“A series of Apple patent filings published this week reveal the Mac maker has spent a considerable amount of time outlining a new multi-dimensional interface for Mac OS X that would make better use of screen real estate by increasing the number of virtual surfaces capable of housing application and interface elements,” Slash Lane reports for AppleInsider.
“The most extensive of those filings is labeled “Multi-Dimensional Desktop” and was submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office back in June of last year, around the same time the company took the wraps off the feature set for its upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard,” Lane reports. “None of the latest interface enhancements described in the June patent are present in current pre-release builds of Snow Leopard, however, suggesting they’ll be candidates for inclusion in versions of Mac OS X that would surface in years to come.”
“Generally speaking, the filings depict a 3D interface by which side walls, a top, and a floor all protrude from a back surface that resembles today’s two-dimensional Mac OS X desktop. A few examples also suggest a radical departure from traditional interface design by which the Mac OS X menubar would be removed from the top of the screen and thrown into a stack or floating element.,” Lane reports.
read the full article, with many illustrations from the patent application, here.
Something that Microsoft will obviously imitate, but not innovate.
The most important thing about this for me would be ensuring that the perspective worked. The little divider line on the 3D dock irritates me no end.
@Bob –
Oh yes! This is how Microsoft invision the future of 3D
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cool smile” style=”border:0;” />
This looks like research Apple might have done, but cast aside because at a basic level, it just looks goofy. Then they patented it, just to get Microsoft to copy it for Vista 2015. Meanwhile, Apple will take their real 3D concept and deliver something with more WOW, something that Microsoft won’t even see coming.
And all generated by a multi-core-threaded OS using the GPU as the fuel source.
Whaddayathink, Ballmer?
This could be an alternative interface you could bring up like time machine, and dismiss when you need to.
Everyone likes to talk about a 3D interface but implementing it in a way that is more efficient that a 2D interface will be a big challenge. Maybe the transition will be more gradual, going from floating windows to a deeper 2D effect with other content becoming more blurred and out of focus.
This would actually reduce the usable size of the screen. The only way I see this being used is if the traditional 2D screen zooms out to what is depicted in the above diagrams by some kind of key short cut like (ctrl + ~).
I saw some in expensive 3d monitors, maybe we need a 3d Mouse also…
Hasn’t this been done before?
http://www.infinite-3d.com/
This could be a diabolical plot by Mr. Jobs to get the great imitator, MS, to bring back Bob in Windows 7.
Great eye candy, and it might be fun, but what will it add to usability and productivity? I think it will wait until really large screen territory becomes really cheap. I would not want my work viewing area decreased to accommodate all the extra interface elements.
As Spaces and Exposé have been really popular, I can see the logic in expanding that to a 3D interface. However, at present it would have to be optional and also would be a bad thing for a 13″ MacBook, with very little screen that could be dedicated to this. Or, is Steve thinking that we should hook up to the Cinema Displays? But I can’t afford one! Oh no! Never mind though… naturally there will be a solution.
I would prefer a cube-shaped 3-D desktop.
You could see a 3-D desktop coming with the changes to the Dock and the menu bar in Leopard and with the introduction of Time Machine. This is the logical next step.
The advantage of a 3-D desktop is increased screen real estate – not less as Berrylium suggests. Just look at the drawings in the Appleinsider article to see what I mean.
I smell a fake, and Apple’s just baiting Microsoft.
How many patent applications that have been seen here and other similar sites have ever made it to market?
My personal favorite was the screen with the camera in between the pixels.
IMO it’s just a patent and probably won’t be on any products anytime soon, or at least, not for the current interface of the Mac OS. You can’t possibly have an interface where the menu bar is not at the top, because that would have Apple breaching its own human interface guidelines.
reminds me of the mApple clip where Steve Mobbs is doing a 3d thing with his safari windows.
Made me think of the look of the Time Machine app.
As has been going on for over a decade now, the concept of the 3D GUI remains a work-in-progress.
I personally see no point in creating a ‘room’ to ‘house’ the GUI at all. All that floor, walls, ceiling stuff is doing is taking up desktop real estate. What’s the good of that? There have been 3D GUIs from many years back that broke down the walls, so to speak, and ‘thought outside the box’ with very good results. One could zoom into the 3D space, zoom out, turn and look right, left, up, down to find things, a smooth variation on ye old virtual desktop technology.
Personally, I think the nifty stuff is going to be in bits and pieces. You can stack stuff up in a pile then pull out what you want in the pile. The pile can be moved around to be viewed from any angle. Or windows can be swung to the side or swung back into full view.
For me the ultimate is the Solar System metaphor with planets and moons giving you access to your personal universe. IMHO the modern Apple trackpad is ideal for this concept. But apparently that concept is still too freaky for most.
Keep bashing at it folks. It’ll happen.
Bumptop
I remember an Apple called “Hot Sauce” quite a few years back. It was trippy.
This is bad. The menu should be at the top so that it becomes “infinitely wide”. You can push the mouse far and you know that the cursor gets to menu and stays there. That’s why System, Mac OS and Mac OS X keeps using that design.
Why can’t they just make it the elevation just so and make the top of the back wall at the top of the screen?
Ugh. That’s awful. The only thing missing is a VR glove with an Apple logo on it so Mac users can wave their arms about like a one-armed crab. Thankfully few of Apple’s patent applications ever come to fruition in the form they are presented.
Putting a UI like this out on the market anytime soon would only serve to further alienate Apple products by hammering home the already false perception that “Macs are weird”.