[lavar78]

Automator looks phenomenal. I can't wait to get my hands on it!

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/automator.html

[wtmcgee]

Yea, I'm looking forward to the entire thing. It's shaping up to be a very solid release - not earth shattering, but all the new 'main' features will make it a very good upgrade.

[ManOfSteal]

Wow, I cannot believe how much the GUI in Mail.app has changed, as well as, Dashboard...amazing!

[Rickster]

Jeeeeebus... those Mail toolbar buttons are ugly.

The slidey thing for managing Dashboard widgets is kinda neat... not sure I'm wild about all the weather-conditions images they show, but it's nice to see they intend to bundle so many useful widgets. I'm kind ahoping they get rid of the Stickies app if they're going to replace it with a widget -- don't need it cluttering up the apps folder.

I still wonder at Apple's choice to use "RSS" branding for newsfeeds all over Safari... for most it's a meaningless acronym. And RSS is just one format of news feed -- that website claims they also support Atom... do they still call Atom feeds RSS?

[Amorya]

Originally posted by Rickster:
Jeeeeebus... those Mail toolbar buttons are ugly.

Glad I'm not the only one! What's wrong with icons alone, sans button outline thing?

Amorya

[mchladek]

Automator looks awesome. Probably the only new feature that I'm interested in in Tiger. So I'll probably wait to get Tiger with my scheduled computer upgrade in '06 And hopefully by that time a spreadsheet app will be with iWork so no more Office!

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but what is up with Mail's new look?!? Now Mail, Safari, iMovie, and Pages all have different looks. Apple seriously needs to create a team specifically for product continuity, not leave it up to each app's team to create a new, eye-popping UI.

[Apfhex]

Did anyone else notice the new look of the menu bar? The "spotlight end caps" are gone, now Spotlight has a round blue icon similar to the Apple Menu icon (which is now a blue gradient, no more shiny), looks pretty balanced to me!

Mail's new interface is... eh... I liked the previous Tiger previews of it, I'm just not sure about those buttons...

[bluesloth]

"Jeeeeebus... those Mail toolbar buttons are ugly."

I was really expecting to see more topics started on this aspect of Mail alone. I can't believe how ugly they are. Other than the buttons, I really like the new setup versus the current Mail with the drawer and all.\

At least it isn't released yet. Write to apple feedback and let them know what you think. Tell your friends to do the same. PLEASE!

[Visnaut]

I actually don't mind the buttons in Mail, they're alright. I'm so happy to see more useful features like Smart Mailboxes, better searching, and nice iPhoto integration.

I think its aesthetics hint at a new class of app, since it resembles spotlight search results windows.

Overall, they're doing quite well with Tiger, judging from these previews, and I think it's prudent to hold off until it's in a definite state of readiness. The final release date will probably be announced at this year's WWDC.

[Targon]

Originally posted by Apfhex:
Did anyone else notice the new look of the menu bar? The "spotlight end caps" are gone, now Spotlight has a round blue icon similar to the Apple Menu icon (which is now a blue gradient, no more shiny), looks pretty balanced to me!

Mail's new interface is... eh... I liked the previous Tiger previews of it, I'm just not sure about those buttons...

Yeah i like the spotlight icon the way it is now with no blue, still i prefer the time display in the far right of the display not spotlight. Would be nice if we could change the order of the menu bar icons.

Mail looks just nice i like it.

Those dashboard widgets will be very useful.

[OwlBoy]

The new display style gives me hope it can be moved like any other menu item.

-Owl

[wataru]

I was blown away by the airline info widget in the Dashboard movie. That's freakin' cool.

[Chris Grande]

Yea those Mail buttons are.. well... they will probably grow on me. But, the UI in Tiger has been changing a lot with each build. I really liked one of the past builds, same UI but the more normal toolbar buttons.

[Chris Grande]

oops

[Zadian]

Originally posted by Rickster:
Jeeeeebus... those Mail toolbar buttons are ugly.

Hm, I actually like the look of the new toolbar buttons in Mail. I'm hoping the become the standard toolbar buttons in the Mac OS X as part of an unified GUI.
And I think it's good that they look like buttons and not just icons - as they are buttons.

[Simon X]

During Jobs' keynote what is that red book-like icon in his Dock?

[Visnaut]

Originally posted by wataru:
I was blown away by the airline info widget in the Dashboard movie. That's freakin' cool.

Yeah, that thing is insane. Once it's out, I'll be very curious to take it apart and see where it's grabbing its source data, and what was used to put the interface together. It sure isn't a standard scrollbar there, so what's generating the whole thing? Flash? CoreImage? It sure shows the potential of Dashboard as a whole.

Also, as an aside, notice how dashboard can be an icon in the dock? Does this mean it's an app that can be quit/launched now? Much how the dock used to be part of the finder and is now a separate app? This would be interesting to know, as I'm sure that those who feel they have no need for it would be happy to "free up" memory & resources.

[OwlBoy]

Originally posted by Simon X:
During Jobs' keynote what is that red book-like icon in his Dock?

Hmm, good question.

I scrubbed through the keynote, but was not able to find a "close up" of it.

-Owl

[Simon X]

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Hmm, good question.

I scrubbed through the keynote, but was not able to find a "close up" of it.

-Owl

I think I know what it is - Pages. It's probably a dummy or early icon he used to launch the app. Look at Keynote icon in his Dock and you can see it is the old one - and all the other icons are accounted for. It has to be Pages.

[MallyMal]

After seeing the keynote, I am more excited about Tiger. I am still on Jaguar because I'm the kind of person who upgrades every other year instead of every year.

I liked Spotlight from day one but what surprised me is that I actually like Dashboard now. Before, I didn't care too much about it. I think it's because I find the new widgets more useful than before.

The new features of Mail app seems to be something I will enjoy too.

Now, I just wish they would add in a better way of burning and erasing CD-RW media. I have been screaming about this issue for years now but I haven't seen any progress in the area. It seems better to me if OS X allowed me to append to the existing sessions as if the CD was a big floppy disk. Also, I think OS X should allow you to erase Cd-RWs from the Finder instead of having to go to Disk Utility. I have sent this feedback to Apple many times but I haven't seen it happen yet. I can only hope.

[akuma-x]

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Hmm, good question.

I scrubbed through the keynote, but was not able to find a "close up" of it.

-Owl

I think I can make out a "Aa" on the front of the book icon so it might be a new icon for font book or address book. I could be wrong.

[nforcer]

Dashboard is looking more and more like it will replace Sherlock in addition to Konfab, except the plugins can use whatever interface they want.

One thing that disturbs me about Dashboard is that I hope it does not ship with any of the "animated" widgets turned on. Or at least I hope they make it so that widgets do not animate in the background (ie, when Dashboard is not invoked). In a somewhat old Tiger build I was recently able to try, I noticed that the clock widget was using around 15% cpu time until I turned I closed it. I think it would be a bad thing to have users running apps while some default widgets they do not even know about are taking up unnecessary CPU time, and causing everything they do to be slower than it should be. I could really feel it.

Mail's interface keeps getting more nonstandard with every new build. That's a bad thing. The toolbar buttons are the latest atrocity. I don't see what was wrong with the 10.3 interface. The drawer was awesome, and everything else was really good. Mail in 10.3 was like a posterchild for a good Aqua app. And now they somehow feel a need to make it look "different"? My hope is that they are just using it to test out potential new interfaces since it did everything so awesome before, and my hope is that they are rejecting these new interface concepts.

[Sharky K.]

did you see the quicktime movie that is 1.1 MB in Quicktime and 3.3 MB in Mail?

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by nforcer:
Mail's interface keeps getting more nonstandard with every new build. That's a bad thing. The toolbar buttons are the latest atrocity. I don't see what was wrong with the 10.3 interface. The drawer was awesome, and everything else was really good. Mail in 10.3 was like a posterchild for a good Aqua app. And now they somehow feel a need to make it look "different"? My hope is that they are just using it to test out potential new interfaces since it did everything so awesome before, and my hope is that they are rejecting these new interface concepts.

For some reason, people have been complaining about that drawer ever since 10.0 (maybe you didn't know because your ignore list includes basically everybody ). I don't understand it either. I like the drawer, and Mail's interface in general.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Visnaut:
Also, as an aside, notice how dashboard can be an icon in the dock? Does this mean it's an app that can be quit/launched now? Much how the dock used to be part of the finder and is now a separate app? This would be interesting to know, as I'm sure that those who feel they have no need for it would be happy to "free up" memory & resources.

I'm probably showin' my iggerance, but when was the Dock part of the Finder?

[Kate]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I'm probably showin' my iggerance, but when was the Dock part of the Finder?

No, it never was, but they are connected. They tend to block each other in some situations. I do not know which type of common resources they share, but it is obvious that they are not truly independent from each other.

[ReefHobbyist]

the .Mac sync looks really cool. With additional items to sync like keychains, mail accounts, and mail rules.

[pliny]

Originally posted by ReefHobbyist:
the .Mac sync looks really cool. With additional items to sync like keychains, mail accounts, and mail rules.

I agree; the more stuff I can sync the better.

[Dog Like Nature]

Originally posted by Rickster:
Jeeeeebus... those Mail toolbar buttons are ugly.

Wow -- you're not wrong. Pretty awful if you ask me... maybe there's a plan here?!?!

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I 100% LOVE the new look of mail. One of the main reasons I can't wait to upgrade.

[Amorya]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
For some reason, people have been complaining about that drawer ever since 10.0 (maybe you didn't know because your ignore list includes basically everybody ). I don't understand it either. I like the drawer, and Mail's interface in general.

I like the drawer too - can't understand why people find it a problem!

I was annoyed enough when Omni made bookmarks not be in a drawer anymore... I can see their reasoning (tabs are, and multiple drawers might be confusing), but I don't use tabs and miss my bookmarks drawer.

Here's to drawers!


Amorya

[pliny]

yeah where's the mail drawer?? the 10.3 one works great as is. seems to be some kind of inlinemonster in 10.4. not for the fainthearted. and of course the buttons.

[Visnaut]

Originally posted by Kate:

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I'm probably showin' my iggerance, but when was the Dock part of the Finder?

No, it never was, but they are connected.

Connected indeed, but I was referring to the Finder of DP3 yore. You can find references to it in this article by Ars, and in DP4 became a separate app, also referred to in another article.

As for the drawer in Mail, i'll hardly miss it. It has to be open most of the time anyway, and it looks quite easy to hide. I like the fact that Mail and other programs are taking on more facets of the iTunes interface. Can't wait for those smart mailboxes!

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by pliny:
yeah where's the mail drawer?? the 10.3 one works great as is. seems to be some kind of inlinemonster in 10.4. not for the fainthearted. and of course the buttons.

The new sidebar, I like. As a matter of fact, I want an NSSidebar class (a friend and I made a decent one, but never finished it). The buttons though... ugh. "Not as bad as Netscape 8" is about the best I can say for them.

[chabig]

Originally posted by Simon X:
During Jobs' keynote what is that red book-like icon in his Dock?

I was at the keynote and noticed that too. So I played with it in the Apple pavilion where Tiger was running on display machines. That icon has "Aa" on it and is the built-in dictionary/thesaurus. It's very nice. You got a hint of it during the Dashboard demo.

Chris

[Simon X]

Originally posted by chabig:
I was at the keynote and noticed that too. So I played with it in the Apple pavilion where Tiger was running on display machines. That icon has "Aa" on it and is the built-in dictionary/thesaurus. It's very nice. You got a hint of it during the Dashboard demo.

Chris

Excellent. I happened upon this the other day where it mentions the Dictionary & Thesaurus on this Dashboard page. http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/dashboard.html

Specifically this:

Dictionary
Find definitions by typing all or part of a word: The dictionary widget displays a list of matches to choose from. View the same word in the thesaurus to find synonyms, antonyms and more. Since the dictionary and thesaurus are built right into Mac OS X Tiger, you don�t even need an Internet connection.

I'm glad Tiger with have a built in Dictionary & Thesaurus - a basic computer requirement if you ask me. I just hope the database it uses is good and better yet expandable like the built-in OS X spell checker is as the moment. (I use cocoAspell) More importantly I hope it is well localised.

Tiger is looking mighty fine indeed.

[24c]

Looked to me like the toolbar reply icon button and the reply icon by the side of the mail subject line are different. The toolbar mail button looks more like a back arrow!

Maybe the interface guy was having a bad day, or maybe I need to rest my eyes

[heavyboots]

I'm really glad to see they did away with the blue endcaps on the menu bar. Boy were those eyesores. I actually bestirred myself to send them ranting feedback on that one. Now if they would only get rid of the weird glossy highlight they stuck through the middle of the menu bar. In the last version I looked at it made it look like it is bent somehow. (They may have already done away with it, but I can see something darker through the middle in the videos.)

As for Mail, last time I checked you weren't allowed to move the sidebar to the other side, which would be a total deal-killer. I like my drawer on the right side...

Widgets sort of make me nervous. Everyone designing a zillion quick-hack widget apps sounds like a recipe for a memory thrashing like I got when I tried out Konfabulator. Also, the Konfabulator RSS feed thing I was using checked feeds every 10 minutes and I got banned from slashdot for running it! I'm going to try and stay Widget-free, I think.

But yes, Automator does look cool!

[beverson]

Originally posted by Visnaut:
Once [the airline widget is] out, I'll be very curious to take it apart and see where it's grabbing its source data....

When I was watching the keynote, I just assumed it would be replacing the current Flights channel of Sherlock, pulling data from the same source -- possibly lends more credence to the assertion elsewhere in this thread that Dashboard will help to replace or phase out Sherlock as we know it.

On another topic, I have to weigh in as one in favor of the new Mail interface. I think drawers look tacky and amateurish, personally -- always have felt that way. So the sidebar is better, and more in line with the iTunes/iPhoto/Finder/etc. sidebars. I like the buttons as well, though I think they would look better if they were shoved over all the way to the left instead of having that dead space above the sidebar. And maybe they could be slightly bigger.

[Superchicken]

Apple really should have some people to work on the interface of OS X to make sure that all the themes they use are in line with one another. They could have like I dono ten different looks. Standard Aqua, Brushed Metal, Pro, Bezzel (for those new palets and stuff), and a few other ones. But they seriously need to standardize on all of them, make sure iTunes, Finder, Mail, iLife, iWork, and everyone else obey them!

[mr100percent]

The flight data in the Sherlock channel is provided by FlyteComm

[theolein]

I actually like the new Mail look, the new Mail sidebar and the new buttons. I know I'm a bit strange in that, but I like the way they are both flatter and more subdued than either Aqua or Brushed Metal and the fact that ported Windows applications will now not have to look as bad as they on occasion have. And that brings me to the idea where they got that look from: It looks for all the world to me like they copied the new theme, sidebar idea and buttons from Windows Longhorn/XP.

Before I get flamed to death, I'll state that I actually prefer the buttons in WinXP to those in OSX because they are less in your face.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by theolein:
Before I get flamed to death, I'll state that I actually prefer the buttons in WinXP to those in OSX because they are less in your face.

Wow, that's not a comment I've ever heard made about anything in XP's interface. You're talking about Luna, right? Not the XP-in-Windows-98-drag theme?

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by theolein:
Before I get flamed to death, I'll state that I actually prefer the buttons in WinXP to those in OSX because they are less in your face.

The plain 'OK', 'Apply' and 'Cancel' buttons in both the Silver and luna themes, are sort of less 'in your face' than the gel buttons in OSX, I still prefer the OSX ones though.
The new buttons in Mail are appalling though, they look more like a poor Thunderbird theme. If they wanted to move from an 'icons' toolbar to a 'buttons' one they should have used a similar button style to Safari with a more square and monochromatic look the them.

[swaltner]

Originally posted by nforcer:
One thing that disturbs me about Dashboard is that I hope it does not ship with any of the "animated" widgets turned on. Or at least I hope they make it so that widgets do not animate in the background (ie, when Dashboard is not invoked). In a somewhat old Tiger build I was recently able to try, I noticed that the clock widget was using around 15% cpu time until I turned I closed it. I think it would be a bad thing to have users running apps while some default widgets they do not even know about are taking up unnecessary CPU time, and causing everything they do to be slower than it should be. I could really feel it.

Widgets are notified when they are no longer being shown on the screen (Dashboard is hidden). When that happens, they are supposed to save any state information and then stop any background tasks or anything that would comsume resources. There must have been a bug in that build of Tiger where you saw this behaviour.

Steve

[xe0]

the new Mail is hot

[Garage81]

i think the new mail looks good, on my small ass 1024 ibook, the drawer took too much space.

wonder if theyll axe the drawer in ical too?

[MindFad]

Mail looks great. Hate the buttons, though.

Thank all that is holy that they got rid of the friggin' menu bar endcaps. I like the Spotlight/Apple menus much better like this.

[nforcer]

Originally posted by swaltner:
Widgets are notified when they are no longer being shown on the screen (Dashboard is hidden). When that happens, they are supposed to save any state information and then stop any background tasks or anything that would comsume resources. There must have been a bug in that build of Tiger where you saw this behaviour.

Absolutely awesome news.

[ARENA]

Anyone knows if there's an option to leave specific dashboard widgets permanently shown on background? I think it's great to invoke the dashboard with it's dock icon or the key press, but i would like to leave some widgets on all the time. Stickies for instance, how am i supposed to remember something i wrote on a sticky if i don't have it bugging me on the screen?...it kinda defies the purpose of some widgets.