14 DAY TRIAL // Just yesterday we talked about the few new features of Snow Leopard revealed by a bunch of developer screenshots. But Snow Leopard's ability to create desktop web applications isn't the only new addition / change, Roughly Drafted notes. A multi-touch framework as well as considerably smaller applications have also been confirmed within the latest version of Apple's OS.
An AppleInsider piece reveals that Snow Leopard's new multi-touch framework is close to finish. "Apple is putting the finishing touches on a complete multi-touch framework that will ship as part of Snow Leopard," the web site notes, claiming Roughly Drafted cited their own sources as well.
Basically, the new multi-touch framework will consist of "code libraries." It is allegedly going to sport functions that even "ordinary developers" will be able to manipulate and turn their apps into multi-touch-capable programs. It will be quite easy too, the tech web site notes.
As an example of a multi-touch framework, take Christian Moore's Lux-free open framework which enables true multi-touch interaction in Mac OS X, with complex user interfaces and object manipulation. A Full-Screen Multitouch Mac OS X demo and a developer interview are also available HERE.
As for the smaller apps, a widely reported change with Snow Leopard, Roughly Drafted says it's real. The publications also offered a graph comparing Leopard's and Snow Leopard's apps in megabytes. Available to the left for everyone to glance at, the changes are more than obvious, especially when it comes to Apple's Mail application, iChat, Automator, Preview and Quick Time. The standard Mac OS X Utility folder alone has seen a drop from 468 MB to just 111.6 MB in size.
Reducing the size of Snow Leopard's apps is part of Apple's goal "to reduce the overall footprint of Mac OS X so that it can be scaled to a growing array of mobile devices that will rely on lower capacity solid-state Flash RAM drives, like the upcoming Apple Newton Web tablet," AppleInsider reveals.