My top X unlikely requests for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Major new features in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard like Time Machine are great, but I've been thinking about all the other a ects of the Mac OS X experience that could use some it and polish from A le's engineers. They've done a fantastic job building a damn impre ive OS over the years, but that doe 't mean there i 't room for improvements both big and small (besides: they have to keep their OS product cycle on a good pace). Following is a list of 10 unlikely requests I have for the next version of Mac OS X that might not be worthy of a Stevenote, but they could bring smiles and sighs of satisfied relief to many a user:

• Removing a licatio - and all their baggage: Deleting (or "uni talling") an a on Mac OS X is easy: you just move it to the trash. But what about all the extra data a create when you use them (databases, media libraries, etc.)? Sure there are 3rd party a like A Za er that truly remove the a and all those extras, but I think Leopard needs an integrated, obvious and thorough proce for removing a and their extra baggage (perha A Za er could go the way of CoverFlow?). I can't count the number of times I've been asked how to do it by users both old and new. This method could include a dialog when dragging an a to the trash which asks the user if they want to nuke the 'extra' files like A lication Su ort directories and preferences. I know many a don't leave much behind, but it all can pile up, and there are at least a few a that really know how to go le up the mega and gigabytes. To help everyone get on the same page though, a dedicated System Preferences pane would work best.
  
• Don't make me eject an idle drive: This one is always a tricky conversation, and I should disclose up front that I am certainly no developer. All I know is that it seems just a little strange in the year 2006 (or 2007, once Leopard is released) that I still have to eject a flash drive I haven't touched in two hours. Mac OS X is now both smart and pretty - I don't think it should be that hard to implement some kind of smart ejection system that can eject the drive when not in use, but fire it back up when needed. Further, if we set my lazy nerd ambitio aside for a moment, I'm sure this would save the lives of countle finance reports and term papers for all those users who don't understand what 'ejecting' a drive mea or why they have to do it.

• Multi-disc a ing throughout: iTunes, at least since version 4 (and po ibly earlier?), has been smart about a ing data/backup bur acro multiple discs if the media you're burning exceeds the size of the CD/DVD you i erted. In other words: it's darn smart about backing stuff up. I think it'd be great if iTunes would share some of its secrets with the rest of Mac OS X and its 3rd parties so *everything* can be smart about a ing multiple discs when burning. Finder - I'm looking you dead square in the eye, and iPhoto is next in line.
  
• Learn some things from the Windows Start button: Before you delete TUAW from your bookmarks, hear me out. The Finder's menus, e ecially the Go menu as well as the A le menu, more or le all tag-team most of the same 'launch pad' functio that the Windows Start button offers, but I think they could use some fleshing out. For example: the Go menu offers shortcuts to locatio in the Finder, such as the A licatio menu - why not turn that A licatio location into a dynamic menu that allows direct acce to clickable a lication aliases? Why make me open a Finder window at all?
  
• Full NTFS friendline : This i 't just coming from my Boot Camp-using side, as I hear woes from cla mates and employees acro the web, a oyed that Mac OS X can't write to NTFS drives (the default file system for the latest versio of Microsoft Windows). Sure it can read them, but it can't write anything to them - an o oxious roadblock for those using external hard drives formatted by these latest versio of Windows, as well as Boot Camp users who can't dump files onto the very Windows partitio Boot Camp creates for them. This request is further driven by the fact that I've found cheap ($30) utilities on the Windows side for reading Mac OS X's HFS+ drives, why can't Mac OS X write to NTFS drives? In other words: it's going to be 2007 when Leopard lands - these OSes should be able to eak each others' languages. [< an style="font-weight: bold;">Update: I thought I had seen a utility for Mac OS X to write to NTFS drives, but I can't remember its name and readers are commenting that it doe 't exist, in part on account of Microsoft not releasing code for it.[
  
• Polish your integration: This one is a little harder to articulate, but sit back for moment and think about all those little areas where a lication integration is such a dream, yet one little quirk brings the house of cards tumbling down. My best example: iPhoto + Desktop %26am Screen Saver preferences. Oh sure, iPhoto's albums a ear in that System Preference Pane, but since the last one or two versio of iPhoto, they can no longer be used to randomly change wallpaper the option grays out. Unle , of course, you select an album or a few images in iPhoto, then chose Share > Desktop. But then that produces the bizarre behavior of opening the Desktop %26am Screen Saver Preference Pane... you see where I'm going here? It i 't a seamle experience, and what's worse: in my example, it *used* to work properly with iPhoto '04.
• Make the scree hot proce more obvious: I know this one might u et a few 3rd party developers, but taking a scree hot in Mac OS X is a fundamental yet still cryptic proce . Traditional PC keyboards have a better-known 'Print Screen' key, and when you co ider that nearly 50% of new Mac users are Windows switchers, you already have a good case for *something* to be done. Now pile on the fact that ti for taking scree hots with native Mac OS X tools are still circulating the Mac web, and it's clear that plenty of users both old and new are confused on the proce . What's worse: an a called "Grab," buried in the Utilities folder where many users inarguably don't venture (just like the u ung Services menu), i 't helping matters either. This is another area where I think Windows, at least the new Vista, has a good idea: a dedicated, more powerful new screenca ing a called " i ets" is in the Start menu; perha one of the places with the best odds of catching a user's attention. [< an style="font-weight: bold;">Update: yes, the *proce * of taking a scree hot (cmd - shift - 3/4) is inarguably easy on Mac OS X, but I still maintain that *learning* about that proce and Grab.a is cryptic for users both old and new. Besides the Help files, I can't find that keyboard shortcut listed anywhere in Mac OS X - not even in Grab.a itself. < an style="font-weight: bold;">Update 2: Readers have pointed out that the scree hot keyboard shortcut is also buried in the Keyboard %26am Mouse Preference Pane. Touch%26eacute;, but I would still argue that i 't quite as obvious as it could or should be.]
  
• To click-through, or not to?: Another somewhat a tract Mac OS X behavior, but it makes a lot of difference to most users whether they know it or not. John Gruber has written at length about click-through in Mac OS X, as it's an element of an OS that can really smooth out the ride. In summary: click-through is a behavior which allows a button or other element of an a lication to be clicked on and activated when it i 't in the foreground (and it also relates to how a in the background look, such as dimmed butto and search fields). Windows treats nearly everything as a button, no matter which a or window layer it's sitting on, and a good portion of Mac OS X decidedly does not (this i 't the post to discu why, but the cliff notes reason is that it's a usability desicion). However, some a , like the Finder (and until recently, Safari), still do exhibit this behavior, and it can make for an awkward and u ure experience. While it can be argued that click-through is useful in some ecific i tances, such as being able to pause/play music from iTunes regardle of whether the a is in the fore/background (and I would agree), this behaviorneeds to get cleaned up acro the rest of the system and 3rd party a to help standardize the experience.
  
• Offers a quick tutorial for new(ish) users: Something that plays on the first boot of Mac OS X and is easy to exit, save for later or never see again. Granted, this is also something driven by the wave of new users switching to the Mac, but let's face it: users both old and new could benefit from a quick tutorial of working with Mac OS X, as well as some of the behavioral differences from Windows. This includes little things like using cmd-delete for moving files to the trash, as well as all the extra goodne A le has baked into the OS, like FTP ability and system-wide ell checking that sometimes needs to be manually enabled (I'm looking at you, Safari). This could preemptively a wer a lot of newbie questio , as well as provide a pleasant, multimedia experience for new users who have just landed on foreign territory. Bonus points for using the much-hyped new eech services in Leopard for all the directio and voice-overs.
  
• Release the long-rumored 'Home on iPod' feature: Maybe this one i 't that 'unlikely' since rumors have made the rounds on the Mac web for at least a couple years now, but I've been salivating for this feature since I heard about it. iPods are getting pretty acious these days, and users are on the go and working on multiple machines now more than ever. While the iDisk is a web-based solution good for a few documents and Quicken database backu , it really can't handle the heavy lifting that today's Mac users demand. Having an easy way to sync directories through an iPod would be the cat's meow (get it?), and it would bring relief to many a file management-induced headache.

So there's my 10 request, in no particular order of course. It will be exciting to see more Leopard goodies at January's Macworld Expo, but until then, what do you guys think? What are your top requests for A le's darling OS?