We wrote about BumpTop last year when it launched for Windows, and now the impressive and unique re-imagination of the computer desktop is coming to the Mac faithful. We had a chance to chat with CEO Anand Agarawala about the launch of BumpTop on the Mac and some of the company’s future plans.

If you’re not already familiar with the concept, BumpTop essentially adds a three-dimensional “real world desktop” metaphor to your computer’s desktop. You can create visual “piles” of files and documents completely unrelated to their logical file structure — handy for keeping a “working stack” of items at the top of mind. You can make files physically larger or smaller by growing or shrinking them, giving you a quick and intuitive visual representation of their relative importance.

Thanks to the 3D view, you can also “sticky” items to the “walls” in addition to the primary desktop panel. There’s also a cool search feature that’s invoked simply by typing, making quick retrieval of key items a snap. Plus, you can of course customize the look and feel of each surface with your own background image or a complete theme if you wish.

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What’s Unique About the Mac Version?

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Importantly, the Mac version of BumpTop is not simply a port of the Windows version. It’s been built from the ground up to integrate seamlessly with Leopard, and plays nice with your existing setup. The app is integrated seamlessly into the Finder, meaning you can enjoy all the usual bells and whistles like Spaces, Expose, and Quick Look as usual.

BumpTop Mac also specifically supports multi-touch gestures for MacBook Pro and MacBook multi-touch trackpads. We talked a bit about how the forthcoming age of the tablet portends a sort of “renaissance of touch” that BumpTop seems to be fully prepared for.

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Future Plans

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Having already supported multi-touch gestures in the Windows version, future plans include exploring further into touch interfaces and how BumpTop can make the desktop a more intuitive experience in a touch environment. As new devices and form factors come online in the marketplace, the goal with BumpTop appears to be to embrace platforms as widely as possible.

Cloud computing also factors into the company’s roadmap, with some interesting new features in the works surrounding managing web content on your BumpTop desktop as well as local documents and files. Without getting too far into specific details that may change before feature release, it’s a good bet to anticipate some sort of widget platform emerging around BumpTop that brings more interactive and cloud-connected services into your BumpTop workspace.

For example, imagine a Facebook Wall that lives right on your desktop, providing new and unique ways to visualize your Facebook experience and associated data. Or, imagine drag and dropping a web page right into your desktop and being able to manipulate it locally as if viewing a “living page.”

No matter what specific concepts find their way into future versions of BumpTop, it’s an exciting new (and relatively rare) ambitious attempt to revitalize and rethink the desktop experience that was remained largely an unchanged paradigm for going on twenty years.

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100 Free Pro Version Upgrades

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The free version of BumpTop includes its core features, while the Pro version contains extra functionality including unlimited sticky notes, scroll wheel controls for flipping through document piles, the instant search feature, multi-touch trackpad support, and premium support service. BumpTop was kind enough to provide Mashable readers with 100 free upgrades to the Pro version:

The Pro version is a free upgrade to the first 100 people who signup at this special Mashable page: http://bumptop.com/press/mashable.php.

Enjoy, and let us know what you think of BumpTop for Mac.

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Reviews: BumpTop, Facebook, Mashable, Windows

Tags: 3D, bumptop, cloud computing, desktop, mac, macintosh, software, touchscreens

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