Announcing the Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest
I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I am starting to get really pumped up for WWDC, now just under a month away. Why? Well, I'm definitely expecting some new hardware from Apple. Mac Pros seem pretty likely. But what I'm really anticipating is the first sneak peak of Mac OS X Leopard, or 10.5.
Of course, it's still just under a month away. And frankly, while I love fake screenshots (I really do, they make you think, and sometimes they turn out to be, well, not so fake after all), the ones that have been popping up so far have been pretty disappointing. Tabbed Finder? Ok. iTunes style metal UI? Sounds good. Multiple desktops support? Sweet. Virtualization of Windows apps? I'm hoping for it. But let's be honest, Leopard could be sooo much cooler, and so could the fakes.
So, as my blog starts its second week of existence, I am kicking off a Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest. (Tagline: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a fake one is worth nearly a thousand bucks of software!) If you think I'm joking, think again. I am being utterly, 100% serious. What this ultimately is is an exercise in conceptual UI design, and I am hoping that by the end of it, the three winning screenshots will be much cooler than the real Leopard's ever going to be. Well, ok, admittedly I'm secretly hoping that Leopard will trump these, but hopefully for the sake of this contest, this hope will prove outrageously false.
So, about the three winners. Winning usually involves prizes, does it not? Absolutely! So, to provide some incentive beyond recognition for your 1337 UI design skills, I have put together a rather awesome prize package of freebies, valued at just under $900 for each winner. Without further ado, presenting the bounty for an awesome fake screenshot:
- iPulse ($12.95), IconBuilder ($79), Xscope ($16.95) and a free StockIcon set of your choice ($349) by The Iconfactory
- Delicious Library ($40) by Delicious Monster
- ShapeShifter ($20) & WindowShade X ($10) by Unsanity
- NewsFire ($17.99) by Dave Watanabe
- AppZapper ($12.95) by Austin Sarner & Brian Ball
- NotePad ($7.95), VoiceNotes ($5.95) & FTP Drop ($4.95) by Widget Machine
- Menuet with bundled Art Collector ($12.95) by Specere
- iClip ($19.95 /w free upgrade to v.4) by Inventive
- Interarchy ($39) by Stairways Software
- Podcast Maker ($29.95) & Voice Candy ($12.95) by Potion Factory
- Soulver ($12.95) & World of Where ($11.95) by World of Worlds
- Picture Framer ($5) and To Do Tracker ($5) by Monkey Business Labs
- MacUpdate 1 Year Membership ($20) by MacUpdate
- Catalog ($20) & PHP Studio ($25) by Neometric Software
- DomainTracker ($24.95) by Icecold Software
- Tag ($19.95) & Site Soap ($12.95) by Talacia
- CSSEdit ($24.99) & DeskShade ($12.99) by MacRabbit
- Awaken ($8.95) by Embraceware
Update: Added more software, listed below. Prizes are now valued at over $1000 per winner!
- EarthDesk ($12.95), Xeric Design, Inc
- Mountain Tanks ($14), Battery Acid Games
- Speed Download ($25), Yazsoft
- Pixadex ($18.95) and CandyBar ($12.95), Panic & The Iconfactory
- DockStar ($8), Ecamm Network
- Painter's Picker ($15.85), Old Jewel Software
- iFinance ($15), Synium Software
- Wallet ($14.95), Waterfall Software
- RapidWeaver ($39.95), Realmac Software
In addition, winners will receive a shiny gold, silver, or bronze virtual trophy, designed and engraved by MacThemes staff artist Adam Betts.
Entries can include multiple screenshots (limited to 5), with one entry per person. The deadline is Saturday, July 22nd, 12 PM EST, which gives interested designers 12 days to do their stuff. Those who submit their entries before the deadline will have the opportunity to modify it before the 22nd, and also the possibility of it being featured before the winners are announced on my blog, as I plan to show off some as they come in. Further details and the required entry form are available for download here.
For those who do decide to enter, MacThemesForums is also teaming up to provide a forum where entries can be displayed in threads for critique and discussion. The Contests subforum can be directly visited by clicking here.
How will the winners be decided? Sponsors Wil Shipley (Delicious Monster), Austin Sarner (AppZapper), David Watanabe (NewsFire, Acquisition), Jan Van Boghout (MacRabbit), Andy Kim and Jin Kim (Potion Factory), Olivier Lanctot (Specere), John Casasanta (Inventive) and Gedeon Maheux (The Iconfactory) will be judging as a part of the Developer's Panel, and will provide 50% of the scoring for each entry. MacThemes staff members Johnny Komisar, Adam Betts, Ricky Murray and myself will be providing the other 50%.
Entries will be judged on believability, creativity, and the "insanely great" factor on a 10 point scale with no particular weighting assigned to any of the criteria. Remember, this is not just about redesigning Aqua. This is also about inventing new features, even applications. In other words, just make it really cool.
The winners will be announced on Monday, July 24th. Until then, spread the word, get your designer friends working on entries, and let's get these submissions rolling in! Good luck everyone!
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Comments
Up until this point, there have been 58 responses to “Announcing the Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest”:
Awesome Idea!
I don't know if I missed it, but how do you submit an entry? For non-designers, will we be able to see what people are coming up with before the winners are announced?
This will be intersting.
Please let me know where the entries will be on the forum. New interface concept design is one of the most important things to the entire computer industry right now. I look forward to seeing the entries... -Frink
Fantastic contest, Ryu. Is it open to those outside of the US?
Phill Ryu
Yep, it's open to everyone who has an email address we can send licenses to!
Would a copy of the real Leopard be considered a valid submission?
@Static Mesh, probably not because nobody would believe you.
Would this count?
Hey Cameron, it would probably count but it's not innovative and doesn't showcase anything except for a badly meshed leopard skin and a Tiger Dock.. You would need to come up with some new iLife features, some cool new dock and/or an insanely great new Finder.
Sweet contest, I can't wait to see what designers come up with and thereafter Apple with their own in a month.
Sebastien Gomez
www.gomezproductions.com
>> Would a copy of the real Leopard be considered a valid submission?
Steve, is that you ?
Must it be the final product version of Leopard, or can it be a beta build?
heh...contest is over. Cameron wins!
Here's a feature suggestion for you guys: an iPod modding tool (a la iPodWizard, but with Apple-quality design and functionality). It's not like Apple hasn't done something like that before — Dashboard, Boot Camp, even the iPod Hi-Fi are examples. Since they even have the iPod OS' source, they could do an iPod theming app better than anyone else, so don't hold back! 
What a great contest. I look forward to seeing the entries!
Did you personally pay for all those software licenses? Wow.
Seeing as how people representing the company of most of the prizes, I'm thinking it's being donated for the contest.
@coolfactor: $900 worth of FREEBIES, I think you can pay all the licenses as well, no matter what your income is
I have another question : What if my (or somebody else's) design is too cool for leopard engineers to *fake*
cool, should have run one earlier - could have given Apple's engineers inspiration
When is the contest?
Phill Ryu
The contest is going on now, entries are due the 22nd, winners will be announced the 24th.
Check - OCSmartHacks - http://www.ocs.cz/OCSmartHacks/
It is my candidate. And working right now.
Martin
What it will not look like...
http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/art/72/desktop.jpg
Good initiative 
I wished i got much more time but work is more important than making fakes...
I don't think I can win this contest, i did it for the fun of the thing
So... Here is mine, Looking Glass inspired, true.
http://www.qualityscript.net/img/leopard.jpg
Maybe if i got more time i'll send another one later... Is it authorized?
Julien
PS: another contest concept should be thinking about an original MacOS X slogan I already got an idea...
[...] The Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest is off on a spectacular start, thanks to an incredible amount of publicity from the Macintosh media and an equally incredible amount of generosity from sponsors. [...]
These are ways that I woud improve OS X.
1. remove brushed metal
2. iTunes corners on all windows
3. tabbed finder
4. application launch toolbar button in finder
5. multiple inboxes in mail
6. optional password protection for inboxes in mail
7. spotlight integrated into menubar
8. dual window safari
9. integrate the actual date into date & time in the menubar
@Aaron Smith: That is very, very, close to where I am at.
I have a little bit more time to put into it, but I'll share when I'm finished.
Well, I kinda like the dog in the leopard skin, and I'm not sold on my replacement, but I figured I would pop it out here and get some comments.
http://www.ziarek.com/sandbox/leopard/leopard.jpg
Yes, you can hate it. It started off as a really strong idea and then went straight downhill from there
N
Much stronger concepts:
http://www.ziarek.com/sandbox/leopard/leopard2.png
http://www.ziarek.com/sandbox/leopard/leopard3.png
Just need a clever-er tag line. Anyone? If it won, I'd share the loot
http://www.ziarek.com/sandbox/leopard/leopard2.png
My last comment is awaiting moderation, so it doesn't appear to be allowing me to add more links. I'll try this, and if it goes through, just change the 2 to a 3 to see both versions of this graphic.
Posted Entry at MacThemes. Thanks for the contest.
[...] Tutti noi fan della mela aspettiamo con ansia che arrivi il giorno in cui il mitico Steve salga sul palco del WWDC e ci presenti il nuovo (e di sicuro fantastico) sistema operativo: Leopard. Purtroppo però per ora non abbiamo visto grandi rumors e allore quale migliore idea se non di crearsi dei fake per ingannare l’attesa? Ebbene a questa pagina è aperto il primo fake contest su Leopard. [...]
Is the MacThemesForum down?
Ben... they've been down since last night. It was all SQL errors last night, but now the website doesn't even respond.
Phill Ryu
Sorry guys, we had a harddrive crash at the data center. 
But they're working on it, and chances are good everything will be recovered within a day or two. Hang tight!
Sounds like Apple has a few bugs in OS 10.5 to fix.
Although Mac OS X ist pretty close to an operating system I would call "perfect" there is still one thing about Exposé that's I don't like: Exposé doesn't sort the window thumbnails on your screen at all! So if you have a lot of windows opened and switch to Exposé your screen looks like mess and it's sometimes pretty hard to find the right window.
Maybe Leopard can do this better. And maybe it comes with a beautiful 3D-effect (but please not like the Windows Vista rubbish!).
I did a little flash animation to show what it could look like. Check it out:
http://www.tgmedia.de/flash/Mac_Os_Leopard_Fake.html
By the way: are flash animations also o.k. for the contest?
This is what I´ve been working on:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53347298@N00/
I will post more details when MacThemes will be back
I am waiting for the first person to submit something in a vector format in the spirit of leopard's resolution-independence feature (that is almost 100% for sure known) 
is it going to be back up before this contest is over?
Phill Ryu
Yes it will Luke, expect the forums back up by today. I'll have a post explaining what happened.
Hope the website comes back up i was really enjoying this contest. A lot of good entries.
Someone uploaded a Leopard PSD source file on web,
the look exactly the same as Mac OS X Leopard.
Download JPEG Preview
http://homepage.mac.com/leopard0807/Leopard.jpg
Download Photoshop CS2 Source
http://homepage.mac.com/leopard0807/Leopard.zip
I really wondered why nobody has tried to make a fake screen shot that includes elements from looking glass.
Not only it an incredible cool project, but also absolutely real.
Now that every Mac has an iSight they could implement an "Minority report" interface, like Looking Glass has.
May be it's just because in the Mac world Looking Glass is not that well known. Take a look at the videos, even the two year old videos are great. Windows that you can turn around and have the settings of the back or can take notes there ...
https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/
Here is my first shot a front-row like virtualization switcher:
My second shot makes use of the built-in isight (as mentioned by Christoph above) to replace the mouse.
My third shot also makes use the of the isight implementing a retinal scanner in order to unlock the computer (could even be used for logging in instead of a password).
http://halogenandtoast.com/public/leopardretinal.jpg
I'm not sure if my second shot posted, if it didn't, here it is:
My second shot makes use of the built-in isight (as mentioned by Christoph on Phill Ryu's blog) to replace the mouse.
My fourth shot is a bit of humor. With the ability to run windows applications natively using virtualization, we run into a few problems...
Who has won the contest?
Phill Ryu
The contest was delayed by a few days due to macthemesforums downtime. Deadline for entries is tonight in about six hours, winners will be announced Wednesday.
Okay, where are the winners?
[...] Apple should soon show of what the next version of Mac OS X, named Leopard, will show in improvements. As usual, there are plenty of rumors and fake screen-captures circulating on the internet. One web site, took the idea further, and organized a contest of fake Leopard screenshots. The winners have now been selected and I must say I like the ideas of the winner a lot. [...]
Cool contest ... i'm blogging this!!!
Cool contest!Thanks for the contest.
[...] Sabendo disso, o programador Phill Ryu resolveu aproveitar a onda e criar um concurso. O tema? Screenshots falsos do Leopard, o próximo Mac OS X. O prêmio? Mais de US$ 1.000,00 para cada vencedor, dinheiro doado por várias empresas que desenvolvem software para o Mac. [...]
[...] And frankly, while I love fake screenshots (I really do, they make DockStar ($8), Ecamm Network; Painter’s Picker ($15.85), Old Jewel PM EST , which gives interested designers 12 days to do their stuff. Jewelry Information [...]
[...] PhillRyu.com - Announcing the Fake Leopard Screenshot ContestAnd frankly, while I love fake screenshots (I really do, they make DockStar ($8), Ecamm Network; Painter’s Picker ($15.85), Old Jewel PM EST , which gives interested designers 12 days to do their stuff. [...]
m, that's fun...
Derek Punsalan
July 09th, 2006 at 11:46pmWoohoooo let the games begin!