Bumptop Piles: Apple, are you listening?

Check this out.

It reminds me of Apple’s Piles concept, which never really saw the light of day. But this is much cooler, and may be a significant step forward in UI design … if some big company takes the hint.

[ update July 1 ]

Niko Nyman disagrees with the idea that Bumptop has possibilities. Some good points.

My rejoinder, posted as a comment on his post, and recycled here:

There’s absolutely no question that as a metaphor for 1.5 million files, the desktop fails, and fails miserably.

Where I see something like Bumptop as useful, however, is the transient stuff: the files for the 5 projects you have on the go right now. That’s what is on your physical desktop: not all 1.5 million pieces of paper you’ve seen/touched/needed/wanted at some point in your entire life. And that’s what’s on your virtual desktop.

However, ultimately you’re right. The question is: what do we have to replace the desktop metaphor?

[tags] apple, microsoft, UI, desktop, john koetsier [/tags]