The team at pebble.it has been testing the new version of OS X, dubbed Mavericks, since it was announced at WWDC this year. It brought some features that we’ve been crying out for Apple to include in OS X for years, most notably a tabbed Finder, greatly improved full screen mode and a whole new power management system.
Tabbed finder
Have you ever been lost in a sea of Finder windows, desperately hunting for that Photoshop file that you know is there somewhere? With tabbed Finder windows, they’re all collected into a handy group, so you can see what you’ve got open at a glance.
New full screen mode
When full screen mode was introduced in Lion in 2011 we had big hopes for it. Our laptops were getting smaller and smaller and we needed to see more of our apps. And it worked magnificently. Until you added a second screen to your Mac. The minute you went full screen on one screen, the other was filled with grey uselessness.
Now you can be busy looking for inspiration in Safari in full screen mode on your secondary screen with Indesign open on your primary screen, or even have two different full screen applications open at the same time.
Power management
We’ve all been there, you’re working away and suddenly your battery meter plummets. You know something is sucking all the power, but you have no idea what. The battery meter in Mavericks will let you know which applications are using lots of power so you can decide whether you really need them open.
But you might not even need to keep such a beady eye on your battery - with App Nap, any apps that you just have sat in the background doing nothing will quietly shut itself down until you bring it to the front again, saving your processor from having to think about it and saving you from worrying (so much) about where your next power point will be.
