BumpTop hits the Mac, covers your OS X desktop with piles just like your real desktop (video)
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 21st 2010 9:24AM
posted January 21st 2010 9:24AM
posted January 21st 2010 9:24AM
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Wow!
This makes using a computer twice....as hard.
Take your eyes off of the piles on your actual desk, and look at piles on the metaphor of a desk.
@LAY : Agreed, I would not want to bring messiness of the desk to be on the pc.
@LAY
agreed. this app is just pure shit/crap. wtf is the purpose?? and why is engadget promoting this? like a previous comment, bloatware.
someone must have gotten a little something under the table to showcase bumptop.
@seamonkey420
So true, the computer has evolved so little. We're still playing around with the "desktop" metaphor, and somehow I just doubt that this being "the first thing we tried" is also the best. We still use a mouse and keyboard for navigation, when you look at it, how much has actually changed apart from smoothing out the user-experience and upgrading the graphics a bit.
Surely emphasizing even more on the desktop metaphor won't enhance the user experience in any way - why would we want our computers to be more like desktops and not take advantage of it's possibilities.
Show us some innovation.
@UbbeDall
you're disregarding one thing: you're a physical being living in a physical world, and your brain evolved in response to that reality. the desktop metaphor is persistent because it works. our methods for managing and filing physical paper, which you obviously take for granted, are in fact very sophisticated, and took centuries to work out. "innovation," meanwhile, is too often a meaningless buzzword.
@LAY
Agreed. Why would we wanna make it all complicated. Than again there will be people who would want it complicated. But for me the desktop should be plain and simple. which is the fact that i keep less shortcuts on the desktop
I had piles once...
@geekthree
And soon you'll have Piles 2.0™.
@geekthree tuff break buddy. do you sit down much, office job at a comp? that can cause it
i have always wondered how i could bring the stress from work to home.
@goff
You know, when you pay ~$1500 for the worlds smallest cubicle, you'd thing they would at least give you a window.
Novel idea...but...Quicksilver ftw! Also my desktop has nothing on it (I'm one of those :P)
@Hobsie
I'm one of those, too.
mimic the reality is not user friendly or more ergonomic "per se"
Take the ebook... which sense will have flip pages mimic the movement of a page?
Eeach technology/interface requires his own approach and usability, the desktop it's fine as metaphor, this does not mean that my computer has to be a desk
Is this very different from the stacks in the dock (in terms of functionality, not design, that is...)?
@grandmainger
actually it is very similar to those.
This is kinda cool too look at for about 15 min and then it looses it's appeal. Plus it actually encourages disorganization and I tend to organize my files in folders based on some criteria ( as all sensible users do ). But in all fairness it would be nice to have a bit better file organization.
Why are you promoting Bloatware?
The only idea I like here is the "pile". There's definitely lots of things I could pile together without needing to make a new folder for all of it.
Fuck, file systems are so archaic.
Still not sure if 3D UI will ever be commonly used beyond gimmicky implementations.
@acslater017
tell that to your grandkids one day....
"when I was was young we had 2D interfaces, 2D!!!"
Wouldn't this be a hindrance, multitouch or not?
The digital format is so wonderful because you don't have to store stuff in 3d space. You are not forced to look through piles to find your item, you simple scroll through the list, ordered however you want (date, file type, name)
I have enough of docs stacked up high in the office and don't need to go through that experience at home.
Spending $29 to arrange piles of docs and literally get piles? Erm,, no thanks.
http://seventoten.com
I used this crap for about 10 min on my PC before I uninstalled it. Talk about making things more complicated.
...slow news day?
This sucks. We should want to turn our physical desktops into desktops like those on our computers, not the other way around.
what's next? a computer that simulates your actual computer on your desk?
@htd Already exists (however it's iPhone, not desktop)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4IjeO7g6kA
Is that you Microsoft Bob?
Most of the Mac users keep their desktop clean with no piles of paper, book, tea cups etc. You can see it in Flickr. You can see only monitor/laptop, speaker, keyboard and some toys, thats all.
@manwithacamera
Hmm.. broad generalizations can get one into trouble. I'm a Mac user, and my organizational skills are rather lacking. This is how we begin flame wars!
However, there is another logical problem with your post. Your data source is biased; those who are willing to post an image of their desktop on Flickr are also those who most likely to have desktops worth taking images of (i.e. clean pretty organized ones). Thus you rule out the completely probable possibility that, while a subset of Flickr-posting Mac users have clean desktops, the rest of us are a bunch of humans (i.e. fat, disgusting meatbag-slobs who cannot take care of themselves without the interwebs and a box of cookies). Of course, you could easily argue that it is equally as likely that your scenario is the case, and I would give that to you. Despite this, your post was more of a declaration than a speculation, and thus I must say that without the deductive reasoning to support your claim, I am in no position to conclude with you that most Mac users are clean and organized. I for one, am a meatbag-slob, and I think the coffee rings on my desktop give it "character" :)
@remotecontrolled
http://i49.tinypic.com/dbpoic.jpg
My desk at the moment. My desktop on my mac however is perfectly empty other than my internal hard drive and my time machine back up drive.
Nicely implemented and all, but who wants to have stacks of shit laying around on your virtual "desktop". The major draw of computers is that they are amazing file cabinets and can organize things in a way that we can't in the physical world. So why on Earth would we want to replicate our own data organizing limitations on a computer screen?
2D clutter is good. Therefore:
3D clutter is super-awesome!
ugh!
The last thing I need it for my desktop to become a repository for a bunch of junk. My physical desk is that way already! :-P
People who leave all their files on their desktop are not the kind of people who have actually learned to use their computers efficiently. That's the bottom line here. Making piles is not going to help. Apple actually patented that idea, and never brought out anything in this form. They incorporated it somewhat in the Dock in OS X, but the idea of piles on a desktop? It's bunk. A decent folder structure that's been around since the Mac in 1984 still is the best they can come up with. And it doesn't appear to be changing to anything better anywhere I've seen. Any variation is lipstick on the pig.
Are you going to need those silly looking glasses to have the "full" "CES" style experience of this goofy but somewhat slick UI option :) ?
I thaugh this was a nice idea years ago when I first heard of it, then I tried it on Windows and its simply not priacical.
it sucked then and it will suck on a Mac.
lol, this is stupid.
3d on a 2d Surface = Eye Candy.
Eye Candy + Professional and productive environment = No-Go!
..."Less, but better." (Dieter Rams)
This is just as bad as Bob. OK, not quite as bad, but it's still an attempt to take something that's not physical and make it resemble the physical world. Digital information is so much easier to manage because it isn't physical.
It's like going to the complexity of multitouch from a simple mouse. Or playing FPS with a joystick instead of a mouse or even keyboard for that matter.
Our mouse and keyboards just might not need much improvement. Look to the future, but don't dumb it down by forgetting to look at where we are now.
It's real crap.. No one gonna use it.. I tried it, it's very uncomfortable..
I wouldn't mind trying it out and playing with it. I like Eye Candy. Sadly though, this does not support multi-monitor set-ups.
What's with all the hate? I thought it looked pretty cool. I have a lot of clutter on my desktop and this is a neat way of dealing with it, and adds multiple desktops to boot. (in a way that I would say might be better than spaces). You can always "zoom in" on a the floor or a wall for a normal 2D view as well.
I just installed it and I guess we'll see how it goes.
@speg I just installed it, don't like it. It doesn't add multiple desktops, you can't put different apps on different walls. And looking at everything as blurry or at an angle... I don't like it.
@leafflash
I've been playing with it and one of the first things I noticed was the blurryness as well. It does add multiple desktops, 1 floor, 3 walls. each can have different things. I take back what I said about Spaces, as that's more about window management.
I also had some problems with setting up wallpapers, they would just be a giant white flash. And sometimes when I got them to work they would disappear soon after.
I did however forget it was evening running in the background, which is good since it means it's not in-your face obtrusive. I love organizing by piles, I cleaned up my desktop in no time :)
I still like the idea and with a few more tweaks and fixes and it might be worth considering.
I wouldn't mind giving it a try...
This seemed nice, but I tried it and:
-It is way too laggy
-Certain JPGs don't work as backgrounds for no reason I can think of (instead of the picture you get solid white)
-It tries to be too "physical," to the point where icons move with [too much] inertia and can push each other around
-There's no snap to grid option
I tried downloading it, and it said this type of file may harm your computer. Will it really harm my computer??
I still don't understand why bumptop is 3d instead of just a 2d thing with physics.
Anyway, I like my icons the way they are on all OS's, I'm still waiting for a way to "toss" windows out of the way (just like tossing icons here, but with lower friction).
Lol. They want you to pay $30!
I downloaded it last night and having fun with it. Stuff on the left wall is pics, front wall is stuff that I need to do, but don't want to look at right now, right wall is stuff that is sort of an "archive" but may need for reference without digging for it in the finder and the "desktop" is stuff I'm currently working on. I think it would be awesome if there was touch integrated so I wasn't consistently clicking to switch what I'm looking at.
i tried it and it looks cool, but it's just not for me.
or for anyone on the comments list....
but how it's implemented is pretty nice.