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.
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