• Aperture
• Apple Pro Apps
• Front Row
• iTunes 7 (including Front Row)
• Leopard Quicklook
• iPhone and AppleTV GUI

Well, now Steve has revealed the true user interface of Leopard will be, and it comes quite close to our speculation half-a-year ago. However, Apple did not rename OS X’s interface to Illuminous, as rumored. Supposedly, Aqua remains as the OS X interface, but now its evolved into a shiny, iTunes 7-like, animated, glassy user interface that we predicted for Illuminous.

The core of the new interface seems to be centered around the Desktop and Finder, both have been revamped in Leopard. The menu bar is transparent and the dock now has a 3D “block” look. The Finder now behaves much like iTunes 7, with a sidebar and CoverFlow navigation.

Other notable user-interface details concerning Leopard:

• The Finder can now has a large thumbnail view
• The top corners of the screen are no longer rounded
• Front Row now resembles AppleTV’s user-interface
• DVD Player now sports an “iPhoto full-screen mode” interface
• Quicktime movies can now be played fullscreen via Quicklook
• Developers can now build their own effects for Photo Booth
• iCal now has a revamped interface
• iChat features new effects for video conferences and a new sidebar/tabbed navigation

First off, I wish to clarify my feelings towards these types of articles, where the author only gives his/hers first impressions of a product. I do not believe that a switcher can successfully provide enough information to support his case for or against a product only after thirty days. It’s ridiculous that an author can achieve so much information to already form conclusions only after working with a product after thirty days. I do not believe that a product as complex as Mac OS X (or any other OS) can be given a fair review after only thirty days of on person’s experiences.

In many arguments Brian made, it was obvious he didn’t have enough experiences with OS X to fully support his arguments. One of the arguments he discussed against using a Mac is the lack of a stable, functional word-processor. The author listed all of the major word-processors in the Mac market, but failed to give his feelings towards each of them. He complained about the Microsoft Office and iWork trials, but never actually tested the fully-functional registered product, which is essential to truly understand the software. Possibly if he had given iWork a sincere try, he would have grown used to the rich features Pages and Keynote provide, compared to Microsoft Office. Additionally, I challenge his complaints towards a lack of a freeware word-processor. In respects to Windows, the exact circumstances apply. Windows usually comes with a demo version of Microsoft Office, and doesn’t have a complete, stable freeware suite of office applications that fully match the capability of Microsoft Office.

I would also like to mention the great chance that Apple will bundle its iWork and iLife suites into Leopard, therefore making the office and multimedia suites free. This actually presents another strong case defending OS X from one of Brian’s arguments, which is that this article was published only two weeks away from WWDC. It should be noted that this article is judging years-old software that are soon to be updated. Microsoft Office, iWork, iLife, OS X, and even the Mac Mini he used are all about to be upgraded soon.

Brian also admitted that “I didn’t want my experiences with the hardware to taint my results evaluating the operating system”. But unfortunately, much of his review was really based off of the hardware he was using. So, to be fair, its not right to judge a piece of software by the hardware you test it on, especially if that hardware is the cheapest offering available.

Also, he blamed his unsuccessful attempts to play 3D accelerated games on a Mac due to the hardware, without providing any evidence for support. In case he doesn’t know already, Boot Camp is beta, and not to be used without acknowledging that fact. It is not fair to judge a piece of software based on its beta versions. Plus, he should have clarified that Intel Mac Mini and MacBook models do not have an independent 3D graphics card, and the performance when attempting to display 3D graphics will simply not compare to a Mac that actually has a 3D graphics card. So, if you are looking into buying a Mac for gaming, maybe its best you upgrade to either an iMac or a MacBook Pro.

Other simple arguments he made against OS X further made me lose my beliefs that this author knew enough about the subject to know what he was talking about. A few of these cases include:

1. His belief that “Safari’s not as polished as FireFox”. Joking, right? If not, try Camino.
2. In order to disable Dashboard you must “go into the command-line terminal and enter a few complex commands”. -Onyx, a great freeware utility app.
3. His theory that Mac OS X doesn’t have a wide-variety of freeware selection. -MacUpdate.
4. Not researching to find out how to take screenshots of DVD Player in action. -Try Screenshot Plus or using Terminal commands.
5. Upgrading RAM with a Mac is difficult. -Actually try upgrading the RAM before making inferences that it will be difficult.

Moreover, probably the most ridiculous part of the article that genuinely describes Brian’s complete ignorance is his comparison of Windows Vista’s anti-piracy protection and Mac OS X’s deep ties with Apple hardware. Apple’s decision to tie down its operating system to its hardware is really a business strategy to couple products for profit and boost product performance and stability, which is totally irrelevant of a business strategy that prevents pirates from using and distributing pirated version of Windows. It’s sad that this author’s definition of DRM has been skewed to this degree, and the confidence the author had in this definition allowed him to make such preposterous accusations.

Simply put, thirty days of experiences just simply doesn’t allow an author to fair review a product as complex as OS X. Maybe if Brian continued to work with OS X on a number of environments and systems, after a year he would really be able to give a fair analysis of Mac OS X. Especially considering the fact that he’s testing an operating system and hardware that are soon to become obsolete.

The Apple TV is a great example of the typical first generation Apple product. At first it seems to lack features that make it worth the high price Apple is asking for. Just like the iPod and many other Apple products, the Apple TV will probably follow in iPod’s footsteps and eventually become that “must-have” device that every home will have. It will just take about three to four generations to catch on. In my opinion the Apple TV is going to have to meet these requirements to start flying off the shelves:

1. HD content.
2. Much cheaper price. Nothing above $199.
3. Rental movie downloads.
4. An iTunes store for the Apple TV possible.

5. Apple, give up .Mac or make it free

I know many proud .Mac subscribers may disagree, but I just do not understand how the services Apple offers in its .Mac subscription is close to being worth $99. It offers sub-par bandwidth and memory restrictions and packaged with a lot of bloatware that can be substituted for free alternatives. Apple’s already shown its lack in .Mac when it announced its compatibility with Yahoo mail’s mail-push functions and saying they will offer free email addresses and these special push functions to all iPhone customers. Give it up Apple, .Mac is a failure. The only way you are going to start getting subscribers it to either make the price worth the features or better yet, make it free!

4. Updates for iWork and iLife

We’ve all been waiting since January for an update to our iLife and iWork suites of applications, and for the first time since iWork ‘04 Apple didn’t release the new suites at Macworld. We’ve speculated the past four months and made rumors of when the new suites will be announced, but still no details on the suites have been released by Apple. Many are anticipating the new iWeb 2.0 release that hopefully will have FTP/SFTP features and new, richer, cleaner templates. Others are waiting for an update to Garageband and the other old iApps.

Many iWork users are waiting for a spreadsheet application to compete with Microsoft’s Excel program. Looking at some of the screenshots of Office 2008 for Mac and playing with Office 2007 for Windows, I feel Apple really needs to improve the interface and friendliness of iWork to really make it work. I’m a big fan of the iWork suite but the current “Inspector” interface simply doesn’t compare to the ribbon interface in the new Office suites from Microsoft. We’ll see how Apple can implement the Inspector interface in the next iteration of the iWork applications and hopefully make it a little easier to use without involving dialogue boxes and extra windows, etc.

3. iPod Update to at least iPhone specs

The current iPod is really an embarrassing video player compared to both the Zune and Apple’s new iPhone. It wouldn’t take much to turn the current iPhone product and sub in a hard drive (or a lot of flash memory) for all of the phone innards and make a killer music, video, media, internet-browsing device. Hopefully this new iPod will at least match its competitors and include a built-in Airport wireless adapter to browse websites (just like the iPhone), download media from the iTunes store, sync with your Mac or PC, connect to an Apple TV, etc. Maybe these features sound a little idealistic, but it surely is possible and would be very well received. Knowing Apple, a November release date sounds likely; however knowing Apple, you can never bee too sure.

2. Interface Updates to Mac OS X – Illuminous

It was a hot topic discussed on Appleology a while back, but its still a very important topic since we haven’t had any updates since. In my opinion, user interface and user experience is pretty much 75% of what is great about using a Mac. but I’m ready for Apple to impress me again like they did with Aqua. I want a really rich user-interface that has more feeling and depth. And it all comes back to the idea of Illuminous and a new generation of user interfaces for the Mac. Apple’s going darker, sleeker, shinier with every product they release. The iPhone, Apple TV, iTunes 7; they all have that same interface that we nicknamed “Illuminous”. Now it’s Mac OS X’s turn for a change. Leopard’s resolution independence features along with the progress Apple’s made developing Multi-Touch interfaces with the iPhone and integrate that technology with OS X and run with it. The result could change the way users operate with their computers forever. And if Apple can’t get this far by June, hopefully they will at least match Vista’s impressive GUI.

1. Lower Prices on All Consumer-Level Macs

Price has to be the biggest complaint from potential switchers whenever I try to persuade someone to consider buying a Mac. They don’t care if Macs last longer or consider the bundled software, when they are thinking about buying a computer all they only care about the price of the computer. If Apple really wanted to maximize their market share, they would have lowered their prices on all of their Macs by now. When it comes to most of the consumers today, all they want to hear is price and Apples simply can’t compete with notebooks starting at $1099.

We pretty much know that there is going to be an Apple Special Event will take place sometime in spring to showcase the new features of Leopard, and possibly even iLife and iWork 2007. Steve has has already made it clear that Leopard will include all of the new miscellaneous applications introduced in recent Mac products; such as Front Row, Photo Booth, and Boot Camp. In the WWDC 2006 keynote, Steve didn’t make it clear what other applications will be bundled with Leopard, “These are just three examples of how we’re going to ship the complete package of applications with Leopard.” iLife and iWork 2007 would be a significant addition to the new bundled applications in Leopard.

In Apple’s quarter one financial results conference call, an Apple financial advisor told an analyst to “stay tuned” for iLife-related announcements. iLife has never before been bundled with a retail box of Mac OS X, but the suite comes with every Mac. Bundling with Mac OS X would make the software product line much simple and definitely would be a major reason to upgrade to the new OS. One of Apple’s key strategies to switching consumers from Windows to Mac was the “Everything is in the Box” strategy, where everything you could possibly want is bundled with the Mac.

It wasn’t long ago when Macs were bundled with Apple’s own complete office suite, Appleworks, a port from its Mac OS 9 version and was far out-of-date and unstable to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Office suite. For a long time, people have thought the Mac could only be used for creative work. While that might be true, times are changing and many businesses and professionals are switching to Macs. Bundling iWork with Leopard and every Mac could alter the office landscape permanently. Logically, it would then make sense for Apple to include a spreadsheet application to complete the suite and therefore really compete with Microsoft Office.

While this may give Apple a license to raise the price of their operating system upgrade, I think many would be willing to pay the difference. From a marketing perspective, it makes too much sense for Apple to just bundle these great suites into Leopard. Apple didn’t break the yearly iLife and iWork upgrade tradition for no reason.

After following the MacRumorsLive.com live coverage and watching the Quicktime keynote stream, I had some mixed feelings about Apple’s decision to hide some of the new Leopard features. The Leopard Sneak Peek showed off only a few features that will be found in Leopard and there was no ‘One More Thing’ product at the end of the keynote. I understand why Apple hid some of the new major features, but I was expecting a few more features to be demoed at WWDC.

However, I was very impressed with the new Time Machine backup solution and the new version of iChat. Finally Apple is creating a backup solution for Mac users who don’t own .Mac. I love Time Machine’s transparent UI and its intelligent backup system that looks like the perfect backup solution for every Mac user. The new iChat seems to deliver some of my most-wanted features for iChat, including tabbed-chatting, remote-client control, presentation tools (iChat Theater), and iSight effects. These two are so far my favorite new features for Leopard, and I cannot wait to see what’s next for the next version of Mac OS X.

After thinking about the keynote, I finally understood Apple’s game-plan for Leopard when it comes to a release date and new features. Apple originally had the release date for Leopard around late 2006 to early 2007. But thanks to “our friends up North”, Apple was forced to push the release date back behind Vista’s already delayed release day. Its obvious that Apple has to unleash Leopard after Vista hits the shelves to prevent Micorosft from copying some of the major features to be found in Leopard. Apple’s decision to keep some of the features unannounced is very smart, and it is another example of how important it is for Apple to keep these features from being leaked too soon.

Steve and his friends made several jabs at both Microsoft and Vista the other day, criticizing their lack of innovation, pointing out the obvious similarities between Vista and Tiger, and also the hilarious intro video featuring the PC explaining to all of the Mac OS X developers to take a break so Vista can catch up. Bertrand Serlet (the one who you could hardly understand, yet you felt compelled to laugh at every one of his jokes and jabs at Vista) explained Apple’s thoughts on Vista during the keynote and compared screenshots of Vista and Tiger. At the end of his explanation, he showed the new Windows Vista logo and related the logo to the fact that even though Vista has a new appearance, it is still a Windows OS.

On the flip side, its seems as if Microsoft is still struggling with Vista to make it ready for its upcoming release in early 2007. I have not given Vista beta 2 a spin, but I have heard from many that Vista still feels like like beta software, and the new Aero GUI really kills the performance when activated. As I cruised the Windows Vista feature list, I understood why Steve and Bertrand were pointing their fingers at Microsoft for copying all of Tiger’s features. It seems like every new feature that was introduced in Panther and Tiger are also being introduced into Vista. Bertrand and Steve were 100 percent right, Vista is just an impersonation of Mac OS X, and some of the “new” features for Vista have been included in OS X since the 10.0 Public Beta in 2000. I think the poster in the WWDC hall that said “Leopard: Vista 2.0″ pretty much explains both Apple’s and my feelings towards Microsoft’s progress with Vista.

I’m on the edge of my seat to see how this competition unravels into 2007. I have a feeling Leopard will certainly “Blow away Vista”, but lets hope the “Top Secret” features that Steve mentioned will really be good enough to have been “Top Secret”. My guess is a new Finder, Safari, refined UI, and some new apps will be some of the Top Secret features in Leopard.

Also note many other hanging banners are covered and also no sign of the fifth-generation iPod anywhere on the revealed banner. Maybe the chances of a new-generation iPod are greater than expected. Take in account that the PowerMac G5 on the banner is most-likely not a Mac Pro. Apple would not be stupid enough to put anything on the banner that would spoil the fun for everyone, so I highly doubt that that PowerMac G5 is a Mac Pro.

[Via One Digital Life]