With so much talk of AirPort Express, AirTunes, and even the rumors of new Mac hardware, it's easy to forget that we're now a mere three weeks away from the first official look at the next MacOS X operating system, whose name we know to be Tiger. I emphasize that last part, because the new system's name is really just about all we know about it at this point. Truth is, we really don't have any idea what's coming next at all. It's scary stuff, I tell ya.
I kind of liked the early days of MacOS X, when it was still new enough and flawed enough that anyone paying close attention already more or less knew what major improvements the next version would bring. Actually, come to think of it, those days weren't all that much fun at all, but there was a certain comfort level. But one way or the other, those days are now officially long gone. No matter how closely you've been watching, there's just no way you can know what all Tiger will actually bring us. In fact, in a lot of ways, Steve Jobs' upcoming Keynote at the end of this month has the potential to be every bit as mind-blowing as his January 2000 speech in which he unveiled MacOS X in the first place.
Back in OS X's early days, we were looking for complete functionality, OS 9 parity, and speed. Before long, we were looking for expanded functionality and speed. Eventually we were left just looking for, well, speed. And once we got that, what did we really have left to complain about? So when we began kicking around our hopes and expectations for Tiger this past Monday night during the Online MUG meeting (join today, folks), it didn't surprise me that a lot of meeting attendees didn't even really know what they wanted from the upcoming operating system. But nonetheless, some intriguing ideas were tossed around during the meeting, proving that, if nothing else, Mac users are never short on imagination, and never seem to stop demanding that the best system in existence get even better.
Suggestions ranged from specific (better iSync support for Motorola Bluetooth phones) to system-wide (a "lockable" dock so that icons and windows don't fall behind the dock), straightforward (better window resizing in list mode) to geeky (new internal file system with the help of the new guy Apple hired from BeOS). But somewhere during the conversation, I suddenly threw out something that I didn't even consciously realize I wanted. And when I said it, it came out so strangely that most of the members didn't have any idea what I was even talking about. So what was it that I said?
"My goal for Tiger is to almost never have to go to the Finder for anything."
And then I had a whole lotta 'splaining to do. Because the Finder isn't just the system of files and folders that constitute the interface you use to anything at all on the Macintosh, anytime you're not using a specific piece of software. You see, in a lot of ways, the Finder is the Macintosh. Or at least, it was. Been that way since 1984, for that matter. But slowly, as the OS X interface has gradually taken shape, more and more functionality has left the Finder and gone system-wide. And apparently, it's been such a gradual shift that many users haven't even noticed that it's been happening.
Now, these are the kinds of articles in which I invariably receive a few dozen emails from the relative handful of users out there who intentionally misread what I've written about the Finder, and take it as an opportunity to write in and try to sell me on some third-party "Finder replacement" utility that they've somehow gotten themselves tangled up with. Please don't waste your time. Because in stating that I want the Finder to go begin to away, what I'm talking about is the exact opposite of the geekified so-called "replacements" that only serve to make the whole Mac experience several whole number multiples more complicated for the average user. I'm not talking about using some replacement for the Finder, I'm talking about not using any Finder-like implementation at all. Zip. Nada.
So what on earth am I talking about? Well, remember back in OS 9, when you had to first go to the Finder, before being able to shut down or restart? These days, you just do it from the Apple Menu, regardless of what application you're currently in. Remember having to go to the Finder so that you could empty the trash from a menu? Well now, you can just click-and-hold on the Trash's Dock icon until a menu pops up and allows you to empty the trash at any time. In fact, there are a lot of other things you can do directly from the Dock using these menus. I've placed my Home folder, my Applications, folder, and even my Desktop folder(!) into my Dock, meaning that I no longer have to use the Finder to access the contents of any of these folders.
If I've got Safari in the foreground and I suddenly decide I want to launch a Keynote document that I left on my desktop, I just click-and-hold (or control-click or right-click, for those of you who can't wait the quarter of a second) on my Desktop Dock icon, move up the alphabetical list of files until I find my document, select it, and Keynote launches and my document opens. The Finder no longer plays a role in this process, at least not the way I do things. Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love what Apple has done with the Finder as of the Panther release. I think it's near-perfect at this point, and I hope that they don't screw with it too much going forward. But at the same time, I plan on using it less and less as time goes on.
And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. But most of the others who feel that way, probably wouldn't even know how to put it into sufficiently technical words. You see, I'm talking about the majority of the twenty-five million Mac users out there who don't read sites like this one, don't sit around speculating about what features Tiger might have, and won't even know that Tiger exists until long after Steve gets done speaking on the 28th. In other words, the normal people. Not us. The ones who, when you tell them to "go to the Finder," just stare at you as if you'd suddenly begun speaking in some other language.
I'm truly beginning to believe that the typical user is simply not naturally inclined to use a hierarchal file system to manage their files, and never has been. In fact, I'm not sure if any of us geeks would find it natural either, if not for the fact that we've become so accustomed to it over the years. Not that it wasn't the best thing since sliced bread when it was first invented, of course. And not that the Windows interface has ever been anything but a pathetic, almost bizarrely flawed imitation. But just as we transitioned from a command line to a graphical file system twenty years ago, eventually it's time to move on. And at least this time, the move has been gradual.
Think for a minute about how your deal with your photograph files. When you connect your digital camera, do you simply allow the camera to auto-launch iPhoto and then have your pictures magically flow into iPhoto, without the slightest care of where exactly in the Finder's file system your pictures might actually be stored? Because that's exactly what most "normal" users do. And even if you're so much of an instinctive geek that you still manage your photos manually, I'm willing to bet that the only time you see your music files is when you launch iTunes. Sure, your geek self knows exactly where they're really stored and could find them in the Finder in a heartbeat (Home Directory -> Music -> iTunes -> iTunes Music, see I'm a geek too), but you find yourself caring about their true location less and less. Slowly but surely, you're being de-geeked by the rise of OS X. Deal with it.
So when I say that I want to "almost never have to go to the Finder for anything," this is what I'm talking about. Keep the Finder intact, keep it the same as it is now, but continue carrying out the path that we invariably embarked upon way back when the beta-test version of MacOS X first shipped, and we geeks all went crazy because the "About this Mac" window could suddenly be accessed from any application. It seemed like a revelation, but in hindsight it was nothing more than a blip. But that blip painted a roadmap for where we were headed. And now that most of those pesky "bigger" issues with MacOS X have been stomped into the ground, I'd like to see Apple go ahead and finish the job when it comes to building out the applications and interface to the point that we never have to "go to the Finder" again...unless we really want to.
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