[kman42]

Here's some new info:

Features of the OS reportedly won't be frozen until May, but a variety of enhancements are in the running that will encourage pervasive, mobile computing. For example, one proposed feature will let users take home directories they've saved on peripherals and networks and use them for file access or securely log into a Mac running Panther. Sources said the feature will let users synchronize their home directories with mobile devices or log onto a system via Apple's .Mac service.

Another candidate feature will let users log out of OS X and then log back in as another user, without having to close open applications. This capability resembles the "Fast User Switching" feature of Windows XP.




http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1036539,00.asp

[techtrucker]

Sounds good...only problem will be the Windows users accusing Apple of ripping off MS!
Anxious to see what comes of the "system wide metal appearance" rumor.

Steve W

iBook 800 640/30/Combo/Airport

[calumr]

Does anybody else think that piles sound like a crap idea? I pile up my dead tree documents because I'm lazy, and when I come back to them I wish I had bothered to organise them properly in a folder.

It'll be interesting to see Apple's implementation of this, as I doubt they would put it in unless it reduced the amount of work you have to do.

[Developer]

Originally posted by techtrucker:
Anxious to see what comes of the "system wide metal appearance" rumor.

Nothing, it's not possible. Brushed metal requires support for compositing mode windows/HIViews in Carbon apps. I have yet to see an application that supports that.

[kman42]

I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of logging into any of my Macs through .Mac. I guess it will operate like dyndns, but will give a user access to his/her computers through the .mac web interface. Personally, I love the idea.

I also like the idea of being able to put my /home directory on my iPod and logging into my home folder from any mac. Just attach your iPod and you would then be able to log into that machine using your 'portable user account' stored on the iPod. Cool. It seems like there are some security issues here, but they could probably work them out, for instance a "Don't allow log on with 'portable accounts'" toggle in the login prefs or something. This would tie in well to the rumors of an upcoming apple tablet/communication device/uber-iPod.

kman

[JLL]

By_Matthew Rothenberg and Nick Ciarelli

Did Nick DePlume from Think Secret just reveal his real name?

Those two have worked together before.

(Strangely Think Secret isn't available right now)

[BrunoBruin]

Originally posted by calumr:
Does anybody else think that piles sound like a crap idea?

I don't get it either, unless I'm missing something. "Oh, you can collect all the documents that relate to a job." Isn't that what FOLDERS do? "But you can tell at a glance that one collection is larger than another." I cannot remember when I ever cared if one project was bigger than another. I'm sure it will look very cool, but I don't see the benefit. Then again, I never used labels either.

I hope Apple manages to come up with a better name, too, because all I think of when I hear "piles" is "hemorrhoids."

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Developer:
Nothing, it's not possible. Brushed metal requires support for compositing mode windows/HIViews in Carbon apps. I have yet to see an application that supports that.

The Apple page about the 10.3 preview at WWDC mentions something new about HIViews, I can't remember what though.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
I don't get it either, unless I'm missing something. "Oh, you can collect all the documents that relate to a job." Isn't that what FOLDERS do? "But you can tell at a glance that one collection is larger than another." I cannot remember when I ever cared if one project was bigger than another. I'm sure it will look very cool, but I don't see the benefit. Then again, I never used labels either.

I hope Apple manages to come up with a better name, too, because all I think of when I hear "piles" is "hemorrhoids."

Though I don't think its the greatest idea off all time, I can see where it would be useful for some people, based on how they work. It WOULD be useful for me:

I use my desktop like a real desktop. Normally it is clean and I religiously file things to a pretty well developed file system I have set up. HOWEVER, I do tend to leave "in progress" items on my desktop ... I DON'T LIKE putting them away before they are finished -- whether they are on my desktop or filed away is my visual indication of whether or not work still needs to be done on them. Since I often have to drop one project to deal with something that just came in ... the desktop items I WAS working on end up staying there while I deal with the new issue. It would be nice to be able to "clean up the mess" of the in progress project into a neat "pile" temporarily so that the items of that project do not get confused or mixed with another. True, its similar to just creating a temporary folder for the interrupted project, but I could see its benifit if the "pile" contained items needed for mulitple projects.

I can also see the advantage of being able to tell the size at a glance if you are:
Trying to maintain a maximum number of elements per project or making a multi-part project with equal numbers of elements distributed across the parts.

Again, I don't considering it an earth shattering improvement, but I can see how it would be help to some people in some situations. If its not helpful to you ... you can always simply not use it.

[pliny]

Piles
Fast logoff/on
64-bit

The 3rd one is huge IMO. I wonder what kind of machines we will see running the first 64-bit MacOS? This is very exciting if true.

[AJ]

Originally posted by pliny:
Piles
Fast logoff/on
64-bit

The 3rd one is huge IMO. I wonder what kind of machines we will see running the first 64-bit MacOS? This is very exciting if true.

IBM PPC970 based ones I'd imagine.

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by pliny:

The 3rd one is huge IMO. I wonder what kind of machines we will see running the first 64-bit MacOS? This is very exciting if true.

why? what possible reson could you have for thinking this would be huge? who cares? I don't get what the big deal is with 64 bit computing? how many protien folder junkies are there?

I have yet to hear a convincing argument for 64 bit computing.

[clarkgoble]

As the other thread on the topic of piles suggests, piles probably *won't* be for general file lists in Finder windows. However it might be useful for the Dock or related interfaces.

[AJ]

Originally posted by DeathMan:
why? what possible reson could you have for thinking this would be huge? who cares? I don't get what the big deal is with 64 bit computing? how many protien folder junkies are there?

I have yet to hear a convincing argument for 64 bit computing.

Larger RAM limit? I am sure there are many people who animate with Mac's who'd like more than is on offer today...

[pliny]

Originally posted by AJ:
IBM PPC970 based ones I'd imagine.

I mean beyond this simple threshold i.e., specs, price, possible market. Will the machines be marketed as workstations (X stations?) or Powermacs? How many slots will they have? What about a 970-based iMac? Etc.

[clarkgoble]

In practice 64 bit support will speed up certain database functions. That won't be relevant to the typical user though.

The bigger issue is changes to the file system since I suspect Apple will roll out a full 64 bit file system. (I could be wrong, but I don't think HFS+ supports this) As part of that file system I'd be very surprised if it didn't include a new metadata system with support in the Finder.

The support to have one user log in without me logging out will be what I'm looking forward to. Right now if I'm in the middle of something and a roommate wants to check something on the web it is a hassle. (Afterall there isn't an easy way to access his bookmarks) Further I often have something running in the background (i.e. updating Fink) and they can't use the computer while this is going on. Multiple logins will be very handy.

As for those complaining about it being copied from XP. Who cares? If it works it works. Use it. Microsoft copies from Apple. What's wrong with the opposite when Microsoft comes up with something that works well?

[techtrucker]

Metadata would be huge, no doubt.
64 bit? It is the next logical path, although for the average user the benefits are minimal. Sadly, like so many other things in this industry, it's true value is in marketing...

Steve W

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by AJ:
Larger RAM limit? I am sure there are many people who animate with Mac's who'd like more than is on offer today...

I'm not sure this qualifies as huge. The limit on RAM right now is something like 4 GB (correct me if I"m wrong) The real limit is the number of slots/price of 1GB DIMMS.

Man, I want at least a TerraByte.


Not Huge. Anyone else have a reason why 64bit processors would be huge?

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by DeathMan:
why? what possible reson could you have for thinking this would be huge? who cares? I don't get what the big deal is with 64 bit computing? how many protien folder junkies are there?

I have yet to hear a convincing argument for 64 bit computing.

you could access more than 4 GB of memory. I would think this would be a huge argument.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by leperkuhn:
you could access more than 4 GB of memory. I would think this would be a huge argument.

P4 right now can use more than 4GB or RAM through Page Adressing Extension (PAE).

IMHO, it is total B$ because it slows down every memory transaction.. which are already slow on the P4!

[JeremyS]

Man just wait, once 64bit is in place, developers will find ways to harness it's true power. Right now it seems like there is no benefit because nothing has been designed with 64bit in mind,

I can see apps like Final Cut pro, Cubase, Logic, etc really benefiting from it.

[neoTony]

Originally posted by Developer:
Nothing, it's not possible. Brushed metal requires support for compositing mode windows/HIViews in Carbon apps. I have yet to see an application that supports that.

This is a major update though... I'd be surprised if a lot of the "unfinished" frameworks aren't polished for this release. I know that they'd need to do a fair bit of work to get the HIToolbox/Appearance Manager/Whatever the hell they've named it up to scratch before this would happen. Just don't be too surprised if a few of your more central Apple-produced day-to-day apps are brushed metal in Panther.

[Krusty]

I know the topic has moved away from the discussion of "piles" but I just thought of one more use for them that could be a little more ground breaking.

If 10.3 is to support metadata, then one could have a finder command/ contextual menu command to "create new pile" which would bring up a criteria dialog and/or allow you to recreate recently created piles.

Something like this: You have wide variety of movie, music, text, photoshop files which all belong to a larger project that you're working on. If you create a new pile where the criteria is "Project A", the system goes out and fetches all items related to that project ... including perhaps relevant emails, address book entries, web links ... whatever you've tagged with that project description. It creates the pile for you in the location specified so you can easily work on whichever elements of the pile you need to while still being able to maintain your usual file system (ie .. movies live in movies folder, songs in music folder, etc).

This, I think, would actually be a GREAT feature. Sortof like a "dynamic folder". When you put the pile away, you could chose whether to overwrite the old items with you newly changed ones and have the system put them all away for you. It really could be a benefit for working on projects with diverse element OR say .. collecting up all items relating to your friend "Beth" You could easily pull up every correspondence, mp3, or picture sent to you by "Beth" for quick perusal. (Also good if you just broke up with "Beth" and want to trash everything she has sent you )

[kman42]

Originally posted by Krusty:
I know the topic has moved away from the discussion of "piles" ...

And away from the original topic of the "User at the Center" which had less to do with Piles than with the ability to log in to your mac from anywhere using .Mac and to carry your home directory on your iPod.

kman

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by Krusty:
Something like this: You have wide variety of movie, music, text, photoshop files which all belong to a larger project that you're working on. If you create a new pile where the criteria is "Project A", the system goes out and fetches all items related to that project ... including perhaps relevant emails, address book entries, web links ... whatever you've tagged with that project description.

That would be very cool.

[LeeG]

I like that idea - piles like smart playlists in itunes - for example - keep a pile on my desktop of all Word docs that were written or modified in the last 1 month.

This would change dynamically, but I would always have quick access to docs I was working on - seems sweet to me- and the flash mockup is some eye candy

Lee

[dfiler]

Isn't it interesting how 'news' sites are now publishing forum spawned rumors as 'news'? Then the forumites point to the articles as more evidence. The rumor gets bigger, and all of a sudden, all the websites are reporting it. Each time through the cycle, the fish gets bigger, the story gets better.

Heheh... that gives me a devilish plan.
This could be fun.

[tkmd]

I'm worried that the Mac OS is moving toward what the windows user experience is in XP(and more so every release)- what I mean are the constant onslaught of advertisments (not pop ups rather, click-and-pay inquires built into the GUI): inquires about buying this or upgrading to that for a fee. I feel that windows is evolving into more of an extension of the television rather than a traditional GUI.
This is why I moved to Mac OS. But now I hear rumors of "1-click Amazon buying" built into Panther, "Itunes music store" and I become nauseous. I'm sorry but I dont want my OS to turn into an extension of online shopping.

[BZ]

From everything I have seen, OSX has very very little of this. The only two places I can think of it are in the "Get OSX Software" menu item and the connection with iPhoto.

The menu item(s) should go. They really don't offer any value to new or old customers.

The iPhoto, on the other hand, is very useful. Many people don't know how to get digital prints, or make books, and these integrated buttons really help them. Making things easy for users is a good thing.

It is also software companies that are doing it. Most of them offer links back to their site, or update information. BBedit reminds you if there is new version to upgrade to.

As long as they stick to something that is a Preference and can be turned off, I don't mind.

BZ

Originally posted by tkmd:
I'm worried that the Mac OS is moving toward what the windows user experience is in XP(and more so every release)- what I mean are the constant onslaught of advertisments (not pop ups rather, click-and-pay inquires built into the GUI): inquires about buying this or upgrading to that for a fee. I feel that windows is evolving into more of an extension of the television rather than a traditional GUI.
This is why I moved to Mac OS. But now I hear rumors of "1-click Amazon buying" built into Panther, "Itunes music store" and I become nauseous. I'm sorry but I dont want my OS to turn into an extension of online shopping.

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by dfiler:
Isn't it interesting how 'news' sites are now publishing forum spawned rumors as 'news'?

Matthew Rothenberg has his own sources in the Apple sphere; his scoop is usually pretty reliable. This is the original Maked Mole Rat, after all.

[JLL]

Originally posted by BZ:
The only two places I can think of it are in the "Get OSX Software" menu item and the connection with iPhoto.

The "Get Mac OS X Software" doesn't take you to a page where you can buy software - it links to a kind of Apple VersionTracker.

[Developer]

Originally posted by JLL:
The "Get Mac OS X Software" doesn't take you to a page where you can buy software - it links to a kind of Apple VersionTracker.

Links to the Apple Store here.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by Developer:
Links to the Apple Store here.

Suuuure it does.

[JLL]

Originally posted by Developer:
Links to the Apple Store here.

It should link to:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/

[Developer]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Suuuure it does.

If you don't believe me, why don't you set the system language to German, log out/in and try it, instead of rolling your eyes.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by Krusty:
[B]
Something like this: You have wide variety of movie, music, text, photoshop files which all belong to a larger project that you're working on. If you create a new pile where the criteria is "Project A", the system goes out and fetches all items related to that project ... including perhaps relevant emails, address book entries, web links ... whatever you've tagged with that project description. It creates the pile for you in the location specified so you can easily work on whichever elements of the pile you need to while still being able to maintain your usual file system (ie .. movies live in movies folder, songs in music folder, etc).

But why? It would be easier for me to drag everything in the same folder then to tag each and every file individually. Also, I don't have emails connected to my graphics, I copy and paste text into a note taking app. So I see no advantage to piles so far other then wanting to see the cool animation.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by KidRed:
But why? It would be easier for me to drag everything in the same folder then to tag each and every file individually. Also, I don't have emails connected to my graphics, I copy and paste text into a note taking app. So I see no advantage to piles so far other then wanting to see the cool animation.

Then you wouldn't be a candidate for using something like this. It would be cumbersome to go back and tag things .. but not so horrible if you did it when you originally saved a doc. Plus, you would have to build the pile manually ONLY ONCE ... once you'd builit it the items in the pile could automatically be marked as belonging to that pile (i.e. "project A" or whatever). As far as you "not having emails connected to your graphics" ... the idea is of relating dissimilar files and filetypes with one another ... not necessarily saying you have to relate emails and graphics together per se .. just whatever makes sense for you .
*Note ... clearly this is all speculation from my end ... who knows if they'll have "piles" or if they would be for anything like the purposes I'm mentioning anyway

Having said, that ... I think LeeG's mention of the idea of a criteria based dynamic folder (sort of like a "smart playlist" for the finder) is fantastic. Hopefully whatever apple offers in 10.3 will just blow our minds and that our current speculation fall short of how cool it will actually be

[kman42]

Can we please stop talking about piles. There are plenty of other threads dedicated to it. It really amazes me that you people can't see the incredible potential of the other features mentioned in that article. Being able to log into any of your macs through the .Mac web interface? That could be supremely cool. These are the types of BIG features that will make Panther innovative, not Piles, which, if implemented, will just be a minor interface element in the scheme of things.

kman

[Nonsuch]

Posted on AppleInsider by someone named Inkhead.

Some Details of OS X 10.3 (some of you probably guessed these)
64bit OS, including rewritten finder to take advantage! Jokes have been made about "finder extreme".

Multiple concurrent GUI logins (similar to XP but with solid unix)
OSXFS - New filesystem, based off of BeOS Filesytem. Very cool features built right into the finder! 10.3 Includes the ability to lay windows out with rich HTML based on the webcore. You can use "simple/regular" finder mode to bypass these. The ability to assign files categories like ID3 tags. Ever finder window can be searched realtime similar to the itunes search thanks to OSXFS. You can find all files that were assigned "category" business in 1 second flat.

New Print Services and much better dialog windows

New Navigation services! Three different ways to drill down files, you can even click a button to "spot" the folder. This means your cursor changes and you can move through the finder to locate the folder then hit enter key to finish saving. You can also assign the file categories at this time or the application can by default. files created by apple sound track editor can automatically be assigned "audio", so could files from an updated pro tools.

Bundles (some of you call them piles) work sort of like this, you could select 20 files and say "these are all the files for my project" monitor them. when you go to move 1 file it will automatically copy the rest with it. You can also condense them to look like a folder. Think files on different hard drives, different networks all as one project "folder" all updating and all copying when you move them. Very cool.

New themes and sound effects, lots of interfaces changes, and customizations you can make for yourself

New dock, so many new features, split mode, text mode, "start menu" like mode for people who prefer windows. dock is very slick in this version, better than the start menu.

new quicktime, very very nice player, apple went all out! even supports nonstandard divx format and wierd avis, it's new billing will be "anything motion" (not those exact words)

new ichat, built in video conferencing (works with netmeeting!), voice chat, secure chat, better sortable and group lists, jabber support, plug in module support (for other IM services) and many cool new features and several mac only ones

new mail.app uses webcore for parsing html/mime email now, much faster and better, offers exchange server support, and many other new features, including a new "view" that looks exactly like outlook 2003 preview for windows. (you can still use old ones) mail is much faster.

built in ftp, sftp, scp into the finder connect to server menu.
much improved sharing controls for sharing with windows and unix enviroments, lots of complex options.

new built in remote access software, much better and faster than stupid remote access from apple. It reminded me of terminal server for windows. very fast.

new itunes (this will be out sooner i think) speed updates and built in support for music service?? new wireless and options to "share" your files with friends only on certian files.

new iphoto (very very very very very very very very fast)

new appleworks (new name, don't know if it ships with it, looked very nice!)

Enjoy. Even if it's a complete fabrication, hell, at least he's making the effort. (This poster included further stuff about OS X on x86, supposedly to be released after constant nagging by Intel's CEO, but we can save that flamewar for another thread.)

[pliny]

The value of piles would seem to be to collect, hold and present various forms of information in a unified way. For instance, say I wanted to collect webpages, blog entries, pictures, sound recordings, etc., of Bush telling half truths and lies. I also wanted to add to the pile at various places, voice recordings of me going, "Holy **** not again!" I could add to the pile by services, drag and drop, etc., and it owuld presentthe various styles of data in a unified way through one interface.

This seems to be an OS-level implementation of an app calledNoteTaker

Maybe piles isn't this exactly but this is how I visualize them.

[Sven G]

BTW, regarding piles, here's also a rather interesting concept from Microsoft: the Data Mountain (big 1.7MB PDF file!); not that I'm particularly a fan of MS - but at least some of their "future projects" materials are publicly available!

P.S.: Of course, they stiil have their TaskGallery (a 3D interface prototype) web site: if I'm not mistaken, there also were some discussions, here, some time ago, about these topics...

[MindFad]

I think piles would be really useful. And especially folders with piles in them. It'd be handy for my icon development, that's for sure.

[Anomalous]

Any word on whether the Dock will contain some of the features that were present in Jaguar betas (MIP, close minimized window from menu, status icons)?

[clarkgoble]

This description of piles in the Finder sounds a lot like the "binders" in Office98 on Windows. However with subsequent editions of Office this feature was relegated to the "not installed" list and I think is only there for backwards compatibility. It was one of those ideas that sounds cool but is a solution looking for a problem.

Hell, if they want to re-invent something, bring back publish and subscribe. There actually were uses for that.

I'm sticking with my guess that "piles" or "bundles" will be used in the dock, not the Finder.

I also think that making OSX *more* XP like with a "Start" button is absolute idiocy. I doubt it will happen. Perhaps a "start pane" in the Finder which has a quick list of applications, documents, mail, appointments and so forth. Sort of an intelligent home page. (Much like the screen in MS Outlook - but expanded further) Whether that is helpful depends upon how it is implemented. But a "at a glance" list of tasks, tools, and so forth could be nice if done well. (A big if)

The other "guesses" are pretty obvious. (i.e. improved printing, updated iapps, etc.)

[TimmyDee51]

I think the 64-bit announcement may be the sleeper of the bunch. Sure, the 970 will offer a huge speed boost, but I think Apple will be looking at what it can offer in this "User at the Center."

I've already heard reports that Apple is looking to add database like functions (ala BeOS) into the filesystem. As 64-bit processors excel in database operations, it could be a way for Apple to implement such a filesystem without severely taxing the user perceived speed. From there, Apple can go anywhere.

[lookmark]

I'm inclined to think that this Inkhead fella's just making that list up. See his previous posts on AI.

eWeek's article seems pretty reliable, though -- and it points to a conceptual direction to Panther, which is always food for thought.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by lookmark:
I'm inclined to think that this Inkhead fella's just making that list up. See his previous posts on AI.

At the risk sounding as cryptic as some of the posts on AI: All I can say is that I have personally known people who fabricated rumors on the AI forums for their own amusement -- just to see who would bite. Note: I'm not saying this is the case with this Inkwell character nor am I saying that the publishers of AI have anything to do with it (the persons who told me what they were up to were clear that they were doing it on their own). I was flabbergasted to see the serious discussion that cropped up around what they posted.

I would be very wary of anything you read on the AI forums .. making up fake "insider" info is something of a sport over there.

[BuonRotto]

He could be but the point is ultimately moot. Either they will be right or not. In any case, it's fun stuff to speculate on, and some of the more creative (and sometimes questionable) ideas that have floated around. Enjoy.

[dfiler]

Originally posted by Krusty:
I would be very wary of anything you read on the AI forums .. making up fake "insider" info is something of a sport over there.

Shhhh. You're ruining the fun.


Its a self-perpetuating cylce... somewhat informed people speculate about upcoming products in a forum. This speculation gets printed as news. Then, casual forum readers and posters pick-up on the story, not realizing it started in their midsts. This leads to widespread speculation and then the same 'news' sites reports that their first story has been subsuquently confirmed by a number of sources.

But seriously, fabricated rumors can actually be healthy for the Mac platform and the sport of rumor mongering in general. It is the most effective way of weaning 'news' sites from their habit of printing rumors as news.