Apple OS X Mavericks: Maps, iBooks, Tabbed Finder, and more coming this fall

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Software

Apple has announced Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks at this mornings WWDC 2013 keynote. Stepping away from the big cats theme, the new version of OS X takes on a new California-based naming scheme. Key features in OS X Mavericks include a tabbed Finder, tagging, support for full-screen apps on multiple displays, and more. AirPlay connected HDTVs can even acts as full-on monitors as well now. There's also a new, lighter font used across the OS as well.

Other technologies include App Nap, which keeps active apps optimized and background apps still available without taking up precious resources. If an app is visible, it gets power, but if it is covered by other apps and running in the background, resources for that app are reduced. Timer Coalescing is a feature which reduces CPU utilization up to 72%, and compressed memory optimizes the inactive memory in your Mac to give it better performance.

Continue past the break for more on OS X Mavericks!

Safari gets a new, clean homepage with an optimized sidebar with Reading List, Bookmarks, and Shared Links. The Shared Links pulls in links shared by people youa re following on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. JSBench shows that the new Safari is faster than Chrome and Firefox, while using far less energy, RAM, and CPU usage. Reading List now lets you do continuous scrolling from one item to the next--same goes for the Reader view in Safari.

iCloud Keychain remembers your Web site logins, credit card numbers, Wi-Fi passwords, and they are all synced between your devices and encrypted. Safari will also suggest secure passwords during signup to new sites and services, and will then sync it to your iCloud account.

Notifications get improvements as well, allowing you to reply to emails and Messages right in the notification. You can delete emails right from the notification as well. Notifications will also appear on your Mac lockscreen to show you what you missed, and apps will be updated in the background as well.

Calendar gets a brand new user interface with a nice, light new font.

Apple Maps comes to OS X in Mavericks with a dedicated app, including turn-by-turn directions. Find a route, and you can send it directly to your iPhone with the click of a button. Pretty impressive. Developers get an SDK so they can add mapping to their Mac apps.

iBooks also gets a dedicated app, allowing Mac users the ability to read their iBooks content right on the Mac. Previously, iBooks have only been available on iOS devices.

Apple Mac OS X Mavericks is available today as a preview for developers, and will be available to the general public this fall.