“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.
3D desktop has been done for years on Linux/Unix, like the concept of (work)Spaces. Apple just hone and perfect what others tried and failed. Hopefully the product looks better than the patent drawing and is actually useful unlike other 3D attempts. There is a reason people need huge or multiple screens. Squeezing skewed, unreadable windows on small screens makes no sense. I had thought Cover Flow is a nice model for flipping through active apps.
this is dumb. what does it being 3D add to the mix? we already have Spaces.
Actually, I think this interface as shown would be great if the bezel of a screen is deepened and smaller LCD panels form an actual floor and walls. It would be an enhancement for a “personal” workstation, giving an immersive feel, though not as much for viewing movies at a distance because the deep bezel may restrict viewing angles.
But certainly putting relatively smaller LCDs/LEDs on a deep bezel is not going to be expensive and you will have more screen real estate as the dock can move out to the bezel floor. And of course the bezel lcd/led can be turned off for the more traditional look.
Following up on my previous deep bezel idea, The “floating elements” on the walls and floor can also be generated on deep bezels using a reverse perspective distortion, like seen on ads on sports fields which are flat horizontal but appear on television to be “standing up” out of the ground.
didn’t apple steal, oops, I mean, be inspired by Xerox’s work in the 70’s at PARC?
With Usability Engineering becoming an increasingly big thing nowadays, and a large number of computer users with a similar skill set and interface expectation, then it should be unusual to see convergence in interfaces. So this whole notion of being the innovative forbear in UI design is a bit of a misnomer. It’s an iterative process of hopefully, continual one-up-man-ship. 3d is nothing truly original. Hell games have had 3d interfaces since adam was a boy. Nevertheless, it looks like it could be nice, since it is more natural. Though, resisting the temptation to cram everything in (so it looks like your average CAD product) might be hard. Minimalism with cuing and preemptive, learning interfaces is something I’d like to see more of.
Apple paid xerox for the ui work that was done and being ignored. They also made huge changes to it. The ui you see in Lisa and later Macintosh is not what xerox had… try again loser.
Your next assignment… find out where dos came from, or perhaps windows 3.1…
We’re OFF TOPIC, but to continue:
Thank you @pt.
There are some decent books on the history of Apple out there to read. You’ve always got Wikipedia.org here on the net as well. They have a reasonable short history of Apple. I wish folks would go do some homework and read up on their facts before making bizarro statements like ‘didn’t apple steal…’ when that never happened and is boring old mythology and ignorance.
Another assignment:
– What company stole Apple’s QuickTime code from one of their contracted developers?
– What was their response when Apple asked for the code back?
– What did they have to fork over to Apple in order to avoid a massive lawsuit?
– What was the big joke on these code stealing suckers that culminated the deal?
Because their is massive mythology around this particular issue, and because the answer to the last question oddly flew over most people’s heads, I’ll post some quick answers to the above in a few days.
The point being that you idiots rave on about how apple invented this and apple invented that with regard to the GUI -> no, they took, paid, whatevered, somebody’s else’s work and modified it. Hence the notion of an iterative process, morons. Just like OSX is a modified version of BSD, albeit it with massive changes. SO in conclusion, I suggest you last two pair of idiots get your head out of you butt and pay attention….
And what makes you paid even sadder: it was said tongue in cheek. My god are you naturally stupid or do you practice??
oop, correction pair…
and by the way, if you’re too lame to put your own name on your posting then what sort of credence do you deserve? None. Guess you haven’t learned how to spell moron. There you go, you now now how to spell the name of your species! M-O-R-O-N, just in case you forgot!
‘PT’ is apparently having a bad day, or is undergoing metamorphosis into a troll. In any case, BIG YAWN. Facts remain facts. RaNTiNg and killing the messenger changes nothing.
Ye olde sayings:
You can lead a troll to water but you cannot stop their stink.
There are none so blind as those who will not pull their head out of the mud.
The bigger the bluster the smaller the balls.
;-D
And now the answers to your homework assignment. Let us review the questions:
Question 1: What company stole Apple’s QuickTime code from one of their contracted developers?
Answer: Microsoft
Question 2: What was their response when Apple asked for the code back?
Answer: “NO!”
Question 3: What did they have to fork over to Apple in order to avoid a massive lawsuit?
Answer: The total sum of money remains undisclosed by Apple or Microsoft. Publicly, MS had to buy $125 million in Apple stock and hold onto it for 5 years. They were non-voting certificates. Apple and Microsoft also signed an agreement to share one another’s APIs for five years in order that one another’s applications worked best on each other’s OS platforms. Microsoft also made a contract to provide Office for Mac for another five years.
Question 4: What was the big joke on these code stealing suckers that culminated the deal?
Answer: At the following MacWorld, Steve Jobs presented Bill Gates via video. The joke was that Mr. Gates appeared on a big screen in front of the MacWorld audience, reminiscent of Apple’s 1984 commercial in which BIG BROTHER was up on a massive screen ranting at the peons seated below. Laugh or cry, Mr. Gates had no idea the joke was being pulled on him. But he did notice booing in the audience when he appeared.