14 DAY TRIAL // Citing a reliable source familiar with Apple matters, Macstories believes it has managed to grab exclusive details about Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”, particularly the fact that some iOS elements are making their way into the Mac OS.
The source allegedly tells the site that “iOS influence is visible in the new […] user interface, but it’s still very much Aqua-based.” Reportedly, “Apple took some elements from iOS and applied them to OS X, trying to blend everything nicely.”
Apparently, “the first big news” is that scroll bars and scrolling behavior in the new OS X is identical to that in iOS. Hopefully the source meant to say the first big news regarding the iOS-like elements, not the entire range of OS X 10.7 enhancements.
The change would replace the Aqua scroll bars, and perhaps other UI elements, with a more minimal-looking design.
The “rubber band” elastic scrolling iOS allegedly “works really well and feels natural”, the source told Macstories.
The site explains that the function works like the current inertial scrolling, yet when theuser hits the top or bottom of a scroll view it “rubber bands”.
There will also be a “pull to refresh” feature that allegedly feels native on OS X.
Quick Look, Mac OS X’s ability to quickly show a preview of any supported file as the user selects it and hits the Space bar, is reportedly getting a few enhancements as well.
The source noted that Mac OS X 10.7 will feature an all-new white Quick Look UI, instead of translucent black.
Quick Look now does popovers, the source added. Macstories updated their report to include a mockup of what the feature would look like, after explaining how it works: “if you highlight a document in the Spotlight menu and it can be ‘Quick Look’d’, a popover with detailed info about the document will appear after a second.”