While developers have been privy to pre-releases of Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system for quite some time, those distributions have been stripped of several features including a major UI overhaul that the company is now preparing for broader consumption, AppleInsider has been told.

People familiar with the matter say the next developer build of the software will unleash some of the biggest changes to the next-gen OS since Apple first previewed the software to developers at last June’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Among the changes under consideration for the new build is a striking overhaul to the Mac OS X user interface, which is expected to surrender its platinum theme. Apple has reportedly been working on this new interface since day one, despite public claims that Snow Leopard would forgo forward-facing improvements for a focus strictly on under-the-hood enhancements.

Still, those familiar with the situation say it’s not clear whether management has given the green light to include the UI changes in an incremental developer build. The concern is that those changes will inevitably leak on the web, and therefore they may preserve them for an official demonstration during the company’s spring Worldwide Developers Conference.

These latest reports add to previous claims that similarly predicted Apple would eventually wrap Snow Leopard in a new interface rumored to go by the code-name “marble.” Details were sparse, but speculation pointed to the adoption of the smoother iTunes-style scrollbars and a move towards a darker chrome motif for application windows alongside an inverted menubar with light text on a dark background.

Interface elements and colors of the rumored “Marble” theme.

It’s possible that Apple may have already tipped its hand to this end earlier this month when it included the first external builds of its QuickTime X Player with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard build 10A286. The software included a new minimal interface consisting only of a titlebar, leaving all playback controls to reside in floating interface overlays.

Another artist’s mockup of the minimal QuickTime X Player window interface with the “trim” tools overlay.

The titlebar itself (seen in the artist rendition, above) is reminiscent of the iPhone’s semi-transparent black glass interface but is also capable of adopting hues from the video frames playing beneath it. Although seen in the rendering as sporting a purplish hue (due to the underlying blue video frame) the titlebar appears glass-black when set atop a white or tan-colored video frame.

Story Highlights

• Next Snow Leopard builds to include big changes
• Snow Leopard to be wrapped in new interface ahead of launch
• WWDC to offer finalized preview, release date
• Snow Leopard to hit retail within two months of WWDC
• Upcoming iPhone OS 3 beta to activate live Push Notification support

As it stands, Apple reportedly plans to use its WWDC 2009 to preview a feature complete version of Snow Leopard and announce a formal release date. Based on the current status of the software, those familiar with the project say the company will need approximately two months from this public preview to fine tune the software. Assuming WWDC takes place in June, that would suggest a release around August.

In somewhat related news, company engineers are also racing to deliver a new build of iPhone Software 3.0 to iPhone and iPod touch developers. One of the big features destined for this build is said to be live support for Push Notifications through Apple’s servers, which is currently undergoing some final internal tests.

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My good friend Ryan called this morning to bounce some 3G iPhone questions around and he brought up that he had seen Flash Player mentioned in the 371 page US Patent Application for the new 3G iPhone.

At the moment I didn’t really pay much attention to it as I was up to my you know what in some work, but now that it is close to lunch I took a couple minutes to search through the document and I came across some Interesting stuff. Flash, WMP, Quicktime, Video Camera, GPS (that has been well documented in the past), Video Chat, Blog and more, I’ll just touch on a couple of them for now.

Flash is first mentioned here:

“[0778]FIGS. 40A-40F illustrate exemplary user interfaces for playing an item of inline multimedia content in accordance with some embodiments.

[0779]In some embodiments, user interfaces 4000A-4000F include the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof: [0780]402, 404, 406, 3902, 3906, 3910, 3912, 3918, 3920, 3922, as described above; [0781]inline multimedia content 4002, such as QuickTime content (4002-1), Windows Media content (4002-2), or Flash content (4002-3); [0782]other types of content 4004 in the structured document”

Then here:

“[0794]A first gesture (e.g., 4028, FIG. 40A) is detected on an item of inline multimedia content (e.g., 4002-1, FIG. 40A) in the displayed portion of the structured electronic document. In some embodiments, the inline multimedia content comprises video and/or audio content. In some embodiments, the content can be played with a QuickTime, Windows Media, or Flash plugin.”

Does this mean that embedded flash (and Quicktime) content will be able to be viewed on the 3G iPhone in Safari? Live Streaming Flash Video is currently used to broadcast content to hundreds of millions of users daily. The company I work for builds Flash Streaming Video CMS’s, so I can personally attest to the fact that it is in high demand and we have built/implemented them for everything form small events to news channels.

This would be a fantastic way to bring live streaming TV via a flash stream to the iPhone. It would work perfectly over 3G and wifi, and would open up the iPhone users to a world of content, dare I say, bigger than YouTube.

With Apple also reinventing .Mac into the rumored Mobile.me it may also offer on demand video in Quicktime format too to 3G iPhone users. So you can quickly and easily share and watch your Quicktime videos that are either online or on your Mac.

Speaking of Video

[0112]The device 100 may also include one or more optical sensors 164. FIGS. 1A and 1B show an optical sensor coupled to an optical sensor controller 158 in I/O subsystem 106. The optical sensor 164 may include charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistors. The optical sensor 164 receives light from the environment, projected through one or more lens, and converts the light to data representing an image. In conjunction with an imaging module 143 (also called a camera module), the optical sensor 164 may capture still images or video. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of the device 100, opposite the touch screen display 112 on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display may be used as a viewfinder for either still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user’s image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the position of the optical sensor 164 can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor 164 may be used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

That quote form the US Patent Application, along with the diagram which shows item 164 mentioned, clearly indicates that a front facing camera will be present for video conferencing along with the ability for the camera on the back on the iPhone to record Video.

Again these added features all make sense, and will all work quite nicely with the new Mobile.me service Apple is rumored to be launching soon. Users will be able to record videos with their iPhone, upload them to their profile/blog (yes you see the blog icon there on the patent diagram submitted by Apple), share it with friends and access them from anywhere.

I can’t wait to see what is really delivered next week at the WWDC 2008.

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