The "Top Secret" Features

[MrDee]

A lot of folks are wondering what could be the infamous Top Secret features Steve Jobs kept under wraps, but promised to reveal at a later time at WWDC in August of 2006.

 

Simple, the platform that is Mac OS 10.5

 

I suspected after the release of the iPhone that itself was the top secret feature and the fact that it is running Leopard. A lot of persons might not see it as a top secret feature, but imagine if you suspected there was an iPhone running Leopard back in August of '06 at WWDC? Wouldn't that be considered a top secret feature then?

 

Back to "at a later time", in this case January 2007 at Macworld, the top secret feature running Leopard was unveiled, the "iPhone". Its pretty much obvious, I suspect even the Apple TV was considered a top secret feature by Apple unveiled in the fall of '06, launched in January.

 

So, the new UI, out of this world hidden features of Leopard, I suspect do not exist.

[Paranoid Marvin]

Well, I think Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot, if new feature did not exist.

 

Though perhaps we have found them:

ZFS

SMS in iChat

Voicemail in iChat

New Screensavers

Unifed (ugly) UI

etc...

 

If this was it though, I would be very disapointed...

[tadunne]

Well, I think Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot, if new feature did not exist.

 

Though perhaps we have found them:

ZFS

SMS in iChat

Voicemail in iChat

New Screensavers

Unifed (ugly) UI

etc...

 

If this was it though, I would be very disapointed...

 

I don't think any of those can be considered new "secret" features.

 

My ideas are:

 

New core animation based interface (they invented core animation for a reason)

 

The full package, if you listen to the keynote he mentioned bootcamp and frontrow, he said these are some of the apps we mean by full package, or words to that effect. I think the others will be inclusion of ilife back into the OS

 

in ichat theres a google talk option, this is just quicker way of creating a jabber account for google talk account and not really a new feature, just a short cut. We've already seen phishing checking powered by google in safai and of course theres the existing google search in safari. What if they had other cool things like browser sync or ical to gcal sync.

[EFI]

iThink:

 

1. Complete ZFS support (which incl. boot)

2. New Leopard GUI (which is probably designed with Core Animation) with a "3D" desktop that features transitions between windows kind of like in Front Row...except the windows could fade to the sides with reflections, while still being seen in light transparency

3. iPhone interoptibility

4. Icon size now at 512 x 512 (from Tiger's 128 x 128)

5. A much improved Finder, with advanced file management features

6. Improved Spotlight with some new features

7. Some new and high end media-center'esque features to Front Row (perhaps integration with TV-Tuner of some sort?, which offers live TV watching on your future Macs that sport a TV-Tuner card/chip onboard?)

8. A major upgrade to DVD Player, now with support for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, plus live chapter previews, and advanced surround sound speaker setup options.

9. Safari 3.0 with improved speed, with wider support for sites, with a non-brushed metal UI, with the ability to do Expose inside Safari, with the pages opened/tabbed

10. iChat AV now becomes hyper featured, and has the capibility to do texting, chatting or video conference with members using different messaging clients such as MSN, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, etc, etc...all simultaneously. So you could be chatting with 4 people, and each of them could be using a different instant messaging client on any operating system.

 

Oh, and one more thing...

 

11. A brand new charting/spreadsheets program within iWork 07....perhaps called Charts....essentially making the iWork trio; Pages, Charts, and Keynote.

 

 

This is ofcourse my speculation...none of this might actually happen, or some or even one might. I know some of them might sound a bit too fictious (like with Front Row, or the latter part of the Leopard UI), but hey, its Apple, you'll never know, lol.

[mr.manatane]

All top secret features are useless now I know starcraft II is announced.

[Trioxin]

I could also see them building Google Maps/Directions into Address Book and getting rid of the links to MapQuest. They already showed this integration with the iPhone I would suspect that they will add it to the desktop as well.

 

I'm hopping for the ability to easily tag files from the Finder and open and save panels.

 

As for Leopard the platform, I see this as something they are going to bring up. When everyone was bitching about Leopard being delayed because of the iPhone it made perfect sense to me. The iPhone runs code that will be in Leopard , they admitted to Core Animation I would suspect other parts as well. I can see them comparing to microsoft who while having multiple products for phones/desktops/etc all called windows they are very different. They can state how OS X allows them to innovate in these other areas.

[MrDee]

I could also see them building Google Maps/Directions into Address Book and getting rid of the links to MapQuest. They already showed this integration with the iPhone I would suspect that they will add it to the desktop as well.

 

I'm hopping for the ability to easily tag files from the Finder and open and save panels.

 

As for Leopard the platform, I see this as something they are going to bring up. When everyone was bitching about Leopard being delayed because of the iPhone it made perfect sense to me. The iPhone runs code that will be in Leopard , they admitted to Core Animation I would suspect other parts as well. I can see them comparing to microsoft who while having multiple products for phones/desktops/etc all called windows they are very different. They can state how OS X allows them to innovate in these other areas.

 

Exactly Trioxin, you develop for one, you develop for all, although its similar in the Windows world I believe although a lot more complex because of the various devices. But if you look at features of OS X such as Gadgets, they run just the same on the iPhone. I just know Apple will open up the iPhone to thirdparty development, but possibly with strict Guidance, meaning, your App will need to serve a really good purpose and at the same time has to go through Apple for certification. Still the advantages to the Developer could be well worth it, such as Certified listing for download and promotion on the iPhone site. I suspect, at the same time, Apple does not want Developers to eat up the precious space on the iPhone, since the OS itself uses 500 MBs. I think Microsoft MAC BU should develop iPhone versions of Word and Excel similar to Pocket Word and Excel on Windows Mobile devices. Especially, Entourage with deep integration with Exchange Server for push email. Thats an example of thirdparty development I see bringing additional value to the iPhone. Could bundle it with Office '08 as a feature.

[Ai Haibara]

Well, now we know that Apple is developing a new filesystem technology. Guys in Cupertino are working on an interchangeable filesystem: it will be a system to convert a filesystem into another one without losing datas. It's pretty promising, especially if we think about the implementation of ZFS in Mac OS X: it'll be a good method to reconvert HFS+ filesystems in the new format.

I think it's gonna be a great thing, maybe it's involved in one of the rumored "Top Secret" features

Sherry Haibara

[witzer]

Apple...... with its love of making people curious.

 

i remember watching one of the keynote speeches in youtube when Steve was announcing their switch to Intel processors. if i remember correctly, he was saying that mac osx for intel has been in development since early 2000 (2001 i think) and he was pointing to his mac and said something like he has been using mac intel at the keynotes even before mac intel was released.

 

i think you can pretty much rely on Apple about being tightlipped about Top Secret features.

[iLux]

Apple...... with its love of making people curious.

 

i remember watching one of the keynote speeches in youtube when Steve was announcing their switch to Intel processors. if i remember correctly, he was saying that mac osx for intel has been in development since early 2000 (2001 i think) and he was pointing to his mac and said something like he has been using mac intel at the keynotes even before mac intel was released.

He only said that the beginning of the keynote (he did some Dashboard show) has been done on an Intel Mac.

[MrDee]

Apple...... with its love of making people curious.

 

i remember watching one of the keynote speeches in youtube when Steve was announcing their switch to Intel processors. if i remember correctly, he was saying that mac osx for intel has been in development since early 2000 (2001 i think) and he was pointing to his mac and said something like he has been using mac intel at the keynotes even before mac intel was released.

 

i think you can pretty much rely on Apple about being tightlipped about Top Secret features.

 

 

He only said that the beginning of the keynote (he did some Dashboard show) has been done on an Intel Mac.

 

I don't know which parts of the WWDC 2005 keynote he said it, but, he said OS X has been living a secret life, Apple has always developed an Intel version of OS X all its life (which I assume is even before 2000), since the development started around 1998 when it was called Rhapsody. Also, its based on OpenStep which was ported to Intel and Sparc years before. 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 (now released) were developed for Intel, but were kept secret.

 

Through out the keynote, Steve did demos on a desktop tower system then later opened the About Mac dialog to reveal he was using an Intel Based Mac throughout the entire keynote. He showed iTunes running, and did some editing in Photoshop. But the point about him using for all keynotes, meaning, even at WWDC in 2000 when he first presented the AQUA UI? Nope, I clearly don't think so. I suspect even if Intel versions of OS X were developed, even up to 10.4.0, they probably are extremely buggy.

 

I suspect Intel wasn't aware until 10.1, I remember the CEO at Intel saying he wouldn't mind if Apple brought their design expertise to Intel. I say aware because, it was around early 2002, the frenzy for OS X started and everybody basically wanted the look and feel. Several months later a rumor started about Marklar which is said to be the codename for 10.2 for Intel.