Mac OS X Panther Feature? 'Piles' (The Patent Description)
This US Patent Application (appears better in IE than Safari) gives the nitty-gritty details of Apple's implementation of 'Piles' (AKA 'Method and Apparatus for Organizing Information in a Computer System'):
The patent was filed in 1994, but has gained interest with recent rumors that the next major revision of Mac OS X (Panther) will utilize this design.
The function of a pile is, of course, the grouping of documents. While a good description was provided by this AskTog article, it spawned a surprising amount of confusion regarding implementation amongst readers.
For those interested, the Patent description provides more details on the actual implementation and also describes advanced sorting/searching functions, including:
- analysis of the content of a document in a pile
- automatically filing new documents according to criteria (date, content etc...)
- piles looking neat or disheavled per user preferences
- create/sort into subpiles based on criteria (date, content etc...)
- script based sorting of documents
Popular Stories
Apple today released a new Pride Edition Sport Loop for the Apple Watch. The band features a rainbow design with 11 colors of woven nylon yarns.
The new Pride Edition Sport Loop is available to order now on Apple.com and in the Apple Store app in 40mm, 42mm, and 46mm sizes, and it will be available at Apple Store locations starting later this week. In the U.S., the band costs $49.
There...
iOS 26.5 includes three new features for iPhones, according to Apple's release notes for the update, which is expected to be released next week.
As discovered during beta testing, iOS 26.5 enables end-to-end encryption for RCS messaging between iOS and Android devices. Apple says this security upgrade is limited to supported carriers around the world and will continue to roll out....
Instagram will remove end-to-end encryption for direct messages between users from May 8, 2026. When the date comes around, Meta will potentially be able to see the contents of all messages between users on the social media platform.
Encrypting messages has been an optional feature in Instagram since 2023, but in March of this year the social media platform quietly updated a help page to say ...
