Notifications are more accurate and more immediate, though it’s still not nearly as full-featured and customizable per app as Growl, and unfortunately you can’t prevent the notifications from taking over the top-right corner of the screen, which is the last place I want them to be.
Mavericks is worth the upgrade for in-notification replies alone I can’t help but hope that Apple brings the same thing to iOS 7 sooner rather than later. You can also now interact with your notifications, in an awesomely Android-like touch click on a Messages notification to reply inline, or delete an email without ever needing to open the app. On one hand, you now get more notifications than ever - many of the same things you’d see on your phone now come to your computer as well. If the only change in Mavericks were an improvement to OS X notifications, it’d still be worth the 4.79GB and the hour or so it takes to install. And it’s the small things that might be the most significant. But there are some new toys to play with as well, both big and small. There’s plenty more, and at such an early stage it’s hard to really evaluate the improvements anyway, but even with a few bugs and problems it’s already a fast, stable operating system. Your apps can now even auto-update, which should at least make John McCain a very happy man. The changes here have less to do with how you do things than what you use to do them: Apple’s hoping to obviate some of the App Store’s best offerings, instead giving you better versions of its core apps and a few new ones besides.Įven this early, Mavericks is fast and stableĪpp Nap is a lot like the power-saving features in iOS 7, pulling power from background apps to save battery. There’s a new background, but everything from the dock to the menu bar to how you use your computer will feel completely familiar.
I’ve been testing a very early version of Mavericks (it's due out this fall) on a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, and I appreciate what Apple’s done here: it’s systematically fixing what was broken, without tampering with the parts it got right.įor the most part, Mavericks looks and feels just like Mountain Lion, and Lion before it. In this case, rather than completely overhaul the look and feel of the entire platform, Apple has instead picked its spots, removing and adding features in particular places while all the while tuning for performance and efficiency throughout. The 10th version of OS X, Mavericks, felt like an afterthought in the midst of Apple's radical overhaul of its mobile operating system. We'll have an updated review for you - based on the retail version released on October 22nd - very shortly. Below, enjoy our comprehensive preview of OS X Mavericks from June.