Mavericks
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Apple seeds OS X 10.9.1 beta to developers
Just before the weekend, Apple seeded the first build of OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 developers. The first "X.X.1" builds are usually released fairly quickly -- and are always hotly anticipated by users -- to fix glaring and frustrating bugs that ship in the gold master version of a new major OS X release. Apple says there are no known bugs in this seed and asks developers to focus on testing Mail, Graphics Drivers and VoiceOver. But just because Apple asked developers to focus on those three areas does not mean other numerous bugs haven't been addressed across the system. And while there is no timeframe for a public release and there could be more beta builds of 10.9.1, it's very likely the build could make it into the hands of users before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Apple fixes Gmail bug in latest Mail update for Mavericks (update: and MacBook Pro issues too)
Mavericks may have brought a number of notable improvements to OS X, but Gmail integration was certainly not one of them. Users of Google's email service might've encountered an unpleasant surprise when they upgraded their operating systems to Apple's latest, as the changes to Apple Mail appeared to be incompatible with how Gmail worked. For background, Gmail apparently has a rather unorthodox method of using IMAP, so you needed to set up a roundabout method that prevents Mail from downloading every single message from Gmail twice (Basically, you had to tweak your Gmail settings so that "All Mail" is hidden from email programs). Mavericks, however, broke that workaround, so users of both Gmail and Apple Mail ended up suffering from bloated inboxes. There were other issues too, like the inability to organize mailboxes and unread message numbers that are totally off. Thankfully, however, Apple has just released an update that fixes all that. The release states that it "fixes an issue that prevents deleting, moving, and archiving messages for users with custom Gmail settings" and "addresses an issue that may cause unread counts to be inaccurate." So for those who've bitten the Mavericks bug and want a Mail app that plays nicer with Google's email, you should definitely hit that update button right about now. Update: Also, remember that keyboard and trackpad glitch on the 13" MacBook Pro? Well, Apple's apparently fixed that in an update as well. Get to downloading, everyone!
Apple issues Mail update for OS X Mavericks to address Gmail compatibility issues
If you're one of the many users dismayed by the fact that the Mail.app in OS X Mavericks doesn't play nicely with Gmail, your troubles will hopefully be a thing of the past. After a number of reports indicating that Apple has been working on a fix, Apple today issued a Mail update for OS X Mavericks which aims to smooth over Gmail compatibility issues while also offering a few other email enhancements. The full changelog reads: Mail Update for Mavericks includes improvements to general stability and compatibility with Gmail, including the following: - Fixes an issue that prevents deleting, moving, and archiving messages for users with custom Gmail settings - Addresses an issue that may cause unread counts to be inaccurate - Includes additional fixes that improve the compatibility and stability of Mail The update checks in at 32.46 MB and can be accessed here.
Apple adds internet-free dictation to Mavericks
There hasn't been any fanfare about this, but if you are using Mavericks, you now have a universal dictation feature that doesn't require an internet connection. Dictation made its debut in Mountain Lion and required an internet connection so your speech could be processed on an Apple server and sent back to you as text. There were limits, and you had to pause to let your data get to Apple and back again. It worked, but it wasn't very effective. Mavericks users will now find what Apple calls "enhanced dictation," and if you turn it on, you'll need to download about an 800 MB file that makes your speech recognition local rather than server based. No training is needed; once you have the files, it works right away, and I found the recognition quick and accurate. As you talk, you see your words appear on the screen in near real time, something not possible with the internet-based method. If you liked the old method, it still works, and you can choose to use enhanced dictation or not. As a default, you start dictation by hitting the Fn key twice, but you can choose your own keys if you don't like that choice. You don't have all the fancy commands and capabilities that you'd get in one of the Dragon products, but for a quick email or word processing, it works fine. You can edit your text normally with your mouse or trackpad. This is a very nice feature that hasn't had much publicity, but it's free and works well. Give it a try if you have a need to dictate.
OS X Mavericks uses ambient light detection on some Macs to delay sleep mode
A cool hidden new feature of OS X Mavericks is that the new OS allows Macs with ambient light sensors to detect user movements and delay sleep mode. The feature was first reported by a Mac developer on Twitter, who incorrectly assumed that at first the iSight camera was tracking a user's movement. However, other Mac devs quickly found, and The Verge confirmed, that it is the ambient light sensor located next to the iSight camera. The ambient light sensor doesn't actually track movement itself, instead registering the changes in light resulting from that movement to detect if a user is in front of the Mac. When it registers changes in light, suggesting user movement, it resets the idle time clock in OS X accordingly. It's a pretty cool feature and another example how its usually the little things that are among some of the coolest features of an OS X upgrade.
Windows 8.1's web use doubles shortly after launch
Web traffic doesn't directly translate to market share, but it's handy for tracking the adoption of brand new operating systems -- take Windows 8.1, for example. Net Applications notes that Microsoft's new OS nearly doubled in web share upon its official launch in October, climbing to 1.7 percent. Clearly, a lot of web surfers had been waiting to upgrade. As you might imagine, though, the software took share from its predecessor as customers either replaced PCs or downloaded the free update. Windows 8 declined for the first time ever, falling half a point to 7.5 percent; the two 8.x revisions gained 0.4 points when put together, but Windows as a whole dipped slightly to 90.7 percent. Redmond wasn't the only one releasing a new platform, of course. Apple's OS X Mavericks accounted for more than 0.8 percent of web traffic last month, or enough to put it past Tiger and Leopard almost overnight. While the overall Mac platform only grew by a tiny amount to hit 7.7 percent of web use, we doubt that the crew at 1 Infinite Loop is complaining. It's not clear how the dueling Apple and Microsoft upgrades will compare in the long run, but you can check the historical trends both after the break and at the source link.
Western Digital warns customers of Mavericks external hard drive data loss issue
Western Digital has sent an email to customers warning them that they could see data loss issues if they are using WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications with Western Digital hard drives on Macs running OS X 10.9 Mavericks. The email reads: Dear WD Registered Customer, As a valued WD customer we want to make you aware of new reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). WD is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications. Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer. The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years, however solely as a precaution WD has removed these applications from our website as we investigate this issue. Sincerely, Western Digital As noted in the email, users of Western Digital hard drives should uninstall WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare from their systems before updating to Mavericks, and if they have already updated, they should delete the apps and restart their systems.
Tracking OS X's evolution to Mavericks
Remember Cheetah? Or Puma? Or Snow Leopard? If you are a Mac user, you likely have fond memories of these different versions of OS X. If you want to take a walk down memory lane, then you should check out iMore, which has an interesting piece on OS X and its evolution to Mavericks. iMore starts with the radical jump from Mac OS 9 to OS X, when Apple adopted a UNIX foundation for its desktop OS. The company originally released new versions of OS X on a yearly basis, until it hit OS X 10.3 Panther. At this point, Apple moved to a biannual upgrade cycle. Somewhere in the middle of these desktop upgrades, Apple switched from its PowerPC architecture to Intel-based hardware. It was smooth sailing as the company made this transition during those Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard years. When Mountain Lion debuted in 2012, Apple recommitted itself to a yearly upgrade cycle and used its last cat breed for the name of its desktop OS. Now we have OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a name taken from a popular California surfing location. Apple added a lot in this latest version of OS X, improving memory and battery performance as well as bringing OS X and iOS closer together via iCloud. You can read more about the path to OS X Mavericks in the iMore article.
Addressing common Mavericks issues
There are a number of issues with the new OS X Mavericks and the Gadget Lab at Wired.com has published a helpful article on how to fix a few of them. Some problems, as stated in the article, must be fixed by Apple, but you can remedy a few issues yourself. In "6 Known Issues with OS X Mavericks and How to Fix Them," Wired's Roberto Baldwin tells us: 1. How to jump start a stalled Mavericks download. 2. How to make your Gmail IMAP settings work with the changes in Apple Mail. This tip is only for people who have changed their Gmail settings previously. TUAW's Megan Lavey-Heaton has also noted some problems with Mail and Gmail, which you might find helpful in her article, "How Mavericks ruined Apple Mail for Gmail users." 3. How to fix the loss of scroll bars in the Chrome browser and other applications. 4. How to fix Apple Mail forgetting your password each time you log in. 5. How to fix slow or stalled restarts and shutdowns of your Mac. This tip uses the Terminal app, found in your Utilities folder inside your Applications folder. One word of caution, if you don't normally use Terminal, please make sure you copy the lines Baldwin gives us exactly. You don't want any nasty surprises to crop up in your OS. 6. How to fix Shared Links in Mavericks. Shared Links is a new Apple added Safari Twitter/LinkedIn client that doesn't seem to update well. Baldwin shows us how to create a Shortcut to update the Shared Links easily. In another useful tip article, Chris Breen at Macworld explains how to address the problem on Why Mavericks' movies may not preview properly. If you can no longer preview some of your movie files, this article explains the fix. TUAW is producing a number of video tips to help you with your OS X Mavericks update, so don't forget to check our pages for new content and helpful advice.
Video Tip: Creating a bootable Mavericks USB installer
Having a bootable USB flash drive of your operating system is a very useful tool to have around for diagnostics, maintenance or fresh clean installs of your OS. In the past few versions of OS X, if you wanted to create a bootable USB stick, you had to do a little bit of Erica Sadun-style nerd wizardry or download a third-party tool like Lion Disk Maker to create one. Luckily with Mavericks, Apple has included a tool to allow us to create a bootable USB flash drive with a few simple terminal commands. This video will show you how to do it, so go grab an 8 GB or larger USB stick and follow along. Difficulty: Easy What you need: Terminal (in the Utilities folder or press cmd+shift+u from the Finder) USB flash drive of 8 GB or larger capacity The Install OS X Mavericks App from the Mac App Store About 20 ~ 30 mins (don't remove the flash drive until you see "Done" in the terminal) The Command: sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --nointeraction Note: Remember to replace 'Untitled' with your flash drives name. Most freshly formatted flash dives are named 'Untitled' unless you change it as I did. That's it! Update: Lion Disk Maker released DiskMaker X 3.0.1 and it supports Mavericks
Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET: Mavericks, iWork, and oh yeah -- iPads on Friday
All-new dial-in experience! See below -- do not call into Talkshoe, we won't be there. Be sure to set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live. It's Sunday, and it's time for the TUAW talkcast! Tonight, with our usual gang of TUAW scribes and some special guests, we'll be digging into Mavericks -- the good, the bad and the ugly. (Install Tonight, offline Dictation and Finder tags -- yay! SMB connectivity flaws -- boo!) We'll also address the question of Mac/iOS feature parity in iWork (which is driving some pro users absolutely up the wall), and look ahead to Friday's launch of the iPad Air. Join us at 10pm ET, won't you? Thanks to the fine folks at Fuze, we're using Fuze Meeting to record the show (rather than the legacy Talkshoe system). This should let everyone listen in live -- and, if you want, raise your hand as you would in the Talkshoe room to get unmuted and chime in. You can join the call in progress (meeting # is 20099010) at 10 pm ET from any computer via this link; if you download the Mac or Windows Fuze clients ahead of time, you'll get better audio and a slicker experience. Just click the phone icon to join the audio once you're in. Using an iPhone or iPad? Grab the native clients from the App Store and get busy. (Even Android users can join the party.) Still feel like using the conventional phone dial-in? Just call 775-996-3562 and enter the meeting number 20099010, then press #. While the Fuze web and native clients have a chat channel, we'd like to reserve that for host participants, requests to talk and other real-time alerts... so the full-on chat for the show will appear in this very post at 10 pm tonight. You'll need Twitter, Facebook or Chatroll credentials to participate in the chat. We'll remind everyone to check back in at that time. Your patience and forbearance with our new tech is appreciated in advance. For the time being, the podcast feed of the show will continue to originate from Talkshoe and should be there within 24-36 hours. See you tonight!
Did Mavericks kill your SMB network drive access? Here's a fix
Among the issues some people have had with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, one of the biggest gotchas was a loss of access to SMB network shares -- the connection many NAS devices (Network attached storage), Windows PCs or Linux servers use to provide file sharing. In my case, I got the double foul. My NAS tried to mount forever and failed; same with a Windows 8 PC on my network. The cause appears to be changes made in the networking stack made by Apple. Apple's SMB2 implementation doesn't work with a lot of SMB2 devices -- even networked drives from Windows machines. [SMB2 is actually used by Mavericks for Mac-to-Mac connectivity, unlike older versions of OS X where AFP was the default. –Ed.] One easy fix involves changing a little bit of text in your server connection URL. Here's how it works: In the Finder, choose the "Go" menu and select "Connect to Server..." (command-K). Type "cifs://yourservername" and hit Return; the server should mount. CIFS (Common Internet File System) is just another name for the SMB protocol, but using it in the server URL forces the Finder to use the older (not broken) SMB1 implementation, rather than the buggy SMB2. It worked for me with both my NAS and my Windows PC, so there's a good chance it will work for you. Apple's Support Boards are filled with users pulling their hair out over this one, so we hope the tip is of use to you. Thanks to Cammodude for the solution here; he also posts a Terminal tip (at your own risk) for permanently forcing Finder to use SMB1 instead of SMB2.
This week on gdgt: Surface Pro 2, Nintendo 2DS, and software updates
Each week, our friends at gdgt go through the latest gadgets and score them to help you decide which ones to buy. Here are some of their most recent picks. Want more? Visit gdgt anytime to catch up on the latest, and subscribe to gdgt's newsletter to get a weekly roundup in your inbox.
Use Mavericks' screen saver images as wallpaper
Here's a nifty trick for those of you running OS X Mavericks. Apple has included some beautiful nature photos to be used as the OS' screen saver options. With a little digging, you can use them as desktop wallpaper, too. Lifehacker points out that the 43 photos can be found by navigating to /Library/Screen Savers/Default Collections/ from the Finder's Go menu. From there, you're all set. I like to open the Desktop and Screen Saver preference pane and drop my chosen image into the well. Have fun.
What will Apple name its next OS X? Here are a few ideas
OS X Mavericks is here, and with it comes Apple's all-new naming scheme for its software. Leaving cats behind, the company is instead focusing on locations in California for its software monikers. Mavericks, for example, is the name of a popular surf spot. But as we're all getting used to an OS X without feline flair, I think it's time we look forward. So with that in mind -- and following the California theme -- I've compiled a number of possible names for Apple's next OS X update. [Image credits: Robert S. Donovan, William Warby, Astonishme, W.Marsh, Rightindex, FontFont]
Latest Skitch update for Mac brings new toolbar, Mavericks performance boosts
It's been about three weeks since Apple released the Mavericks gold master to developers, and we're starting to see the first apps fine-tuned for Cupertino's latest OS in the App Store. Skitch is one such example, with a new streamlined toolbar and footer pane tweaked to make changing the file type, name and size of what your viewing easier. The app's new icon is migrating over from iOS too, and the company also said that screenshots across multiple monitors and power management have been improved. These aren't huge changes by any means, but they're still better than sandboxing a browser plugin, right?
OS X Mavericks: Export as PDF from the File menu
Apple's OS X Mavericks offers more than 200 new features, many of which are overshadowed by marquee additions like Finder tags and iCloud Keychain. I've fallen in love with a lesser-known feature that's already saved me lots of time: Export as PDF from the File menu. Previously, you could convert a file to PDF by opening a Print dialog, selecting Save as PDF and then choosing a destination. Now it's even easier. Simply select Export as PDF... from the File menu of a supported app and presto! Instant PDF. You can even add a tag while you're at it. Note that some apps aren't supported. For example, the option is there in Safari, Text Edit and Mail, but not in Microsoft Word.
Video tip: Sending directions from OS X Mavericks Maps app to your iPhone
If you have a Mac equipped with OS X Mavericks and an iPhone with iOS 7, you can search for directions with the Maps app on your Mac and then send them to your iPhone. It's a great demonstration of how the two operating systems work together, and it can help you find your way as well. As with all of our video tips, this one can be easily expanded to full-screen for easier viewing.
Flash Player now sandboxed for Safari users running OS X Mavericks
If you rushed to upgrade your Mac to OS X Mavericks, congratulations -- you've just taken a big step forward in web security. Adobe has confirmed that Flash Player is now sandboxed in Safari for Mavericks users, preventing Flash-based malware from accessing code and resources beyond Apple's browser. The company is taking special advantage of OS X's new app sandboxing feature, which also minimizes the security risks for other plugins and programs. Safari is undoubtedly late to the party when Flash has been sandboxed for a while in both Chrome and Firefox, but we won't knock an upgrade that neuters many potential security exploits.
Mavericks' dock-on-every-monitor feature doesn't work for me
One of the features I was most looking forward to with the release of Mavericks was the promise that I could have access to the menu bar and Dock on every monitor. It might seem like a minor tweak, but it's always annoyed me that I had to pick one of my screens to be "in charge" of things, when I'd prefer to be able to launch and manage my applications from either screen, depending on which one I'm working with at the time. The promised top menu bar multiplication has arrived as described, but unfortunately the "Dock for every screen" bullet point comes with a big, fat asterisk. You see, I'm one of those weird people who doesn't let his Dock sit at the bottom of the screen -- I like my Dock to sit vertically on the side. The way the multi-screen Dock works in Mavericks requires you to place your mouse cursor along the bottom of the screen on whichever monitor you'd like the Dock to magically appear, and this simply doesn't work if you have your Dock located anywhere but at the very bottom of the display. I know, I know, I'm a small minority, but the vertical Dock configuration is just what has worked best for me over the years, and it seems Apple hasn't come up with a solution that lets me, for example, have my Dock appear on both the far left and far right sides of my multiple-display setup. It seems like this type of change wouldn't be very hard to implement, but the moment it's just not an option. Bummer.
