Five Features of Apple's New Desktop System, Mavericks

Five Key Features of Mavericks, Apple’s New OS for Macs

Lauren Goode, editor at the tech blog AllThingsD, recently wrote an article listing the five main features of Apple's new Mac operating system, Mavericks. These include battery life optimization, Finder tabs and tags, Safari's shared links, iCloud Keychain, and multi-screen display.

Below are the main points from the article:

Apple's brand-new tenth generation desktop operating system, OS X Mavericks, is available for free to Mac users. In addition to the system, Apple also provides several software programs for free.

My review of Mavericks mainly focuses on its key features, some of which are quite practical, while others still need improvement.

Apple states that Mavericks only supports models from 2009 or later, but it may also be applicable to models as early as 2007. You will also need at least 2GB of memory, and the installation process takes about two hours. On my 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro, it took two and a half hours to install.

Battery Life Optimization

Apple claims that there is an increase in battery life when browsing the web or watching iTunes movies. The company used technical terms such as "timer coalescing" and "compressed memory" during last week's launch event. Simply put, this means that the new system consolidates tasks, allowing the processor to stay in an idle, low-energy state more often.

I conducted three battery life tests using AllThingsD's standard method—setting the display brightness to maximum, looping iTunes music playback, keeping Wi-Fi on, running an email client, and never letting the computer go to sleep. My 2012 MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion lasted 5 hours and 13 minutes. After installing Mavericks and testing again, it lasted 5 hours and 20 minutes—not a significant difference.

However, the new MacBook Pro with Intel Haswell chips and Mavericks can last up to 7 hours and 13 minutes. This suggests that the new system performs better with new hardware for battery life.

Finder Tabs and Tags

This is one of the smaller features, but I really like it since I prefer things to be neatly organized. Now you can create tabs within Finder windows, share files by dragging them to the desired Finder tab, avoiding having multiple Finder windows cluttering your desktop. Additionally, you can assign colors, tags, or keywords to folders and files, making them easier to search for within the system.

Safari Shared Links

The improvements to Safari, though small, are still quite pleasant. There is now a sidebar on the left side of the browser showing three options: Bookmarks (not a new feature), Reading List (not a new feature but improved), and Shared Links.

If you connect your Twitter account through System Preferences, tweet links will appear in Safari's Shared Links option. It can also show links from people you follow on LinkedIn.

Clicking on these links will immediately display the relevant tweets or content in Safari. Scrolling through will show older shared content from your Shared Links list. You can retweet tweets directly from Shared Links.

It would be even better if it were a real-time tweet stream; currently, Safari's Shared Links information does not automatically update—it requires manual updates by pressing Command and R simultaneously to see new links. I really like the more prominent Reading List, which can be used online or offline and is accessible on mobile devices.

iCloud Keychain

iCloud Keychain is essentially a password manager that also supports saving credit card information. When creating accounts on websites like Pottery Barn or ModCloth, it prompts me to set multi-character passwords and asks if I want to save those passwords in Safari.

Credit card information that you frequently enter can also be stored in Safari and accessed via an iPad or iPhone running iOS 7. This is the first time Apple has stored users' credit card information for shopping activities, claiming that the information is very secure and even they cannot access it.

Multi-Screen Display

Prior to this, you could project your Mac's screen onto an external display. However, everything from the original device—the dock, applications, and open windows—would all be displayed on another screen. Now, Mavericks allows for multiple display options from the same device.

I was able to use Apple TV to create another desktop environment on my television—not just projecting my computer's desktop screen. My laptop still showed the dock, mail, and Finder windows. On the television, however, I displayed PowerPoint or Final Cut Pro and could run the application full-screen. This also applies to standard external computer monitors.

Mavericks also includes other notable new features. Apple now offers free updated versions of iWork and iLife applications if your device was purchased after September 1st or if you are already a user of those applications. Apple emphasizes that Pages in iWork supports cloud collaboration, although it is late compared to similar functions offered by Microsoft and Google services.

The interfaces of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers have become more intuitive and user-friendly, but some heavy users complain about the disappearance of some old functions.

Mavericks also includes a desktop map application—this is Apple's first inclusion of such a service in a desktop system. It allows you to search for directions on your desktop and then immediately send them to your iPhone (must be running iOS 7) by clicking the share button. However, this is not a new concept: Google has supported sending directions from Chrome to Android phones for quite some time.

There were some minor issues with the operating system early on. Some Mavericks users reported problems with their desktop mail clients, where Gmail would not load through the app. Other users encountered issues while using "smart" mailboxes (such as services that collect all unread messages from multiple mail accounts). Apple says it plans to release a software update to address this problem.

The upgrades and improvements in Mavericks are not particularly outstanding, but overall, it adds some quite pleasant features. Once the mail issue is fixed, there is no reason not to adopt it.