Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest Winners: Better Than The Real Thing?
The Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest quite honestly launched with some ridiculous publicity... apparently something about the idea of a contest with users trying to imagine a better OS X struck something within a lot of people, resulting in over 100,000 visitors and more than 40 entries. Well, that and the equally ridiculous prize package valued at over $1000 per winner, graciously donated by 28 Macintosh software companies and services. For a fake screenshot.
I won't delay any further, with an earlier slipup due to forum downtime having caused a lot of feet tapping and general discontent. But hopefully these will get your imaginations flowing, some Apple engineers nodding their heads, and make your day just a bit more interesting. Without further ado... presenting...
The Winners and Runner Ups
First Place: Eric Patterson
It turns out that while there was quite a lot of disagreement among the panel members on the other winners and runner ups, there was little score discrepency with the first place winner. Entrant Eric Patterson went for "features and ideas that might not be mind-blowing, but would hopefully provide for a far better user experience", and in this regard, he definitely pulled it off. With Mail.app sporting iChat integration for all your conversations in one glance, Safari sporting some highly visual and syncable bookmarks, and a much improved Finder with much slicker document preview integration and more functional column view, this one was a no brainer for much of the panel:
Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster): "Well, this guy sure likes Asian women...
Finder peek is an awesome idea -- so awesome we used to have it in NeXTstep. It was called 'Image Filters' and the Workspace dynamically loaded them for custom file types. I'd love to see it come back.
I also love the integration of iChat and Mail -- I've keep every mail message and every iChat session with everyone I speak to, and I'd love it if I had a centralized repository for them. (And, be careful what you say to me, ever.)
I'm not too sure how history would work in this entry's Safari mockup, but I'm obviously all for keeping thumbnails of web pages as part of history (-coughOmniWebcough-)."
Andy Kim (Potion Factory): "Well thought out and complete entry. Apple should hire this guy."
David Watanabe (NewsFire, Acquisition): "I love the Finder task manager. nice concept of something badly in need of an overhaul. I'd say more, but Shipley used up all the words."
Gedeon Maheux (The Iconfactory): "Totally believable and executed well. Some REALLY great ideas here including the new column view and mail. Love the idea of bundling ichat convos with a particular user in mail. Apple should adopt this feature right away!!"
Austin Sarner (AppZapper): "Excellent. Realistic, but he didn't hold back on lots of cool UI ideas."
Jan Van Boghout (MacRabbit): "Awesome new features in a sleek shell, we may have an authentic leak..."
Second Place: Emmett Stackelberg
While the second place entry by Emmet Stackelberg incorporated significantly fewer feature ideas than Eric's, the ones he did include nevertheless struck quite a nerve with the panel. Touch screen support (finally, gesture recognition made easy), visual Safari tabs, and torrent integration with iTunes podcast downloading and Safari. According to Emmet, "I was going for what I wanted to see in Leopard, Bittorrent support and kick-ass innovation. I didn't go for anything too outlandish (though what I did was pretty out there) because I still wanted to make it somewhat believable, but it was fun to stretch and just enjoy what Leopard COULD be." As the panel members were quick to note, torrent support is in the realm of wishful thinking... but hey, we can all dream:
David Watanabe (NewsFire, Acquisition): "BitTorrent in the OS? Only in our dreams, I bet. Still, those Safari tabs are sweet."
Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster): "Tablet computers always seem cool, and I admit I kind of want one, but I've noticed that the only people I've *ever* seen using them are either on Star Trek or work in the Microsoft marketing department. I honestly saw a girl in Zoka once using one and went up to her and said, "Hey, I bet you work in Microsoft marketing and she was flat-out shocked. (She shouldn't have been: I pretty much knew she wasn't from Star Trek.)
The gesture interface is kind of interesting, but I'd feel like I was casting spells on my DS Lite. I'm not sure if I'd use them or not-- if I was also using the touch screen to scrawl letters, I'm guessing I'd get a lot of false gesture recognition in the mix. If I had a separate keyboard, I'm not sure I'd ever pick up a stylus or reach to the screen to do the gestures.
Again with the page previews in Safari -- if everyone wants this so bad, why don't they buy OmniWeb? Sheesh. I'm not particularly enamored of this download manager -- horizontal is obviously not a good way to go, and this would look really bad if there were less than or more than three downloads in the mockup."
Jan Van Boghout (MacRabbit): "Nicely done, BitTorrent... I wish."
Gedeon Maheux (The Iconfactory): "Nice theories about possible features. Not sure about their level of believability but they are interesting none-the-less."
Jean Olivier (Specere): "Apple, please implement preview tabs!"
Austin Sarner (AppZapper): "All great, well designed ideas. I'd love to see more integrated BT support throughout the OS."
Third Place: Adam Shutsa
While Adam Shutsa's entry featured an improved Finder with tabs and better action status implementation, it was his "iMeeting" app that elevated his entry into the top three.
Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster): "I'm honestly not into having tabs in the Finder.. from a UI standpoint, we've got something very like tabs along the left edge anyways. Adding another metaphor to the same window just confuses me.
iMeeting is not a bad idea for an app. The interface mockup for it isn't the most intuitive, but props are given for actually inventing an app I'd use."
Gedeon Maheux (The Iconfactory): "Cleanly executed, but too heavyly borrowing from iTunes to be overly believable. The iMeeting was a nice touch however."
Ricky Murray (MacThemes): "Great concepts."
Runner Up: Nathan Ziarek
Nathan Ziarek's entry stood out for me with its extended metadata feature, resulting in such additions as a robust keyword manager ("Keyword Assistant"), and such end uses as AddressBook showing related documents for selected people, among others. "With a great meta-data system under the hood, it seems only logical that OSX.5 would allow us to tap into that in defined, helpful ways. Having used "SpotMeta," it was clear that Apple needs to allow custom keywording, with a few defaults thrown in." That wasn't it though. Nathan's entry also includes quite a few small enhancements, UI tweaks, a Delicious Library styled Front Row update, and even some physics enabled windows. (Drag them around and the window bends and warps like a sheet of paper.) Cool stuff!
Jin Kim (Potion Factory): "Clean design and very usability oriented. I liked how you used the globe icon to identify remote tracks."
Jean Olivier (Specere): "Great features. I love metadata too!"
Jan Van Boghout (MacRabbit): "Spotlight is incredibly convenient, but still doesn't feel very integrated into the OS. Leopard should definitely bring more and prettier metadata!"
Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster): "The idea of integrating people from the address book as metadata on files is a great one, and I truly hope Apple does it. Nathan does a good job of dividing metadata attributes up into human-understandable groups (people, places, to do), which would be vital for average users to get into tagging and really see the power of Spotlight.
I'm not too into 'toggling' between views in the Finder -- I think metadata has to be more integrated than that.
The iTunes 'family' idea is genius, as is grouping media from select remote disks and the local disk into your single library.
iCal tagging of files and Safari file auto-conversion are also ideas Apple should steal.
And, boy, I hope Front Row doesn't start looking this much like Delicious Library"
Runner Up: Reuben Henriques
Reuben's entry addressed a lot of shortcomings in OS X and highly requested features, and just about every one of them, if I close my eyes really hard and imagine, I can see as being a very possible feature in Leopard. Again, improved metadata support comes up, Dashboard widgets outside the Dashboard layer, Windows virtualization, an "iMeeting" type app but built into iChat, Safari exposé, cover art browsing in iTunes, the list goes on."I have new, yet plausible and realistic ideas. Although they're not the most far-out or original, these are things that would really help with productivity and many of them could be seen in Leopard.". And, uh, it was nice seeing my blog there too, as Gedeon points out. Here's what some panelers had to say:
Gedeon Maheux (The Iconfactory): "Go right for the suck-up vote by showing Phil's blog in the shot! I like it!!"
Jan Van Boghout (MacRabbit): "Some nice real-world features here, but the lack of visual credibility kills this one."
Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster): "Widgets on the main screen? I kind of remember an age when we had little utility applets that were hard to program and ran in window... I think it was called "System 7." Hated it then, hate it now.
Ah, ad-blocking in Safari... seriously, I wrote this into OmniWeb like four years ago. It's hard to get excited about a mockup of a feature I already wrote.
iTunes would be a lot cooler with a cover view, but, you know, then I'd have to sue Apple. KIDDING! I'm a kidder."
Runner Up: Stephen Sciliano
Ahh, one of my personal favorites, and one of the more controversial entries among the panelists. While utterly impractical when thinking about how third party software could magically work with this single window UI, what's shown here is nevertheless very tempting. This would be about the best excuse I could have to use Aperture's pro interface, and it's pretty amazing how Stephen managed to sqeeze in most base functionality into this. In his entry form, Stephen made his case, "Maybe it's not the most believable, but It probably is the most revolutionary (and most ergonomic) of the ideas you'll get... I would be disappointed if after 20 months of working on Leopard, they don't come out with something this different and new." Many panelers seemed to agree, and as noted, others hated it:
Austin Sarner (AppZapper): "Crazy ideas and really well done!"
Jean Olivier (Specere): "Truly original; deserves to win. The interface is a bit overwhelming, but it maximizes productivity."
Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster): ""Carnegie Mellon invented a non-windowed, tiling windowing system called "Andrew" (LINK:http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~AUIS/snapshots.html) back in the 80s.
Again I say it: Hated it then, hate it now. (Revolutionary my butt.)"
Gedeon Maheux (The Iconfactory): "Lots of work went into this one. Could use some visual hierarchy to be believable however. Too cluttered for what Apple would really do."
Andy Kim (Potion Factory): "The most apalling in a good way award. Original, whacky, and yet tastefully done. Least likely to get implemented but still cool."
David Watanabe (NewsFire, Acquisition): "Layout reminds me a bit of the new Office. Props for thinking creatively and still coming up with something that looks realistic. I wouldn't mind giving it a spin!"
Ricky Murray (MacThemes): "No."
Jan Van Boghout (MacRabbit): "Impractical, but I love the Aperture look..."
It ain't over yet...
There were over 40 entries, and as WWDC looms ever closer, I'll be featuring some more in future entries, along with panel member comments. For now, congrats to those who won: your many many licenses will be arriving over this week. For those who entered but didn't win, thank you for making this amazing, and hopefully Apple might get a bit of inspiration from your work, if not for Leopard, for 10.6. And everyone else, hope you enjoyed these entries!
Comments
Up until this point, there have been 77 responses to “Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest Winners: Better Than The Real Thing?”:
Congrats to the winners! Eric is definitely deserving of that first place, I love that Mail view! It looks so good.
Totally agreed, if that new Mail is all Apple puts into Leopard I'd still be thrilled!
Congrats
Great work from Eric Patterson, only things I disliked was the tabbed finder, the task manager, the badly kerned Silkscreen font (Apple would never ever use that, it clashes with the os and Geneva is a superior small font) also that the mail icons were too small because if you lose the buttons you may as well bring back the gorgeous old mail icons.
But it really is a brilliant mockup, great use of unified and metadata
The last one...that should've won the contest. Gets points for originality and execution, very nicely done. And good idea too.
Some really nice, inspiring work here. Congrats to the winners! Still wish I would have at least put in an entry or two! Maybe for the next Cat release...
Great job, guys! Congrats! I love Emmett's Safari tabs and Eric's Mail features.
Stephen, I think we should save that for the "Fake OS XI or the Fake OS 11 Screenshot contest" 
Good job to all
Dang!
I knew I should have made Delicious Monster the open page in Safari and the judges as my "authors." That would have put me over the top.
Mr. Shipley - how about "Delicious iTunes Family"? Has a nice ring to it 
Nate
Holy cow, I won. I'm really shocked. I just set out to have fun making some mock-ups, and to pretend that some future version of Mac OSX would have features that I'm longing for, so I entered never expecting to win.
Just to clarify, I've never used NeXT, and I haven't used OmniWeb in a while, so my idea for those features didn't come from there. I'm not at all trying to say my ideas were original or anything, I just didn't derive inspiration from those sources. (Does OmniWeb have bookmarking anything like what I put together? I'm going to have to check it out.)
Apple, if by some off chance you're actually listening, please fix Mail. I have e-mail from my girlfriend from long dead accounts, I have her current addresses listed in Address Book, and together there's no real solution for having all of the mail I have from her listed specifically under her name and not various e-mail addresses. I just want her to be a name, not an address, damnit! *shakes fist in air*
Oh, and also give some love to Column view. PLEASE?!?
James > Yeah, some of the fonts suck. Blame Photoshop for that. My goal was more in working on the features of the mock-ups, and not the entire visual design, so of course some things like Mail.app buttons and whatnot might be different.
[...] Well, I didn’t win anything, and I spent waaaaaaay too much time working on it, but I made runner up in the Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest. That equates to about 4th place out of 40 entries, which isn’t too bad. [...]
Wil, you hang out at Zoka? I love that place! Next time you are there, I'll get you a latté.
Keep track of IPs coming in from Microsoft.com.
The only problem I have with this whole contest thing is that when Leopard actually comes out I'm bound to be disappointed. Because I want every feature from the first prize winner, and I bet Leopard won't even come close 
Congrats to winners and great ideas to all!
It seems like Mr. Shipley was a little underwhelmed by the screetshots
Hey thanks so much guys! These screens were a blast to make!
@ Dave: Why thank you, the tabs were the feature I was most proud of coming up with 
. I'd use Opera for the Bittorrent support, but Safari just seems so natural with the OS and it's blazing fast.
@ Wil: You make some great points, and seeing as you know infinitely more about successful software I know I have no counters for any of them . But I'll try to at least address the Download Manager... Yeah I agree that the Download Manager isn't very feasible but in the time constraints it was the best way I could think of to be able to keep track of downloads at all times. Frankly, I've always hated having to search for the Downloads window, even with the magic of Exposé (yeah, I know just F10 and click but STILL) and I wanted some way to always be able to see my downloads. I'd still use it 
.
@Jan: Yeah if only
@Gadeon: So true, they're not believeable but I still want them .
@Jean: I second that. We should start an ONLINE PETITION. (watches as obscure CARS reference whooshes over everyone's head)
@Austin: As would I. It's shame because there are so many files people could share if Bittorrent were just made easier on every OS. But alas, there are too RIAA and MPAA scrooges to keep that from ever happening.
Does anyone know what the wallpaper in Nathan Ziarek's shots is?
I'm really glad that at least a couple people liked the mock-up I made (btw when I said "revolutionary" I meant more in the context of Mac OS X; there are actually quite a few tiling windowing systems around, mostly for Linux, but obviously they aren't nearly as good as they could be if Apple made them). I must admit, it drives me insane how sometimes Apple can exhibit great innovation, but other times fails horribly (or both at the same time... think of Spotlight and the Finder in Tiger), and thus I'm suspecting Leopard will still be cool, but not this cool. Frankly, I suppose that my screenshot was too optimistic (we'll see any of the 5 other people's stuff first), but at least it exists as something that at least some of us wish to use someday.
I love the way Eric's screenshot has the Silent Hill 4 soundtrack playing in his iTunes window. That album's a thing of freakish beauty.
I don't know about you guys, but my Finder already has a Cut button, just on the top of Copy instead of under it.. http://www.mathgamehouse.com/images/phillryu/contestentries/Nathan%20Ziarek/1_explanation.jpg
Woo! The server's back to snappiness. Must've gotten really slammed by digg.
I had to go into the mathgamehouse image stores just to see if I made it to "awards ceremony" (I saw that my folder had a "thumbs" and "small" folder only 5 others had, which meant I was being displayed on a page somewhere).
[...] I entered myself in the fake Leopard screenshot contest and actually managed to get to be a runner-up! Honestly, though, I’m not entirely surprised; the reactions to it were pretty much what I expected: some people liked it it, and some people hated it. I knew that some people wouldn’t like it because it’s very different from what we’ve had in the past. However, that doesn’t mean it’s worse, as other people have seem to have realised. Personally, I’m just glad that any people have seen it and liked it (I at least would really like it to be real… I tried to implement all of the things that would make my computing environment the best: tilting windows, ribbon, multiple desktops, pie menus etc…). I guess I’ll just save it for two years from now when the next OS comes out (since however much I hope… I know after these screenshots Leopard will be a disappointment). [...]
I agree with the choice of Eric as the winner, but my favorite are Nathan followed by Emmet. I find Nathan's stuff is just so well thought of, so smart and useful! Congratulations!
Third place! I can’t believe I made it into the top 3 with all the talented people who submitted screenshots. Congratulations everyone.
I was impressed with all of the entries, I'm sorry all my comments are negative. My style is to point out flaws quickly so that people can fix them, but that often makes it seem like I hate cool new ideas when in fact I'm just trying to help the designer refine them.
I really, really think many of these ideas should, in various forms, be adopted by Apple. I like the people who did things that I don't think are practical, too, because even in failure we learn what we like and what we dislike, and the end result of this should be learning about UI design, not coming up with some holy grail of the perfect system. There's no such thing as perfection, there's just such a thing as striving for it, and to do so means we must actively invite failure.
A metaphor: when trying on clothes I often try on stuff I hate on the rack, just to see what it is about it that I hate when it's on me, and what it is that I kind of like if it were done differently. Only by exploring the boundary between success and failure do we learn where the edge of the envelope is. (Eg, if you never crash a plane, you never have any idea what it'll take to get a plane to crash.)
Nathan: You had my vote for first-place already. You had good ideas, but you aren't as good of an artist as some of the other guys, which I think hurt you with the other judges. But you've got the makings of a good interaction designer, and I think you have a future in it.
Nice. I think Apple should hire a few of these people right away. If not, perhaps this goes to show how third party developers could use the power of Mac Social Networking to come up with ideas for software. Could be the start of a ground swell here.
Will - I could be using it wrong, but I don't think it lets you "Move" files, only cut text from file names. Regardless, it should be something more like "Move" and then the whole idea breaks down for me. I am rescinding that feature. I hope I don't get knocked out of the runner-up spot
GreySim - It was something I tossed together, since every OSX release has a new desktop. It's here if you are interested in it. I'll think you'll be silently disappointed full-screen, but I'll leave that for you to decide.
shadownight - I really appreciate it. I spent way too much time putzing with these, but it was fun. I'm pretty new to this scene, but I've enjoyed the people and feedback...
Wil - I think you've made my day I knew when entering that these kids would beat my pants off in design. I think interaction design sounds like a great career. Got any further advice for a late twenty-something looking for a career change?
And...I haven't said it yet, but congrats to everyone that won. There are some great ideas up here. make me very excited for August. Think Apple can cram it all in?
Josué, you don't know Will very well do you? Do you see that group of people at Zonka that are there all the time with their powerbooks coding away, that would be Will and the gang making software.
It is a little telling to me that nearly all of the winners included changes in the Finder, Safari, and iTunes.
Personally, I think that the worst software to come out of Cupertino that has been perpetuated in OS X is the Finder. I know that they have been working on it and made SOME improvements, but it is slow, crashes a lot, can't deal with a large number of files well, REALLY needs a better preview mode (I dug the example of previewing movies in one of the winners) and (sorry Wil) tabs.
Thanks for the fun glimpse into the possibilities.
dave
[...] 早前報道過車大豹比賽，任各大麥客發揮想像力，製作美麗而且實用的Leopard構想圖。今天結果正式公佈，車大豹之王是Eric Patterson。他的設計〔圖〕多數是用圖像取代文字，例如Bookmark改為網站的snapshot、Quicktime影片在Finder是以Thumbnail顯示等等。與蘋果近年的設計方向吻合，抵拿冠軍。根據奇人Whil Shipley的評語是”Well, this guy sure likes Asian women…” [...]
I decided to cash in on my (temporary) status as high champion of fake Mac screenshots - I put up a little website that I can put these and other of my fake screenshots up on. To be clear, there's no ads, I won't gain anything from your going there, and that won't ever change. I just enjoyed all of the nice comments I received from my entries, and thought I might as well actually put up some of the other mock-ups that have just been sitting dormant on my hard drive.
Click my name, and you'll be whisked away to the magic land!
[...] Vi ricordate il concorso per il migliore fake di Leopard?Bene, ieri sono stati proclamati i vincitori. [...]
Congratulations to everyone!
Eric, Apple should hire you! I had the same idea as you, for what you called "Peek" (with the ability for developers to create their own "Peek" plugins), but I've not your designer talent . The difference with my idea is that I thought integrate previews directly in the preview column. A new, more powerful and with the ability to display documents at any size and/or to scroll through them preview column... But I think your idea is better .
One question: how to launch a "Peek" of a document? With a special button?
And you've got marketing talent, too.
So Apple should hire you, definitively!
PS: excuse me for my English, it isn't my mother tongue...
[...] J’ai découvert chez Phill Ruy un concours de fausses captures pour la prochaine version de Mac OS X : Léopard. Certaines idées sont réellement très belles, mais aucune ne sera implémentée dans le vrai Leopard, à mon avis. En tout cas, c’est très beau et très créatif. [...]
It's just great! How about a 10.6 contest?
One thing I think OSX.5 must have is the facility to add metadata, colour labels etc when saving. It's all well and good being able to label stuff and add spotlight comments from within the finder but that means you have to save something, find it then add stuff in order to make it easier to find. Seems backwards to me.
[...] Phill Ryu’nun, internetteki sahte Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) görüntüleri furyasından sonra başlattığı Sahte Leopard Ekran Görüntüleri Yarışması‘ndan bahsetmiştim (bkz. Sahte Leopard ekran görüntüleri yarışması). Yarışma sonuçlandı ve kazananlar açıklandı. [...]
Woah, that last one reminds me a LOT of wmii: http://www.wmii.de/
It'd be an interesting mode to have, and it'd probablly work best if you could make up a new set of keyboard shortcuts for pane/app manipulation.
Runner Up: Stephen Sciliano
Best one of all! It's real... It's new comparred to Finder now..
It's smart,, Die finder die... That is a real finder / Text document editing
[...] Well it’s not released yet, but Phill Ryu has been running a competition on fake screen shots from Leopard (the next installment of OS X). The winner Eric Patterson… went for “features and ideas that might not be mind-blowing, but would hopefully provide for a far better user experience”, and in this regard, he definately pulled it off. [...]
Hi everyone,
I'm new to the mac community and I wanted to say a few things. First, particularly the winning entry is amazing. These ideas and this kind of creativity, if turned into software, will put the mac far and above any other platform. With regard to the notification of copy/move and other file operations, I think the best way to approach this is to make a system wide framework (possible merged with growl) for notification of long operations. This would be much clearer and easier to use than having it by application. Of course, all the ideas on spotlight are wonderful.
Like all of you, I am skeptical that apple will actually implement most of this, particularly in the finder. I think what we need to do is ... do it ourselves. Possibly, it would be nice to start a company that use a social system like this to generate ideas/features for a finder replacement product (yes i know about path finder ... its not quite what i need). As a starting base, it would be great to use the winning finder screenshots and the finder "apple" page he has made. This product would hopefully be open source, and if not, would be built from the ground up for plugin support. Examples:
1. Plugin-able thumbnailers for filetypes. Include by default ones for movies, images, etc ... let users write more.
2. Fully apple-scripteable.
3. Plugin-able views ... CSS would be extremely cool to use for this.
4. Plugin-able control of context menu items, by filetype or class. We can use the apple reverse dns naming.
5. Oh yes, and non-shitty network support! Maybe even plugeable support for more networm protocols (I would love SSH/SFTP and other stuff that kioslves in KDE can do).
What do you guys think?
I am starting to love mac os x but the finder needs to go, and it doesn't look to me like apple is going to do it.
[...] Pues si ya han sido publicados los ganadores del concurso “fake” de Leopard : [...]
I realy like Eric's work. You should work at Apple
Congratulations to the winners and especially to Eric Patterson. In my mind I thought Eric had snuck into Apple's Cupertino HQ and taken the next Mac OS release and showed it off to us! If Eric Patterson's Screenshots are anything like Leopard, I have the feeling many people are going to be amazed and happy.
I must apologize about some of my comments, I judged at 4 am and was exhausted. Most of all the entries were absolutely incredible but some seemed to be completely unrealistic and something that Apple wouldn't ever use.
What a great Contest and I hope future ones are as good as this one and Thanks again to all the contestants for your entries!
I think Stephen Sciliano's entry deserves more credit. Regardless of feasibility and personal preference regarding whether or not his design is a good idea, I think his was far and away the most creative/imaginative. His mockup was extremely well put together from an artistic point of view as well. Well done!
[...] Mac developer Phill Ryu today announced the winners of his “Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest.” Eighteen Mac OS X developers joined in the affair, and over US$1,00 in prizes were available. [...]
Congratulations to the winners, but my second place goes to Nathan.
Thanks for this contest.
@Phill: Maybe you need to left open a section to receive new ideas about applications and OS.
If you never see Wil at Zoka you are at the wrong one. Delicious Monster always works at the University Zoka. If you hang at the Wallingford Zoka you'll never see them. see below.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/255532_macdelicious13.html
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66276,00.html
As for the No Windows entry...there's a reason Apple's entry-level video editor looks like iMovie and not Final Cut. 75% of the Mac using friends I know (the non-technical ones, you know, "the rest of us") would freak out and maybe jump to Vista if they had to use something that looks like that.
Wow,
I'm new to the world of Apple, but a serious enthusiast nonetheless! I loved how innovative Apple has been with OS X...but after watching these ideas...man, you guys do put Apple to shame (and not many can claim that title)!!! I've heard some really good things about Leopard, I really hope some of these ideas would be incorporated.
Excellent job guys - I'd say email your ideas to Apple with a resume!
The single screen version reminds me of wmii (www.wmii.de) window manager for linux. Used it for a while and you can move pretty fast when you are using only a keyboard...
Nice work. I can't wait for 10.5.
Very nice work, and Eric's is clearly what Apple ought to do!
In defense of the single-screen, no-windows version, I do like that as well, because managing cluttered windows is a real productivity killer; for example, as someone who works with DAWs in his spare time, I like things to be as streamlined as possible: look at MOTU's Digital Performer software with its Consolidated Window feature, or similarly, the single-screen-with-tabs approach of Ableton Live, Apple Soundtrack, and Mackie Tracktion. I'd love the ability to drag-and-dock windows like tabs, to optimize space on laptop screens (or even across multiple monitors.
and the other thing i wish would come back from OS 9: alternate-line shading in list views. iTunes has it, why not the Finder? it makes it so much easier to read. I hate the linespacing in column view, particularly.
Hey are you planning to do this contest again ever? Or something similar? Because I'd love to try my hand at this kind of thing...
Phenomenal work - all of you.
But, what I'm looking for in Leopard Server is virtualization. Yes, Parallels is able to do this on the desktop, but what I'm after is similar to the VDI implementation of VMware. So, I take my 4 processor Core Quad Xserve and push out virtual desktop sessions to all my aging machines all over campus. When I need more horsepower for more desktops, I simply toss in another Xserve or 2 and the thing scales seamlessly, and automatically, using the Mac equivalent of Vmotion. All data are centralized, backups centralized, and when users "check out" their virtual machine to get work done at home or while commuting, as soon as they're back on the network, the VM automatically sync's back up with the datacenter and it's business as usual.
Ahh, to be able to use these old Macs again - they all still work, and they'd only need to display video and transfer mouse and keyboard input and they'd get major horsepower in return.
That would be sexy - albeit a little hard to convey with a screen mock up.
I liked Nathan's the best. I am surprised he didn't win. I love the metadata feature where the window appears like Motion's dashboard. I love the Safari grey but his white was very cool. Drageable windows. Nice but it might be too annoying. Maybe something more subtle. Files in to-do list. Damn this is good. Apple, hire this guy!
Actually, hire all these guys, each of them could seriously take Mac OS X to new heights.
Here is what I would love to seen more:
- More features with metadata, if we are spotlight is the focus. This is a must. In every iLife program.
- Something like Renamer4mac in Finder. Why is it such a pain to rename a batch of files in Finder?
- iCal + desktop screensaver integration. iCal is so weak. There is so much needed here.
- Textpander-like feature in all apps
- Window-live save dialog boxes
- iChat could be integrated even further like playing video. Some of these guys had some great ideas about that. Tabbed windows is a must.
- so on and so on...
Macs are evil. Apple corp is using the illusion of community and morality as a facade. If they ever gain a large market share of the PC/OS industry, they will enforce their monopolistic structure just as bad as Microsoft. Look at what apple corp is doing with the Mp3/Music Distribution Market. They pilot DRM and they've already been kicked out of Europe for monopolistic behavior for encoding mp3s downloaded from iTunes to not work on any of their competitors players. With their current managment, apple will be a plague on any market they gain a foothold of.
I think it is retarded that the top winners did not change the menu bar at the top.
EVERY MAJOR OS UPDATE HAS CHANGED THE MENU BAR!
It should be the first things everyone works on...
Excellent work Eric.
Most of the serious apps have all gone to panels - FCP, Blender, Aperture, Xcode, Maya, etc.... Its been 22 years since Apple popularized overlapping windows. Hopefully Apple will realize that they have taken the entire industry down the wrong road and fix this atrocious interface problem soon.
Wil, I can tell you in one word why I don't buy Omniweb: Drawers.
That last one reminds me of two things:
One: Office 2007.
Two: Emacs multiple "windows".
That's all I have to say.
[...] Apple should soon show of what the next version of Mac OS X, named Leopard, will show in improvements. As usual, there are plenty of rumors and fake screen-captures circulating on the internet. One web site, took the idea further, and organized a contest of fake Leopard screenshots. The winners have now been selected and I must say I like the ideas of the winner a lot. [...]
[...] A pocos días de la próxima keynote de Steve Jobs para presentar las novedades de la empresa de la manzana, nos encontramos con los ganadores del concurso “Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest“, o lo que es lo mismo el concurso de falsas capturas del supuestos próximo sistema operativo de Apple, MacOSX 10.5 “Leopard”. El premio para el ganador era la suculenta cifra de 1000$ donada por unas 28 empresas dedicadas al desarrollo de aplicaciones para Mac. La verdad es que da gusto encontrarse con esta clase de eventos, donde se premia la originalidad y el estilo de los participantes, aquí os dejo la captura de los ganadores, primero, segundo y tercer puesto: [...]
Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest: os vencedores...
No dia 22 de Julho, terminou o Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest http://phillryu.com/2006/07/09/announcing-the-fake-leopard-screenshot-contest/ , um concurso consistindo (um pouco obviamente) em desenhar supostos screenshots do Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard"...
My vote goes to Nathan. He has the best ideas, and organizes and utilizes them the best. He isn't as much of a designer, and I love his light unified design and vanilla look. The Delicious/Front Row is a bit to daunting for me, because I like the light colors and minimilism of the current Front Row. Adding missing features to Tiger helped everyone, and the Mail/iChat log integration is really nice. A lot of those ideas deserve to be in place in Leopard, either as an update to the interface or a skin or option for it. Working together with other Apple visual designers, I think Nathan has the most potential and best ideas. Good job everyone, all of your ideas were intuitive. Apple should really look at the Leapord screenshots here, and scattered all around the web, especially including seamless Windows integration. (Even though it killed me to see Luna mixed in with beautiful Mac OS X.)
[...] Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest Winners: Better Than The Real Thing? Très bonnes idées, on aimerait que beaucoup d’entre elles soient implémentées. Par contre, on compte aussi sur le savoir faire d’Apple pour rendre toutes ces nouvelles fonctionnalités peut-être plus simples et plus évidentes que affichées ici. (tags: apple osx os Tiger usability Leopard) Social Bookmarking : [...]
[...] Les résultats du concours avec le classement [...]
I think there should be another contest with video of the interface at work or maybe Flash examples that simulate some basic functionality. That would rock. Microsoft, start your photocopiers...
[...] There are some amazingly cool ideas for OS X in the Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest. The winner, Eric Patterson, should be hired by Apple asap, and there are lots of great ideas for both apps and OS X in general. [...]
[...] The contest was to make fake screen shots to chart the future of the Mac OS. The winner’s (Eric Patterson) concepts were so sweet, that people wanted Apple to hire him. I heartily agree. Beautiful stuff. check it out. [...]
[...] Phill Ryu declara los ganadores del concurso de “Pantallazos Falsos de Leopard” [...]
[...] לאחרונה נתקלתי בתוצאותתחרות יצירת צילומי מסך מזוייפים (http://phillryu.com/2006/07/26/fake-leopard-screenshot-contest-winners-better-than-the-real-thing/) עבור מערכת…קידום אתריםקידום אתרים [...]
About the delicious idea, there is a firefox extension called BlueOrganizer (http://www.adaptiveblue.com) which does pretty much the same thing but it has integrated support for many popular websites and products. The extension will "light up" on certain sites allowing you to "bluemark" the item as the actual item (e.g., a movie or book) instead of a URL. It is integrated with delicious and the amazon s3 service as well. View the demo at the site for more info.
[...] And for a bit of fun and to get your Mac juices flowing, check out the Fake Leopard Screenshot contest winners over on Phill’s blog. The winning entry is excellent. [...]
WOW! These screen captures look better than some of leopard's new features! I will remember these (as I'm out to build my own OS). I'd create & post a screen capture here, but it's way beyond aqua. I'll save it for the day I release my own OS.
Nathan
[...] Also for Mac fans or potential mac fans, check out this informative article on choosing which mac to buy. Also, you might like to check out the results for this fan competition. I won’t tell you what it is, so just navigate there (it might take a while to load). [...]
[...] O sucesso foi estrondoso, com mais de 1.000 visitantes e 40 inscritos. Os resultados foram anunciados hoje, e são impressionantes. O vencedor, Eric Patterson, criou não só um conjunto de cinco imagens, como também elaborou um estudo e detalhou cada novo elemento da interface que aparece nos screenshots. Dê uma olhadinha: [...]
Glenn Wolsey
July 26th, 2006 at 1:56pmAmazing..great work guys!