Monday, May 18, 2009

New Features in Mac OS X 10.6 coming soon!


For those Mac fans out there that have been eagerly anticipating the new release of OS X 10.6 and dying to see what is coming soon the wait is almost over. While Apple told us the changes to 10.6 would be performance and under the hood changes and no new features we knew the people at Apple couldn't resist giving us new features and making our user experience just a little bit better.

In a recent YouTube posting LeopardOctober put up a video showing off some of the new features that are coming to Snow Leopard. Some of the new features that are coming to 10.6 include expanded data detectors, The Put Back Feature, Slider to adjust icon size right on the Finder, Stacks support Scrolling and drill down, Videos are playable right in the thumbnail icon, Click and drag screen shots with time date stamps in the file names, Services now alphabetized by type, plus expanded keyboard shortcut options. These are a few of the leaked cosmetic changes that are on top of the under the hood stuff that the user won't see but will definitely feel.

The Data Detectors were added in 10.5 and allow you to click on a phone number or a date and add it to your phone book or your calendar depending on the data type. It is an easy way to move appointments or other data from Mail into other apps and not have to retype information.

The Put Back Feature will allow you to go to your Trash Can and move files back to where they came from.

The Slider to adjust icon size while minor is a convenience that works well with playing Quicktime movies right in the thumbnail.

Stacks Drill Down makes this new feature in 10.5 much easier to use and creates a nice 3D effect to let you know where you are and let you navigate around without having to open another Finder Window.

Services which has been around Mac OS for decades and has always been an under utilized feature in the Apple menu has been alphabetized by function to make it easier to use. It is a quick access to common functions right in the Apple Menu.

In 10.5 we got Quick Look to allow us to preview documents and videos by pressing the space bar. In 10.6 we can actually play videos right off the thumbnail icon and not even have to open Quick Look. While I wouldn't recommend watching your favorite movie that way it is a quick way to find something you are looking for in your library.

Under the hood 10.6 is getting quiet a makeover with a whole slew of new features and tighter code I will take a look at next week.

To take a look at the You Tube Video of these new features visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEGVFArP9yU

No comments:

Post a Comment

Apple TV

The more I use the new Apple TV the more I like it. The previous model was likable and easy to use but we had no options for live content. N...