities. Get ready for lots of pictures!

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

freshome: Furniture Inspired by Scrabble Game

D'oh! I wish I knew about these BEFORE we began redoing our living room!



TUAW: Our Favorite Easter Eggs

TUAW writes about some fun hidden goodies in Mac OS X (but there aren't as many as in the good old days of the classic Mac OS. grumble, grumble, kids these days...). I have to admit, though, I didn't expect –

"Nooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Tags: silly, tiger, os x

Instigator Blog: 5 Phrases You Never Want to Hear in a Presentation

Let me additionally say that you should never begin your talk by telling people what you aren't going to cover. Also, the author of this post mentions participation as an important part of your talk. I do agree, but don't force it. No participation is better than forced participation.



TUAW: Where OS X 'Big Cat' code names REALLY come from

I like the German tank theory better, but this is probably a more realistic origin.



Wii Fanboy: Spielburg working on Wii game with EA

Let's hope these games are more Minority Report and Saving Private Ryan than they are Hook or The Lost World.



I'm a little late getting these put up, but here are 1Up.com's lists of most wanted games this year. As an aside, I'm playing Burnout: Dominator (on the PS2 list) right now, and it is very fun. I don't miss crash mode very much, but the lack of traffic checking is taking some getting used to.

Top 10: PC • Top 10: Wii • Top 10: DS • Top 10: PSP • Top 10: PS2 • Top 10: PS3 • Top 10: XBox 360

Tags: powerpoint, tiger, leopard, video games, os x

I promised this post months ago, but I just haven't had the time to hash it out. Now seems as good of a time as ever since at least one of my grad classes is mostly caught up for the moment! This is by no means a comprehensive review of Mac OS X 10.4, but I hope it provides a decent overview and a good perspective on one person's experiences using this product.
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Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was released on April 29, 2005 to wide acclaim and wide criticism. As per Apple's recent tradition, the product was $129 ($69 for educators). There was much ado over "200 New Features" from Apple's PR, and there was general complaint and mockery regarding a $129 fee for a "point release" from the critical. The truth of Tiger is somewhere in the middle. You have to pick some pretty fine nits to find "200 New Features." On the other hand, Mac OS 10.4 is more than a general "point release."
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An OS By Any Other Name...

I've often said that Apple sells itself short in the nomenclature used for it's "X" systems. To illustrate this, some history:
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(At this point, some of my more tech-savy readers should skip ahead.) Mac OS X, pronounced "Mac Oh-Es Ten," is not really the tenth version of the Macintosh Operating System. The original Mac OS died with the passing of Mac OS 9. The current system is based on UNIX, and it is a marriage, sometimes inelegant and sometimes uncomfortable, of the Classic Mac OS and another OS project that was called NeXTSTEP. As such, Mac OS X 10.1 was really version one of a new product. (No, I refuse to count Mac OS X 10.0 as anything else than an expensive beta.)
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With each successive release, this product has matured considerably, so much so that screenshots of Mac OS X 10.1 look very foreign to someone used to working with Mac OS 10.4. In fact, these two systems look about as similar as Windows 98 and Windows XP. However, public perception can be that progress has been minimal because of how Apple has chosen to name their new operating system. It would be more accurate to view this product as Mac OS X Version 4 than as a simple point release.
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Installation and First Impressions

My system disks were of Mac OS X 10.4.0, and installation was breezy. It took a little over 20 minutes to install on my G5, but it took quite a bit longer on my PowerBook G3. After rebooting, there was some performance lag as Spotlight indexed my hard drive, but that was quickly resolved. I quickly played with as many toys as I could including Automator, Dashboard, Spotlight, and the snazzy new screen-savers! Everything worked as expected.
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My G5 seemed noticeably faster overall. I'm continually impressed how each Mac OS revision seems to make that machine snappier (even though it's a 1.8 GHz SP, which is supposedly adversely affected by 10.4). Startup time is also speedier. On average, my G5 takes roughly 30 seconds to boot. Unfortunately, Mac OS 10.4 has had the opposite affect on my PowerBook G3, and the poor thing seems to struggle under this system's weight. I guess I should have known I was in trouble when my old PowerBook was not on the initial list of supported hardware. (It appeared a few days later.)
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What about stability? So far, there have been no kernal panics. Actually, I have been fortunate enough to never have had one of these, and I have been an OS X user since the Public Beta came out. My PowerBook began my OS X experience, and my old Graphite iMac DV joined the X era when Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" came out. In addition to the lack of kernal panics on either my G5 or my PowerBook G3, I have experienced no system freezes, and the only application to "Unexpectedly Quit" has been Microsoft Word 2004 on my laptop. My desktop has had absolutely zero flakiness ... outside of some that was my own doing.
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My only real complaint is the fact that 10.4.1 and 10.4.2 (as well as some other miscellaneous updates) had already been released prior to my purchase of Tiger in late August, but the boxed version I got did not contain these updates, so both my desktop and my laptop had to download those updates after installation. I had kind of expected those updates to be "in the box" by then. For reference, 10.4.1 had been released May 16, and 10.4.2 had been released July 12. My purchase of Mac OS X 10.4 was on August 20.
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New Features

Dashboard: Dashboard is the flashiest of the new features, and it is the feature that will probably remain most associated with Tiger. Dashboard is a compnant of Exposé, which was introduced by Apple in 10.3 "Panther." Dashboard is a separate layer from the desktop that runs mini applications callsed "widgets." These widgets are one-trick ponies that can do things like track shipments, monitor the weather, control iTunes, convert measurements, and act as a calendar. There are thousands of widgets freely available for download on the Internet, and there are a few more sophisticated ones that cost a few dollars. Fortunately, Apple has included an interface for installing and managing widgets as of the 10.4.2 update.



By in large, I find Dashboard pretty useful. I used to run Konfabulator strictly in Konsposé mode, so Dashboard offered little adjustment for me. The screenshot shows my most frequently used widgets, and they all do the job well. My only gripe is with the general laginess of Dashboard when you open it the first time after login. Personally, I have to recommend a tiny app called Dashboard Starter if you think you'll use Dashboard a lot. All it does is launch Dashboard on login, thereby making the widgets more responsive once you are ready to use them.

Spotlight: Spotlight is the integrated system search feature of Mac OS 10.4. You can envoke Spotlight by clicking on a magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen or by using the keyboard command Command-Space. Spotlight searches while you type, which is fine on fast systems, but I wish there was the option for it to wait for you to hit Return on my slower G3 system. Most of the time, if I lose something, Spotlight can find it for me. However, on my PowerBook G3, I've noticed that about half of my documents never get searched, and I'm not sure how to correct that situation. I'm a pretty organized person and seldom lose track of where I have information stowed, but Spotlight has come in handy during those times I have lost track of stuff.

Here's what a Spotlight window looks like if you ask it to show you all results from the Spotlight menu. Could this be the future of the Finder?



Automator: Automator may be one of the cooler new features that few will discover and even fewer may use. I can't comment too much about Automator because I'm still learning about it. Basically, Automator is designed to bring one-step goodness to repetitive tasks. For example, you could apply a sepia tone filter to multiple photographs at once. You may want to assign Spotlight Keywords to multiple items, or you could name several files sequentially (August 01.pdf, August 02.pdf, etc.). There is a learning curve involved, but Automator is a nice example of how Apple sometimes succeeds in thinking outside the box. I think I'm going to really like Automator once I get used to it.

Here's a screen capture of one of Automator's sample workflows. You can add and rearrange steps using simple drag-and-drop.



Other New Features: QuickTime is now at verison 7 and supports a new high-definition codec. Unfortuantely, QuickTime 7 does not seem to be as responsive as QuickTime 6 was when viewing .mpg videos in a browser window (Safari or Firefox). Some new Finder features include Burnable Folders and Smart Folders. Both are quite useful, especially the Burn Folders, which allow you to set up a burn session without a CD or DVD actually being inserted in the drive. FIanlly, the built in RSS support in Safari is cool, but if you are used to a dedicated RSS aggregator (like NetNewsWire), Safari probably won't offer enough features to make you switch.

There are plenty more little touches that separate Mac OS X 10.4 from previous releases, but this gives an overview of some of the most obvious enhancements.

Under the Hood

More important than the superficial enhancements are the "under the hood" improvements to Mac OS X 10.4. These are the changes that most will never see or know about but that affect how the system and applications work. Apple refers to these as "key technologies," and they include such elements as H.264 support, Core Image, Core Data, and Core Audio. Core Audio was introduced in either Jaguar or Panther, and it created a robust set of integrated audio functionality right into the operating system that any application can potentially have access to. Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro is a good example of an application that takes advantage of Core Audio.

New to the Core Foundation Technologies are Core Image and Core Data. Core Data is over my head, but it meant to improve the data-model framework used by applications. Core Data is important to Spotlight's functionality, and it uses database concepts to organize and manage data from any application built to utilize it. This, like other Core Foundation Technologies, is aimed squarely at developers and making Mac OS X as attractive of a development platform as possible. Furthermore, Core Image, like Core Audio, provides developers with a respectable palette of image tools that can be seamlessly integrated into their application. Image Tricks by BeLight Software is a nice utility that is built entirely around the Core Image filters.

What does this mean to the end user? It means future Mac OS X applications can take advantage of all sorts of great technologies that would formerly have had to be integrated manually. Imagine a presentation application that could apply audio effects to sounds and music in the presentation, that could manipulate images right in the application by applying Gaussian blur and sepia tone filters without having to rely on a separate image editor, all while indexing every bit of content in your presentation for easy searching later. An application like this would be very possible utilizing Apple's Core Foundation Technologies (which makes me wonder what new features we'll see in Keynote 3). I don't understand half of the technical documentation regarding Core Foundation, but I do know that I've been impressed more than once by applications that make good use of these technologies.

Dashboard and Safari RSS are nifty and fun. Core Foundation Technologies are the stepping stones that will build the future of the Macintosh platform.
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The Interface.

See that cool screenshot? Yeah, Mac OS X 10.4 doesn't quite look that good. That screenshot is actually the product of two different interface modifications (iTuno and SmoothStripes Sunken Mod if you must know). Don't get me wrong, I really like the Aqua user interface, and I am a big fan of the new "Unified" look that Mail 2 sports. I just don't like how every other application seems to have a different version of Aqua applied to it. The Finder, for example, still looks basically like it did in the days of Jaguar, while iTunes has a drastically different appearance using similar elements, and don't get me started on GarageBand.

Aqua has evolved greatly since the days of Mac OS X 10.0. It is much more subdued than it used to be, and pinstripes are pretty much gone. However, it seems that Apple has been improving the interface in bits and pieces. Unfortunately for users, this results in a very inconsistent visual experience. On the other hand, this may be intentional. Software developers seem to be moving to having different applications having distinct looks and feels (Windows Media Player and Office 12 anyone?). It's just not my cup of tea. Fortunately, applications like Unsanity's ShapeShifter make modifying the systems appearance fairly painless.

The Kitchen Sink & Conclusion

I know there are many aspects of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger I have failed to overview in detail. For example, I haven't talked much about H.264, nor have I said anything about the new metadata features that have worked their way into Tiger. iChat AV has gone untouched on my computer, so there was no use in even mentioning it, and accessibility features as well as the new parental controls are absent from this overview. 10.4 is a huge system filled with features, and there is no way I'm going to be able to cover all of them.

Tiger is another step toward making Mac OS X a more robust and feature-rich environment to work in. Some features like Dashboard are very visible while others, like Automator, may seem more daunting to the average user. Some features have been left strangely hidden, like the Finder's Slideshow functionality, while many of the other enhancements are at the system level, invisible to most people. Overall, I'm glad we bought Tiger, and I'm really looking forward to the enhancements and changes that will be brought by Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in late 2006!

Tags: macintosh, software, opinion, tiger, os x