Release the Tigers! A Top Ten Wishlist

by Hadley Stern Jun 28, 2004

Just as we were all getting used to taming a Panther, Apple has the audacity to innovate again! Those who dislike any innovation would be served well to look at the Windows operating system where change comes in the form of a constant stream of security patches and virus downloads. Apple is on the move again, running through the cat kingdom and giving us the almighty Tiger.

Here are some predictions. Firstly, people will complain that they will have to pay for it. They’ll say we bought 10.1, we bought Jaguar and then Panther. They’ll whine and complain and talk about how much it costs. To these trouble-makers I have a very simple response. Don’t buy it. Last time I checked car manufactures make you pay for that new improved car released months after you purchased your new car. It costs money to pay people to innovate. Enough said.

For the rest of us living in the real world many pleasures and some frustrations inevitably await us. Receiving a new Apple OS is like getting a surprise from the God’s, one is never quite sure what it will be but you know it will have hints of genius at every turn. From Steve Job’s vision to our computers. I love it. Enough religious metaphors, itŐs time to get to the nitty gritty, here are my top ten Tiger hopes:

1. More GUI interfaces to the underlying OS. I want to turn PHP on and off with the click of a button.
2. Robust trouble shooting tools built into the GUI. I should have to buy Cocktail (which is a great app, btw) to get the job done.
3. Clean up the metal, a little. I’m one of those seemingly rare users who doesn’t absolutely hate the metal finder. However, on a 12 inch powerbook things can get a little wasteful at time.
4. Further integration of iApps. The way the iApps are starting to work together is brilliant. Make it more so.
5. Innovate the Address Book, iCal and Mail. Things look bad when Palm address book is still easier to use than Apples.
6. Some kind of database built-in. Mysql, filemaker, something. It’s time to make the power of databases available to everyone.
7. I should never ever see the damn beachball on a dual 2.0 G5. Apple developers print this out and paste it in your cube as a goal to reach ASAP.
8. Fix fonts. Fonts in OS X are a step backwards from OS 9. FontBook is a joke. Fix it.
9. A faster finder. I want things super-duper zippy even when I’ve selected a thousand files to copy.
10. Shock us. Awe Us. With something none of us would ever think of. That’s innovation.

What did I miss? What do you want included in Tiger?

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Comments

  • There seems to be some hooplah over the “Dashboard” that pretty much looks just like Konfabulator. K was created by Arlo Rose, who also was responsible for Kaleidoscope, and worked at Apple as a interface designer during the dark days of the mid-90’s.

    Is Apple Watson’ing Konfabulator? Should Apple be ethically motivated to extend any type of compensation? Is Apple hurting or helping the platform by adopting innovative products not done within Apple walls?

    Nathan had this to say on Jun 28, 2004 Posts: 219

  • On “Spotlight”: is Google’s influence on the importance of search now making it the “back button” of the new millennium?

    Way back in the late nineties, us web designers hated the browser back button, but finally we succumbed and can now admit users use it, like to use it, and want to use it as a dominant form of navigation.

    We still believe it means the website UI design has failed if the back button is used.

    Now on to search - if a user is inclined to use search in every aspect: is it a failing of UI design in the operating system?

    Nathan had this to say on Jun 28, 2004 Posts: 219

  • I’d really like Apple to reimplement the keyboard shortcuts architecture, as discussed in John Gruber’s article:

    Losers, Weepers

    sjk had this to say on Jul 03, 2004 Posts: 112
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