Apple Introduces ‘A New Era Of Personal Computing Where OS Upgrades Are Free’

os-x-mavericks-free-upgradeApple today released OS X Mavericks, the 10th major release their operating system.

Mavericks offers over 200 new features and brings iBooks and Maps to the Mac. It also includes a new version of Safari, enhances multi-display support, introduces Finder Tabs and Tags and delivers new core technologies for breakthrough power efficiency and performance.

New features of interest to musicians are enhanced multi-display support and system-level memory compression.

“We want every Mac user to experience the latest features, the most advanced technologies, and the strongest security,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “We believe the best way to do this is to begin a new era of personal computing software where OS upgrades are free.”

OS X Mavericks Key Features:

  • iBooks, which gives you instant access to your iBooks library, more than two million titles in the iBooks Store, and works seamlessly across your devices;
  • Maps, which brings powerful mapping technology to the desktop and lets you plan a trip from your Mac and send it to your iPhone for voice navigation on the road;
  • a streamlined Calendar that estimates travel time between appointments, and provides a map with weather forecast;
  • a new version of Safari with Shared Links, which helps you find what’s new on the web by consolidating links shared by people you follow on Twitter and LinkedIn;
  • iCloud Keychain, which safely stores your website usernames and passwords, credit card numbers and Wi-Fi passwords and pushes them to your trusted devices;
  • enhanced multi-display support, which makes using multiple displays easier and more powerful, with no configuration required;
  • interactive Notifications, allowing you to reply to a message, respond to a FaceTime call or even delete an email without leaving the app you’re using;
  • Finder Tabs, which help unclutter your desktop by consolidating multiple Finder windows into a single window with multiple tabs; and
  • Finder Tags, a powerful new way to organize and find your files located on your Mac or in iCloud.
  • Mavericks also includes new core technologies that boost performance and improve the battery life of your Mac. Timer Coalescing and App Nap intelligently save energy and reduce power consumption. Compressed Memory automatically shrinks inactive data to keep your Mac fast and responsive. Mavericks also delivers significant performance enhancements for systems with integrated graphics through optimized OpenCL support and dynamic video memory allocation.

Pricing & Availability

Any Mac capable of running OS X Mountain Lion can also run Mavericks. You can upgrade to Mavericks for free directly from OS X Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion. For a complete list of system requirements and compatible systems, please visit www.apple.com/osx/specs.

35 thoughts on “Apple Introduces ‘A New Era Of Personal Computing Where OS Upgrades Are Free’”

  1. Apple is lowering its pricing, this combined with the fact that iWork and iLife are now completely free is a great news for Mac users. Great keynote.

    1. Yes – I think some brave folks are required to do the testing with existing DAW software. I won’t be upgrading until we’ve seen some reviews and if it breaks anything.

      One thing that will be good is if it fixes the arbitrary (re)ordering of audio channels in aggregate devices. That has been a problem with Mountain Lion.

      I am a little concerned about memory compression with audio software. Sounds like it could lead to glitches while com…press….ion and unc….ompress…ion occur. Any thoughts on that?

      D.

      1. Just headed over to the Presonus forums and some folks are reporting problems with Studio One Pro and Mavericks. So, I’m definitely holding off until things get fixed.

        Regards

        D.

          1. No, I don’t know that, but common sense says they have to draw the line somewhere and my 2008 MBP seems to be straddling it with the current release…. so…… extrapolate from there…

  6. I’ve installed it on a partition just to see how it works. I’m not getting rid of 10.8.5 until I know I can rely on it.

    So far I’ve had no problems opening Reason 6.5, and once I got the iLok software working (had to sacrifice a goat to the god of Pace) I managed to open one of my bigger Pro Tools sessions with no problems.

    I recommend that anyone who is planning to upgrade disables App Nap on their DAWs and reelated programs, as this will stop OSX putting it to sleep when it’s out of focus.

    Next job is to install Logic 9 and see if that still works. Fingers crossed…

    1. I was waiting for someone to write this comment… and someone did. Sure it’s true but Linux started to be usable for the general population at a level comparable with Windows or MacOS almost ten years later (from 2000). I used Linux for some Installations around ’97 and, while it was free, the time spent to make things working on the audio side raised costs way more than expected… and we were writing our own bits of software, the musical software landscape of Linux it’s still not comparable to Win or OSX even today. Following projects made with old MacOS and even Win98 with free software where cheaper in the end. If you use things for work and your work isn’t system administration, development or similia… So, I personally like the “new era of free OS upgrades”, go buy a win 8 license, what is it now? more than $200?

      1. “So, I personally like the “new era of free OS upgrades”, go buy a win 8 license, what is it now? more than $200?”

        You are way wrong about Windows 8’s pricing, its currently 120$ for the full version (IE not the upgrade).

          1. You mean a 120$ upgrade which I can install on a 10 years old computer I paid for 500$, versus a free one which requires a less than 5 years old computer which costs over 1300$ .

            Yes, got it.

              1. Its works just as good as XP, it just does not have all the latest graphic pizazz, and its not for my main workstation. Its just nice to be able to still update a 10 years old computer.

                Its funny how you guys cannot see how the “free” upgrade cost is actually included in the price of the computer with Apple, and you guys act like I`m saying its a bad thing and I’m trying to compare, which is not what I was trying to accomplish here.

    2. This is kind of misleading on two counts: one is that in the 90s unless you were on a university campus you most likely did not have the bandwidth to be downloading 100s of megs of software which meant buying a premade distro such as Slackware or Redhat. People who just discovered Linux in 2008 or something probably don’t remember retail box Linux distros but if you’ve been around for a while you will be able to recall Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, SuSe and others.

      Second thing s that really before Microsoft and the explosion of the commodity PC software was always “free” in the sense that you bought some gigantic monolithic beast of mainframe from IBM or DEC or whoever and they gave you all the software you need and if your company needed extra functionality you hired a programmer for a 100k a year to make it. This is what drove Stallman to start GNU in the first place, because the old days of “free” software was ending and he thought it was “oppressive”. Of course what he ,as an overprivileged Harvard affiliate, failed to realize was that selling proprietary commercial software actually gave programmers the freedom to control their own lives by working for themselves as entrepreneurs rather than being locked in some cubicle on salary or contract. Has Stallman ever actually had a job?

      Anyways, your statement, while perhaps technically correct, abuses the truth.

      1. I began using Linux in 1997, and I had not access to the Internet until late 2003, so I remember perfectly that it wasn’t so simple to upgrade an OS back in those days. Anyway, you could do it and it was free.

        I simply don’t see anything revolutionary in the statement that, if you buy an overpriced computer for over 1000 euros, you get for free the updates of an operating system that can be run *only* on the machines produced by the same manufacturer who makes the OS

      1. only PCIe users are having that problem. FW users are fine.

        i tested my powercore firewire on mavericks beta and besides 4-5 plugins everything worked fine.

  12. First of all it… the $ will just be carried over to other places… such as hardware costs, etc.

    Secondly… what a great way for the TSA to be sure that you have the latest in spy communications software embedded in your O/S?

    If you support Apple you support the child slave labor factories with suicide nets posted.

    1. You think the NSA can’t get at Linux? Go read up on the controversy over random number generation in Linux…

      Also, do you think your bargain bin PC components are made in better conditions than Apple’s stuff? No one is going to bother to write a hit piece on “generic motherboard company xyz” because nobody cares.

  14. If anyone’s still reading past the ego squabbles…
    Got it running on my late 2008 macbook pro – Everything is smooth so far, Live 9.0.6 seems to be fine. Do think I’ll hold off on the new Live v for the main comp though, just to be sure

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