Apple Mac OS X Wish List

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This is a living Apple Mac OS X Wish List - it is continuously updated with ideas. Not many recently I'll admit. Add your ideas (or URLs for your wishlists). It's time we got busy with our Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Wish List.

Please send your own ideas to daniel at daha dot co dot uk with the template at the bottom of this page. Please stick to the format as much as possible. I'll transfer over ideas to this page.

At some point I want to automate the feedback process to Apple. So, we can add our ideas to this page but they also get sent to the Apple Feedback and Bug Reporter systems. The bonus is we get to track what is sent to Apple and, at some point, can vote on which ideas we see as priority.

To Do: All comments need to refer to OS or Application version and build number.

Applications

  • Safari Version 4.0.5 (5531.22.7)

    • Font Resizing Page Placement
      • When resizing fonts using CMD++ or CMD+- we should still view the same place in the web page. Currently the behaviour takes you on a bit of a magical mystery tour - all over the place in the page.
    • Make Form Fonts Definable
      • Should enable user to define font sizes and style for forms (especially text area) and pull down lists.
    • Scale All Fonts
      • Fonts for buttons and pull down lists should scale properly with increase/decrease font size via CMD++ or CMD+-.
    • Saving PDFs
      • Saving a PDF should open up the Save Dialogue attached to Safari. Currently opens up Save Dialogue not attached to Safari window and freezes all other instances of Safari.
    • View source in browser
      • Viewing HTML page source should open up another TAB window in the browser rather than a free floating text window.
    • Search This Site
      • The search box should also show for matches in the current site .
    • User Defined History Size
      • Should be able to set the number of days the history will last for.
    • Text Area Undo
      • Find needs to work within a form textarea of a web page.
    • Text Area Find
      • Find needs to work within a form textarea of a web page.
    • Pop-Up Blocker
      • Need to have white list and black list and behaviour options.
    • Open Safe Files
      • Need to have a list of exactly what files can and cannot be opened safely.
    • Search
      • Allow to select search (google.co.uk, amazon, yahoo, sherlock channels etc). Addition of Google's "I'm feeling lucky" by clicking Option-Enter.
    • Live bookmarks RSS-reading
      • Adding this feature as introduced by firefox would let me switch to safari
    • Zoom to fit web page
      • I love fluid, edge to edge websites. They fill my window with no waste. Much as I hate fixed, non-fluid websites, web "designers" insist on locking font size to width like their site was a graphic or a pdf - totally missing the point of why HTML is so good. Anyhow, we need Safari to be able to zoom into these websites. And, to make it easier for us, there needs to be an automatic "zoom to fit" or "zoom to div" function - so that the fonts and graphics scale as you resize the window. I can't believe I just requested this but it would be nice! By the way, this functionality is in Safari on the iPhone so this shouldn't be difficult.
    • Smart Bookmarks
    • Bookmarks
      • In the Bookmarks Bar, when you click on a folder, the dropdown gives you a set of bookmarks with an "Open in Tabs" item at the bottom. Can we also have an "Open in Bookmarks" so that we can easily edit the folder?
    • Placing Bookmark in Folders from Normal View
      • Let's have the ability to add bookmarks in folders and actually place then where we want them to be (even in sub-folders) just like we can with Firefox.

  • Mail

    • Hide Folders
      • When running IMAP mail system folders like .mailboxlist should be hidden and not shown in the Mailboxes draw listing.
    • Use This Mailbox For
      • Should enable user defined groupings. For example I have "Do Now" folders in all of my IMAP accounts and it would be great to group them together in the same way as you group Drafts, Sent, etc.
    • HTML Status Bar
      • When viewing HTML emails there should be an HTML status bar so that when you mouse over a link you can see where it is going to take you before you click on it.
    • RSS
      • Implement subscription based RSS in Mail to compliment the browser based viewing in Safari
    • Find Reply
      • When you mouse over the replied-to message status icon of an email it should, in theory, take you to the reply email. But this only works when you leave the sent email in the Sent folder. Move it out of the Sent folder, as I always do, and this great feature doesn't work. This feature needs to be able to track where the email goes. This should be simpler with Spotlight, I guess.
    • Tabs
      • Tabs in Safari enables the user to open up a new viewing pane but without having to open up new application window. Tabs are about workflow. Please introduce Tabs for Mail. Eudora has something similar where your last folders are tabbed. Would be great!
    • Check All IMAP folders marked as Inbox Folders
      • Check All Folders has never properly worked and correctly syncronized all Inbox folders. Also, the New Mail button only retrieves mail for the Inbox. Perhaps adding a Syncronize all Inbox Folders option would fix this issue?
    • Address Book
      • Recognise when a contact is in the address book but doesn't have exactly the same name but does have exactly the same email address. Perhaps one should be provided with a drop down of contacts that have this email address. But one shouldn't be given a "Add this to Address Book option" if the email address is already in the Address Book.
      • Let mail recognise nicknames from address book for automatic email address completion.
      • Let URLs be added to existing contacts too.
    • Activity Display
      • In version 3, Mail has two ways to see the Activity. It's pretty confusing. When sending email need to have a upload bar per email.
    • Low Bandwidth Scenario
      • When connected via low bandwidth (yes, it does happen!) like using a mobile network profile mail should not attempt to synchronise all folders just collect new mail. Or there should be an easy way to turn off "synchronise all folders" for all accounts with one button rather than having to laboriously go through preferences.
    • Miscellaneous
      • Scheduled sending of emails
      • Prevent mail from changing entries in adress book
      • Mailing lists
      • iCards from mail
      • x-minutes mail fetch (no only 5,15 etc. I for instance would like 7 minutes)
      • Resizing columns in Mail is a bit of a pain for some reason - seems like you have to juggle everything around.

  • Finder

    • One way of saving files
      • Many applications (like word, but also java things) have save-file-as... windows that can't do things like 'create map' or 'move map into favorites'... it should just work, because it's very irritating to open finder, create map, go back into app and only then be able to save. An example: do 'save as' in safari. Here you can not move a map into the favorite list (right window -> left window), and the 'create new map' is in the GUI, but on a strange place (you would expect it in the upper left).
    • Show Hidden Files
      • Enable show hidden files without messing up the Desktop with those hidden files.
    • FTP
      • Please make it work properly.
    • User Definable Columns
      • Welcome to the land of metadata.
    • Threading
      • Better threading so that the finder doesnt crash when trying to connect to a webDAV share, or try to copy a large file or try to preview something (Cocoa rewrite?)
    • Sharing Folders
      • Right click any folder, select 'share this folder" et voila. Just like Windows! ;-)
    • Tabs
      • Tabs are about workflow. Please introduce Tabs for Finder.
    • Cut/Move [will help getting loads of windows users to osx]
      • Ability to 'cut' files and folders (just like in windows and like many shareware programs now offer)
    • New file [will help getting loads of windows users to osx]
      • It is really anoying standing somewhere, and knowing you want to have your new file there and not able to do that instantly. (Just add 'Add new file' like in windows some shareware programs already do.)
    • Transparent Folders
    • Text only (option) in Sidebar (Example: No Icons!)
    • Global pref for sidbar off or on.
    • Global pref for list/column/icon views
    • Right Size Column options
      • Options for Right Size Column (Always Right Size All Columns Individually, Always Right Size All Columns Equally) to be included in Finder Preferences AND with an 'Always' option. At present this feature can only be accessed in column view for each column and on every occasion - there is at present no 'Always' option. Really frustrating.

  • iTunes

    • Search Like On Click
      • In the normal Library view all Song Names, Artist, Album, etc. (metadata) should be hotlinked (click-able on). When clicked on this term does a search for all like songs. For example when you click on the term Yes in the Artist column then all songs by Yes are searched for and displayed. This would be a neat navigational feature.
        • You can already DO this.. just "option click" the small arrow next to the album / artist name... JaySee
    • Cross Fades Produce Clicks
      • Nuff said. Clicks all over the place when this option is turned on.
    • Gap Between Songs
      • Remove the tiny gap between songs. Or have it as a user option. This is a real pain when playing and album where one song mixes into an other.
    • Playlist Groups
      • Enable grouping of playlists into a folder metaphor.
    • Song Meta-data
      • Allow a song to be listed in more than one album (eg in regular album and greatest hits etc), more than one genre and change artwork accordingly when stored as another album
      • Add tags for location of band, producer, record label
      • Improve adding of meta-data so that only albums from current artist are auto suggested, and data is auto filled for each filed when you are adding many tracks from one album
    • Skip silence
      • Add an option to skip long periods of silence.
      • Add an option to split tracks.
    • Tabs
      • Tabs are about workflow.

  • iPhoto

    • Albums Groups
      • Enable grouping of photo albums into a folder metaphor.

  • Preview

    • Zoom To Fit
      • Zoom to fit should follow the window size as you resize the window and not have to be pressed every time. Also it should be more specific like Zoom To Fit Width and Zoom To Fit Height.
    • Multiple PDFs
      • Open multiple PDFs in same preview window.
    • Multiple Pages in one Window
      • Look at multiple pages from the same PDF in same preview window (e.g., a page spread).
      • Also be able to just scroll to the next page (page 2 just starts at end of 1 etc.), so you don't need to scroll both in the PDF-view as in the thumbnails.
    • Tabs
      • Tabs are about workflow.

  • Address Book

    • Reverse Logic
      • From one card you can make reference to another card using the Names item. You can say someone is the father of someone else. It doesn't do reverse logic - yet - father is the reverse of son. That would be good.
    • Dates
      • Also, need the dates item to link to iCal.
    • Skype Integration
      • Add Skype as an option for the IM field in the Chat item. And add the following actions:
        • Text Chat with Skype
        • Audio Call with Skype
        • Video Call with Skype
    • Automatic Interpretation
      • Ability to add cards by dragging text to Address Book and have it attempt to automatically interpret which part of the text corresponds to what field.
    • Smart Groups
      • Need to be able to match cards from a 'Group'.
      • Need to be able to match contacts in relation to their location using postcode or latitude and longitude.
    • IM field
      • Add Skype as an option!
      • Add IRC as an option!
      • Better still add Custom as an option!!!!
    • Address Format
      • The Address Format for each address card should change depending on what country the address is for. This should not be a global setting.
    • Social Network Synchronisation
      • I'm not sure exactly how this should be implemented in a generalised way. Address Book can already directly sync with Yahoo! and Google. And Plaxo has a plugin. But there needs to be an easier way to create sync points with other Social Networks. Perhaps via a crawler. Facebook would be great, etc.
    • Reorder Fields
      • Need to be able to reorder fields as that seems to be the way that several applications "sense" the default phone number or email address (Mail for instance).
    • Alternate Names
      • Have the option to create alternate names. Many people have multiple spellings for their names.

  • iCal

    • Automatic Alarms
      • The option to have alarms automatically set on new appointments.
    • Background Task Scheduler
      • The ability to interface with CRON and schedule actions.
    • All day items should not make day/week display scroll
    • Time Zones should apply individually to 'from' and 'to'
      • What happens if you are flying from one country to another and the time zones are different in each country? Need to apply time zones to each mention of a 'time' and not to the event as a whole.

  • iChat

    • Draws
      • Implement tabed IM's in a draw, similar to proteus (much easier to use than adiums tabs)
    • Multi-client
      • We already have Jabba, AIM and ICQ (if you trick it into thinking the icq name is a AIM name), but MSN and Y! would be very nice, as would the address book etc seeing that none AIM people are online. Change so that can use ICQ in address book entry and still work. Allow option to choose which account to IM someone at when accounts are combined
    • Invisible users
      • Allow to be able to send messages to people who are set as invisible on AIM, instead of just being able to helplessly see their messages.
    • Status Messages
      • Allow AIM users to be able to see my status messages
    • Security
      • Allow encrypted message support over AIM network (iChat - iChat only unless apple can convince AOL to add it to their client)
    • IM Framework
      • Allow 3rd party apps to use the IM Framework like they can for WebKit
    • Echo Reduction
      • Some sort of system for reducing echo
    • Digital Camera
      • Enable a digital still/video camera to be used as the video capture device for video on iChat

  • iSync

    • Update mobile list
      • Ability to add new mobile phones since the last release (eg. download new config files). (It's so irritating that a new model of Nokia like the N70 is not supported; there goes you commercial that the mac talks to everything).

  • TextEdit

    • Word support
      • Improved word support to allow tables and images to be viewed
    • ODB support
      • ODB support would be good

  • QuickTime

    • Play Clip In Application
      • When playing a QuickTime clip in a web page there should be a right mouse click option to play the clip in a stand alone QuickTime application.
    • Playlist for movies
    • Remember volume after closing
    • Better handling of other file formats (built in divx encoder for example) more formats

  • Dictionary

    • Provide for more languages

  • Telnet

    • Integration with Keychain
      • Integration of ssh-agent and Keychain. Again, there's a 3rd party utility to do this, but it belongs in Keychain.

Tools

  • Spotlight

    • Boolean Spotlight query builder GUI
      • Boolean Spotlight in the GUI (not just Raw Query)
    • Spotlight Result Windows
      • In all spotlight result windows, show the path to the currently selected item! This is so simple, and would make Spotlight so much more useful

  • Expose

    • Better Algorithm
      • The algorithm used by Expose could be improved greatly to always maximise the size of the screens. For example press F10 when you have 20 Safari windows open and you'll see what I meant - it arranges them as a long horizontal line of tiny windows. It should take up as much screen space as possible.
    • Rearrange Windows
      • Option to have expose style rearrange windows but without altering the DPI so you can actually work with them after the windows have been arranged. So, you could, say, select 4 applications and Expose will arrange them in the best way possible.
    • Virtual Desktops (Workspaces)
      • Put this in Expose because have seen a hidden option that enables Expose to compress the whole screen into one small box. That would do it for me if you could have multiple boxes and select which one to explode.
      • Add to dock (next to trash maybe), so can select which desktop to switch to in a vertical list, which expands when mouse over.

User Interface

  • List Management

    • Group Selecting Items from a List is Counter Intuitive
      • When you are group selecting items from a list with shift - such as a list of emails in Mail or and list of files/folders in Finder or names in Address Book - the selecting behaviour seems very wrong. Try this... take Finder, in single column mode, and go to a folder that has a few files in it. Select an item (file or folder) with a single click near the middle so that it's highlighted (blue). Now hold down the shift key and arrow up so that a bunch of files get selected (blued). Now say you've gone too far and you want to come back on yourself. What's the most intuitive thing to do? You continue holding down the shift key and simply start pressing the down arrow key to deselect, right? Wrong! That action (hitting a shifted down arrow) will select those items below the first item that you highlighted. Now, that's what I call really counter intuitive and very confusing. In effect, the cursor has jumped in hyper-space when you switch arrow keys. See: http://daringfireball.net/2006/08/highly_selective

  • Top Menu Bar

    • Recent Items List Control
      • Be able to list items by size, modified date, name, etc.
    • Clock Format

  • Display

    • Resolution Independent Graphical User Interface
      • It's a biggy. Currently all Apple LCDs have around 100 DPI (Dots Per Inch). But LCDs are now achieving 200 DPI. Currently, all the fonts and, most importantly, the icons and interface widgets would be half the size. Not good. Very bad for the eyes. The user needs to be able to set the size of the icons to the resolution they want. There's a better way to word that I know.

  • Window Management

    • Snap Windows
      • Should be able to snap application windows together so they move as one. And resizing a window, say bigger, would make the other smaller.
        • For an idea of how this could be done take a look at a Microsoft demo. It's pretty cool.
    • Window Resizing
      • Should be able to resize a window from any corner and any edge not just the bottom right corner.
    • Window Maximising
      • Enable the option of double clicking the top bar of an application window to maximise it.

  • Dock

    • Minimised Applications
      • Minimised applications should update their display whilst in the Dock. Quicktime currently does this but others do not (like Safari).
    • Springloaded Folders in Dock
      • It shoud be possible to drag and drop directly in to the Dock, like in Finder windows and the sidebars.
    • CMD+TAB And CMD+`
      • CMD+TAB cycles through applications and allows toggling (one click CMD+TAB then remove both figures and then CMD+TAB again takes you back to the same application. CMD+does the same for instances of one application but doesn't allow for toggling but it should. Also, much like we have a grey bar come up containing all the open applications with CMD+TAB so we should have a grey bar come up containing all the instances of one application with CMD+. CMD+TAB stacks your most used applications to the left hand side of the grey bar and so should CMD+`. (just like shareware witch)
    • categories
      • Allow to group by categories in the dock so one icon represents office for example, and when clicked it expands with a vertical dock with the apps inside (similar to CDE but nicer)
    • space
      • Allow to put little space between 2 buttons to have better GUI experience
    • other program list (optional button)
      • Click on this button to just see all other programs that are not active/not in dock so you can load them faster
    • Make button be fixed
      • Prevent exedently deleting things by making the dock have a fixed mode, that only allows starting things (not removing/moving dock items)
    • App switcher
      • when in cmd tab mode, up and down arrow cycle through instances of currently highlighted app. Window shows as mini preview icon that is displayed at front of a circle of icons that move into the background of the screen. When press up or down the next icon comes closer and the previous icon moves down and further away.

  • Drawers

    • Provide Drawer Alternative
      • Some applications use drawers (like Mail) and some don't (like Safari or iTunes). Let the user decide if they want to have drawers. Drawers change the size of the application footprint on the Desktop and this can be a pain sometimes.

  • Themes

    • Widget colours
      • Allow more than graphite and blue for buttons etc (iPod mini colours?, old iMac colours?)
    • Brushed Metal
      • Allow different looks for brushed metal (Steel, chrome, copper, anodised (inc ipod mini colours?), circle polished)
    • Aqua
      • A couple of alternative themes to Aqua (old aqua - 10.0 - 10.4, black onyx look - similar to GarageBand, minus wood , the grey professional apps look)
    • Consistent UI
      • Let the user have every application looking the same please.

  • Text Manipulation

    • Auto Complete
      • The new Complete F5 option in the Edit menu of Mail and some other text markup applications is great. But it needs more work so that you can just switch on the auto complete as you type mode. That'll be fun. ;-)

  • Fonts

    • Grey On Metal
      • Grey fonts on a metal background make for more trips to the optician. Sort it.
    • Global User Define
      • All font sizes and styles should be user defined on a global level by the user.
    • Anti-Aliasing
      • Needs to be improved so that straight lines in fonts don't get blurred edges for small fornts.
    • Purchase fonts
      • Implement the ability to purchase fonts from apple in font book or another app (placeholder page been on apple.com for a while)
    • Minimum Font Size
      • Must be able to set a minimum front size for all applications. Right now some applications have fonts so small that people are getting eyestrain - especially pro-apps. Resolution independence wont solve this issue as it will make the whole application window larger - including fonts AND graphics/widgets. We don't need graphics/widgets enlarged - only the fonts. Need to be able to cope with people setting a minimum front size of 20 without messing up the display. Or another way of putting it: independently scalable application user interface fonts.

  • Tabs

    • Implement tabs on all applications where it makes sense.
      • Tabs in: Safari, iChat, Terminal
      • Tabs not in: Finder, Mail

System

  • Open And Save Dialogue

    • Fast Find
      • Fast find should be in open and save dialogue too in the top right just like with Finder.
    • Folders
      • Should be able to drag folders into left most column in open and save dialogue just like with Finder.
    • Icon View
      • Should show icon view in open and save dialogue just like with Finder.

  • Software Update

    • Open up API
      • Apple should open up Software Update so that all third party applications can use it - I heard this as a rumour but not sure what happened. It would be lovely. Install and uninstall (when they've built it) should be opened up to third parties too. Although it's simple, we really shouldn't have to drag apps into the Applications folder. Seamless is the word and that means no seams. ;-)
        • This could be done via integrating DarwinPorts, but with a GUI, - xPorts anyone? Allow this to be used to find Sherlock channels and Dashboard widgets

  • Preferences

    • Default Applications
      • The default web browser and mail client should be set in main preferences and not in Safari and Mail preferences.
    • Keyboard Shortcuts
      • Need to be able to set shortcuts for nested menu items. The current interface doesn't work well (or at all) for applications that have menu items that have the same text for different menu items - like "Trash". Need to show nested menu items with a ">>" or as a url like "Mailbox/Use This Mailbox For/Trash".
      • In the main drop down menu bar beside most menu items are listed the keyboard shortcuts. Wouldn't it be great to have a little button, beside the menu item, that would enable the keyboard shortcut to be set or modified. Perhaps these buttons are hidden until a special key is pressed. Also, if this menu item was generic to all applications then a dialogue could ask "set this keyboard shortcut for all applications?"

  • Trash

    • Delete Options
      • Be able to trash individual items in the trash can and/or specify a holding period before the system automatically removes items for you.

  • Audio

    • System Mixer
      • Right now we can have audio coming from all kinds of applications simultaneously. What we need is a simple mixer that can mute, solo and change the volume coming from each application chucking out audio. This is effectively a bunch of remotes for the volume associated with each application.
        • So, now you're grouping application functionality in one place. Could do this for grouping other application functions too.

  • Shut Down

    • Hibernation
      • The ability for the machine to write out the full contents of RAM to disk and then shut down so you can restart and resume exactly where you were.

  • Fast User Switching

    • Displayed Name
      • Allow to be changed to first name, nickname or icon

  • Backgrounds

    • More media types
      • Allow animated backgrounds (Quicktime, flash, WebKit?) to allow gradually changing backgrounds (see EarthDesk for an app that hacks this to nice effect)

  • Database

    • Access to local database for applications
      • Local lightweight datasbase (Berkley DB XML?) available with framework to access via cocoa (EOF in cocoa return from dead?)

  • Cocoa

    • Binding
      • More bindings to cocoa out of the box - Ruby, Python, Perl, Groovy

  • Clipboard

    • Multiple Objects
      • Enable the clipboard (for copy and paste) to contain multiple objects.

  • Spelling

    • Auto Correction as You Type
      • System-wide spelling is great but how about system-wide auto correction as you type too?
    • Dictionary.app should mirror spelling's dictionary
      • Currently we're getting the same word that is recognised by Dictionary.app but not by the spelling system. What's going on here then?

Apple Mac OS X versions and release dates:

  • Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah - Released March 24, 2001
  • Mac OS X 10.1 Puma - Released September 25, 2001
  • Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar - Released August 23, 2002
  • Mac OS X 10.3 Panther - Released October 24, 2003
  • Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger - Released April 29, 2005
  • Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard - Released October 26, 2007
  • Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Released August 28, 2009
  • Mac OS X 10.7 Hidden Dragon? - To be released 2011?

Other Apple Mac OS X wish lists on the web (add 'em if you find more):

Where is this page in Google:

Please add your own ideas. Add your name, email or URL in the comments, if you want to. Try to stick to the following format for listing OS X improvements (or keep it logical anyhow). See a template at the bottom of this page. It is important that your text is all on one line.

  • Name - the application, user interface or system area.
    • Short description - (a few words) for the improvement you want to see in this area.
      • Long - description full details of the improvement you want to see in this area.
        • Comment - A short comment.

Template:

  • Name
    • Short
      • Long
        • Comment