
Apple to announce OS 10.7 (probably) on October 20 - captaincrowbar
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/13/apple-to-hold-media-event-october-20th-well-be-there-live/
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mortenjorck
In 2009, Apple added a video camera to the otherwise perfected iPod Nano. It
was a sign: While one might have had to be quite prescient to imagine exactly
what would come after it, it was obvious that Apple felt it had reached the
end of what could be innovated with that form factor. The 2010 reinvention of
the Nano was the only logical next step, at least for Apple.

In 2009, Apple released Snow Leopard, whose emphasis on optimization and
subtle improvement seemed to signal the same kind of state for the operating
system as the addiiton of a camera signaled for the Nano.

I think it's safe to say that what comes next will be fairly big.

I have a suspicion that among other things, 10.7 will introduce some new
conventions to the basic problems of window management (though I might be a
little biased). Apple has been at the forefront of dealing with it ever since
Exposé debuted with 10.3, but in the years since the iPhone, iOS has thrown
this problem into sharp relief. Part of me hopes they might even announce
something that bears a resemblance to 10/GUI's linear window management --
I've unfortunately proven I can't really do much with the concept myself so
far.

~~~
Timothee
_I have a suspicion that among other things, 10.7 will introduce some new
conventions to the basic problems of window management (though I might be a
little biased)._

For anyone not sure why mortenjock is biased, I recommend viewing his concept
video 10GUI <http://10gui.com/video/>

The recent Magic Trackpad would tend to support your ideas here.

~~~
noelchurchill
Wow that is so cool.

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siglesias
Just dropping some speculation here, as many are wondering what Lion can
possibly offer that's new (and I don't mean a fix, but new).

Touch. Deep integration with touch. As you see with the release of the Magic
Trackpad, Apple is retiring the traditional mouse paradigm and moving on to
versatile and complex gestures to aid in window management. Four finger swipe
for expose and show desktop has been godsend for productivity, as has three
fingers up and down for switching between h/m files in xcode. Let's not forget
swipe to go back and forth in browsers, pinch to zoom, rotation, etc... None
of which is possible with the standard mouse.

And peruse through Apple's touch gesture patent library and you will see that
they haven't implemented a fraction of what they have patents to. You have
neat stuff like three finger pinch (possible to close/hide a window, save),
non-adjacent finger scroll (ex. thumb and ring finger, note that Magic
Trackpad is big enough for this one, but existing options on MBP are not), and
several others involving rotation and unconventional finger combos. Expect for
these gestures to be baked deeply into the new iMovie, iPhoto, and iTunes.
Seriously, can you imagine alternate paradigms for simply grabbing video from
a bin once you account for different numbers of fingers involved in the drag?

A preview of Lion with these features will allow them to sell the next
generation MBP with a new, much larger trackpad to accommodate the new focus
on touch and touch gestures. If Apple scores a hit with this new focus on
touch, it will be another competitive headache for thin, underpowered clients
that serve up web content and can't handle advanced video and photo editing,
not to mention lack large surface areas for touch gesturing.

What's in it for Apple:

If you think about this from a competitive standpoint, most of Apple's
competitors want to lift computing into the cloud--Google with Chrome OS, HP
with WebOS, and even MSFT with Ballmer's pronouncements of "cloud speed".
Apple's strategy, and profits, are vested in _adding weights_ to computing to
take advantage of powerful, local, GPU and CPU intensive tasks, thus slowing,
or even reversing the shift towards browsers and web applications, in keeping
us grounded in powerful, local machines. If Apple finally figures out a way to
get your mom editing video with powerful and intuitive new touch gestures, how
is a web application going to respond to this from the confines of a browser?
How is Microsoft going to coordinate with clone makers to agree on standard
sizes and performance of computationally complex multi-touch trackpads? Touch
and media editing all the way.

~~~
frou_dh
Expanded trackpad gestures are a good idea, though geeks who are big in to
keyboard shortcuts can already have a pretty great experience. You can do all
your window focus and visibility with the keyboard. Add a 3rd party utility
like SizeUp/Divvy and you have movement and reizing, too.

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iuguy
Given that OSX has got to a fairly stable point, what would you want to see in
a new version of OSX that would make you want to upgrade?

~~~
cletus
I must admit, one thing I've become absolutely dependent on in Windows 7 is
when you press Start you can do a quick lookup of the program you're after by
typing a few characters.

Sure OSX has the Finder and Spotlight but it's not quite as quick and
convenient, in my experience.

But my big request is this: implement the TRIM command in the OS to open up
the SSD choices. This is long overdue.

~~~
randallsquared
According to [http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/apple/2010/07/01/mac-ssd-
pe...](http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/apple/2010/07/01/mac-ssd-performance-
trim-in-osx/7) :

"We started off this article making it intentionally limited in scope as we
weren't expecting, in a OS that doesn't support TRIM, to find anything all
that interesting. What we found was the exact opposite: an OS that doesn't
appear to be affected by SSD performance degradation [...]"

~~~
wmf
_an OS that doesn't appear to be affected by SSD performance degradation_

That may be true, but there isn't enough information in that article to tell.
I think their other theory — that the Samsung SSD is essentially pre-degraded
— is more likely to be correct.

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cemregr
Maybe they will finally implement resolution-independent UI and release some
Retina notebooks, who knows?

There's already a higher-resolution 15" MBP available, would be great to see
more of that.

~~~
slantyyz
I tend to think that Retina on larger screens (iPad sized and larger) still a
ways off for cost and gpu/battery reasons.

I mean, doesn't a 30" monitor require dual-link capability to feed that
resolution? A retina display on even an iPad sized screen would approach that
type of resolution.

~~~
frou_dh
Dual link is DVI terminology isn't it? Apple use DisplayPort now. I'm not sure
what bandwidth concerns devices with integrated screens have.

~~~
slantyyz
Oops. All I meant was that the processing of all those bits would eat a lot
cycles. It came out incorrectly.

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ojbyrne
I own 3 macs, but I'm still amused that a pre-announcement of an announcement
generates so much discussion.

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kogus
I wish they would get rid of the absurd "mount a disk before you run an
installer" paradigm. Installing an app downloaded from the web, Windows vs
Mac:

Windows:

1 - Click a download link

2 - Yes, I'm sure

3 - Run

4 - Next, Next, Next, Finish

5 - Delete the setup file

OS X:

1 - Click a download link

2 - Yes, I'm sure

3 - Open a finder window

4 - Open .dmg file, and it mounts

5 - Open the mounted image

6 - Run the installer (or drag it somewhere, depending on the app)

7 - Continue, Continue, Finish

8 - Unmount the image

9 - Delete the .dmg file

~~~
pmjordan
In fairness, steps 1-5 or some subset of them are combined into one or two,
depending on your browser.

~~~
alextgordon
I agree the description is a little unfair, but the point is sound.

This is how it should work

    
    
        1. User clicks download link
        2. Browser downloads a standard cross-platform .zip file, decompresses in a temporary directory
        3. Browser notifies OS.
        4. OS looks in Info.plist for instructions on where to install, possibly mpkg for more complex installers
        5. OS prompts user for permission to install and possibly run the app, or passes user over to Installer.app for complex installs
        6. Temporary files are deleted
    

From the user's perspective it would work like this

    
    
        1. Click download link
        2. Click "Install and Run"

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runjake
Two words for 10.7: Touch.

Ok, that's one word, but you get the point. Multitouch trackpads and gestures
in 10.6 are only the start.

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frou_dh
Lion: King of beasts.

Lion: King of OS X big cat releases -- Last 10.x?

~~~
ugh
There was nothing leopardy about Leopard and nothing tigery about Tiger so I
would expect there to be nothing liony about Lion.

~~~
frou_dh
They held the obvious big cat name back for this special purpose! .....Yes,
I'm going off the rails now.

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captaincrowbar
And to save you asking the obvious first question: the announcement has a
picture of a lion on it.

~~~
hboon
So, it's a peek of the lion.

~~~
mishmash
To paraphrase a comment seen on Ars "oh crap it's a lion, get in the car!"

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c1sc0
I'm not really looking forward to that. With each upgrade comes that little
bit of agony about the unix underpinnings: what are they going to do to the
default python install? Ruby? ...

~~~
xorglorb
Add MacPorts (/opt/local/bin) to the front of your path and you have fully
updated versions of all of your favorite UNIX goodies such as Emacs, Clang and
Python.

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colomon
So they're going to announce 10.7 about the time I finally get around to
installing 10.6 (if all goes according to plan).

