Originally we were just going to broadcast an addendum, but we're thinking this deserves the attention of a full-fledged scene... In yesterday's episode we voiced our concerns about Mac OS X's new Finder, which, we believed, eliminated the flexibility of today's Finder by restricting the user interface to a single window. As it turns out, we were misinformed; Steve actually noted onstage that Mac OS X's Finder did still allow multiple open windows-- he said something to the effect of "you can be the janitor if you want to be." That's great news to janitors like us, who rely on multiple open Finder windows to get our daily work done. Unfortunately, we missed that teeny little part of the keynote due to a QuickTime dropout. Here's an excerpt from our unedited notes:

Controls:  elements look liquid. Windows: window
buttons are red, yellow, and green.

Whole thing looks Kai-esque.

[Signal's breaking up.  NOOOO!!!  I have video and no sound.  But the
Aqua interface looks darn cool.]

Steve's apparently demoing live dragging, live scrolling, neat 3D
pop-out windows, etc.

[Now I have sound and no video.  Please, can't I have my cake and eat
it too?  --ed.]

Back button, search field right in open and save dialogs.  New view:
Browser view.

That's when it happened: feedback started pouring in from all over the place to correct our false impression. Literally dozens of faithful viewers wrote in to note Steve's "janitor" demo. Some mentioned witnessing multiple window support first-hand at the Expo. Heck, we even got mail from some of Apple's own programmers confirming multiple window support-- shhhh, don't tell Steve-- who claim it was not a trivial feature to put in. It was like the end of Miracle on 34th Street when all the bags of letters to Santa get delivered to the courthouse. So our fears of a single-window Finder weren't just allayed-- they were pretty much stomped into dust, and for that we're grateful. (We were also pleased to note that a sizeable proportion of AtAT feedback is arriving with Mac.com return addresses-- looks like iTools is off to a strong start.)

So what have we all learned from this? Well, for one thing, QuickTime 4 Streaming has a ways to go before it's a bulletproof informational medium. For another, we can always count on legions of faithful AtAT viewers to steer us straight (or, in some cases, flame us silly-- but in a good way!) when we're misinformed. And lastly, Apple would appear to deserve the benefit of the doubt-- even though nixing multiple-window support is exactly the kind of stunt that, to us, fits quite nicely with similar moves like foisting "Brushed Metal" on us all. Or completing the Mac OS Themes architecture and then never releasing the Themes themselves. Or lowering the speeds of the whole G4 line while keeping prices the same. Or... well, never mind. The good news is, Mac OS X is shaping up to be a killer, and we can't wait to see what this summer brings.