Ahead of the Apple’s OS X Mavericks release, the beta 8 version of OS X 10.9 Mavericks has been seeded to developers. This is the 8th developer preview version of Apple’s upcoming flagship OS and comes two weeks after the seventh, an every-other-week pattern Apple has systematically taken to with iOS 7 betas as well.
Tech blog 9to5Mac notes that “Developer Preview 8 includes an updated version of iTunes 11.1 that adds an option to turn off song change notifications,” as well as the typical minor tweaks and bug fixes.
It’s being rumored that Apple is gearing up for another media event, this time on October 15 where it’s thought to debut its upcoming line of iPad tablets and possibly the full release of OS X Mavericks. Taking history into account, Apple typically releases its next-gen OS X during the fall, though OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion are exceptions to the rule having been made available during the summer. That being said, here’s everything we know so far about OS X Maviericks:
Mavericks
The biggest and arguably most important upgrade made to OS X is the battery life. An 11-inch MacBook Air now gets 9 hours of battery life while the 13-incher gets 12 hours, and here’s how:
Mavericks compresses memory for optimum battery life and more-than-responsive graphics. Timer coalescing judiciously diminishes the number of high-powered and low-powered optimizations–think of a roller coaster or sound wave, constant ups and downs–to create the most stable and efficient battery life possible.
Other upgraded aspects have to do with Finder tabs and tagging. Users can now tag items to keep things easily navigable and on-hand at all times. Tagging an icon or document can allow for better desktop organization and saving by simply dragging, hovering, and dropping saved documents and other apps or items in iCloud or in other specified tabs on your desktop.
The ability to connect collective displays reinvents multitasking, making it easier to move windows and documents across displays while opening apps on the second display with the navigation bar at the bottom. Similarly, mission control will allow for easy to use app dragging and display on both screens. The exec team was even able to demonstrate the power and seamlessness of multiple displays by hooking two Mac Pros up to a third-party Apple TV.
Safari
Safari saw some decent updates this afternoon as well. Bookmarked articles can now be scrolled through seamlessly, from one article to the next, without so much as breaking the user’s concentration to locate a similar article.
Accelerated scrolling in Safari allows for fast searchoing through, for example, dense email inboxes and deep conversations, as well as swiftly and just as smoothley scrolling through image-heavy webpages.
To tie in extended battery life, App Nap keeps track of what’s being computed versus what’s being used and automatically drops CPU power usage of an idle operation or function in order to conserve battery and energy.
Notifications will now be sent to your devices from Safari whether Apple’s flagship browser is running or not. Using fantasy football and breaking news as examples, users will now be able to customize what notifications they’re being sent and from where. And it’ll update apps automatically for you in the background so you don’t have to, across Apple platforms.
Maps
Most would argue Apple’s mapping software is its greatest downfall. No longer having a friendly relationship with mapping pioneer Google, Apple has relied on its own in-house team to create user-friendly mapping interfaces and software to mixed results. However, updates today will give users the ability to sync maps with their calendar in order to figure out and compare the best directions for their scheduled events.
Maps also now has amazing 3-D imaging of buildings and landmarks, which users can sync favorite locations and directions across all device, and let users visit them with as realistically as possible right from their device.
