With every new OS X release comes a fancy new wallpaper, and for Mavericks, Apple has provided us with a beautiful shot of an ocean wave. And it’s even more beautiful when you put it on a high-resolution display, because it was a whopping 5120×2880 resolution. In fact, it’s the perfect size for a 27-inch Retina iMac or Thunderbolt display.
Steve Jobs used to take care of Apple’s biggest product unveilings prior to his passing in 2011, and since then, they’ve been shared around among the top company executives. Scott Forstall handled everything iOS, but his departure from Cupertino last year left the door open for someone else.
At WWDC on Monday, Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, took to the stage to present iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and he’s now being hailed the perfect frontman for Apple, with developers, fans, and even investors impressed by his pitch.
This is a neat little new detail in OS X Mavericks: if there are updates available for your system, the Notification will allow you to delay installing them for an hour, or until the evening when your system isn’t busy. And you can actually dismiss the damn thing now without it just immediately popping back up!
For other things new in OS X Mavericks, check out our gallery round-up.
Auto background app updating isn’t just for iOS 7 — a brand new pane in System Preferences has been added to take care of App Store update settings. The big news? Auto updates in the background.
This time ’round on CultCast: iOS 7 debuts to a standing ovation, but some aren’t in love; OS X 10.9 Mavericks will have you rewatching Top Gun, we’ll highlight the new features; new MacBook Airs get insanely long battery life and more power; and Apple resurrects the rumored Mac Pro to uproarious applause—it’s our complete WWDC coverage on this very special episode of the CultCast.
Join us as we review all the great stuff Apple announced in the glorious 90-minute event know as WWDC. Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Show notes up next.
Yesterday, Apple unveiled OS X 10.9 and joked that after a decade, they were ditching their scheme of naming OS X releases after cats because they’d simply run out of big cat names to use. Instead, from now on, they’d name future versions of OS X after places in California, starting with OS X Mavericks, named after a famous Californian surfing spot.
What’s pretty funny about the choice of ‘Mavericks’ as a name for OS X, though, is that the real-world location is named after a German Shephard, meaning that argue switched from naming their OS X releases after cats to naming them after dogs instead!
OS X Mavericks has some crazy new power-saving technologies, as demoed yesterday at the WWDC Keynote. Most of these are system-based: the OS stops wasting CPU cycles running animations that are hidden behind another window, for example. But some, like this neat addition to the battery menu, are about advising the user what’s sucking the juice.