OS X: please fix it

Apple has finally announced the dates of the annual Worldwide Developers' Conference. It is a regular San Francisco summer time happening, and Apple is reported to like this kind of thing because it's an event at which Apple calls all the shots.

WWDC takes place from June 8th to June 12th.

I've mentioned WWDC before. It's Mecca to Apple developers They travel from all over to attend. There are conferences, seminars, stalls - most importantly, of course, there are Apple announcements.

It doesn't seem likely Apple will produce new Mac Pro towers any more, since they just did. So new hardware may just involve new Cinema displays; Apple could be planning to release new iMacs for DubDubDeeCee, but they're consumer products.

However, since Apple is calling all the shots now with releases, who knows? Anyway, attention has shifted to what new software may be released.

Will there be a new version of Final Cut Pro, Apple's pro video editor maybe (think Brokeback Mountain)? Or perhaps Logic, Apple's pro audio app (think Slumdog Millionaire)? Who knows.

Almost definitely, though, Apple will unveil its long awaited new Operating System. The next Mac OS X version is more of a refinement than the last. The last and current one, called 'Leopard' (OS 10.5) introduced about 300 new features. The next, OS 10.6 'Snow Leopard' (the name gives you a clue to its evolutionary nature), has had a few new user interface enhancements in recent developer builds, according to Ars Technica

These have included enhancements to the Dock's controversial 'Stacks' feature in which folders flip out confusingly and in different ways. Before Leopard, you got a great hierarchical structure that made sense. It worked like the usual structure in the Finder. I have become used to Leopard's stacks and stuff, but ... yeah, I'd rather have the old version.

Apparently, a complete redesign of QuickTime was in the Snow Leopard developer builds for a while. Since Apple has been integrating movie-playing abilities into the Finder (QuickLook and Cover Flow can play the movies without booting QuickTime) and the apparent latent ability of the next Safari web browser to handle more motion, this could lead to some exciting new developments, both within the OS and for Apple software developers. Now, apparently, Apple is stripping out these changes before its possible (likely) introduction at WWDC 2009.

Apple may be polishing a major new user interface update for the OS, so wants - according to that Ars Technica posting - 'to keep a tighter grip on its cards until game time.'

As a refinement, Snow Leopard has so far gained a lot of code cleanup and a redesign of underlying architectures. All good. But while Apple is shifting attention to the user interface (UI), I'd like to put a vote in for a few changes:

1. It's not obvious enough which programs are running. Mac users know how to look for the little glowing blobs under the application icons in the Dock, but switchers find this hard. And even for long term Mac users, it's simply not clear enough - they should be differentiated more from non-running apps.

2. It's also not obvious enough when a program is foremost. When the Finder is frontmost, it just says 'Finder' at the top left by the Apple menu. If it's Mail, it says Mail there. On a big screen, this is so insignificant as to be barely noticeable, especially for new users who often just don't get it. But worse ... see number 3, below:

3. Quit. For some reason, switchers from Windows close a window and assume the application has quit. But mostly, on Macs, this closes the window while leaving the application running, using your machine's resources. This just makes the above scenario trickier. And when switchers go back to that application by clicking on it in the Dock or Command-Tabbing, they get really confused because there's nothing there. It may say 'Safari' at top left, but the window's shut so - where is Safari?

4. Worse, when you close some windows (ie Help, AirPort Utility) the application does quit. This is not consistent at all! If I hadn't been training switchers, I'm not sure these would have become meaningful to me. But since I do - a lot, too, lately - it's really starting to niggle.

So hey, Apple, how about fixing those?

- Mark Webster mac.nz