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Snow Leopard to overhaul, unify Mac interface?

updated 01:45 pm EST, Wed January 14, 2009

'Marble' for Snow Leopard


Despite a stated emphasis by Apple on security and bug fixes, Mac OS X Snow Leopard may have a significantly different appearance, anonymous sources claim. Apple is said to be interested in unifying the look and layout of Mac OS X across applications, thereby breaking from the Aqua themes used in earlier operating systems, including Leopard. The updated interface is believed to be codenamed Marble, though whether the term will carry outside of Apple is unknown.

Specific changes are also unclear, but it is alleged that they will mostly be tweaks of Aqua. The biggest revision may be a "flattening" of the interface, designed to homogenize its appearance with iTunes and iPhoto; this cannot be confirmed however, as the most recent developer build of Snow Leopard continues to use a conventional Aqua theme.


by MacNN Staff

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TAGS :

 software, Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, Apple

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  1. bobolicious

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2002

    +1
    01/14, 02:07pm | report spam | Reply |

    Down to fashion?

    ..while important one can hope that speed may be the real draw... And there still seem many little improvements that could be incorporated, such as the option of auto-sizing column folder views, an emergency mirror TM backup (vs raid) - and I still wonder about color coding emails & miss those tabbed folders from OS-9 ! ?
    ;-)

  1. TheSnarkmeister

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jun 2007

    -5
    01/14, 02:08pm | report spam | (1 reply) Reply |

    Hmmmm....

    You play marbles by shooting them on vectors on a plane. And, of course, everything rolls along at very high speeds. Wouldn't be surprised if there was more meaning to the name than it just being a pretty rock.

  1. resuna

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2005

    +1
    01/14, 02:49pm | report spam | Reply |

    Fuzzy tail

    The most distinguishing feature of a snow leopard's user interface is the long fuzzy tail that makes them such spectacular acrobats.

  1. eldarkus

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2004

    +2
    01/14, 03:08pm | report spam | Reply |

    @ TheSnarkmeister

    Seriously, I wouldnt read too much into the code names..

    First off, they could mean Marble as in the rock and not the game of marbles. Secondly, look at previous codes for Apple products and see if u can derive the product from the code name.. try it without googling :)

    Wolf
    Elvis
    Repoman
    Arizona
    Sphere
    Maui
    Garlic

  1. poolmouse

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2004

    +1
    01/14, 03:27pm | report spam | Reply |

    proxy support (ntlm)

    Snow Leopard will be incomplete unless Apple adds NTLM support, along with an option to pass CURRENT LOGGED IN USER'S credentials to the proxy.

  1. Super Glitcher

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: Aug 2003

    0
    01/14, 04:01pm | report spam | Reply |

    all I want is

    support for unlimited ram and unlimited cores with kernel level process distribution and aggregation - that and tabbed finder windows ala safari/firefox. That's it I promise!

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -2
    01/14, 04:16pm | report spam | (1 reply) Reply |

    Wait

    I could've sworn that Leopard was about "unifying the UI".

    And, you know, the UI was nicely unified until Apple decided "Hey, let's allow Chrome as well!" and then did a "Hey, let's change the look of Mail, but not any of the other apps!" when Tiger was released.

    So, perhaps if Apple could learn to keep their hands OFF THE UI for a while, they wouldn't need to keep trying to fix it.

    But since they're going to fix it, could they put back the dock functionality as it worked all the way through Tiger, where clicking a folder will actually open it instead of doing stupid and useless stacks, or lists, or menus. Wow, talk about needing a unifying experience...

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -3
    01/14, 04:18pm | report spam | Reply |

    Wait

    I could've sworn that Leopard was about "unifying the UI".

    And, you know, the UI was nicely unified until Apple decided "Hey, let's allow Chrome as well!" and then did a "Hey, let's change the look of Mail, but not any of the other apps!" when Tiger was released.

    So, perhaps if Apple could learn to keep their hands OFF THE UI for a while, they wouldn't need to keep trying to fix it.

    But since they're going to fix it, could they put back the dock functionality as it worked all the way through Tiger, where clicking a folder will actually open it instead of doing stupid and useless stacks, or lists, or menus. Wow, talk about needing a unifying experience...

  1. ZinkDifferent

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2005

    -1
    01/14, 04:51pm | report spam | Reply |

    testudo...


    Maybe if you had a clue on how Apple worked internally about UI designs and decisions, then you'd just knowingly shut TFU.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    01/14, 06:32pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: testudo

    Maybe if you had a clue on how Apple worked internally about UI designs and decisions, then you'd just knowingly shut TFU.

    OK, so how do they work? Because a lot of people will tell you that, however it currently has been done since 10.0, the process is majorly screwed.

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