Today we want to give you a preview of Leopard. First I want to tell you there are some top secret features that we’re keeping close to the chest.

Steven P. Jobs, August 2006

Why Steve? It’s very annoying! The most glaring Leopard omission was regarding the Finder- supposedly codenamed Chardonnay - Apple essentially said nada, nothing. I think we have some good indications of what Apple has been researching- will they become the new Finder? I don’t know but the Finder sure needs (and will get) a makeover – bring it on. Let’s have a look at what little they did announce.

Even Apple’s official screen shot offers no clues to the new Finder – Can you spot any hint of a Finder window anywhere?

Recap: what has been announced?

Boolean Spotlight Searches in Leopard
phew!, about time. If you have 300 pet leopards and tigers like me with their own websites (no, not really) it was getting really difficult to find photos of Leopard or Tiger the OS X revisions- solved (sort of) with a search of (leopard OR tiger) AND screenshot NOT animal (Ok, a terrible example why don’t you have a look at John Siracusa says about the drawbacks of Tiger’s spotlight).
OS 9 Apple Menu Redux: Spotlight Menu is the new Dock
The Spotlight menu will now be the Swiss Army knife of menus- a search menu sure, but it also keeps track of recent files, photos, presentations, PDFs AND (see this Boolean stuff is coming in handy) it will also be an application launcher – type a couple of letters and return and WAMMO! a random application opens. Apple squeezing all this into the Spotlight menu means to me that they are now going to use a much smaller font (to fit it all in) or perhaps it will expand sideways to occlude the whole screen (more likely).

Core animation to make a splash (effect) in the Finder?
Why not, what better way to win across those dithering Windows users- maybe they aren’t convinced by overly reflective blacker than black screens and need more fancy animations (don’t we all).
New Voice for Universal Access – why such a long show and tell in the keynote?

The answer must be that the voice was what Apple wanted to show off (as laudable as better Universal Access is). A good voice synthesis system will be an important means of feedback for systems such as home theatre, iPods or a well integrated iPhone (Apple has applied for patents for pre-recorded voice feedback for iPods and phones – they may even sell celebrities voices).

Spaces – multidesktops A great idea- I know a couple of people who swear by the concept- personally (and I know it’s a flaw), I can’t quite manage to have different desktops. For me, out of sight = out of mind – i just send windows off to other ‘Spaces’ and they don’t come back. A lot depends on the implementation but I remain to be convinced.

Spinder: What is the new Finder going to be?
So much more remains to be told – What hasn’t been announced?
Spinder The Spotlight – Finder merge I think is the most likely to occur. Either through a better in Finder-window search interface (see below) or even better a Semantic Finder .

My prediction is the Spinder will be born a Leopard.