Apple leaks new scroll bar UI details in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

“Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs specifically highlighted a few new user interface changes coming in the next release of Mac OS X, but his presentation also revealed additional subtle but significant changes to how scroll bars work in the new Mac user interface,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider.

“Jobs’ presentation focused on a few incremental evolutions, ranging from a more iPad-like implementation of full screen apps (Preview and iPhoto, specifically) to an enhanced version of Exposé named ‘Mission Control’ that better integrates with the Dashboard and Desktop views, and also does a better job of clustering apps’ windows together,” Dilger reports. “Apps’ clustered windows in Mission Control behave more like groups of photos on the iPad, another example of the cross pollination going on between iOS and the Mac OS X desktop. The new interface also blends Spaces’ virtual desktops into the user interface more cohesively in a way that will likely be accessible to a wider audience.”

Dilger reports, “The concept of full screen apps goes beyond the ‘heads up display’ full screen views the company has been experimenting with. Rather than presenting a single document full screen, with a normal menu bar, navigation controls and tool bar palettes that slide into view when the user mouses over the top and bottom of the screen, the new full screen view of iPhoto 11 presents a simplified, windowless interface with an iPad-like toolbar that’s always visible. There’s also subtle grey scroll bars.”

Read more in the full article, which includes Mac OS X Lion screenshots, here.

50 Comments

  1. “In fact, the Mac App Store appears to be designed not to enter full screen app mode, as its green Zoom button is dimmed. In the presentation, Federighi also explicitly noted in passing that the green button is now considered a full screen app button rather than the “zoom to the largest window size that makes sense” that it always has been on the Mac.” Please tell me windows in Macs will not work like windows in MS crap and go to full screen size rather than “zoom to the largest window size that makes sense”? Please tell me I am understanding this incorrectly!! If that is what is being said, why the change? It makes no sense!

  2. “In fact, the Mac App Store appears to be designed not to enter full screen app mode, as its green Zoom button is dimmed. In the presentation, Federighi also explicitly noted in passing that the green button is now considered a full screen app button rather than the “zoom to the largest window size that makes sense” that it always has been on the Mac.” Please tell me windows in Macs will not work like windows in MS crap and go to full screen size rather than “zoom to the largest window size that makes sense”? Please tell me I am understanding this incorrectly!! If that is what is being said, why the change? It makes no sense!

  3. I don’t see how any of this is “dumbing down” the OS. It’s simply a change that makes sense for the direction the hardware has taken, and frankly, i think it is so much nicer to use because it all requires less clicks and navigation and more basic swiping of the fingers. Right now, I don’t see the benefit of full screen apps, but let’s see where it goes. I don’t have any except iPhoto, which i don’t really use, so i don’t know how it will apply to other things yet. Why not give it a try.

  4. I don’t see how any of this is “dumbing down” the OS. It’s simply a change that makes sense for the direction the hardware has taken, and frankly, i think it is so much nicer to use because it all requires less clicks and navigation and more basic swiping of the fingers. Right now, I don’t see the benefit of full screen apps, but let’s see where it goes. I don’t have any except iPhoto, which i don’t really use, so i don’t know how it will apply to other things yet. Why not give it a try.

  5. But what about speed and under the hood? Aesthetics are nice, but I want dinner before I have desert… The mac is a professional tool too, I hope Apple doesn’t forget raw power with all the lower end devices they have been selling.

    Power users are becoming fewer and fewer as Apple’s dominance spreads. I know they are just a few little things he showed, maybe so people don’t stop buying the current macs? There is a mental association with new hardware and new software together…

    -Pi

  6. But what about speed and under the hood? Aesthetics are nice, but I want dinner before I have desert… The mac is a professional tool too, I hope Apple doesn’t forget raw power with all the lower end devices they have been selling.

    Power users are becoming fewer and fewer as Apple’s dominance spreads. I know they are just a few little things he showed, maybe so people don’t stop buying the current macs? There is a mental association with new hardware and new software together…

    -Pi

  7. One thing I dislike in many forum comments – here and elsewhere – is the use of intense emotional language (“I hate —-“), rather than making concrete points backed with sound reasoning.

    That said, I will hereby resort to such language …. one of the things I HATE about Winblows is its full-screen behaviour. I have my monitors set up as a multi-window workspace. I do NOT want iPhoto, or anything else, taking over my workspace.

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