
Apple to release OS X 10.9 with new power-user features, more from iOS - uladzislau
http://9to5mac.com/2013/04/29/apple-to-update-os-x-with-new-power-user-features-more-from-ios-later-this-year/
======
dljsjr
Rumors. All rumors.

Why is this here? I'm one of the biggest OS X 'fanbois' in the world, and I
read the rumor mill sites every day, and I enjoy them for what they are:
speculation.

But this isn't news; news is typically factual. And the Apple Rumor business
is abysmal; 9to5mac, and specifically Mark Gurman, have one of the best track
records in the game[1]; even then, it's a horrendous track record.

If this stuff shows up, then yay. I'll be thrilled. Especially proper multi-
monitor support for full-screen apps. And I'm not saying that Mark Gurman is
wrong (after all, he has "sources"). It's entirely possible that everything in
this article will show up in 10.9

But it doesn't change the fact that it's still chaff, not wheat.

[1]: [http://www.quora.com/Who-has-been-the-most-accurate-in-
predi...](http://www.quora.com/Who-has-been-the-most-accurate-in-predicting-
next-moves-by-Apple) (sorry for the Quora link, the cited site is no longer
up)

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
It just looks like Apple integrated TotalFinder, but considering that is
closed source, I imagine it will not be an integration with TotalFinder, but
there own brew.

I only hope 10.9 doesn't break TotalFinder.

~~~
dljsjr
Screenshot in the source article is a screenshot of the existing TotalFinder.

We don't know if Apple has done anything at all to Finder.

------
Tyrannosaurs
When I saw power user features I wondered if it might be something that might
convince people that OS X isn't going further down the locked down iOS route
and certainly multiple monitors and more advanced use of finder are towards
the power user end of things.

On the other hand it would be fair to say that they're relatively a small
investment on Apple's part and it would be possible to read too much into
them.

Looking at changes like this my take is that the truth is probably somewhere
in the middle. I don't think Apple are going to lock down OS X the way iOS is
locked down but nor do I think that power users are as critical a part of
their target audience as they once were.

The end result - small changes for power users, enough to give them faith that
they're not being completely ignored, and more significant investments for the
new breed of typical Mac user.

------
doktrin
>> " _The new operating system includes major enhancements to the Finder
application such as tags and tabbed browsing modes._ "

This would certainly be a welcome improvement.

However, not sure this ranks as a " _power user_ " feature so much as a "
_fixing a really broken_ " feature. The finder in OSX ranks up there with the
single-button mouse as among the most nonsensical stubborn non-features Apple
has clung to over the years.

~~~
dechols
Yeah, I didn't see anything I'm interested in as a "power-user".

OSX lately has decided to hide a ton of features out of the box that require
changing values in Terminal before being useful. A quick list I know of: \-
Hiding full paths in Finder \- Launchpad can't actually delete things. \-
Library is hidden

Other weird default settings: \- Scroll with trackpad is inverted

It also doesn't have Ubuntu's nice window snapping or Windows' snap to sides
feature, which is a big time saver.

Finally, I don't feel like "port iOS features to OSX" has been a win for
Apple. It just seems to confuse people by adding more crap to the OS.

~~~
X-Istence
Library being hidden by default makes a lot of sense. It contains user
specific application configuration, it's the same as on Windows having AppData
which is hidden in the users "home" directory.

There is almost no reason for a user to ever be in the Library folder, let
alone why it should be visible by default.

\---

As for scroll being inverted, they did this so that it matches what you do on
iOS. You move up to scroll down the page since you are physically dragging the
page, and you move down to scroll up.

I recently used a friends computer where the scroll was still inverted and he
said it felt much more natural. To each their own, it is a non-hidden setting!

------
wsc981
I can't say I agree with the many people that think the Finder is broken. For
my purposes the Finder works fine, doesn't get much in my way. Might be
because I've used Apple computers for around 20 years now. I can imagine
people migrating from other platforms have more issues with the Finder, since
it works quite differently from Windows, Linux OS-es.

Actually, I don't think I interact much with the finder directly nowadays. I
start apps using Apple-Spacebar and switch between apps using Apple-Tab.
Finder is pretty much only used for some file management purposes (moving
files to other folders, copy files etc...) and for those purposes it seems to
work fine for me.

I do really wish Apple will fix full-screen display for multiple screens. I
can imagine a lot of Apple developers would like to see this changed as well.
Perhaps Steve Jobs blocked this change in a previous Mac OS X release due to
personal issues with it? I can't imagine any Apple developer implementing
full-screen support as it stands currently, only if it was forced by
management, cause it makes no sense at all with regards to multiple screens.

------
lorenzfx
There isn't anything in there that would get me back on board (I jumped ship
about two years ago). I would consider proper multi monitor support for
fullscreen "apps" a bugfix and not a feature.

Where is the proper window manager (or at least some hooks for 3rd party
window managers) and the modern file system (at least give us snapshots and
copy-on-write)?

~~~
TillE
OS X works extremely well on a laptop, which has been Apple's primary Mac
focus for a while now. Flicking between virtual desktops/fullscreen apps on a
multi-touch trackpad is a wonderful way to use a 13" screen.

If you replace the awful Finder with something usable, I'd argue that it's the
best OS (desktop environment) for that particular form factor. For a proper
workstation...well, they haven't even bothered to update the hardware for
years. No surprise that the software has been neglected as well.

~~~
andyhmltn
That's a good point, although a huge part of that is how good the trackpad is
and how deeply it's integrated into the OS.

------
account_taken
These look like good moves. While Microsoft and Ubuntu are shunning their
desktop users, Apple is making me look the smarter for choosing a company who
still stands believes in a desktop OS :)

FYI, I was a decade long Windows user who switched to Mac then to Ubuntu then
back to Mac after Unity.

~~~
Shorel
As a happy Ubuntu Raring user, I can't honestly agree with the complains
against Ubuntu.

It's the best desktop experience I've ever had.

~~~
account_taken
I tried Ubuntu 12.10 again briefly and was disappointed that intel HD4000
wasn't fully supported in 3D. Graphics is dog slow in Ubuntu on the same
hardware.

It looks like shopping spies still on by default in 13.04. I doubt I'll ever
use Ubuntu again on that principle alone. Even Apple doesn't force that on you
in Spotlight. Still cannot move taskbar. Still cannot resize taskbar without
3D support.

~~~
evilduck
Hear hear! I just installed 13.04 on a relatively modern computer yesterday
(C2Q, 8GB RAM, an "old" 9800GT) and had what I consider the typical linux
experience. Any one of these might halt or scare off a newbie:

* It wouldn't let me choose the encrypted/LVM option when formatting the drive before installing. Unencrypted worked though. I didn't bother to really investigate why, maybe the HD is at fault?

* Defaults to the nouveau drivers for obvious reasons and I swapped it to the NVidia binary (for specific reasons). Screen dumped to console on its own while it reset X. Functionally fine, but scary looking compared to anything you'd see in Windows or OSX.

* Changing the GPU driver now makes the system boot up in a not-native resolution until LightDM loads. Visually unappealing.

* The computer has a Broadcom Wifi card installed that I'd like to use. Oh boy! (read that as... fuck broadcom). Obviously not handled by Ubuntu out of the box so I drag out an ethernet cable. Trying to install their binary driver requires command line magic which temporarily breaks dpkg/apt when a installing kernal module stalls out. I fixed that and then installed an open source version which grabbed the binary for me, which worked, but I wouldn't ever expect a layman to figure it out. Requires a reboot to finally function.

* Numerous "application encountered an error" popups in the 10 or so hours I was working with it. Nothing that halted the OS, but several apps had to restart. It dings my confidence in the quality a bit. And the computer's RAM checked out fine a couple months ago and all temps were normal, I'm going to lean towards either my suspected aforementioned drive issue or actual errors with the apps. Didn't investigate, but they could happen to anyone.

* Annoying Amazon and Ubuntu One monetization techniques defaulted into the Unity. It's not a functional issue, but raises concerns about the future of the free software ethos at Canonical and treads awfully close to the adware and spyware that plagues Windows users that the OSS community has been railing against for years.

Compare that to OSX where I could just turn it on and have none of these
problems, it's not quite rainbows and unicorn farts. I like linux for many
reasons and Ubuntu has made great strides towards making Linux available to
the masses, but it's still relatively easy to want to do normal things and
encounter rough edges that require technical prowess.

------
gcv
Really, FTFF is in the works? I'll believe it when I see it. (I don't know why
Apple hasn't just bought Path Finder.)

~~~
pattern
Since I had to look it up: FTFF = Fix The &$%#ing Finder[1], a blanket term
for OS X Finder woes!

[1]: <http://www.applematters.com/article/ftff/>

------
bkeating
Makes sense. Good focus. As the masses flock to pocket OSes, OS X becomes more
streamlined for the audience that remains; the creators.

------
SurfScore
I'm more concerned about what large feline they will name 10.9 after. Do they
even have any left?

OS X 10.9 - House Cat FTW

~~~
apendleton
There hasn't been one called "cougar," which is a scary-cat name people think
of, I think. Of course, "cougar" is another name for the puma, but then, so is
"mountain lion," so that may not be a barrier.

Cougars(/pumas/mountain lions) are also interesting because they're not big
cats, taxonomically speaking, so potentially the entire felidae family is in
play, and it's pretty big. "Lynx" is a possibility... maybe also "wildcat" or
"bobcat"? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felidae>

~~~
ryanpetrich
Wildcat was already used as the codename for the iPad, though I suppose it's
possible they could repurpose it.

~~~
SurfScore
I'd vote for Wildcat

------
emehrkay
Lets hope that it doesn't require us to re-install all of our *nix tools like
every other release did in the past.

~~~
dljsjr
I've never had to reinstall my *nix tools when using OS X.

Where are you installing them? OS X respects all of the guarantees in the
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard so if you aren't installing custom-built
binaries in /usr/local then the problem isn't OS X.

~~~
emehrkay
With every update I seem to have to reinstall just about any command line tool
that I've previously installed because either they've moved some executables,
or deprecated something , or the old binaries simply do not work with the
newer version of the os. MySQL is probably the biggest annoyance with regard
to upgrading. I don't believe that this is just a thing that I go through
because the answers to my problems are a Google search away and I've taken an
07 MBP from Leopard to Mountain Lion.

~~~
dljsjr
I've never had that problem, but I've only been on OS X since Snow Leopard,
and it seems that things have remained pretty consistent.

I also try to do as much installation from Homebrew
(<http://mxcl.github.io/homebrew/>) as possible, so that I can let the package
manager worry about stuff like that.

------
Millennium
The first thing I noticed is that this would be the first OSX release to be
named after something other than a great cat. Instead, they seem to be going
for alcoholic beverages now.

Why do I find this darkly hilarious?

~~~
smickie
It says 10.9 is 'internally codenamed' so I assume Cabernet not the the final
release name. Fingers crossed for OSX Ocelot.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I think ‘Lynx’ would be neat, as it is the last major version before OS X 11
(or whatever they will call it), linking it to the next generation. It also
reminds us of the lowly text web browser and the fact that the web is only 20
years old.

~~~
evan_
You don't think they'll do OS X 10.10?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Em, no. Of all the possibilities, I’d say that is one of the least likely.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Sequence-
ba...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Sequence-
based_identifiers)

~~~
evan_
Are you sure you read that correctly? I quote:

> In this system, the third digit (instead of the second digit) denotes a
> minor release, and a fourth digit (instead of the third digit) denotes bug-
> fix/revision releases. Because the first digit is always 10, and because the
> subsequent digits are not decimals, but incremental values, it is likely
> that a hypothetical 11th major version of OSX, should it exist, would be
> labeled "10.10" rather than "11.0".

They did 10.4.10 and 10.4.11 so I'd say its within the realm of possibility.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
All very good points. I think it would look silly, but sure, it’s possible.
However, I think Apple would only choose it if the version after 10.9 didn’t
look all too different from 10.9. If they did some kind of UI overhaul, it
would be a good time to jump to a new major version – maybe even ‘OS XI’ or
‘OS 11’.

