“In addition to the comprehensive redesign, OS X Yosemite could have made a significant change to how the Mac operating system functioned since it originally shipped just over thirty years ago,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.
An “image from a source shows a March build of OS X Yosemite that featured a Control Center panel,” Gurman reports. “The panel did not end up shipping in the first beta of Yosemite and was not announced on the WWDC stage last week, but Apple definitely considered including it. In fact, developers have located numerous code strings in the first Yosemite build that confirms Apple’s testing of an OS X variant of Control Center.”
“The Control Center feature was first introduced as a slide up settings menu in iOS 7,” Gurman reports. “While, in iOS, Control Center is simple a handy feature for accessing commonly used toggles quickly, OS X’s variant would have represented a massive shift in the Mac’s fundamentals.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hoo boy, crisis averted! While we’re not averse to change by any means, we like our menu right where it is, thanks. If it was removed, we would’ve enabled it immediately via whatever Terminal command or hack required – for old times’ sake, at the very least (why we still use Displaperture to this day, in fact – top corners only!)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
And you thought that whole OS X Weed thing was a joke. Luckily the sobered up.
You would think the Win8 tiles & no Start button fiasco with MicroSopt would have clued in the OSX team earlier.
Menus serve as a “known point” for all Mac users and removing easily accessed menu functionality is not a benefit to users. Users DON”T WORK in the Apple Menu space & I rarely access it.
Even if there are benefits to a Control Center, the fact is that the Apple menu “works” in a very small amount of space
I would have fought that tooth and nail! Would have been a Windows 8 nightmare all over again!
Another great heads up by Fred Mertz
Thanks for the props, little doggie.
I’d like to see the old Desk Accessories return to the Apple menu. I don’t need a whole 27″ display just to check the weather and/or the stock widgets.
Actually, when the next MAJOR transition of the Mac’s OS occurs (like the Mac OS 9 to X transition), Apple should consider getting rid of the entire Menu Bar (not just Apple Menu), and coming up with something new and better. Or, make it “hide” (as the default behavior) like it already does when you put a window into Full Screen mode.
These days, most key application functions are placed “on the app’s workspace,” closer to the likely location of the user’s cursor and focus. A common menu bar at the top of the screen is not as useful (as it once was), and it just takes up key screen estate. It is more useful today for the status information it displays on the right side of the Menu Bar (not the more functional left side), and that info can still be displayed on the screen (in a better format) without a Menu Bar.
The worst thing they could do is to force users to switch into different modes. The reason OS X generally works is precisely because everything is at your fingertips right when you need it. I find Dashboard a pain to use precisely because it forces a change of mode. Desktop accessories were the better way to go. Apple doing something like would be a major pointer that that they had lost their direction and the plot.
That makes sense, IF typical users actually used the Menu Bar these days. And “power users” don’t use the Menu Bar either; they typically use keyboard commands (or maybe the “right-click” contextual menu) instead of going to the Menu Bar.
And your argument is precisely WHY Apple needs to define the new standard, the next single common “mode” of operation, one that users (and developers) will want to use again.
In the old old days, before Apple created the Mac (and Microsoft copied it), every program looked VERY different, because every developer created their own user interface. So, Wordstar and WordPerfect did mostly the same things, but they did not work in a consistent way. It was like the “Wild West.”
Today, if you are paying attention, something similar is happening, and it’s not anything new. Because having a common Menu Bar is no longer as useful as it once was, developers are creating their own user interfaces for their apps. For example, Apple’s own iTunes has buttons and controls everywhere on its main window. Other apps may have numerous “button bars” and “palettes” and “sidebars.” The point of all this extra effort (instead of just putting it all in the Menu Bar), is to place the key and often repeated actions closer to the user’s cursor and focus. But there is a lack of consistency, so it’s the Wild West 2.0.
What Apple should do for the next MAJOR overhaul, when the Mac’s OS is no longer “ten dot something,” is to invent that NEW common “mode” of operation, precisely to avoid (or minimize) the current status quo, which is “to force users to switch into different modes.” What you are saying is the “worst thing” ALREADY EXISTS.
It took me ten years to get my wife to barely understand what’s on the home screen. I’m too old to try again.
It’s like originally when the apple was just going to be decoration in the center of the menubar the first iteration of OS X.
Yee gads, I remember that, and the uproar that caused when it was first seen in the Dev preview 2… for those who’ve forgotten or never saw it, there’s a couple pics halfway down the writeup about DP3 here:
http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/macos-x-dp3/macos-x-dp3-5.html
Do you remember the “single window” mode that Steve Jobs was pushing for?
Actually just went to your link and there it is! Single window mode.
I’m glad someone else remembered that. Trying to get rid of the Apple menu is nothing new.
The Apple Menu in the center created quite a few problems. First it would limit the menu bar items or application items. Second it had no function at the time so was just eye candy.
Moving the App name from right to left in OSX was the big change and made space for the User login on the right hand side.
Now the Apple Menu has limited functionality. I personally rarely use it except for About this Mac once or twice a year or restarting which in itself is rare. If it wasn’t for the minimal space it take up I would get rid of it. Still for newbies it is a place to find key items like restart.
I use displaperture too and the Panthora theme in Flavours app!
This is something that only Steve would have had a chance at pulling off.
It’s a sad day when Apple starts learning from Microsoft. I’m glad this didn’t happen, but the fact it made it into a build is somewhat frightening. Don’t f*ck with my Apple menu.
MDN, Milligratzeeeeeee for the rounded corners add on. I was missing out and didn’t even know it.
Are there any more jewels like this we should know about?
I have a feeling that the visceral reaction of Windows users to MS’s removal of the start button gave Apple quite a bit of pause when considering this move.
The point is to be better, not to be nostalgic. Geez these comments sound like you are all 100.
Haha, I think you are right. Many are probably still running ML anyway. 😉