Yesterday, June 10th, was a big day for Apple. As everyone expected, Apple released iOS 7 and OS X 10.9 and the event was mind blowing. Adding to that, they released iTunes Radio, new MacBook Airs, Mac Pros and lots more. This is much different than the Apple which used to release a thinner, lighter phone and call it a day.
The most exciting thing for me was OS X 10.9 aka Mavericks, that’s because I spend way lot more time on my Mac. And for starters, Mavericks is a place in California and Apple has now moved away from big cats for naming of OS X.
So, here’s what’s new in the next version of world’s most advanced desktop operating system.
Finder Tabs and Tags
Lets rule out the obvious ones first. Tabs in Finder have been rumoured for a quite a bit of time now. And because Finder is focused so much on drag-and-drop functionality, it perfectly makes sense to have tabs.
Tabs in Finder look very similar to that of Safari. If you have multiple Finder windows open, you can group them into one.
Next up, Tags. This is more of a power users’ feature. Tags offer a simple way to categorise files and let you browse files of a specific tag, in Finder. You can set tags to a file from the file saving window. Also, you can do tag-specific search in Finder. Not sure about Spotlight. Also, tags get synced via iCloud.
Better Notifications
I love the Notification centre in Mountain Lion and with more app developers supporting, it keeps getting more useful. In Mavericks, Notifications become actionable! (say, a bit like Android).
So, think of it, you can now reply to Messages, FaceTime calls, Mails – without even opening the app. This also opens a great opportunity for developers.
Websites can now send notifications, even when Safari is not open. Again, this is a great news for web developers. There’s also another small addition – if you put your Mac to sleep and come back, it now gets you the list of notifications that you missed. Pretty nice.
iBooks, Calendar and Maps
Apple has released two unexpected apps for Mavericks: iBooks and Maps. This is a nice update for all of you who buy books from the iTunes store. The app is pretty sleek, too. It has study cards built in, you can highlight and take notes and lot more.
Next up, Maps. It looks beautiful and useless at the same time. It’s beautiful because of features like Flyover, especially when you make the app to go full screen and with a multi touch trackpad – the experience must be awesome. But, Apple is yet to fix the Maps debacle.
The Calendar app too got an update. This is of course because Apple has now moved on to flat design and the stitches in the Calendar app look hideous. The newer Calendar looks clean and also has cool stuff like Facebook integration.
Performance
This is probably the most exciting part for me, as a faster, smoother OS X is always welcome. It seems like Apple has worked a lot on memory management in this version of OS X.
There’s stuff like Timer Coalescing, Compressed Memory, App Nap and lot more. I personally found App Nap interesting. It basically slows down all the background apps and will let the current app (which you’re using) use more resources. Timer Coalescing is set to increase battery life by a good amount and Compressed Memory should bring on smooth 60 frames per second scrolling.
I don’t know if this affects booting speed, but if it does, that’s a very good thing.
And lots more
Adding to these set of features, there’s better Multi display support, a redesigned Safari and iCloud Keychain support. The latter is pretty huge, as it basically kills one of the most popular password managers for Mac and iOS – 1Password.
Overall, it’s a considerably big update for OS X. There’s no clarity on whether this update is going to be priced at 20$ like Mountain Lion, or totally free.
Nevertheless, if you have an Apple Developer account, you can get the beta and try it right now.