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Apple's Illuminous (Aqua v2) to Compete with Aero
tovarish writes "According to Apple Gazette Apple will replace Aqua with a new name (and hopefully looks) called Illuminous. Is Jobs scared of Aero?, does it make sense to go for a new UI now?, has Aqua run out of steam? The answers will probably come later next month(year)."
I've never really considered Steve Jobs to be fazed by anything really.
He knows he has a decent group of followers, ever growing in these times, and he must bless his decision to stick with providing a complete solution instead of just an OS, every day.
All in all, I don't think he should be scared of this, because it is not only about the looks of the interface. It also depends on whether operations will continue to produce the desired result fast and reliable. Mac OS has the advantage there.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
If you're a computer newbee, the only thing you can judge a computer on is how it looks.
So just like with the iMac craze a number of years back, updating the look and feel of an OS every now and then, is a good idea from a commercial point of view.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I believe the new name is really going to be Nullity.
Or maybe Aquality.
Or Aquainess.
This could be the least content of any story I have read.
NO MORE PINSTRIPES!!! For the love of Steve, PLEASE kill them. And brushed metal. Dead, dead, dead.
Oh, how I hope it's true...
Is Jobs scared of Aero?, does it make sense to go for a new UI now?, has Aqua run out of steam?
How old is Aqua? Perhaps they're just wanting to update it to add new features, take advantage of dual/quad/bajillion core CPUs, etc., etc. A lot has happened since Aqua debuted, and Apple has rarely been one to simply sit on a good product and not try to continue to make it better/newer.
Let's do away with the files/folders/desktop/dialogs metaphor and system. It's served us well, but I'd really like to see a groundbreaking way to work with my data. One with an abstracted view system that could, as an example, bridge desktop and network applications, or let me perform actions via the mouse or via speech, or gestures, etc., without having to put any more work into the controller code. ::from back of room:: X11!
:)
Shut up already!
It was assumed that you'd know that since Apple was competing against it, it was a Microsoft thing. As the only thing we talk about that has to do with Microsoft is Vista, that was assumed as well. Since everyone knows Aqua is the window style that Apple uses, Aero must be MS Vista's window style.
That, or you could read ANY article about Vista, there they talk about it like it's the best thing since sliced bread.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Since iTunes 7 doesn't follow the rest of the Tiger application themes, this might have something to do with that theme. Maybe they're going to make all the apps consistent regardless of use? Or maybe they're going to introduce even more categories to use when designing the UI for your app so that you Windows themers can't copy the OS X theme? :P
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
The single main menu at the top is a thing that you love or hate, but it can feel very strange to change the focus of the application to just access a menu. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that it's "easier" to just point "right" this way, but it is more complicated and "verbose" as well.
Hell even the single fact that when you are presented the logon screen, the pointer is on 10,10 and not at screencenter as on Windows, KDE or Gnome is an inconvenient. A little one but just a little thing here and a little thing there does a lot.
Well, here went my karma again, just like always when a post doesn't screm how perfect Apple is
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Faced with the prospect of being "boring and unoriginal" compared to OLPC vaporware, Steve has decided to one-up the "View Source" button and make XCode the new interface.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Why? what ever happened to having a UI just simple and clean at the same time, why must they slow down the systems with these next-gen UIs what ever happened to the idea of SVG UIs
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
I guess /. assumes you know about current technology since you are browsing its pages... Aero is a set of GUI features from Microsoft's new OS, Vista.
There has been way, way too much work poured into Aqua to rip it out from underneath everyone right now.
.... -that- I can see a wholesale replacement of. It needs it.
Subtle (and not-so-subtle) tweaks I can see, but actual honest-to-goodness UI replacement? That I doubt.
Now, the Finder on the other hand
I only hope that Apple will let me choose which theme I use. Tiger only offers a few themes. I don't relly mind because the current themese are not distracting. If I don't like the new theme, at least offer my Graphite so that I can switch back.
Surely you mean iLuminous.
Anyway, how about a weekly round-up of Apple rumours rather than individual stories?
Given that the job posting talks about nothing more than 'enhancements' to Aqua, we seem to have basically no data to go by.
Apart from that, I do think it's time for Apple to revisit Aqua. Not for a pointless 'replace it with another theme to keep up with Aero' exercise, though. The OS X UI needs a more fundamental redesign, to improve the way we interact with our data. The Finder is one app in dire need of an update.
Yeah, Microsoft should be shaking so hard their money has fall off.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Is Jobs scared of Aero?
From what I can see, quite the opposite.
Apple is I believe going to launch the next version of OSX at the same time as the public starts to get its hands on Vista. Vista is just catching up with OSX in terms of interface. It will really piss on Microsoft's fire if the "Joe Public" press review the next version of OSX at the same time as Vista and conclude that OSX is better - from a PR perspective that will be a disaster for Microsoft because it will make their claims about how Vista is the greatest OS ever much weaker. (Keep in mind that Microsoft has not yet started its marketing bandwagon rolling for Vista).
The Finder is the one thing I would like to see improvements in. For example rewriting it to be a Cocoa app and actually being smarter at noticing file changes, especially with SMB volumes. There is no f5 (refresh key on Windows), so I don't want to have to wait a minute until it notices.
One other thing I would love to see, related to AppleShare volumes: server side folder size calculation, since it would be easier to cache and reduce unecessary network traffic because the client wouldn't be interogating each and every file.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I realize that for the majority of the market, apple is competing with Vista and Aeroglass, but I think that Aqua also needs to start competing with XGL and Compiz/Beryl.
The primary desktop in my house runs Linux, but I also have an iBook running Tiger. For a long time OS X was a lot prettier than either KDE or Gnome, and people were forever trying to emulate the Aqua look and feel on Linux. A lot of stuff like web browsing and stuff I used to do on my iBook, simply because the GUI was nicer to look at.
Lately though, I'd say for the last year or 18 months, I've been running XGL and Beryl (and compiz before Beryl forked off) and I would say that my desktop now running XGL and Beryl looks much nicer than my iBook running Aqua.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I think Jobs has nothing to worry about. Aero is utter crap. I've been using Vista for the past week or so and the entire interface seems "incomplete" somehow. The learning curve for Vista is pretty steep. Everything is awkward and MS has actually made Windows harder to use. Just navigating the ile system is bizarre. There are more steps to get to anything. Don't even get me started on Office 2007. My wife is a pretty skilled Office user and she couldn't do anything with Word 2007. I've been looking for a setting to get the 2003 interface back, but I don't see one. You can't make this kind of drastic change to the interface of the most widely used office suite in the world. It's absurd.
There is no way we will be deploying either product to our users at the office anytime soon. It would kill the productivity of our company immediately. There are some cool IT management features in Vista, but the change in the interface negates all of them.
The really odd thing I find about this article in general, is that I had always assumed -- and I don't think I was alone here -- that Aero was really Microsoft's response and attempt to leapfrog Aqua.
Every screenshot I've seen of Aero looks remarkably...Aqua-ish. Not in the details, but I can't help thinking that someone at Microsoft took a look at Aqua, and decided that it was probably time to overhaul Windows' interface as well; not to mention doing the same sort of graphics-card offloading that Apple did with Quartz Extreme.
I suppose claiming that Apple's "Illuminous" is a response to Microsoft's Aero, and Aero is itself at least partially response to Aqua, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's sort of the way of these things to respond to each other, back and forth, over and over.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
OS?
Enough with the technical terms, Pointdexter.
Just say its the clicky thing that lets you do stuff on the whatchamahoo.
Now Apple can have a *NEW* UI "standard" competing with the other 6 floating around in the same UI, and perhaps even further bastardize their own usability standards...
What is wrong with Aqua? It still looks better than Aero, and much better than the Vista UI that people not running a $6k box. If it ain't broke... (yes, it is... but the cure is bringing all the iCrap software into one unified look, like UNO does.)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The thing I really like about the single menu bar is not so much that it's always in the same place (which is handy) but that you conserve a lot of screen estate when every window an app has open does not have to make room for a whole menubar.
This is especially annoying with browser windows, which you tend to have a lot of. But many applications are prone to having multiple documents open at once and it helps there as well.
Another problem it helps solve is visual menu clutter - sometimes in Windows when I have a lot of apps up, I go to select a menu item and find that I have hit the wrong menu, bringing a whole different window in focus that I did not mean to access! Under X-Windows the problem is in some ways worse, because you can access that menu without changing focus meaning you may not realize you are not accessing the right menu until it is too late.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They're 5 years behind Apple...
... and FOSS
... offerings.
Yes.
No.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
I think this is just an example of bad analysis. After all, we can only guess at the motivations of a decision of another unless that person(s) divulges their reasoning. And Apple is notorious at being secretive so we'll never really know why Apple is replacing Aqua.
My take on this is different. Aqua is over 5 years old. Apple was going to replace it eventually. If it is going to be shown next month, that means Apple has been working on it already (possibly for years). So in my view, this isn't a reaction to Aero but a pro-active enhancement to Aqua. Just my 2 cents.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So now we finally realize why we have to have 2,4,6,8 CPU cores in a home machine that is used to surf the web and send/receive email.
More Eye Candy.
I need spinning cursors, zooming window boxes, document previews in every icon, 3D graphics on document to be printed on a 2D paper. All you software vendors do is force me to buy new hardware or you won't support me.
I remember a cartoon that was published in the paper when Windows95 came out, it was a guy tossing his computer out of a window and the caption was "This is why they call it Windows.." I guess b/c you have to throw everything away just to get the latest *NEW SHINY*.
Nobody else does this.. I can still buy air/oil filters, mufflers, tires etc for my 1995 car. But g*d forbid I try to get support for 4 year old hardware. *PCI BUS? THAT"S SOOOOoooo 1990s...*
Somebody ought to call GreenPeace on the software manufacturers for forcing us to by new hardware which causes the old hardware to be sent to landfills. It's not Intel/AMD/IBMs fault, they don't say "Our hardware will only work in the OS that will be shipped in two years"...
Since when has posting on /. been productive?
Yep, Blue Steel is just one look. Where's Magnum?
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
Doesn't Aero exist to compete with Aqua? The title makes it seem like MS has surpassed Apple and apple needs to do something to catch up The only reason I don't own a mac right now is because everytime I try out the macmini in the store it keeps crashing like non stop. But that doesn't stop me from drooling over the UI. So I stick with KDE.
Dooom
This isn't really related to the article (which isn't much of an article btw). Troll me to smithereens.
If Apple goes from Aqua to illuminous, what's the logical progression for Microsoft and Aero?
My guess is the next interface from Ms will be known as "Wind". Then, as we all know, Ms has a habit of getting things somewhat right and very bloated in the third generation.
So, my prediction for the third generation of Aero is simply "Flatulence". Oddly enough, this is how the first generation of Aero has been described as well.
Do you hear that sound, Mr. Cloricus? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of a joke flying over your head.
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As Iconfactory has mentioned, "Scaling vectors that are optimized for presentation at a large size will result in images that look unacceptable at small sizes. The trained eye of a designer knows which pixels to keep and which ones to throw away--automated scaling of an image does not."
What if you generally ignore articles about Vista because it's Microsoft's opertating system and you don't really care what features it has? OTOH, I'm interested in new Apple developments, so I was reading the article. The OP's point stands, to my way of thinking. And yeah, I picked up on your sarcasm.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
I think the name gives it away. "Illuminous." That's a word that people sometimes mistakenly use when they mean "luminous."
I don't think Steve Jobs would want a word that in many people's mind would have connotations of ignorance.
Hell even the single fact that when you are presented the logon screen, the pointer is on 10,10 and not at screencenter as on Windows, KDE or Gnome is an inconvenient. A little one but just a little thing here and a little thing there does a lot.
Why does this matter, when at the text login page, you can type your username, hit tab, enter your password, hit enter, and be looking at a desktop seconds later? And actually launch programs, not have those programs cancel mouse actions (I love how Windows repeatedly cancels menus you're trying to navigate. When the entire OS revolves around a giant heirarchial menu. For fuck's sake, a program loading itself into the toolbar causes this!)
In fact, I can then hit apple-space and type "Mail", use the down arrow and enter key to select it and launch Mail.app, and read+respond to email in my inbox. Still haven't touched my (multibutton) mouse. How about that...
Please help metamoderate.
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
Perhaps Apple has decided to give it a new name because they're actually rewriting it- as in, making some backend changes instead of the normal visual tweaks. After all, OS X is a bit of a pig when it comes to resources I realize that the idea of Apple not putting form over function for once is hard to grasp, but I'm sure it could happen...
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
I think I heard the 'whoosh' of that post flying over your head from here.
1) Take all the things you pointed out that were wrong with GP's post.
2) Re-read the original summary.
3) Go kick yourself. Hard.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Apple have had their developer community working on Leopard for about 3 months now. It is very unlikely that they would rip the work these guys have been doing out from under them with just 2 - 4 months to the launch of the next OS.
Major developers like Adobe and Microsoft may have even been working to this platform for longer.
So if there is a new UI coming, it won't be for 10.5
WTF, I've been wondering where those guys have been hiding all this time. I've got this mental image of guys in hooded robes fighting a bunch wearing Buck Rogers rocket packs.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
I don't even notice the Aqua interface all that much. Forgot it was even called Aqua.
Which is sort of the point. You savvy?
Talk to the store manager. In my experience, Macs do not crash (much). I have only force quit an application perhaps three times in 5 years, and I have never seen a Mac OS X crash. What does it even look like ? Maybe there is something wrong with the floor demo's hardware ?
I do a lot of software development, use Windows file shares via SAMBA, browsing the web, send email, watch video, burn CD/DVD, plug in cameras and ipods, and use all of the standard productivity applications. I don't use Haxies. My kids play a lot of grade school appropriate games on the Mac in our house. Maybe my usage patterns just don't trip up the system.
I have heard that ssh based CVS connections and industrial strength FTP usage might stress the system. I don't do that much.
Each generation of OS X gets faster, so their are working on the innards. As it stands now, most of the UI is done on the graphics card, and as of Leopard your UI will basically be one big OpenGL scene. Yes, OS X puts a lot of computing power towards that eye candy, but Apple keeps moving the cycle and memory load away from the CPU.
I think if Apple is "scared" of anything, then it's not the Aero itself, but it's ugly looks. I was scared too the first time I saw Vista's interface - OMFG!!! I'm still having nightmares...
...look at the album art view, the slider at the bottom. Basically black on black with highlights and white outlines.
Look at the website http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html Apple has been moving from the grey on white to black backgrounds. The icons on the shiny black background may be foretelling the future GUI look.
P226
If you throw yourself down to an Apple store, you can try out the 30" Cinema displays. Kick up quicktime to play a hd-video, and it starts up in the bottom left corner. You want to hit File->Open, so off your mouse goes, 30 inches across the screen (having to be picked up and pulled back a couple of times to get there). Once you arrive, click file->open, then haul the chap another 30" back to hit Play on quicktime, because it won't start automatically.
Now THAT is a pain in the ass. If the small quicktime menu had been on the window itself, where would be the problem? No, I'm dead against the single menu idea. It may look more elegant, but as screen resolutions and sizes increase, the arguments FOR the single bar become less important (adding a menu per-window hardly uses much space on a hi-res screen), and the arguments AGAINST start to grow.
I say ditch it, there's better solutions, but that does require that Apple bite the bullet.
This is a common enough error that it really ought to have its own term. Per Wikipedia, the original definition of "learning curve" calculated unit cost as a function of experience, while the common usage here is based on a calculation of total cost as a function of experience. Both are affected by (1) the starting point and (2) the rate of improvement; in particular, the common usage of "steep learning curve" suggests (1) high and (2) slow.
Maybe Apple just wanted to draw a line between a major change. It could be a new-ish set of API and the name is the line between the new API and the old. This could spawn updates/re-writes of apps to take advantage of new features as well as faze out old dead apps.
In this case it would not the name so much as the idea.
ender-iii
How about you let us install and change themes without buying shareware haxies?
they finally switched to enlightenment :D .. that's great news for the E17's release date :P
Well obviously you need Quicksilver That's save you like five keystrokes in your reply to mail scenario. control-space, m, enter.
Aero exists to compete with Luna.
The best thing they could do to for the user interface to make me want to upgrade from 2000 to Vista would be to take the Pocket PC/Pocket PC 2002 theme... one that's flat, clean, and un-gimmicky (not to mention easy to implement efficiently) and make it the default.
Fitt's law
About your point #2: Does anybody know a way to avoid a reboot to fix a lost share? When I for example copy a file and lose my network connection (not unusual with wlan) the copy process will just freeze and i can't connect to the network share again. Restartimg of Finder won't work and neither will a kill -9. Does anyone know a reliable way to kill Finder without having to do a cold start (which is just nasty) ?
Unlike Vista, BSD's had symlinks for a quarter of a century, so Apple's developers have plenty of time to work on UI improvements.
*zing*
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Cool...AND functional! http://www.cocoatech.com/pf4/ Much better than the regular Finder IMHO. I'm a Windows admin/DAS/IT supervisor by day so I get to use Windows plenty! There are great things in both Vista and OS X - however usability is still with the OS X camp...and I'm also bitter that Vista isn't implementing a true symlinking method. Bah. JB
Maybe; news for nerds is a big area to cover. As an Apple user I knew instantly what that meant. I may though be less inclined to know what the "Rails Recipe" article was about. I think the alternatives aren't very desirable. Extremely verbose and long winded titles on one hand -
e.g. Apple's Illuminous (Aqua v2 - the style and gui interface for OS X - the operating system which powers Apple computers (Apple was a computer company started in XXXX) to Compete with Aero (the alternative from windows) - a contraversial article because windows is starting to try to compete with apple on their own terms
or we demote every article that isn't completely universal.
Sure people could restructure their preferences to highlight and demote sections as required, but the payoff is less new users because of the added layer of complexity.
Who gives a flying fXck what it looks like just so long as it works? I'm using a pre-release of 10.5 right now and find it good enough with the same scheme as 10.4 (I never even knew it was called 'Aqua', and that never made a shXts-bit of difference as to how it worked). My only complaint is that PhotoBooth refuses to start up because (it says) it doesn't like my video card (AGP Rage128 Pro that came with the machine).
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
The move is smaaaart from a commerical point of view, and ultimately it is good for the future of the unix desktop.
We know that OS X is well within the public eye.
We know that M$ will push Vista into the public eye.
We know that Vista is going to very challenging to adopt for the end user, and for many it won't offer obvious benefit over XP.
We know that OS X has been doing much of what Vista does for a while now, on lower hardware than what Vista demands.
But I claim that OS X is still alien to those who are not willing to venture past the familiar Windows interface.
As Vista is pushed into the public eye, it will be known as the future of that familiar interface.
Everyone will eventually will be faced with the choices that come with change and technological advancement.
By making OS X look like Vista, OS X first looks much less alien to those who are afraid of moving past Windows.
Through superficial means, consciously or not, OS X enters the choice matrix .
Then the end-user looks at the hardware costs.
He looks at the $600 price tag for a Mac mini, versus the >$1200 price tag for a Vista desktop.
He also notices that the hardware is prettier and is basically better designed.
The choice then is between two OSs with apparently similar desktops.
One has the Microsoft name and certain important programs, but with lots of bugs
The other has the Apple name, with its big fanbase and iPod associations and reputed stability and security.
For even the novice, the Vista desktop and the Apple desktop become directly comparable.
And then for most, the Apple desktop with OS X makes more sense, and it is purchased.
That's the commerical side.
For the *nix desktop side..
Software developers notice that Apple hardware and software sales are increasing.
The few remaining Windows-only companies like AutoDesk realizing that they are not taking advantage of a market.
As these professional programs are ported, the OS X desktop userbase (and there *nix desktop userbase) increases.
This means more documentation and an increasingly popular platform for software development.
It also means that our beloved OSS programs will have guaranteed place.
If and when we need a commercial app, we won't need to switch desktops and computers.
Ultimately, the experience becomes power pleasant and productive.
Under Disk Utility, it's named "Leave appendable".
As I recall from my debugging days under Windows, a child/document window will be constrained within a parent/application window unless it is set as "modal" (by the developper), upon which it is (mostly) free.
Slashdot also assumes a completely unconfirmed rumor from a site with a low historical accuracy is front page news.
The last thing Apple is afraid of is the abortion of interface design that is Aero and its five different menu styles and embarrassing shut down menu--only Microsoft could spread out "turn off computer" into nine or so redundant menu options.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Anyways, there are a ton of people who have been waiting for the "xMac"; Apple could do a whole lot better.
Now that Microsoft has copied Aqua, it's time for Apple to make Aqua look old. Simple as that.
That's a big claim. Why should we believe you when Apple's engineers, who know the details of the code better, seem happy enough to work with Darwin?
I'm sure that wuldn't take long or brake compatibility with anything.
That's not exactly a problem if I'm in the market for Apple hardware.
That's a rather trollish exaggeration. Not perfect in every way according to your criteria != very brittle and shaky. You make it sound like Mac OS 7.5.3, Now that was brittle and shaky. Type 11 errors. Yay!
That's rather diferent to saying 'currently every computer they sell is priced outside of >90% of the market.' Now where is the evidence that >90% of the market is for systems, rather than individual computers? Why would I want to buy a monitor when I already have a perfectly good one?
A lot of people will never get round to burning DVDs. I have a Superdrive and have used it maybe twice in the last year.
And what's the profit margin on those things? Not great, especially compared to the markets Apple is in. How much production capacity do they have available? Enough to manufacture sufficient quantities of a new, cheap model to offset the reduced profit margin? Would people bother to buy Apple in the el-cheapo commodity market? You haven't considered whether there is a demographic there for Apple to target and whether it's worth targeting them. Apple seem to b doing just fine with their current lineup.
It's not exactly exotic. The worst you could say is that some components are laptop variants, but that's about it.
How many people buying those machines upgrade anything more than the RAM and maybe hard drive? Not a lot. And you're placing no value on the small footprint, quiet operation, pleasing aesthetics, etc. that other people will place value on. Not every consumer has the same requirements and value systems as you. In fact given that you think OS X should be built on Linux, you're likely very different to the average consumer.
Having complained about the high entry price point, you now want Apple to produce a more expensive machine than the Mini?
I think it's fair to assume that anyone reading an article on Slashdot should know what Aqua is, so saying, "Apple's Illuminous, the follow-on to Aqua..." seems like a reasonable approach. In that same vein, the author could have said, "...compete with Aero, the follow-on to Windows Explorer..." (or the Windows GUI or whatever). Yeah, a certain amount of base knowledge is more or less required to read here. If you don't know what Linux is, go somewhere else. And you'd better know that PSP stands for "Playstation Portable." But tell me, how long did it take for your brain to learn that WGA had to do with Microsoft's licensing rather than a new graphics standard?
I'm just sayin'...
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
One could argue that conclusions based on Fitt's law break down as screens get bigger. This doesn't mean it's a fallacy -- any more than Newton's laws are fallacies just because they break down at extreme scales.
Fitt's law is no "fallacy." I take advantage of it hundreds of time every day. Windows frustrates me in the way I have to take care to vertically position the pointer on the menu bar, because of the lack of Fitt's law help.
Consider the possibility that there is no one correct answer here.
Well, maybe this story is news -- but not big news.
Apple's aesthetics have never been static. The Platinum desktop seems ubiquitous at a distance, but it only ruled from the release of OS 8 in July of 1997 through the release of OS X 10.0 in 2001. That's four years. Aqua is already older.
Not that Aqua has remained static. Today's Aqua features far less saturated colors than its predecessor. That god-awful brushed metal interface has been largely replaced by the Unified theme, sans titlebars, and the pinstripes are gone.
The biggest tip-off that change is coming was in the release of iTunes 7, which features dramatically darker colors, nothing "lickable" (to borrow Job's description of Aqua's widgets), and an interesting satin-finish window elevator.
It's not as if Apple's aesthetics are restricted to the desktop. Consider the goofy day-glo blue, green, orange, and purple of the early iPod advertising. I knew they were over the day I saw that moody blue-tone "Jazz" iPod spot. Bob Dylan's recent commercial sure fits the glossy white/glossy black look of the MacBook line. Both the glossy and blue-tone motifs are obvious on the current Apple Itunes and Quicktime web pages.
So it's no surprise Aqua is in for an overhaul. And while I doubt Vista was the driving force behind this evolution, it would probably be a bit prideful to think Aero had nothing to do with Apple possibly opting for a overhaul of OS X's presentation. So? Macintosh is in its best market position ever -- surely Jobs would have his baby on the front end of a desktop paradigm, rather than at the end.
I can't imagine Apple will bring Leopard to market with less than all the UI sexiness its designers can muster. Personally, I'm looking forward to it.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.