A list of 10 must-haves for Mac OS X 10.6.

Why am I writing this right now? Tis the way of all things Apple. Now that Apple is wrapping up iPhone 2.0 firmware, Apple will start looking to a unified operating system to upgrade both platforms from. Mac OS X Leopard was a half-Mac, half-iPhone venture… and that explains the long-drawn development cycle.

So, without further ado… here are 10 things that must be in Mac OS X 10.6 (in my opinion, of course).

1) Automatic SMART monitoring.

Your hard drive has an early warning system, to alert you when your hard drive is about to fail. And, the past three versions of Mac OS X let you open up Disk Utility to check its status. There’s even an open source utility that will do it for you. But, for some reason, Apple does not yet automatically monitor SMART, and let you know that your hard drive is about to fail.

This needs to change, and there is no excuse. The only reason Apple wouldn’t want to do this, is to hope that hard drives failing SMART, will last long enough to fall out of warranty (despite a SMART failure being valid grounds for replacing the drive).

Oh, and by the way Apple, even Vista has integrated SMART monitoring.

2) Complete resolution independence.

Resolution independence, much like Quartz 2D Extreme QuartzGL, has been in the operating system for a long time, resolution independence has been a feature in Tiger. And, it’s what gives iPhone its pivotal pinch-and-zoom abilities.

But, with larger LCD displays on the rise, Apple will likely finally enable this feature. The only thing stopping the feature right now, is OS-level elements not appearing right. In other words, Apple is giving developers (including their own) enough time to go through all the Apple apps, and update them to support existing in a world where their size isn’t defined by pixels.

3) Some basic games.

Okay, barring some failure, this one is a lock. Apple already has them finished, and I’ve seen them.

Windows has had, for the past 13 years, built-in card games. Mac has tried to ignore this, with Puzzle and (about a decade ago), bundling Eric’s Solitaire Sampler, and a few games since.

Mac OS X 10.6 will put an end to this, and you will probably see those games ported to iPhone as well.

(Note: I am not, by saying that, confirming 10.6 will be ported to the current iPhone generation. Apple does, however, routinely ensure that all Mac systems get at least one generational OS X upgrade before being put below minimum requirements).

4) Default enabling secondary clicks.

I can’t tell you how many people have told me that the Mighty Mouse only has a single button. This is because Mouse Preferences defaults to having the secondary button disabled. We get it, Apple leadership thinks the world is better off with one button. Sorry, but the world disagrees.

5) Break-out RSS browser.

Now, I use NewsGator’s NetNewsWire not just because of its browsing, but because of its universal synchronization between Mac, iPhone, PC, and Windows Mobile (not to mention BlackBerry, Java, and so on).

Still, with Apple’s amazing RSS framework built-in to Safari, Apple will likely add a reader outside of just Mail. This, in turn, will allow Apple to add a functional first-party feed reader inside of iPhone (which right now, uses a slow Web 2.0 interpreter)

6) OpenGL 3.0 (if they hurry up).

This one depends a lot on if the Khronos group will finish the spec in time. It’s supposed to be coming later this year. Hopefully it will.

Even if Apple doesn’t have its eyes set on gaming, Microsoft continues to run circles around OpenGL 2.1. DirectX 9 beat it, and DirectX 10 is beating it along with the XNA framework (which, in turn, fuels Xbox 360 & Windows strongholds).

Adding OpenGL 3.0 will help encourage game developers to come to Mac, and hopefully, not with a bucket of WINE.

7) Additional core expansion.

When Mac OS X was written, dual-processing was starting to speed up. Quad-processor systems were extraordinary rare. Multi-core processing was a glimmer in everyone’s eye (on the desktop).

Now, we have 8-core Macs, and despite Windows being even farther behind, Mac is starting to hit a wall.

Cocoa and CoreServices will need to shift to adopt a world where 16, and even 32 core systems become the norm. This is not just for the couple of years following 10.6’s release… those systems will likely not be mainstream that quickly. However, it will be necessary for good coding practices to be implemented, in order for developers to embrace a world where very few people are using single-core systems.

8) Multi-touch (screen) support on the Mac.

Apple is still toying around with the “best” way to implement multi-touch screens on the Mac. But, it’s no secret that they will have such technology in the future. It’s more a matter of cost than “if”.

This is actually quite a bit of work… as a lot of the Mac OS X interface is designed for a precision pointing device (the mouse/trackpad). Things will have to be re-thought in everything from the size of menu items, down to the size of the scroll bar… and re-drawing everything in-between.

9) Multiple GPU switching.

This is one great feature Sony has on their high-end laptops. See, every Intel-based system can easily have their GMA graphics chip added on, for almost no added cost.

The accelerated graphics cards (ATI and Nvidia) drain a lot more power than Intel GMA technology, even when just using the operating system.

So, to save power, Mac OS X 10.6 can support GPU switching, enabling and disabling the Intel GMA on-the-fly, based on the performance demands of the system. Browsing in Finder? The GMA will drive the system. Frag in Doom 3? The ATI/Nvidia chip will take over. More performance per watt overall.

Best of all, it’s mostly software (at the OS level) that makes this happen, dynamically enabling and disabling separate GPUs to conserve power.

10) Keyboard and auxiliary display support.

The Optimus Maximus keyboard will probably be out of your reach for the next few years. But, a white LED version of it may not be. Apple has patented such a keyboard, and you can expect that if they’re aiming to roll it out… such that the operating system will have full support, right down to plug-ins.

Also, with photo frame style displays becoming cheap, and SideShow displays trickling into the market… a framework to have something else (Widgets) controlled on these auxiliary displays, isn’t out of the question either. Hey, iPhone, what’s my CPU utilization? Give me a terminal window so I can debug the app that has frozen my Mac? It’s all possible with an AuxiliaryDisplay.framework… Apple just needs to make it.