Apple Working On Automated Desktop Pictures
Various sites are reporting on a patent application released today (number 20070085854) entitled "System and method for computing a desktop picture." The abstract reads:
In summary, Apple seems to be leveraging the programmability of today's modern GPUs to be able to create computed desktop pictures that can be constantly updated to changing situations on the user's desktop.
Apple suggests that situations such as logging in or out, waking from sleep, or coming out from a screen-saver are currently too jarring, and the invention hopes to make this experience more seamless. Also mentioned is a tool that would allow designers to edit and specify the user experience.
Apple also seems to be conscious about system resources, mentioning several times about opportunities to free resources for use by other applications.
Patent applications can provide interesting insight into what concepts or technologies Apple is working on in their labs, however readers are reminded that only a subset of these applications will make it into final shipping products.
Disclosed are a system and method for computing a desktop picture. Instead of loading a file that contains the desktop image from memory, the present invention provides for a system and method for opening and retaining a procedural recipe and a small set of instructions that can be executed to compute a desktop picture. The desktop picture can be computed very quickly using a GPU (graphics processing unit), and can be made to move on demand. When a part of the desktop image is needed to composite, that part is computed using a fragment program on the GPU using the procedural recipe and a specially written fragment program into a temporary VRAM buffer. After it is computed and composited, the buffer containing the result of the fragment program may be discarded.
In summary, Apple seems to be leveraging the programmability of today's modern GPUs to be able to create computed desktop pictures that can be constantly updated to changing situations on the user's desktop.
Apple suggests that situations such as logging in or out, waking from sleep, or coming out from a screen-saver are currently too jarring, and the invention hopes to make this experience more seamless. Also mentioned is a tool that would allow designers to edit and specify the user experience.
Apple also seems to be conscious about system resources, mentioning several times about opportunities to free resources for use by other applications.
Patent applications can provide interesting insight into what concepts or technologies Apple is working on in their labs, however readers are reminded that only a subset of these applications will make it into final shipping products.
Top Rated Comments
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63 months ago
Awesome idea, another good reason to wait for Leopard, that is if this will even be used there
63 months ago
I don't find coming out of sleep, booting up or coming out of the screen saver too jarring. Oh well, whatever works.
63 months ago
really impressive technology. seems rather obvious for evolution of the os, but to read more on it and the possible uses of this feature. i would be hopeful to see this feature on a beta @ wwdc07. in that same statement, i would have to include disappointment if this was one of the top secret features.
can't wait to see it. :)
can't wait to see it. :)
63 months ago
I'd be interested to see what factors could be used to influence that background image. Are we talking about a visualization like what we see in iTunes (although probably slower) that takes certain events into account (like the cpu utilization, or sound output), or could it be the desktop interacting with windows on top of it (similar to the ripple effect when adding a widget to the dashboard)?
Considering Apple's love of fading reflections in things like Coverflow, I can definitely picture something similar with the desktop. I hope that if they implement it, they'll put enough effort into design so that the options we have will all be usable and really improve the experience. Apple's generally been good at giving us only a few very good choices, as opposed to MS giving users the ability to tweak everything and leaving it up to users to make sane choices.
Considering Apple's love of fading reflections in things like Coverflow, I can definitely picture something similar with the desktop. I hope that if they implement it, they'll put enough effort into design so that the options we have will all be usable and really improve the experience. Apple's generally been good at giving us only a few very good choices, as opposed to MS giving users the ability to tweak everything and leaving it up to users to make sane choices.
63 months ago
What so you wouldnt need to wake from sleep or turn the computer on? Just press a button or move the mouse and its there? I dont really understand xD
63 months ago
63 months ago
Does that mean there is a posibility of having animated icons aswell?
If so I hope they're optional. :eek:
63 months ago
I guess I don't get it. What the heck is so "jarring" when logging in/out of an account in Mac OS X??? I hope this is not the kind of stuff Steve meant when he said "Top Secret Features". I hope this is not what is delaying Leopard til October. I mean, DAMN! Instead of this crap why doesn't Apple do some things that matter - like make it easy to administer a network of 10,000 Macs! Like a real competitor to Active Directory. Like really pursue the enterprise. Like work on making generic PC drivers work with OS X so I can buy a mini tower from Dell for ~$600 and run a supported version of OS X.
:mad:
:mad:
63 months ago
Its like the cube transition from fast user switching.
In fact that is probably what this refers to.
In fact that is probably what this refers to.
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