Any Last Leopard Requests?
As Q1 2007 is rushing towards us, so are hopes that we’ll soon see a release of Apple’s OS 10.5 - or Leopard. We’ve seen Spaces and Time Machine and Core Animation at the OS level of enhancements. We’ve been told that some features were being kept secret, or something like that… But what else is coming?
I’m curious as to what you’d like to be surprised with when Leopard finally drops. At this point in time, what features make the most sense to you, that you may not have seen or heard about in the forthcoming operating system?
Virtualization has been a big one for people - and the rumor hit this week that Apple may pick up Parallels. But I know there are plenty of people out there who are much smarter than I, so I’d like to hear your Leopard wish list items. Me, I’m simple and enjoy the little surprises that are found once the world of Mac users has tinkered in the new OS for a few days.
#1 Andrew Peterson says:I’ve done a couple albums out of iPhoto (though not the newer small-format booklets) and been very pleased with them. We gave them out as Christmas gifts last year and people were happy with them. Haven’t tried them lately (though we’ll probably do one for our eldest, who’s graduating high school next June) — and perhaps our standards aren’t as high.
#2 anonymous says:Alright I know it’s sort of a small feature request but it doesn’t seem that difficult to put a simple tool in Preview.app where you highlight text and hit a button that automatically underlines the text for you. Sure beats printing out 50 page pdf’s every time you want to read anything.
Other than that, tabbed finder and tabbed terminal, please.
Oh, and while I’m hoping aimlessly, maybe a better implementation of Spaces more Linux style where you can drag windows seamlessly between each desktop and the pager is built into the menubar, at least as a choice. In fact, a true virtual desktop feature might be the single boost to my productivity (besides getting back to work after reading your posts).
#3 Nick Santilli says:Andrew - Think you meant to post your comment in the iPhoto posting, but no matter. The quality standard is just that my 2 year old inkjet printer was putting out better photos than what was coming in my iPhoto books.
anon - Yeah, they seem to enhance Preview pretty heavily every OS release, so it sure would be nice if something like that came along this time. And yes, a better finder. Do it for the kids!
now get back to work!!!
#4 Squeaker says:Integration in a small but significant way. I.e. intelligent links to emails, people, places and events. Like for example I type a name in any application and a right nudge contextual menu gives me the address or phone from Addressbook, or a list of latest emails from the person. Similarly let me add events and reminders to iCal or my (unknown/unavailable as yet) Apple Projects database.
You know, everyday, user-like things sorted, without the extra Applescripts and Quicksilver slivers we have to write to make things really work for us. Oh, and Filemaker Pro sync access to Address Book - that would be good. Hey ho.
#5 AbolishTheDevil says:I’m no expert in the current or planned architecture of Mac OS X. But it seems to me that there should be a common, yet secure, API to access different central repositories of information stored on for the user (keychain, notes, address book, to-dos, events, photos, music, movies, etc.) so that developers can easily make programs to use this information in exciting and innovative new ways. For instance, I understand that the new Mail will introduce Notes, but I’d love it if Sidenote, or even Stickies, could seamlessly access that information and modify it. I think this would do a lot to advance the Mac platform further ahead of its competitors, although I understand that a lot of it is wishful thinking. Oh, if only I could work for Apple…
#6 Nick Santilli says:Squeaker - killer. I really like that idea. Sort of a Quicksilver-esque access built into the os level, similar to the dictionary utility. great thought. Just the type of thing I was looking for when i wrote this.
#7 Christopher says:Fix the linebreak problem in Mail.app. Please. All my contacts are tired of the consistently broken long URLs.
#8 dahui says:concerning the workflow on a mac I’d love to have a speech-to-text solution. specially beeing german, and there is really no solution not even with external apps
#9 David says:I’m betting there will be support in Preview for Microsoft’s new XPS document format. XPS is a similar to PDF but based on XML and ZIP. Microsoft needs cross-platform support for XPS so I’m guessing they assisted Apple.
#10 Brad says:For Apple Mail to be generally not crap and live up to it’s potential. Namely…
• Attachments can’t be defined as anything other than ‘content-disposition:inline’. WTF?
• Better searching (actually being able to search for something within the body of an email would be nice)
• Better backup features (why can’t I save off multiple individual emails at once? Where’s the tools to backup the entire Mail Database?)
• Better handling of read receipts (for a start, where are they?)
• Would love to see features like those found in Mail Tags/Mail Act On within the application
• Rename the application to something unique (seems frivilous, but just pretend you’re looking to the web to troubleshoot something. Try Googleing ‘Mail email’, then compare that to the results for ‘Entourage email’)
On another note I would love to be able to define custom keys and values for metadata in SpotLight, and have (two way) access to hooks for that feature through AppleScript and the CLI.
How about the ability to PDF something out with hyperlinks/Cross-References from Word (plus other apps)?
Second the suggestion for underlining/highlighting in Preview.
Loving the suggestions on integration/workflow.
#11 Mikey says:This may sounds really trivial but I hate it that I cannot open up a photo using Preview.app and scroll through the rest of the photos in that folder without opening up all of them.
Windows Preview has this basic feature and it makes a huge difference.
There is no way of quickly browsing images without using iPhoto, which is a pain sometimes.
#12 Stephen says:For a release that will have to outwoo Vista comparison, I think there needs to be more than just core-animation and automated backup. The rest are just more fine tuning. Fine Spaces is a nice copy from unixworld. I think far more needs to be done. CoreAnim is under the hood stuff, Time Machine is basically integrated backup with Apple flair.
While I would not avocate iChat for Windows, I do think allowing more users to connect in. Otherwise it will die on a vine like USB2 has over Firewire. Backgrounds for iChat- its a gimmick.
OK so my wish list?
Really intelligent Apple-smart Auto-config to server depending in what your server is whether leopard server, Win2000 server or 2003server. That would make it easier to integrate to make it replace windows clients even if the idea of dumping the Mac server also.
IChat should be moved more towards iCommunicate with network agnostic integrated phone, VOIP and video
3D Finder - not sure what the answer is - Where is all that R+D work Apple spends , even if its an advanced option. Its just I want to be able to manage digital data better than the same desktop metaphor we have seen with the added spotlight innovation.
Where is the replacement for Appleworks - iWork is only half finished. Perhaps Apple should launch this as a seperate launch than allow it to be thrown in with the Leopard launch. I have great sympathy for the IWork development team, everyone wants an Office killer but Apple is wary of upsetting Microsoft by being too competitive.
Preview - why not allow plugs so we could get view Quark files or other file formats in one app. We could see preview open AutoCAD files etc.
Leopard Server, originally we were told this would be a great competitor for NT server users who wanted to upgrade. Now we see tools for better quicktime streaming….There is a demand for a competitor to the stealth app that is Exchange, There is no reason why Apple could not offer a competitor to Exchange and at least get some of the Mail server business if not the file/print.
#13 Zsombor Nagy says:I like the feature in Mail very much when you mark something in an email then press Reply and Mail only quotes the marked lines. But if i mark multiple disconnected lines (with apple+click) and then press Reply only the first continous section is quoted.
It will be very good if i can define hotkeys for folders, couse I have multiple smart folders, and want to choose them with keyboard.
#14 Shticky says:I’d like to see more games included with Leopard. I’d also like to see many more time increment options for setting the wallpaper to cycle, i.e. 15 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec.
#15 wasim says:Well i Believe Leopard is a very good upgrade and but i wish something must have been done to scroll bars, i really hate them and i want something sleeker than blue neon rods…. a tabbed finder (ahhhh) atleast better chess game, all new icons, and no bugs and hope no beachball it makes me cry sometimes….
#16 Lee says:well leopard is an intelligent OS, smarter enough and quick enough to make our day to day computing requirements a sheer pleasure.. but compared to vista features, it still gotta push further, if it has to really claim its light years ahead of vista. well, leaving all the technical requirements aside, here are some simple changes which can make a huge difference to basic home users like us…
1. try to remove scroll bars. there are lot more intelligent ways to manage scroll than what the present GUI has, which looks like a minute of hard labour is needed to pull down the thing.
2. virtual folder implementation right into stacks. like i select couple of files from a folder, just drag them to the dock, it should be made a virtual folder stack rather than putting all files seperately
3. atleast give mac users a .mac id free with less storage space though.. Microsoft is a clear winner when it comes to mail, messenger and other communication services.. i know ichat has some gimmicks which kids will be happy with, though.
4. make desktop sharing a seperate app too, so that ichat is not required evrytime
5. handy context menu for cut/copy/paste..
6. easy folder implementation, like in vista for view and organisation and type selection.. a mere copying from vista been done in leopard search folders. looks good too. why not extending it to all folders????
7. we all know safari is a good browser but when it comes to ease of use, its just so boring..
8. finally, but not less important, change this old looking icons, which reminds me of 80’s