All the latest details on Apple's desktop operating
system
The latest version of OS X has been announced
and will launch later in the year.
The release - dubbed OS X Mavericks and
numbered 10.9 - brings over 200 new features
over and above the features in OS X 10.8
Mountain Lion . As with Mountain Lion, there's
further integration with the company's mobile
operating system iOS.
Explaining the thinking behind the name, Apple's
Senior Vice President of Software Engineering
Craig Federighi joked that the company had ran
out of cat-related names, and decided to turn to
"our backyard", Apple's home state of California,
for its next round of names.
The third version of the Developer Preview of the
new OS has now been made available to those in
Apple's OS X Developer program, meaning that
launch can't be too far away. It contains bug
fixes rather than anything else
Mavericks isn't a huge leap forward in terms of
features, but it sees Apple tweaking and
introducing content related apps and services
such as Maps and Notifications synchronizing
across all Apple devices and iBooks now coming
to OS X. Also going are the irritating and
outdated interface elements such as leather/
paper-style backgrounds.
OS X 10.9 release date
Speaking at WWDC 2013 , Federighi confirmed
that Mavericks will be available in Autumn. That
confirms our prior prediction. Expect the new OS
to be with us in September.
OS X Mavericks price
Previous releases of OS X have been low priced
and Mountain Lion was even cheaper at GBP
£14, USD $20, AUD $21. We're expecting the OS
X 10.9 price to be similar.
OS X 10.9 multi-monitor support
The previous major release of OS X, Mountain
Lion, was largely a hit, boosting the system's
feature set and security. More than three million
people downloaded the OS during its first four
days on sale.
However, it also mangled some iOS features into
the mix that didn't work terribly well, such as
iCloud documents, and a sub-standard full-
screen mode, which Apple looks to have fixed by
baking multi-monitor support into Mavericks.
The update now makes the dock and menu bar
follow the user on whatever screen they're
working on, and each display can be shown
independently. The new OS has also added the
ability for desktop activity to be wirelessly
beamed to a HDTV via an Apple TV box and
Airplay.
OS X 10.9 performance
Apple claims the latest version of OS X has made
several tweaks under the hood to improve
performance the energy efficiency and
responsiveness of Macs. This includes grouping
together "low-level operations", which the
company says allows the CPU to spend more
time in a low-power state.
This has been twinned with two new features, the
first being "App Nap", which reduces the power
consumed by apps that aren't in use. The
second, "Compressed Memory", makes Mavericks
automatically compress inactive data until it's
needed again, at which point it's instantly
uncompressed.
OS X Mavericks Finder
Other features making an appearance in the
latest version of OS X include Finder Tabs, which
positions a plus symbol to the top right of Finder
that allows new tabs to be opened or dragged
into other positions, with similar behaviour to a
web browser. Users can customise views for
individual tabs, move files between tabs, and run
the Finder with multiple tabs open in full-screen.
Tags have also made an appearance in Maverick,
which appear in the Finder Sidebar to enable
users to view files by project or category. They
can be added to files or folders within Finder or
iCloud to simplify locating documents.
OS X Safari
Apple has also made several tweaks to Safari,
claiming that the browser has smoother scrolling,
is nippier than before, and outperforms its rivals
in energy efficiency, memory efficiency and
JavaScript performance. It now uses what Apple
describes as a "new process-per tab
architecture", which it claims makes Safari more
responsive, stable and secure.
Another new feature dubbed iCloud keychain
stores login information, Wifi password, and
credit card details within Safari for users'
convenience when making purchases online
Additionally, the browser now houses a new
quick launch screen with a column for
bookmarks, which can be reordered using drag
and drop. It has also received a hefty dollop of
social love in the form of "shared links", which
collects URLs posted by Twitter and LinkedIn
contacts to display them in a single stream in
Safari's sidebar.
iOS X Mavericks Maps and iBooks
Two apps from iOS, Maps and iBooks, have made
their way to Mavericks. Maps includes features
such as interactive flyover data, vector graphics,
and 3D views. It also provides the ability to send
map coordinates to iPhones with a button push
for voice navigation on the move.
Maps now integrates with OS X's Calendar app
too, giving users the ability to look up travel
times between two locations to prevent them
from scheduling anything in that period. Users
don't have to go directly to the Maps app for
such navigational wizardry either, as Apple has
integrated maps into Mail, Contacts and
Calendar. Developers can do the same with their
own apps using the Map Kit API.
Meanwhile, Apple has brought iBooks and its 1.8
million titles to the desktop, including any books
users have previously purchased. The company
gave an interactive demonstration of iBooks' new
features at WWDC, which include zooming in,
changing font sizes, and adding annotations.
Seamless integration across iPhones and iPads
means users can pick up books where they left
off too.
OS X Mavericks notifications
Notifications were a welcome addition when they
were introduced in Mountain Lion last year. This
year, they have been beefed up with advanced
capabilities that let users do anything from
replying to messages or answering FaceTime
calls from directly within the notification.
Handily, Apple has also made it so that iOS
notifications sync with OS X, meaning users can
check alerts sent to a Mac or mobile device, and
vice versa.
Curious to know what we wanted to see in OS X
10.9 before today's event? Read on for our
wishlist that we first posted earlier this year.
1. iBooks and Newsstand for OS X
OS X Mountain Lion was largely about bringing
relevant features from iOS to the Mac, but Apple
should go further. It's bizarre that both of
Apple's major iOS apps for reading are not
available on the Mac.
With OS X 10.9, Apple should release both iBooks
and Newsstand for OS X, enabling you to read
your favourite books and magazines on any Apple
device, rather than restricting them to the iPad,
iPhone and iPod touch.
2. Siri for OS X
Although Siri's not quite the revolutionary feature
that was once promised, it nonetheless continues
to improve. It's now finally useful outside of the
USA, and once you've trained it to your voice,
Siri can be used to rapidly speed up many tasks.
OS X already has plenty of built-in accessibility
clout, and a number of different playback voices,
and so it seems like a no-brainer to integrate Siri
into the system.
3. Maps for OS X
When it first arrived on iOS, Apple Maps was
rightly slammed, not least for its boneheaded
assumptions when it came to directions. But the
service continues to improve and is great for
turn-by-turn.
On the Mac, it would be less useful, but we'd
nonetheless like to see it, not least for
researching and planning routes and journeys
that could subsequently (along with favourite
places) seamlessly sync to your iOS devices via
iCloud.
4. A more usable Contacts app
People bang on about skeuomorphism in OS X,
and also confuse it with texture-oriented graphic
design, which isn't really the same thing. In
many cases, these approaches also happen to be
a matter of taste (Calendar's leather, for
example), but in Contacts, Apple's created a
usability disaster.
Half-way house between digital book and app,
Contacts is just a mess. We hope whatever
Jonathan Ive brings to the OS X 10.9 party in
terms of human interface leadership, it includes a
firm emphasis on usability and not merely a
hankering for minimalism. (More attention to
detail regarding bugs would also be nice — Game
Center remains an ugly, unusable, broken mess
on OS X and needs some serious help.)
5. An enhanced Finder
Finder remains a straightforward way to get at
your files, and recent updates have improved
inline previews. However, we'd still like to see
changes. For power users, the addition of tabs
would be great to cut down on clutter; and for
everyone, an emphasis on speed and
performance would be welcome.
Spotlight could also do with a kick up the bottom
speed-wise, which would improve Finder window
searches, the standalone Spotlight menu and any
app it's integrated into (such as Mail).
6. A broken-up iTunes
On iOS, iTunes is just a shop. Individual apps
take care of other things: Music and Videos for
media playback, App Store for buying apps,
Podcasts for playing podcasts, and so on.
The mess that is iTunes for OS X could benefit
from a similar approach, although with the app
also having to exist for Windows, we doubt this
is a wish on our list that Apple will ever fulfil.
7. Better window management
Window management on Mac OS and OS X has
always been weak and Windows zoomed past
with Aero Snap and related features. Third-party
utilities exist on OS X for managing windows, but
Apple appears hostile towards them.
Really, it should enable you to more easily and
rapidly place windows side-by-side and in other
common layouts, rather than making you move/
drag/move/drag like it's 1984.
8. Improved iCloud document management
Apple's iCloud still seems very much like a work-
in-progress, with the company feeling its way
regarding what the system can do. In terms of
document management, it's great for people
working on their own and who produce relatively
few files.
For anyone else, it's problematic at best - OS X
10.9 really needs to improve filing, sharing and
collaboration regarding this aspect of iCloud.
9. Interface improvements
It's possible to argue all day about the direction
in which Apple's interface should head, but two
major widespread problems are apparent that
really need fixing. First, Apple's infatuation with
desaturation needs to end - people use colour to
navigate and spot things, and that's now a
problem in some apps (notably Finder and iPhoto
sidebars).
Secondly, the company must address scalability.
What works on an iPad and just about works on
a MacBook Air frequently looks ridiculous on an
iMac, such as full-screen apps with acres of
space, sickness-inducing animated transitions,
and the Fisher-Price-style Launchpad.
10. More cross-device intelligence
Our final wish is that Apple's operating systems
would be a little more intelligent when it comes
to cross-device purchases. In some cases, Apple
gets it right: buy a song and you can (optionally)
have it sent to all your Apple kit; buy an app on
your iPhone and it'll download in iTunes and be
sent to your iPad.
Great. But why can't we browse the Mac App
Store (which, after all, is simply a web browser
wrapper) on an iPad, buy an app and have it
waiting on a Mac the next time we use it? It's
almost like Apple doesn't really want us using a
Mac any more, once we're comfy with an iPad…
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