Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard to kill windows?

“Think about it: how many of Apple’s new applications actually use traditional, overlapping windows for anything other than a frame around a unique interface? Garageband doesn’t. iTunes barely does except for video. All the Pro Apps like Final Cut, Motion, Aperture, and the like all trend toward paned, not overlapping window, interfaces. And new products like the iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV don’t use windows at all, relying instead on vastly simplified buttons and interfaces. Further, consumers are gaining experience with interfaces that rely on transparent panes instead of windows on new HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies,” Aric Winton and Carl Howe write for Blackfriars’ Marketing.

“Core Animation opens up the possibility of a brand new user interface. Time Machine is an example of an application that breaks a lot of conventions about window management, application windows and general user interfaces. Core Animation is what makes it all possible,” Winton and Howe write.

MacDailyNews Note: Click here for Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard Sneak Peek: Core Animation.

“Between transparent overlays and Apple’s Spaces feature to allow multiple virtual screens, Apple has eliminated many of the needs for overlapping windows cluttering up desktops. And just as Apple first recognized that computers no longer needed floppy disks any more, ridding consumers of overlapping windows may be the first step in a radical simplification of user experiences again,” Winton and Howe write.

“Doing away with overlapping windows in most of the OS would allow Apple a marketing bludgeon to use against Microsoft. In the marketplace of ideas, it would paint Microsoft’s six-years-in-the-making Vista as a completely old school effort. It would take Microsoft’s best-known and recognized brand — Windows — and make it appear as tired as DOS. It would be a marketing shot heard round the world — and it would be one that would take Microsoft years to copy,” Winton and Howe write.

Full article here.