OS X Mavericks [At First Glance]

With less than half a day after the announcement at the WWDC the new operating system OS X 10.9 “Mavericks”, we downloaded the official developer version from the Apple Developer Network and check all the news that Apple has mentioned and some improvements that have commented.

You should start with the most obvious of all, OS X Mavericks now is not a beta, is practically an alpha, one early draft for developers who simply “works”. I’ve found many bugs, Translation errors, non-conforming items or just items that will be updated in future versions.

Do you feel different OS X Mavericks? It’s definitely a new version of OS X, but there is a large change in the interface, even in typical applications. Of course, there is a drastic change such as Windows 8, is a continuation of OS X 10.8, better things he can do well and not wanting to intrude on devices that are not prepared.

Although we find a version of the operating system very green, clearly in a state of development that goes into its final phase, but to which he remains to be done to be finished and add the Release Preview, Release Candidate and finally Gold Master (final version identical to what is sold).

Safari 7.0

The new version of Safari integrates many new features that we discussed during your presentation. Even without dramatic design touch, we can see that the new screen Top Sites, where pages are displayed in the browser open has a good redesign.

But where we are certainly the best of this new version of Safari is the new sidebar, where we found our favorites, Reading List and Shared Links. Shared links is where we find the reason for existence of this bar; we can see in real time all the links you share on Twitter and LinkedIn, now integrates with OS X Mavericks.

When you open one of these links will show in a new tab the web, with a top bar showing coming from Shared Links, giving the option to “retweet” the link to our account. This bar is opened with the shortcut CMD + Shift + L or from the View menu → Display Sidebar.

Is Safari as fast as Apple says? Perhaps in a more “final”, but of course now, with this first version is Safari faster than Chrome. Engine Upgrades JavaScript in Safari 7.0 has done their job, now faster than previous versions, but I cannot find a reasonable basis in the Apple developer conference say that Safari beats Chrome. A simple test based on Sun Spider, shows 90% of the time Chrome as faster browser. It is true that the difference between the two browsers is minimal, but Chrome is still faster.

Safari’s behavior is a beta; I found some bugs that caused its sudden closure, for example to manage large images. But hey! It’s a beta, do not forget it.

Notes

Notes application design has changed but not in functionality. It remains a small but useful application to take quick notes. In terms of design, forget complicated skin effects and elements or fonts.

We found a much simpler implementation that focuses on the content of the notes, with Helvetica as default font, but you can resort back to other fonts as Marker Felt or Noteworthy.

Contacts

Another design change and the changes are there. The Contacts application on OS X Mavericks has undergone many changes. No doubt the new design simple and “flat” allows us to focus more on the contacts, but other than that show contacts with various social networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, there are no major changes.

Maps

Directly from iOS for the first time Apple has a Maps application on OS X Mavericks. For Apple, its usefulness lies in finding points of interest to share with iOS, add to a favorites list or add a specific address to a contact from Phonebook. But its operation is identical to that we are in iOS.

The Apple Maps can be worse than Google Maps, of course, takes a lot of information that Google Maps has an advantage of years and even a feature that is important today as Street View, but maps for OS X is an application that comes in handy if you just want to check where a street or a trade.

Maps for OS X has the functions of satellite view and 3D view that is integrated into iOS, a very interesting feature to investigate streets and buildings of any area.

iCloud

The main novelty of iCloud on OS X Keychain Mavericks is iCloud, this integrated system in the iCloud service is now able to sync more than just documents your applications, you can automatically create passwords to create an account on almost any web form iCloud remember that access data, but you can also store the Wi-Fi networks that you connect to the respective passwords, it will be really interesting feature when iOS 7 allows to do exactly the same.

If you come from an earlier version of OS X and you had previously configured iCloud account on the Mac, you need to activate this option in System Preferences.

Accounts

As to what concerns sync accounts, Apple continues to maintain iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Twitter or Facebook. The first three of those mentioned above all to create email accounts or sync calendars and calendar. Twitter and Facebook are synchronized to add contacts into Address Book and that in OS X and Safari could share links and pictures. Flickr and Vimeo were also present to share pictures and videos.

With Mavericks Apple OS X operating system makes more social. Now integrates with Yahoo and AOL accounts. Which are quite worn by EE. UU. Not in the rest of the world. Furthermore, it integrates LinkedIn to share links and contacts synchronization.

Finder

Finder, the file browser of OS X has some improvements that deserve mention. No doubt the function is more interest many navigation labels or tags. Actually what Apple has done is use the color rating of OS X 10.8 and you can arrange to view these colors. In previous versions, and could change the names of the colors to make it more personalized, but with OS X Mavericks can add more labels and color change, although it is rare that so far do not allow to select a custom color for the labels created.

Another new feature that has been caught borrowed from other applications replacements Finder is the option to open tabs in Finder. As you think, works as a browser, you can have a Finder window and press CMD + T to create another tab or gather some windows open in one tabbed.

Calendar

Another application with a design change “flatter” is Calendar. This application is quite useful when you have multiple accounts to manage and have enough calendars to attend to every day, but thanks to the new color palette different appointments are more visible.

But where we notice a real improvement in Calendar is when we add a new event. By adding the location of a calendar event automatically gives an approximate address based on maps. It also adds a new field of “Travel time” that lets you chooses how long you can take to get to the appointment depending on where you are. The map display also adds weather forecast is expected in that place for the time of the event, sometimes very important information.

Preview

Update: Some functions were already present in OS X 10.8 as a magnifying glass and signatures.

Preview is an application which allows you to view photos and from OS X 10.8 to add some improvements and tweaks in addition to adding photos a few simple functions to add text or elements such as lines, rectangles, circles or elements to highlight some parts of the photos or documents .

There are interesting improvements in this application that Apple had not counted. For example, there is now a magnifying glass that lets you see the pictures at full size resolution, perhaps an element that is inherited from photo editing applications like Apple Aperture.

They keep options to correct contrast, brightness, color, focus … In addition to adding more colors to the palette to add floats and greatly improve the selection tool with rectangular circle Lasso and intelligent.

[Note: function already present in 10.8] But perhaps one of the functions not mentioned but are incredibly useful is a new signature recognition system. Preview integrates a function to capture and attach a signature on documents. Powered by iSight camera, you have to make a signature on a piece of white paper, preferably with a pen or a pen where the firm looks good, scarce signature by the camera and automatically preview scans your signature to insert. My first tests were a failure after failure, but doing well a firm large enough and clear, you can get.

Dictation and Voice Recognition

OS X 10.9 “Mavericks” integrates a given function improved in different languages, including Spanish. Work is quite noticeable behind with tools found in iOS and Siri, since the audio is automatically sent to Apple’s servers to transcribe what you say into text. Although the system is not perfect, you can get to create text without typing.

Includes a function to use when you have no internet connection, downloading a package of 800 MB to the operating system and allows recognition and instant feedback.

Power Control

Apple is proud to mention that with OS X Mavericks has been greatly improved performance, not only of the system, applications also. With these advanced technologies has improved performance and battery life with new hardware helped. Now from the menu Battery can find applications that we are consuming more energy open, showing the Activity Monitor which displays data on the impact of this application on the battery.

Even if we compare with the previous version of OS X is true that we find a better battery life and even some performance improvement, the software is in beta so you’re just going to be able to notice a big improvement.

Several screens

One of the biggest complaints I have OS X 10.8 users with multiple displays connected, is so poorly thought out that it is the option to make apps full screen look. It is simply unusable when you have a monitor connected because automatically makes the other screen goes gray and cannot use it. This complaint is arranged with OS X Mavericks, you can now have multiple screens and if you open a full screen application, the other will continue to function normally.

The operation of multiple screens beyond, you have the entire desktop on both screens with the menu bar and the Dock of applications, but the Dock is always on the screen where you have a Finder window open. Mission Control also makes a separation depending on the application screen.

Finally, it is now possible to use Airplay on an Apple TV to create a new screen, a simple solution and maybe cheaper to have an extra monitor. We could not do this test since we have an Apple TV right now (we’re at it) but comments we heard, there is some lag and loss of quality for streaming via Wi-Fi, but we see it with our own eyes this function and update this part.

Notifications

10.8 Notices are still present in the right sidebar, where they are storing all the events from different applications. But the Mavericks OS novelty is that it can interact with them, so yes, depending on the application. For now you can reply to messages using the messages without having to open the conversation or application.

When you have the Mac from sleep or screen locked, enter the password to have it locked with her, you will see a list of pending notifications read.

Little details

                                                              

We did not want to close this at first sight with OS X Mavericks without talking about some details that should not be left out of this list of features. As such the new contextual menus to insert a new special character or to insert a Emoji in messages application.

In System Preferences we find something new, as in the App Store section where you can enable or disable as we want to check for updates automatically, download and installation. Also new is the “Boot Disk”, where if you have more than one hard drive or SSD integrated or connected to your Mac, you can choose from which to boot.

Compatibility

Finally, it is important to mention that Macs will be compatible Mavericks, because with each version starts neglecting laptops and older PCs. OS X Mavericks will be compatible with these Macs:

• iMac: Mid-2007 or later.
• MacBook 13-inch Aluminum Late 2008, early 2009 13-inch or later.
• MacBook Pro 13-inch mid 2009 or later, 15-inch mid / late 2007 or later, 17-inch late 2007 or later.
• MacBook Air: end 2008 or later.
• Mac Mini: early 2009 or later.
• Mac Pro: Early 2008 or later.
• Xserve: Early 2009.