CNET - At its Worldwide Developers Conference today, Apple gave the world a glimpse of the next products in its pipeline, with the next version of its Mac operating system leading the way. After years of giving OS X cat-related names (Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, and so on), the company has moved on, choosing California-themed titles for future versions of the operating system. And the first in that new line is OS X 10.9, which will be known as Mavericks.
Named after the world-famous surfing competition held near Half Moon Bay, Calif., Mavericks will be available today in a preview for developers, and for everyone else this fall. The new operating system will feature improved battery life, many new applications, better power management, tabs in Finder, and the ability to add tags to file names so they're more searchable.
As well, Apple has built the ability to use multiple displays into Mavericks, giving power users (such as the developers who have filled WWDC to capacity) more screen real estate, and more multitasking capabilities.
The next new product is an updated Safari, Apple's browser. The latest Safari will feature a new home screen with top sites, and what's known as a Reading list, a tool that lets users keep scrolling from the end of articles to the next stories on a site. And on the performance side, the next Safari has Nitro tiered JIT, Nitro fast start, background tab optimization, and better memory usage.
Maps
Given Apple's lost relationship with Google, the company has been forced to develop -- with very mixed results -- its own mapping tools. And now it is bringing Maps to OS X. The newest version of the tool features 3D maps, and the ability to get an instant estimated time of arrival for any address in a calendar event. More
