The latest previews of Mac OS X 10.5, better known as Leopard, show that its user interface is borrowing a lot of its look and feel from... iTunes.
Steve Jobs' keynote address today at the Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference included some big news about Leopard. The new version of the Mac OS X operating system originally due this spring is now expected by October of this year. Jobs offered an updated preview of Leopard, which includes an enhanced desktop with a translucent menu bar.
Perhaps more interesting is the new Finder, whose windows bear a strong resemblance to the iTunes interface.
iTunes' "Cover Flow" metaphor is a new view option in Leopard's Finder windows, which sport an enhanced sidebar also reminiscent of iTunes. This movie on Apple's web site provides a demo of this new style of Finder window.
If the visual preview provided in the Cover Flow view isn't enough, Leopard's Finder offers a "Quick Look" option that provides a full-size preview of files, including multi-page documents and movies. The Quick Look option is available in all Finder views, not just the Cover Flow view, and it lets you page through documents and watch video in fullscreen mode while previewing.
While this is nice, it may in most cases be unnecessary. The preview images displayed in both Icon view and Cover Flow view are not generic icons but representations of the individual files—a thumbnail for image files, the cover/first page for documents, the first frame for videos/movies. These views will be sufficient for most visual perusals of folder content, but Quick Look will prove useful when looking for a specific version of a document or image.
All this puts Walt Mossberg's recent observation—that iTunes for Windows was genuinely subversive software in that it introduced Windows users to the joys of the Macintosh user interface—in a brand new light. Could Windows users become enchanted by a desktop interface that expands on the iTunes interface they've grown accustomed to?
Check out the links below to see more of Leopard's latest features:
