Google Labs has debuted “Google X” which adds an animated Mac OS X-style Dock above Google’s search box. Chikai Ohazama, Google Software Engineer, has blogged the following:
Today is an amazing day: A small idea – a fun late-night coding jaunt to help me learn Javascript & DHTML – has just launched on Google Labs. I never expected it to make it as far as it has when I wrote it a month ago, especially since my “real” job is working on Keyhole, where I’m having the time of my life taking our cool 3D mapping application and putting the power of Google behind it. It’s fulfilling to have the opportunity to reach the audience we always dreamed of when we started Keyhole five years ago, and that by itself is absolute coolness.
And now there’s Google X, which came about because I wanted a quick fun way to access all of Google’s services. I gave it to a few friends in the company, who gave it to their friends, some posted it on their blogs, others sent it around on mailing lists, and it eventually made its way to Marissa Mayer, who liked it enough to say, when do you want to put it up on Labs? So after some spit and polish from some enthusiastic Googlers and the keen eye of the UI team, Google X is here. I hope all of you enjoy it – especially Mac users, who I’m sure will appreciate its lineage.
See “Google X” here.
MacDailyNews Take: Too bad you can’t turn off the animation; Dock Magnification is one of the first things we disable on our Macs. Why? It’s far easier and quicker to hit a stationary target than a slippery moving one. Let’s face it, the animated Dock icons aren’t very useful. So, because Apple has included text rollovers on Dock icons, turning off the Magnification and minimizing the Dock to its smallest possible size works best for us.
Kudos to Google, though, for minimizing the Magnification animation and providing a familiar place for Mac OS X users, right down to the quote (and link to Apple’s Mac OS X page) at the bottom of the page, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you.”
[UPDATE, 10:31am ET: AcidSearch is a search enhancement for Safari. It adds unlimited “Search Channels” to the Google search field. Channels can be customized, so you can add Google X. AcidSearch is free software, and will always be free, according to developer pozytron. More info and download link here.]
[UPDATE, 7:00pm ET: Google X is no longer currently available. See related article below.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
‘Google X’ goes missing – March 16, 2005
How to run a Mac OS X PowerBook or iBook; no shut downs, restarts, or quitting applications – March 16, 2005
So…how does one make Safari’s Google search use this page instead of the vanilla one?
This is great.
“Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you.”
I think it is good for Apple when they receive this sort of flattery. The best part about it is Google recognizing that they “borrowed” the idea from Apple.
Actually I love the magnification feature in the dock. I prefer hiding the dock and then when I need an application it magnifies. When I see the title above the ap, it’s one click and your in. It has to be the coolest feature of the desktop. Turn off magnification…no way. It sure beats the heck out of moving windows out of the way in order to get to shortcuts (like on a pc).
My wife however, turns it off on her Powerbook.
MDN, you’re missing a trick. Don’t turn off magnification, just have it a tiny bit bigger than the normal size and you get valuable visual feedback as you mouse over the dock.
It’s great, but needs to be used with subtlety.
And as HuskerMac says, turn on hiding too. I found that essential when using FCP due the the limited space on my 22″ cinema display.
Hey MDN I love the magnification on the dock. I haven’t taken it off and I think it’s pretty easy to use. To each his own then.
Dock magnification gives me something to do when I am bored.
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It always puts a smile on my face
When I first installed OS X…I think I ran the cursor over the dock 100 times a day..
I disagree w/MDN’s take on the magnification of the icons in the dock. I actually find the magnification (set correctly) really does help focus on the app you want to load, especially when you have many apps in the dock and the icons get rather small.
All IMHO, of course…
Jb
I would also like to know how to change the safari google search!
Anyone know how to do this?
My new homepage!
I am putting my vote in with the Dock magnification. I love it.
Especially when you’ve got a couple Safari pages minimized and thanks to the genius Apple developers you get to see the actual page as the icon in the Dock enlarge when you roll over it.
First move the doc to the left or right side. Apple display’s are basically landscape mode. I use the right but that’s my preference.
Second turn on magnifaction but turn it down. a slight increase for small screens is useful(aka 12″ powerbook/ibook)
third open finder to / Select and drag the Application directory to the Doc. now when you right/cmd click on that icon you get an expanding menu off all your apps.(I use a pair of AppleScripts in an odd directory that actually shows volumes mounted. So I can browse CD’s, etc. Macosxhints.com)
I am a new OS X user(Novemember 2004)& never owned a mac before, but I have used and can use lot’s of OS’s Linux, Windows, AIX, Beos, Mac OS 8/9, etc.
See the update about “AcidSearch” in the article above about adding Google X to Safari search.
peragrin,
Drag your hard drive(s) into the right side of the Dock and click+hold on them – that way you can get a hierarchical menu of everything!
MDN has long said they wish that Apple would ship Mac OS X set up this way by default.
Welcome to Mac OS X, friend!
I can’t move the google dock items around. lame.
I love the dock magnification.
I could not live without the Dock Magnification, it just rules the scene dude.
AcidSearch…My favorite OS X utility.
I set up easy to remember shortcuts for the channels (mostly custom) that I use. Example: “im The Matrix” (no quotes) will search Internet Movie Database for The Matrix, “gi Josie Maran” will search Google Images for Josie Maran. I even have a shortcut to select the Google Bar.
My channels include everything from Amazon and eBay to Wikipedia and Dictionary.com.
Another cool thing is to open a group of searches into new tabs, either in a new window or the current. Example: “si (for search images) Josie Maran” will open a new window with search results from Google Images, Yahoo Images and MSN Images in their respective tabs. Cool…
MacDailyNews article of interest: How to run a Mac OS X PowerBook or iBook; no shut downs, restarts, or quitting applications
the icons are kinda lame, but it’s a neat idea
” Too bad you can’t turn off the animation; Dock Magnification is one of the first things we disable on our Macs.”
No it isn’t. True, I scale it back considerably, but I do not turn it off.
I like it. It helps my eye follow the pointer as it moves up and down
(I keep my dock on the left side of the screen) the dock while I make
up my mind what I want to click on.
egarc,
That acidsearch is one of the coolest utilities I’ve seen in a while. THANKS FOR SHARING!
Typical useless design crap: one has to waste time by hovering over icons instead of simply just reading the link text and click on it. So the homage is perfect: Apple is the master of making overpriced slow design crap.
Re: reality cheack.
I know its a new concept, you being a windows user – but the apple visual interface is what we mac users call ‘intuitive’.
Believe it or not, the human brain can remember what icons represent what applications.
Being a windows user, you obviously cannot understand this original idea that has been around since man lived in caves.
A word or advice: Go back to you windowz xp and stay there.
This forum is for people who appreciate innovation, original thinking and who believe that ‘less is more’.
Hey Reality Check. go click on your icons, defrag your hard drive, run you virus ridden xp until it crashes again.
I really like dock magnification, as long as it is only slightly turned on. As others have said, it provides lovely visual feedback of where you are pointing, and it doesn’t interfere at all with pointing at your target.
Yeah, just pop up a little, not too big. I don’t like the Dock being blown up like a balloon. The Google thing is cool, but it does look a lot like a web page, and not a piece of software. I guess that’s too appeal to the ‘dozers out there, but whatever. I’m still using what I want, we’ll just leave it at that. Go get ’em Tiger!
“Dock Magnification is one of the first things we disable on our Macs.”
I also highly disagree with Mac Daily News’s take on Dock magnification. I think it’s one of the coolest features about our Mac Docks. It helps a lot when you have a ton of icons in your Dock. Helps a lot to concentrate on what your clicking.
Believe it or not, the dock magnification is incredibly helpful, particularly when you have alot of icons on the dock and the size shrinks, with magnification it becomes much easier to see/recognize the icon you are over.
I’ve noticed that Reality Check is always highly/over-critical abut the aritcles posted about the mac.
I have to wonder, is there ANYTHING about OS X or macs that he likes or can be positive about?
Or is he just a simple troll looking to antagonize mac users for his jollies, and nothing more?
If Apple’s on a litigation roll, they should sue Google while they’re at it.
Something must be going on…
GoogleX isn’t working at the moment… ??!!
It no workey…
Did apple’s legal team threaten a smackdown?
Ha, they just removed the link. That was quite spiffy.
Come on gang… We’ve got a mystery to solve…
Wow, that didn’t last long… 🙁
well now that sucks, where did it go? HEY HACKERS: Find it, or look and see if the code is cached on your local machines, and get it running again! WOOO!!!
Magic Word: Morning
As is a misspelled mourning for googlex.
Yeah, already saved the code on that one just so I could see how they did it. It isn’t groundbreaking, but it is rather spiffy and cleaner than most attempts I’ve seen.
Deal link MDN
seriously, aren’t the “macdailynews takes” annoying? i leave mine on.
Use google to find the page;
Google “Google X”
Look at the first non-news link returned and click on the “Cached” link
Scroll over the broken image icons to see the OS X like Dock Magnigication at work