This Week's Sponsor:

FastMinder

A Simple, Lightweight, and Clutter-Free Intermittent Fasting Tracking Experience


Apple Considering Scrollable Menus and Toolbars For Lion and iOS 5?

A new European patent filing discovered by Patently Apple details how Apple might implement different interaction methods for menus and toolbars in the next version of OS X, Lion, and in the future iteration of their mobile operating system, iOS. The patent, filed in Q2 1010 and published last week, shows two specific models: scrollable menus and toolbars.

The main concept behind the patent is that menus and toolbars take too much space on screen, and the large majority of users don’t need to look at these elements all the time. To save space and implement multitouch gesture-based navigation in menus, there could be a way to scroll through toolbar icons and dropdown menus both on the desktop and iPhone / iPad.

To begin with, Apple states that their invention provides a novel method for presenting a menu in a graphical user interface. The menu includes several selectable menu items that are assigned in a particular order for scrolling through a selection window based on user input. In some embodiments, each of the menu items is associated with a command. When a menu item is in the selection window, a user could select the menu item in order to perform the command associated with the menu item.

The menu items may be displayed as standard text items in some embodiments (e.g., “File”, “Save”, “Print”, etc.) or may be displayed as icons (e.g., icons representing various tools, such as drawing tools, video editing tools, etc.).

As you can see in the screenshots above, the icon visualization of toolbar items looks particularly interesting. Instead of having fixed elements in every application, users could invoke a linear or semi-circular “menu” and scroll through icons to enable different functionalities. A linear visualization would admittedly make more sense on mobile devices, where real screen estate is limited. It sort of reminds me of Apple’s implementation of dropdown menus on webpages, which are automatically rendered in an iOS fashion on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

We previously reported about iOS scrolling system (rubber-banding) and deeper popover integration coming to OS X ahead of Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event in October. Such as complete reinvention of menus and toolbars would certainly be interesting to see on mobile (perhaps in iOS 5, as Patently Apple suggest), though I’m skeptical about Mac OS X 10.7 getting this kind of makeover. As seen in Back to the Mac’s Lion demo, the standard OS X menubar is still there, for instance.

Unlock More with Club MacStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for over six years.

In that time, members have enjoyed nearly 400 weekly and monthly newsletters packed with more of your favorite MacStories writing as well as Club-only podcasts, eBooks, discounts on apps, icons, and services. Join today, and you’ll get everything new that we publish every week, plus access to our entire archive of back issues and downloadable perks.

The Club expanded in 2021 with Club MacStories+ and Club Premier. Club MacStories+ members enjoy even more exclusive stories, a vibrant Discord community, a rotating roster of app discounts, and more. And, with Club Premier, you get everything we offer at every Club level plus an extended, ad-free version of our podcast AppStories that is delivered early each week in high-bitrate audio.

Choose the Club plan that’s right for you:

  • Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with app collections, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, a Club-only podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
  • Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus exclusive content like Federico’s Automation Academy and John’s Macintosh Desktop Experience, a powerful web app for searching and exploring over 6 years of content and creating custom RSS feeds of Club content, an active Discord community, and a rotating collection of discounts, and more;
  • Club Premier: Everything in from our other plans and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.