[paulbelsker]

I just found an article on Moshe Bar's blog at www.moshebar.com about his wish list for 10.5, which supposedly comes out next year. He seems to focus mainly on VoiIP. What is your wish list? Url to Moshe's list: Moshe Bar's wishlist


Paul

[OptimusG4]

I seriously doubt 10.5 will come out next year. Apple even admitted to slowing down the development process between OS updates.

[paulbelsker]

If 10.5 doesn't come out next year, then they might run out of numbering for all the 10.4.x versions, or will have to change numbering. Or am I wrong?

[esXXI]

Originally posted by paulbelsker:
If 10.5 doesn't come out next year, then they might run out of numbering for all the 10.4.x versions, or will have to change numbering. Or am I wrong?

As some have said, it doesn't go: 10.4.8 -> 10.4.9 -> 10.5.0. It's entirely possible that they could release 10.4.10 and higher (although personally I'd find it more likely they'd hold a 10.4.9 back until they've got enough to roll up into one large update as it's "last" one before releasing 10.5).

[TheTraveller]

Sounds like the guy with the 10.5 wish list would be much happier with a "pure" UNIX/Linux platform.

[fisherKing]

[Thinine]

Yeah, that list was pretty retarded.

[osxisfun]

indeed.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally posted by fisherKing:

[larkost]

Just to run down the list and pick off obvious "fan boy" requests:

• 128 bit filesystem: the largest filesystems in existence today are nowhere near the 64bit boundary, and we are probably 10 years off from that day. This is a "bigger numbers are better" or penis size wish.
• XEN: this is server virtualization software. It does not play to Apple's strengths in GUI's at all, and would add nothing to %99.99 of Apple's users. Plus they would be directly competing with IBM's and Sun's big iron... where is this a good idea?
• Single Sysetm Images... NetBoot and Xgrid already address this without the limitations of SSI for most of the problem space. Apple hardware is not a good solution for the rest of that space.
• VoIP... this is a "third party opportunity". Apple does not have anything special to offer as a phone company. You can already get everything he is talking about from Skype or Vonage.
• make MacOS X into FreeBSD... Apple has a better organizations system, a better driver system (which FreeBSD has recently copied and is in transition), and he does not understand how the kernel system works in MacOS X... there is no real speed penalty, and nothing to gain without cutting out things that MacOS X needs (real time stuff not available on FreeBSD).
• he also does not seem to know that you can run Gnome and KDE on MacOS X, and that these two are not "Linux"
• "anti-virus built in"... ok, to paraphrase: "most clueless post... ever"
• "Porting of Mono to OS X"... umm... the Mono Project already runs on MacOS X, and sections of it (notably the Windows.Forms) are in the process of getting native GUI drivers (through Cairo).
• There already is a "console mode"... by which I think he means a tty mode. Technically displaying to the main screen is console mode... no matter what is on it. And you are not really going to gain much by going to it. If you are overburdening your processor that much, it is time to get new hardware.

...and I could refute pretty much every point... This person obviously doesn't know much about MacOS X. He also has not been though even the "Tiger preview" on Apple's page to know what is coming.

[paulbelsker]

larkost, I checked into a couple of things:


* 128 bit filesystem: the largest filesystems in existence today are nowhere near the 64bit boundary, and we are probably 10 years off from that day. This is a "bigger numbers are better" or penis size wish.

Paul> A 128 bit file system is available on Solaris and on z/OS. 64bit file system is already available today on OS X, as are most file systems on Linux, Windows, HP-UX and many others. 128bit file systems actually would be good for some of the major data warehousing apps, so you don't have to cut the files artificially.

* XEN: this is server virtualization software. It does not play to Apple's strengths in GUI's at all, and would add nothing to %99.99 of Apple's users. Plus they would be directly competing with IBM's and Sun's big iron... where is this a good idea?

Paul> I run vmware on my server and desktop, so not sure why it would only be good for big iron

* Single Sysetm Images... NetBoot and Xgrid already address this without the limitations of SSI for most of the problem space. Apple hardware is not a good solution for the rest of that space.

Paul> but don'you have to have an Xgrid-ready application (or modify one) to benefit from Xgrid and Netboot. I am not an expert, but Single Systme Image is transparent to apps.

* make MacOS X into FreeBSD... Apple has a better organizations system, a better driver system (which FreeBSD has recently copied and is in transition), and he does not understand how the kernel system works in MacOS X... there is no real speed penalty, and nothing to gain without cutting out things that MacOS X needs (real time stuff not available on FreeBSD).

Paul> Actually there is, and Apple says that the advantages of the kernel running under Mach 4 also have a cost in terms of performance.

* he also does not seem to know that you can run Gnome and KDE on MacOS X, and that these two are not "Linux"

Paul> Since he's involved with the Xen virtualization project, I think he would like to have a real Linux (kernel, distro and all) to run under OS X in a virtualized environment and be able to have it's virtual screen to run on the OS X desktop, similarly to Mac on Linux (but reverse direction of virtualization.) Makes a lot of sense to me.


* There already is a "console mode"... by which I think he means a tty mode. Technically displaying to the main screen is console mode... no matter what is on it. And you are not really going to gain much by going to it. If you are overburdening your processor that much, it is time to get new hardware.

Paul> A tty is actually not a console. The console is a special terminal, often attached over serial, which does't depend on network or similar to access the login. You can run the console on a tty, but then you loose some capabilities. You can log off from a user session today and login with >console to go down to real console mode in OS X, but that means loging off first.

[Thinine]

Originally posted by paulbelsker:
larkost, I checked into a couple of things:


* 128 bit filesystem: the largest filesystems in existence today are nowhere near the 64bit boundary, and we are probably 10 years off from that day. This is a "bigger numbers are better" or penis size wish.

Paul> A 128 bit file system is available on Solaris and on z/OS. 64bit file system is already available today on OS X, as are most file systems on Linux, Windows, HP-UX and many others. 128bit file systems actually would be good for some of the major data warehousing apps, so you don't have to cut the files artificially.

The maximum file size of HFS+ is 8 exabytes. I'm not sure there's even that much data on the planet right now.

[themexican]

God I would be so happy if I just had complete control over my screen fonts in the system. Sadly I don't think this is anywhere on apple's agenda.

[larkost]

Originally posted by paulbelsker:
larkost, I checked into a couple of things:

If you checked... why did you not provide sources?

Paul> A 128 bit file system is available on Solaris and on z/OS. 64bit file system is already available today on OS X, as are most file systems on Linux, Windows, HP-UX and many others. 128bit file systems actually would be good for some of the major data warehousing apps, so you don't have to cut the files artificially.

What files do you expect to use in the next 10 years that are 2 to the power of 64 bytes big? Do you think you will be able to buy a hard drive in that range in the next ten years? Solaris has a 128bit capable filesystem to say they do... and it scales up from 64bit in intelligent ways, so you don't waste the resources. This is way above the level Apple should be working on. It is simple "fan boy" level.

And why would you think that Apple hardware would be a good candidate for >64bit filesystems anyways?

* XEN: this is server virtualization software. It does not play to Apple's strengths in GUI's at all, and would add nothing to %99.99 of Apple's users. Plus they would be directly competing with IBM's and Sun's big iron... where is this a good idea?

Paul> I run vmware on my server and desktop, so not sure why it would only be good for big iron

XEN is not like VMWare in any real way. It is not suitable for desktop applications in any real way.

Paul> but don'you have to have an Xgrid-ready application (or modify one) to benefit from Xgrid and Netboot. I am not an expert, but Single Systme Image is transparent to apps.

You don't understand how this works. The applications that you would use SSI to run have to be highly configured to deal with the NUMA environment. It is true that SSI is normally implemented so that it is transparent to small apps, but you totally misunderstand the problem space if you think that SSI "just works" for big apps.

there is no real speed penalty, and nothing to gain without cutting out things that MacOS X needs (real time stuff not available on FreeBSD).

Paul> Actually there is, and Apple says that the advantages of the kernel running under Mach 4 also have a cost in terms of performance.

You didn't read what I wrote. You think Apple's kernel engineers don't know their jobs better than you?

* he also does not seem to know that you can run Gnome and KDE on MacOS X, and that these two are not "Linux"

Paul> Since he's involved with the Xen virtualization project, I think he would like to have a real Linux (kernel, distro and all) to run under OS X in a virtualized environment and be able to have it's virtual screen to run on the OS X desktop, similarly to Mac on Linux (but reverse direction of virtualization.) Makes a lot of sense to me.

Once again, you don't quite understand what XEN does...

* There already is a "console mode"... by which I think he means a tty mode. Technically displaying to the main screen is console mode... no matter what is on it. And you are not really going to gain much by going to it. If you are overburdening your processor that much, it is time to get new hardware.

Paul> A tty is actually not a console. The console is a special terminal, often attached over serial, which does't depend on network or similar to access the login. You can run the console on a tty, but then you loose some capabilities. You can log off from a user session today and login with >console to go down to real console mode in OS X, but that means loging off first.

You didn't read what I wrote... did you?

[mrogov]

Worst list ever, he's not going to see any of those come true...

But besids that, how about a Cocoa, fixed-up and feature-full Finder?

[CharlesS]

The one that really has me scratching my head is this one:

nicer GUI around iChat. Admittedly hard to do because iChat is already so simple. too simple?

So iChat needs a nicer interface. But its current one is already too nice? Is Apple supposed to make iChat worse so that it can make it better? Huh?

[Millennium]

Let's take a look at this:

I will be using the word "Bloat" to describe features which are already doable for those institutions which need it, where either those institutions are small in number and/or scope (so there is very little benefit to including them in the OS when most users will never use them, knowingly or not), or whether it's the kind of anticompetitive claptrap that we've been blasting Microsoft about for years.

• 128-bit Filesystem - As others have said, 64-bit filesystems can go up to 18 exabytes (about 18 trillion gigabytes) in size. It will be a long time before more than this amount of storage is needed. It is entirely possible that there are other advantages to such a filesystem, but the poster does not list them. I suspect he doesn't know them either.
• Xen - Maybe for OSX Server. No need for it to be bundled into OSX.
• Single System Image - Bloat.
• Network-Transparent GUI - Bloat.
• Themes - A nice convenience, but Apple has more important issues to work out first.
• Nicer GUI around iChat - Such as...? Just as our friend fails to provide any justification for his claims, there are times when he fails to provide any clarification.
• VoIP - Bloat.
• Calling phone numbers from iChat - An extension of VoIP, therefore bloat.
• QuickTime Streaming Server built in - Bloat. Note that it's already in OSX Server anyway, and is more justified there. Note also that he mentions "with either mpeg or h.264 format", but h.264 is just an application of MPEG-4, so we're dealing with someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.
• More scalable iPhoto - Here, he's actually got something of a point, though I question where his 'practical limit' comes from. Data, please?
• iDVD on Steriods - iDVD is meant for simple DVDs. If you want more, that's what DVD Studio Pro is for.
• More iChat video/voice - Clarification required. Where does the "5 out of 10 situations" number come from?
• FreeBSD organization - Hell no. What's the matter with /private anyway, given that the "normal" Unix directories are all linked out from it?
• Run Linux under FreeBSD in screen with a window - You're going to need to provide some serious justification for this one. Although not all Linux programs can be compiled to run in OSX, those which don't are esoteric enough that the people who need them can be counted on to be able to dual-boot.
• Remove Mach - This is just politics. No need.
• Rendezvous for SSI at kernel level - No need to put it into the kernel. Rendezvous for SSI is kind of a neat idea, admittedly.
• "file system tools that can do more than just fix permissions" - Such as...? They can also repair and verify the filesystem. What more is this guy looking for?
• Anti-Virus built in - Bloat by virtue of anti-competitive behavior. That said, it would be nice to see the ClamXAV project get some love; currently it's not much better than Virex, which is itself a joke compared to its OS9 days.
• Sandbox operation for non-admin user - For what? Clarify, please.
• Porting of Mono to OS X - I treat that program like I treat the disease. Let those who think they need it install it on their own.
• Word processor - Bloat due to anti-competitive behavior. For someone who doesn't need a full-on word processor -and not everyone does, believe it or not- TextEdit is already quite capable anyway.
• Data base application based on Mysql or postgres with GUI from Apple - Bloat.
• Button or choice in "Apple" menu to shut down GUI and work in console mode - Bloat. Already doable via other means anyway.
• Provide VoiceIP or iChat Apple phones (wireless) Bloat, not to mention the whole "Apple Must Make Everything" problem.
• MS Messenger type features in iChat - Clarification required. What does he want to see?
• Search IM addresses for contacts in Contacts Book - Aside from the fact that it's called "Address Book", isn't this already possible? I seem to be able to do it without any trouble.
• Import Outlook emails, settings and calendar - Sounds like Exchange support to me. Isn't this planned for Tiger?
• Shoot iCalendar several times, stomp on it, and rewrite a serious calendaring app - Bloat. Not to mention it's "iCal", not "iCalendar" (iCalendar exists, but it's not an app; rather it's a standard file format which iCal implements.
• Enhance Sherlock to make it much more pro-active in searching what the user wants - Clarification required. What do you mean by "more pro-active"? Should it be getting the files you want before you even ask it to find them?
• Choice of sophistication for GUI so users with older laptos can actually work with it - Clarification required; what do you mean by "sophistication"? For that matter, I run a Ti/400 - the oldest laptop model which works with Panther- every day, and although it's certainly not as fast as my G5/Dual1.8 it seems to get the job done well enough for me. What is so "unworkable" about it on this guy's machine? For that matter, the GUI's "sophistication" is all but irrelevant in the face of Quartz, which is the real performance bottleneck.
• Wi-fi config tool as part of the normal System Preferences - Isn't this called the Network panel?
• Wi-fi config tool also configures certain other routers (like Linksys) - Bloat. These routers provide their own configuration interfaces already, most of them browser-based.
• System config utitilities are either in System Preferences or in Util but not some here and some there at random - Are you speaking of Printer Setup and AirPort Setup, both of which are too big in scope to fit easily into a preference pane?
• Desktop clean up tool - It's called drag and drop.

So out of this absurdly long list, we have one -maybe two- justified claims, a bunch of claims which are too vague to judge (much less actually implement), and a whole bunch of evidence that this guy has little to no idea what he's talking about. He also seems to have forgotten more than a few of the new features in Tiger, dismissing it as a service pack.

[OreoCookie]

I disagree about VoIP, it would be the most-anticipated feature for iChat, I would say. Although I have to honestly say that I don't use iChat, just AdiumX and Skype �_

[larkost]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
I disagree about VoIP, it would be the most-anticipated feature for iChat, I would say. Although I have to honestly say that I don't use iChat, just AdiumX and Skype �_

People wave the magic phrase VoIP around as if it is a magic wand that allows you to make calls without a telephone company (and thus for free), or as if it is a single unified protocol. It is neither... you still have to have some sort of telephone company (who does not get their bandwidth for free) to connect people (unless you are making a private branch exchange connected to no-one outside your dedicated system) and you have to choose one of that myriad of standards out there, meaning you are locked into that service.

So, do you want Apple as a Telephone Company? Do you think they have anything to offer?

[TheTraveller]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Let's take a look at this:

[*]More scalable iPhoto - Here, he's actually got something of a point, though I question where his 'practical limit' comes from. Data, please?

I participated in a thread on the Applications (or something) forum about poor iPhoto performance...but I trashed my prefs and did one or two other tweaks and now...I've got 5900+ photos in iPhoto 5.0.1 on my PowerBook G4 1.25 Ghz/1.25 GB RAM...and it performs acceptably. Most of them are between 800 and say 1500 KB in size.

[bgotori]

Hey All

I'd like USB 2.0 Bootablity... Since USB 2.0 Drives are Cheap.


Great Times Ahead!!!

Brad

[Abit667]

Originally posted by bgotori:
Hey All

I'd like USB 2.0 Bootablity... Since USB 2.0 Drives are Cheap.


Great Times Ahead!!!

Brad

Yes, this is something I'd like to see as well, maybe some kind of firmware revision or something. Being able to boot a flash drive or usb harddrive would really come in handy sometimes.

[Geobunny]

Originally posted by Millennium:[*]Anti-Virus built in - Bloat by virtue of anti-competitive behavior. That said, it would be nice to see the ClamXAV project get some love; currently it's not much better than Virex, which is itself a joke compared to its OS9 days.

For obvious reasons, I stopped reading at this point, Millennium. I'm giving clamXav plenty of love just now. I know it's been a while since I released the last version, but there's a very good reason for that - for the main new feature I'm adding, I had to learn Objective-C and relearn a whole lot about pointers in C which I would really rather have left in the dark recesses of my memory. In short, I've been doing a lot of and

As I say on my website, if there's anything you feel you want added, just say the word and I'll do my best. So, in light of that, which areas need love and improvement? Either in here, PM or http://www.clamxav.com/contact.php?nature=2

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Geobunny:
As I say on my website, if there's anything you feel you want added, just say the word and I'll do my best. So, in light of that, which areas need love and improvement? Either in here, PM or http://www.clamxav.com/contact.php?nature=2

A feature I'd like to see would be the ability to enter an e-mail address to send notifications of viruses to rather than simply via the UNIX mail feature. It would be easier to use when dealing with a whole lab full of Macs.

[Geobunny]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
A feature I'd like to see would be the ability to enter an e-mail address to send notifications of viruses to rather than simply via the UNIX mail feature. It would be easier to use when dealing with a whole lab full of Macs.

That's actually something I've been considering for a while - I think it'd be especially useful in conjunction with the scan schedule. I'm intrigued as to why you don't want to use the bsd mail tool though.

...maybe this is a topic for a separate thread in the applications section where it belongs?

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by larkost:
People wave the magic phrase VoIP around as if it is a magic wand that allows you to make calls without a telephone company (and thus for free), or as if it is a single unified protocol. It is neither... you still have to have some sort of telephone company (who does not get their bandwidth for free) to connect people (unless you are making a private branch exchange connected to no-one outside your dedicated system) and you have to choose one of that myriad of standards out there, meaning you are locked into that service.

So, do you want Apple as a Telephone Company? Do you think they have anything to offer?

Well, I use Skype on pretty much a daily basis (to call my friends) which is technically not VoIP (they use their own protocol). Seeing how Apple went into the music business, I wouldn't entirely rule out that they use a pre-existing and integrate it (as they did when they first created iChat).

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally posted by themexican:
God I would be so happy if I just had complete control over my screen fonts in the system. Sadly I don't think this is anywhere on apple's agenda.

That's too close to themes for Apple's taste.

Originally posted by themexican:
....

http://mexpix.com/headingeast

Nice everything (pictures, house, family, etc.)! Oh, and congrats on the new kid

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by E's Lil Theorem:
That's too close to themes for Apple's taste.

The same Apple which now has 5 user interface themes? (Aqua, Metal, Graphite (Pro tools), Wood, WhiteSpotlightStuffInTiger)

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Geobunny:
That's actually something I've been considering for a while - I think it'd be especially useful in conjunction with the scan schedule. I'm intrigued as to why you don't want to use the bsd mail tool though.

The current version seems to just drop mail into the mailbox for the user it's running as. This is fine if you're just running it on a single machine, and you're the kind of user who opens Terminal windows all the time, but for a lab, it'd be nice to send the reports from all the machines to a central location via e-mail. I don't care what back-end it uses to send the messages, but it would be nice to be able to receive them by e-mail.

There's probably a setting for this in clamav's settings somewhere, but for some reason I'm having trouble finding it in the docs.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Geobunny:
For obvious reasons, I stopped reading at this point, Millennium. I'm giving clamXav plenty of love just now. I know it's been a while since I released the last version, but there's a very good reason for that - for the main new feature I'm adding, I had to learn Objective-C and relearn a whole lot about pointers in C which I would really rather have left in the dark recesses of my memory. In short, I've been doing a lot of and

I apologize. My wording was overly severe. I'm glad to hear that development is picking up, though I was unaware that you were a developer on that project. Truth be told, I'd love to see clamXav blossom into a strong anti-virus program on OSX. The engine is already solid, and it sounds as though there are some good features coming in.

One thing which I believe would help immensely in this would be AppleScript support, whether for the GUI app or for the engine itself. E-mail programs and Folder Actions stand to benefit greatly from a feature like this, as it could be used to implement a kind of auto-scanning functionality.

[Geobunny]

Originally posted by Millennium:
I apologize. My wording was overly severe.

S'ok, there's no need to apologise really - criticism and feedback help to get things done.

I'm glad to hear that development is picking up, though I was unaware that you were a developer on that project. Truth be told, I'd love to see clamXav blossom into a strong anti-virus program on OSX. The engine is already solid, and it sounds as though there are some good features coming in.

One thing which I believe would help immensely in this would be AppleScript support, whether for the GUI app or for the engine itself. E-mail programs and Folder Actions stand to benefit greatly from a feature like this, as it could be used to implement a kind of auto-scanning functionality.

Don't speak to me about Folder Actions! That was the source of much confusion and head-banging - they seem to turn themselves on and off for no apparent reason. That, and the fact that they don't work recursively (you have to specify every folder which needs watched, saying "watch the home folder" will not show up changes on the Desktop or that user's Library folder for example) are the two main reasons I gave up on Folder Actions and went with a completely different approach.

All the tears were worth it though, I now have a far more elegant solution which I hope to be sending to my beta testers soon.

As for adding stuff to the engine itself, that's a big no-no. The code base is ANSI-C (bog standard C programming language) which enables it to work with many different operating systems - there's no way I would be allowed to add OS X specific code to it. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't want that responsibility anyway!

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
The same Apple which now has 5 user interface themes? (Aqua, Metal, Graphite (Pro tools), Wood, WhiteSpotlightStuffInTiger)

Yup, the same Apple

[Superchicken]

I wouldn't be surprised if we see an iPod phone and an iChat that supports making phone calls through it. Perhaps using both land line and cell. IE you connect a base in your house that when your phone is at home you can use that instead for say local calling or something. With this I also wouldn't be surprised if we saw an iChat + iSight for Windows eventually.

That said, most of these are not that great of requests... and word processor? Uhh, I guess they didn't hear about pages or what?

[moonmonkey]

The guy is dumb.

[Spliff]

All I want is a Finder that doesn't suck. But that's wishful thinking.

[ChillieMac]

My particular Mac OS X 10.5 wishlist:

� USB2, Flashdrive bootability (Install OS and home folder on a flashdrive or iShuffle for a perfect backup/troubleshooting solution.)

� A System Preference control panel that turns off a wide range of eye candy (drop shadows, transparency, bouncy in the Dock, etc.) either manually or when certain conditions exist, when an iBook or Powerbook is on battery power, when a certain application is running etc.

� Ability to pick alternate or additional swap disks to improve performance when physical RAM (and VRAM) is too taxed. Similar to Photshop's ability to do the same.

� Better, more responsive refresh rates when the contents of a Finder window or Desktop changes. One shouldn't have to click on the Desktop to see a downloaded file appear if that's where you downloaded it.

� A default with the Dock that "protects" itself from application windows, by either preventing a window from violating it's space, forcing the Dock to hide, or by forcing the Dock to shrink....NO APPLICATION should appear behind the Dock.

� An option that allows open documents within an application to appear in the Dock as a badge # (ala the Mail app) and when you right click (or control click) the menu from that app shows thumbnails and file names open in that app.

� Spring Loaded Folder ability through the Dock icons.

� Better, smoother Speech engine that allows more natural sounding speech, better voices.

� Ability to add and subtract "dictionaries" to the OS. Some words would just be added to the general Global dictionary for spellcheck, and specific dictionaries you can turn on and off (medical, legal ect) depending on the users wishes.

� Ability to Log In to your Home folder remotely (on a LAN or over the Internet), basicly incorporate ARC.

iApps:

� Better integration of Mail, iCal, Addressbook, iChat and Safari of database resources.

� iCal, Mail, Address Book Outlook capeabilties.

� Address Book:
� Ability to add subgroups under groups, i.e. a Customer folder<Specific Company folder<Specific Individual contact at the company or Friends<(From Work, Bowling League, etc)<Specific person, Household Vendors<(Electric, Mortgage Co., Cable, Phone providers)
� Larger picture option (file size and bit depth limit or a thumb of pics in iPhoto)
� Special dates field (able to designate birthday's, anniversaries, due dates)
� Group field (tells you which Group the contact belongs)
� Color coding to indicate closeness of relationship.

� iCal:
� Ability to add and delete events and To Dos thru .Mac accounts remotely.
� Smart Calendars (like iTunes) to quickly see Special events only like birthdays, anniversaries, bill due dates in a hurry.
� Ability to option click on a calendat to view only that calendar and Option Click again to show all calendars at once.)
� iCal icon in Dock update to curent date , WITHOUT being open.

� Mail:
� Ability to make Secure folders for specific confidential emails.
� Ability coupled with .Mac to retrieve sent e-mail.
� Integrated ability to make HTML e-mail
� Make interace consistent with rest of UI (keep small icon ability).

An icon on the menu bar that lists the steps or Applescripts to troubleshoot the 10 most comon problems customers encounter.

[fortepianissimo]

Originally posted by Spliff:
All I want is a Finder that doesn't suck. But that's wishful thinking.

Amen!

[fortepianissimo]

Mail: a more project-central design. This is the most important app next to the browser for g*d's sake!

Help: something that doesn't suck!

Interface: more innovative way of using depth (please, not just making windows wobble, flip and rotate - like what M$ did). Also find some way to use natural language intelligently.

Distributed processing (long shot): sharing filesystems/memory/CPUs across multiple macs, transparently, even just at the process level.

[Moose]

Originally posted by Millennium:
For that matter, I run a Ti/400 - the oldest laptop model which works with Panther-

Point of order, Mr. President:

Lombard's the oldest Pantherable laptop. Tiger will drop support for it it, but will still support the Pismo.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� USB2, Flashdrive bootability (Install OS and home folder on a flashdrive or iShuffle for a perfect backup/troubleshooting solution.)

I'm not sure this is actually possible to do in software. The thing about USB is that a lot of the functionality has to be specified in software, not hardware. This is in many ways similar to such inferior-but-cheaper technologies as IDE and WinModems, as opposed to FireWire, SCSI, and actual hardware modems.

Many FireWire devices don't actually require a computer in order to perform their function -for example, some DV video cameras allow you to transfer video straight to a hard drive without the need for an intervening machine- but most USB devices can't work unless connected to a running machine. After all, how do you boot from something which needs an OS already running in order to even work?

In order to make USB drives bootable, extra hardware will be needed in order to make USB work without an OS. Although such a thing might be built into a future Mac, that doesn't help owners of existing devices.

� A System Preference control panel that turns off a wide range of eye candy (drop shadows, transparency, bouncy in the Dock, etc.) either manually or when certain conditions exist, when an iBook or Powerbook is on battery power, when a certain application is running etc.

This won't help as much as you might think. Turning off drop shadows and transparency won't increase speed or decrease CPU usage, because Quartz already has to calculate every object as though it potentially had these things. They're not a special case.

Bouncing in the Dock is another matter. You could save a few cycles by disabling it. However, this is already doable; uncheck "Animate Opening Animations" in the Dock preference pane. Unsanity's Dock Detox can also do the trick.

� Ability to pick alternate or additional swap disks to improve performance when physical RAM (and VRAM) is too taxed. Similar to Photshop's ability to do the same.

This could be interesting. Keep in mind, however, that this will only improve performance when the VM is thrashing (constantly accessing the hard drive) anyway, and if your machine does this often then what it really needs is more real RAM.

� Better, more responsive refresh rates when the contents of a Finder window or Desktop changes. One shouldn't have to click on the Desktop to see a downloaded file appear if that's where you downloaded it.

As I understand it, Tiger fixes this already, so there's no need to wish for it in 10.5

� A default with the Dock that "protects" itself from application windows, by either preventing a window from violating it's space, forcing the Dock to hide, or by forcing the Dock to shrink....NO APPLICATION should appear behind the Dock.

This is an annoying hole that needs to be patched, I agree.

� An option that allows open documents within an application to appear in the Dock as a badge # (ala the Mail app) and when you right click (or control click) the menu from that app shows thumbnails and file names open in that app.

The right-click menu that you mention is already in Panther. The idea of a badge number for open windows is kind of neat, though.

� Better, smoother Speech engine that allows more natural sounding speech, better voices.

The problem isn't so much in the engine as in the voices themselves. Personally, I'd just like Apple to release the SDK for voices, so that people could fill this gap.

� Ability to add and subtract "dictionaries" to the OS. Some words would just be added to the general Global dictionary for spellcheck, and specific dictionaries you can turn on and off (medical, legal ect) depending on the users wishes.

Fascinating. It sounds as though what you're really asking for is some kind of "Dictionary Manager". That would be interesting.

� Ability to Log In to your Home folder remotely (on a LAN or over the Internet), basicly incorporate ARC.

Huh? I can already get to my files easily enough; are you saying that you want Apple Remote Desktop integrated into the OS? Keep in mind the security risks involved with such a thing.

� Better integration of Mail, iCal, Addressbook, iChat and Safari of database resources.

I need some clarification.

� iCal, Mail, Address Book Outlook capeabilties.

You mean Exchange capabilities. All three of these apps can already communicate with Outlook, if they use the standard protocols. The Exchange protocols, however, are pretty tightly locked up by Microsoft, and it will be difficult if not impossible for Apple to get permission to implement them. Keep in mind that Exchange is one of Microsoft's primary tools for creating vendor lock-in.

� Mail:
� Integrated ability to make HTML e-mail

No way. The less common HTML e-mail is, the better for everyone.

An icon on the menu bar that lists the steps or Applescripts to troubleshoot the 10 most comon problems customers encounter.

Interesting idea, though I'd wrap it up into a "Troubleshooting Assistant" myself.

[Geobunny]

Originally posted by Millennium:

No way. The less common HTML e-mail is, the better for everyone.

Ahh, the voice of reason! HTML emails really REALLY annoy me. E-Mail was designed as a plain text messaging service, and should be kept exactly like that. HTML should be kept purely for web pages and nothing else. The ability to emphasise certain words or draw attention to important pieces of information should come from the language used, not pretty colours or arrows marked with bright red letters saying "READ THIS BIT HERE".

Meanwhile, back in the land of on-topic discussion, I would like to see users having greater control over the system font/size used for menus. I would also like scroll thumbs to darken when they're clicked on, in a similar fashion to the way OS 9's scroll thumbs changed appearance slightly, and in the same way that all other widgets in OS X change appearance when you click on them. Strange that this has been overlooked.

[JLL]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
The same Apple which now has 5 user interface themes? (Aqua, Metal, Graphite (Pro tools), Wood, WhiteSpotlightStuffInTiger)

Uhm, your 'WhiteSpotlightStuffInTiger' is Aqua.

[JLL]

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� iCal, Mail, Address Book Outlook capeabilties.

If you wan't them to work like groupware you should notice the price of Exchange, Groupwise, Notes et al and then look at the price of iCal, Mail and Address Book.

Those are meant for single user purposes, but Apple could make a groupware version of the apps and sell those (or put the features into Mac OS X Server).

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� Better integration of Mail, iCal, Addressbook, iChat and Safari of database resources.

In what way? Mail takes the addresses from Address Book, Safari takes the home pages from Address Book, in Tiger iCal takes the birthdays from Address Book - what are you missing?

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� Special dates field (able to designate birthday's, anniversaries, due dates)

With the exception of due dates (what do they have to do with a contact?) the rest is already there in Panther.

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� iCal icon in Dock update to curent date , WITHOUT being open.

Why close the app if you really need that functionality?

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� Ability to make Secure folders for specific confidential emails.

Why not use Filevault?

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� Ability coupled with .Mac to retrieve sent e-mail.

Do you mean withdraw a sent e-mail or retrieval of deleted mails?

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� Integrated ability to make HTML e-mail

No way - but to please you Mail in Tiger will let you forward and reply to HTML mails in HTML format.

Originally posted by ChillieMac:
� Make interace consistent with rest of UI (keep small icon ability).

I think they are thinking about making the rest of the system look like Mail - not the other way around.

[JLL]

With Tiger some steps were made in the right direction: real 64bit support. conferences in iChat, Spotlight searching (like Google Desktop) and RSS support in Safari. And that's about it. Microsoft would call all of that a Service Pack. Well, maybe not the full 64bit thing, but the other stuff is hardly worth a new release for which people are actually supposed to pay.

Yep, that's about it. CoreData, CoreImage, and all the other under-the-hood features are nothing.

[LeeG]

Originally posted by Geobunny:
Ahh, the voice of reason! HTML emails really REALLY annoy me. E-Mail was designed as a plain text messaging service, and should be kept exactly like that. HTML should be kept purely for web pages and nothing else.

AMEN!

At least some sites now allow you select HTML vs plain text - I access my email from a ton of different places, HTML inside emails is bloated, slow, a security risk, and UNNECESSARY.

Though I do love Mail, and would love to see further updates. The "smart mailboxes" in Tiger should prove interesting, I'll have to play with it for a while to see how it can help streamline my email use-

Lee

[Krypton]

snappy�









(because no one has mentioned this yet!)

[Moose]

Originally posted by Krypton:
(because no one has mentioned this yet!)

Yeah. We grownups were kinda hoping that we could actually have a discussion.

Jokes about "snappiness" and "debug code" are why we can't have nice things.

I hope you're happy.

[Krypton]

Originally posted by Moose:
Yeah. We grownups were kinda hoping that we could actually have a discussion.

Jokes about "snappiness" and "debug code" are why we can't have nice things.

I hope you're happy.

Haha, well if a dual G5 still can't resize a metal window in real time I think it is still an issue, but that's just my opinion. Even I, have given up on any Mac being able to achieve this feat

My remaining grievances are those that won't be fixed, as they are part of Apple's policy rather than design.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by Krypton:
Haha, well if a dual G5 still can't resize a metal window in real time I think it is still an issue, but that's just my opinion. Even I, have given up on any Mac being able to achieve this feat

My remaining grievances are those that won't be fixed, as they are part of Apple's policy rather than design.

I have no idea what you are talking about, all metal windows save for Safari (bascially because it has to re-render html in real-time), resizes in real time on my G4 PowerBook.

[MrForgetable]

i just want to be able to customize the color of the apple on the menu bar.