Apple's new animated operating system 8 Jun 2007

From Wired:

"At the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, [Steve] Jobs will probably show off Leopard, a Mac OS X update due in October that he has promised contains 'top secret' features. But perhaps the most important feature is one that has been overlooked by many Apple fans: a new set of tools for building program interfaces called Core Animation.

"Core Animation will allow programmers to give their applications flashy, animated interfaces. Some developers think Core Animation is so important, it will usher in the biggest changes to computer interfaces since the original Mac shipped three decades ago...

"...[Wil Shipley, developer of the personal media-cataloging application Delicious Library] predicts that Core Animation will kick-start a new era of interface experimentation, and may lead to an entirely new visual language for designing desktop interfaces. The traditional desktop may become a multilayered three-dimensional environment where windows flip around or zoom in and out. Double-clicks and keystrokes could give way to mouse gestures and other forms of complex user input.

"The Core Animation 'revolution' is already starting to happen. Apple's iPhone at the end of the month will see people using their fingers to flip through media libraries, and pinching their fingers together to resize photos."

More information about Core Animation is available here. Don't waste your time watching the promotional video at the top of the page though, unlike the recent iPhone promo, it tells you nothing.