Iljitsch van Beijnum thinks 3D graphics and animation is the secret Steve Jobs has up his sleeve for Leopard.

We’ve already seen the iPhone seamlessly zoom in, zoom out, and flip icons, windows, and screens. Think about what a real computer could do here. Cover flow and multi-party iChat video show a glimpse of what a 3D accelerated user interface could look like, with light sources, reflections, and more.

Obviously the OS can simply move windows to the front and to the the back without support from the application itself, much like how Exposé works, but to really flabbergast us, applications would have to support the new 3D user interface and have different windows, inspectors, and requesters move around through Leopard’s three dimensional space. Core Animation takes care of the movement, and resolution independence makes sure text and UI elements align and look good at different zoom levels. The only thing missing is an easy way to manipulate virtual objects in three dimensions. Or do we just pinch them?

While Beijnum makes a good case, the more I think about it, the less convinced I am that 3D is the surprise in Leopard. We learned about Core Animation from Apple some time ago. Hasn’t it been generally believed we’d see a lot more 3D effects and perhaps even a 3D interface thanks to those hints. I want to believe the surprise is bigger than this.

While eye candy is nice it doesn’t help anyone get their computer tasks done. How many Vista users continue to use Aero after the novelty wears off? Especially considering the performance issues it causes. I’ve always maintained to buy additional hardware just for it is a bit silly, if not outright ridiculous.

I’m hoping there are other surprises in store. Things like Multi-Touch display support and other features that are actually useful and functional and serve a purpose other than generating an ohhh and ahhh that doesn’t impress more than once.

[Leopard is secretly three-dimensional]

[tags]Apple, Mac OS X, OS X, Mac OS X Leopard, OS X Leopard, Leopard, Vista, 3d, core animation[/tags]