Sunday, July 16, 2006

The Views from A Faker...

So i took a quick look over at the site that originally produced the first Mac OS X Leopard Fake Screenshots. They have a lot of views over their about the video that was produced on Reality Resized supposedly sporting leopard. So check out what they have to say, it's pretty interesting.

Check it out here

"I know this happened two days ago, but I thought I'd comment on the fake Leopard video posted that seems to have everybody up in arms more so than my own screenshots. But while it is extremely convincing, and far better than my screenshots, it is a fake. Here's why, split up into two sections: Technical, meaning just the general observations from the screenshot, and "Well, Now that I think About It...", which is just the mental reasoning as to why this is fake.

Technical

One of the first things the video demonstrates is a new Finder. Sure, it's pretty cool-looking: it's got that Unified look to it and tabbed browsing, but the big thing that gives it away is the label on top of the Sidebar, just like Path Finder's. Anybody can change Path Finder to look just like Finder, and with a quick trip to Interface Builder and some customization in the Preferences, you can make a damn good fake and fool lots of people.

After you finish all of that, you take a trip down to Finder's app bundle (System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Finder.icns), take the icon and replace the Path Finder icon with it, and voila! You've got a new, Leopard-ized Finder!

Now there's the matter of the About This Mac box. Although you may not know this, you can actually change that box to say anything you want: just go to System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist, then modify to your heart's content. You really can put anything in that box, but if you do that, you'll have problems getting updates, since that's what Software Update calls on to find out what updates you need (I haven't actually tried putting 10.5 in the form to see if I can get any beta updates, but I doubt it).

Well, now that I think about it...

Here's what I don't understand: If you are rich enough to get a test copy of Leopard, why can't you afford some good screen recorder software? I know it exists- just look on VersionTracker, MacUpdate, Apple's Downloads page or even a Google search for Mac screen movie and you can download some from $10-$30.

Also, only providing one video of one Leopard feature isn't too impressive, especially when it's just tabbed browsing. You want to know what would convince me? Show off something completely original and innovative- something that has never happened in a Mac app before- and I'll be convinced. But there's nothing here that can be proved with confidence that it's real, so until I do see something, I stand by my reasoning.

Lastly, the biggest and most important thing to think about when you look at these screenshots is pretty obvious: do you really think that after the last couple of weeks, after all of the fake screenshots that have been posted on Mac rumor sites, that a supposed "real" video is suddenly going to pop up on YouTube, just happen to show up after all of the fake screenshots, and be legit? It just doesn't seem likely. Now if such a thing were posted before all of the screenshots started coming up, then I think you would have a better time proving this to be real, and I probably wouldn't be writing this. But in my opinion, this just seems like the next big Apple rumor in line that will have it's fame for a couple of days, then die out- just like mine, and the one before it, and the one before it, and the one before it."

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