I’m not really good at making predictions, but since WWDC is just around the corner, why not… Plus Gus, Brent (twice actually) and Uli have some interesting ones. But instead of trying to look into industry trends, here’s just what I myself would like to see:
New UI widgets, like:
- The entire bar that has the “+” button, the gear popup button and grabber that appears in Mail.app.
- Safari-like tabs
- A better splitter – though RBSplitView is already quite excellent
After all, I think users want a consistent experience across OS X and giving us all the widgets that people are familiar with in the iApps will be way better than each developer implementing them. That’s because every implementation will usually have some slight differences.
Xcode and Interface Builder improvements (so we can develop apps better and faster):
- An easy way to diff two nibs
- Make a toolbar in IB
- Refactoring! Refactoring! Refactoring!
- Smart correction of bugs (like in Eclipse).
And of course… Intel replacements for the G5 PowerMacs and upgraded Cinema Displays to match!
One more thing… I’ve got a partition named Leopard… :)
I bet Safari’s Search Bar will be able to access bookmarks just like in iTunes.
I’m interested in tabs, too, but my problem is shortcut key is for tabs. Check out Transmit, VoodooPad, Adium, browsers, they don’t have any rules. Tabs really shine when they works with efficient (and consistant) shortcut keys. HIG should be revised for this widget. I wish new Finder’s tabs are *usable*.
I didn’t make a partition yet. Shoot. I didn’t make partitions for my Mac. Leopard should have BootCamp-like partition management. Otherwise, I have to do it with disku-something in Terminal… Or should I buy a new Mac Pro?
Have a nice trip, Luis!
[…] Back in my WWDC (2006) Guesses, I wrote: But instead of trying to look into industry trends, here’s just what I myself would like to see… new UI widgets, like: The entire bar that has the “+” button, the gear popup button and grabber that appears in Mail.app. […]