Introducing the New OS for Mac: OS X Mavericks

Together with the iOS 7, Apple also released the next iteration of Mac's OS: the OS X Mavericks. Yes, it's a departure from the feline names that Apple has used in the previous versions of the OS, like Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion. And for good reason, soon Apple will run out of such names. So what's new in OS X Mavericks? Let's find out.

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There are actually 10 major changes in this iteration of OS X. These include changes in Calendar, Safari, Notifications, and Finder Tabs, and addition of new features like iBooks and Maps (borrowed from iOS), iCloud Keychain, Multiple Displays, Tags, and Advanced Technologies.

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OS X Mavericks brings the iBooks app to the system. Books that you’ve already downloaded on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch will automatically appear in iBooks on your Mac. There are over 1.8 million titles in the iBooks Store. Reading books is every bit as intuitive as it is on an iOS device — turn pages with a swipe, zoom in on images with a pinch, or scroll from cover to cover. When you quote an excerpt while writing a paper, iBooks adds a citation for you. And when you take notes, highlight passages, or add a bookmark on your Mac, iCloud pushes them to all your devices automatically.

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Like the iBooks app, the Maps app also made its way to OS X Mavericks. The Maps app lets you use every pixel of your display to explore new destinations. You also get gorgeous views such as Flyover, a photo-realistic, interactive 3D experience that lets you soar high above select cities. Maps makes it simple to get information on local points of interest like restaurants and hotels, showing you phone numbers, photos, and even Yelp reviews. It’s also easy to get there on time, thanks to point-to-point directions, real-time traffic conditions, and suggested alternate routes.

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The Calendar app is streamlined with a fresh new look and powerful features to go with it. Continuous scrolling lets the weeks and months flow by smoothly, so you can look at the last half of one month and the first half of the next one. A new event inspector makes it even simpler to create and edit events by suggesting addresses and points of interest when you start typing in the location field. It shows your event’s location on a map, calculates travel time, and displays a weather forecast. So you can quickly see where to go, how long it takes to get there, and whether you’ll need an umbrella.

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Safari in OS X Mavericks delivers blazing performance and introduces breakthrough technologies. Shared Links in the new Sidebar shows links posted by people you follow on Twitter and LinkedIn, so you can keep up with interesting new content. And with the redesigned Top Sites, it’s easy to organize your favorites. There are also unique advancements under the hood. Thanks to the new Nitro Tiered JIT and Fast Start technologies in Safari, the web pages you visit feel snappier and more responsive

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Remembering your passwords can be a real pain. But now iCloud Keychain remembers them for you. It stores your website user names and passwords on the devices you’ve approved, protects them with robust AES 256-bit encryption, and keeps them up to date on each device. And it automatically fills them in whenever and wherever you need them. The new Password Generator suggests unique, hard-to-guess passwords for your online accounts. iCloud Keychain works with credit card information too, so checking out is a snap.

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OS X Mavericks takes full advantage of every display connected to your Mac, giving you even more flexibility to work the way you want. There’s no longer a primary or secondary display — now each has its own menu bar, and the Dock is available on whichever screen you’re working on. You can have multiple app windows running on either display. Or run an app full screen on each one. Even show a desktop on one display and a full-screen app on another. Mission Control can give you a bird’s-eye view, making it easy to drag what you want where you want it. You can even drag it across the room, because now AirPlay and Apple TV can wirelessly turn your HDTV into a fully functional display.

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Notifications let you see what’s up. With OS X Mavericks, you can interact with your notifications, so you can reply to a message, respond to a FaceTime video call, or delete an email right from a notification. In addition, you can now sign up with your favorite websites to get breaking news, sports scores, auction alerts, and more — even if Safari isn’t running. And if you’ve stepped away from your Mac, you’ll find a summary of all the notifications you missed as soon as you return.

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Finder Tabs help you de-clutter your desktop by consolidating multiple Finder windows into one. You could keep a tab for Documents, one for AirDrop, and one for Back to My Mac, all in a single Finder window. You can switch between tabs, customize views, and reorder them however you like. To move a file from tab to tab, just drag and drop. And now you can even expand a Finder window to full screen and effortlessly move files wherever you want.

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Tags are a powerful new way to organize and find your files, even documents stored in iCloud. Simply tag files you want to organize together with a keyword, like “Important.” Then when you want to find those files, just click Important in the Finder sidebar or enter it in the search field. Tag a file once, or give it multiple tags to assign it to multiple projects. If you have documents stored in multiple iCloud libraries, tags let you group them together into projects. So if you’re planning an event, you could tag the guest list you saved in Numbers, the flyer you designed in Pages, and the presentation you created in Keynote, and see them all with just one click — organized as a single project in a single Finder window.

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OS X Server includes a number of innovations that will help the people who use your network as well as the people who manage it. The new features in Xcode Server make it easier than ever for a Mac or iOS development team to create robust, reliable software, thanks to continuous integration, testing, and repository hosting services. Caching Server 2 speeds up the download and delivery of software through the App Store, Mac App Store, and iTunes Store, and it can now cache on your server for faster downloading to iOS 7 devices. And Profile Manager has an array of new management features for iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks that simplify software distribution of apps and books.

With OS X Mavericks, your Mac works even smarter. Energy-saving technologies help you get more out of your battery, and performance-boosting technology brings you more speed and responsiveness. It’s power wielded wisely.

What can you say about the new OS X Mavericks? Do you think it's worthy of being called an upgrade? An evolution or a revolution?

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xoxo Nash