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User convenience the focus for Apple on upcoming OS updates

The recent Apple patent for “scrollable menus and toolbars” indicates that Apple will continue to add similar features to iOS and Mac OS X. As I’ve said before, I think eventually there will only be one operating system, Apple OS, in computer and mobile versions.

The patent in question also shows further evolution of the Mac OS X Finder with the replacement of hierarchical computer menus by a scrollable window, in which functions would be more clearly displayed and navigated by gestures. Those gestures on a Mac would be made on a laptop trackpad, Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad.

At last week’s MacTech Conference, Mac guru pundit Andy Ihnatko said Mac OS X Lion shows a move toward non-hierarchical menu structures and “uni-tasking.” (“Multitasking is 95% a lie,” he said.)

With the scrollable menus and toolbars patent, you’ll be offered a menu that includes several selectable menu items assigned a particular order for scrolling through a selection window based on user input. In other words, as well put by Jonny Evans in his “Apple Holic” column (http://blogs.computerworld.com/17310/patent_says_apples_lion_boasts_scrollable_menus), “user convenience becomes ever more important, and navigation of an application’s features becomes ever more transparent.”

That’s certainly the Apple way.

— Dennis Sellers

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