The paper features Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini's 1993 Sun film as a model Anti-Mac interface.
Tog, ironically, was one of Apple's first usability consultants from 1978 to 1992, designing many familiar elements including hierarchical menus, time-out dialog boxes, and the "package" illusion for software application folders.
A lot of what's mentioned is already brought to the Mac with Automator and QuickSilver. Voice controlled QuickSilver would completely blow my mind.
Direct manipulation however, will remain deeply rooted in the way we interact with computers, because we often deal with a single object. Is a greater problem in the lack of flow between applications, which is IMO the most evident distinction between web and desktop apps.
Standard input/output piping worked great, and we're seeing a lot of it resurface in the way we're able to mine and mash data on the web these days, but concepts that would mimic REST on the desktop just don't seem to have taken off in time.
> "For example, a word may be printed in italic font for emphasis, as part of a book title, or as part of a quotation, but the specific meaning is lost if it is represented only by the fact that the characters are italicized.... [Markup languages can] preserve the semantic meaning inherent in the text and have rules for converting the text and semantics into their appearance on the printed page."
A lot of technologies (like CSS and XML) have taken exactly this approach. Semantic meaning is stored with an object, and the particular appearance can be converted across an entire document with a single change. I see "readability" [0] linked from HN fairly often; it's a technology that leverages this quite well.
Tog, ironically, was one of Apple's first usability consultants from 1978 to 1992, designing many familiar elements including hierarchical menus, time-out dialog boxes, and the "package" illusion for software application folders.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Tognazzini and http://asktog.com/starfire/