WWDC 2009: Apple highlights Snow Leopard features

June 8, 2009, 2:26pm PDT | Length: 00:03:00
At Apple's WWDC in San Francisco, the company's SVP of Mac OS engineering, Craig Federighi, demos the Snow Leopard version of the operating system. For current Leopard users, the new OS--due in September--will be upgradable for $29.

Transcript

WWDC 2009: Apple highlights Snow Leopard features

Sound Effects

Speaker: I'm gonna cover three areas in this sneak peak of Snow Leopard and we're gonna start with Doc and The Finder. Now, one feature of the Doc is Stacks. Stacks makes it really easy to get quickly at your documents and your downloads without cluttering your desktop. And in Snow Leopard Stacks handle large contents better than ever. I can now scroll through a large stack and if I have sub folders like this vacation folder I can just drill right in without leaving Stacks.

Applause Yeah pretty nice.

Applause Now, I could open this document right here but I want to open The Finder to show you a couple nice touches there. So here we are in Icon view. Looks pretty familiar, but if you look in the lower right you'll see that we have a magnification control. I can now magnify my thumbnails and this is a live preview, so I can actually step through this page .pdf right on its icon.

Applause

Speaker: I can even play a movie right in its thumbnail and I can magnify of course while it's playing. Really, really cool. Oh yeah.

Applause

Speaker: But you know my favorite new feature in The Doc is Doc Expose and to demonstrate I want to recreate a little bit what my desktop can tend to look like after a long day: lots of mail compose windows, lots of Safari windows, lots of images open in preview and so forth. Now, fortunately the MAC has long had a fabulous solution for this problem and in the area of Expose. So I can activate Expose and step back and see all my windows across all my open applications, but you know, I usually know what application has the window I'm looking for and now with Doc Expose getting at it couldn't be more natural. So let's say I want to get at a window inside a preview. I just click and hold and there are my preview windows. I want to see in Safari: click and hold and I'm there. Mail same thing.

Applause

Speaker: And you know I have, it looks like I have an unread e-mail message I'd like to take a look at. I don't even have to open it. I'll just zoom in and take a quick look. I can zoom in right in Expose without switching applications and when I want to finally bring a window to the foreground I click and it slides right in. But you know Doc Expose also makes it easier than ever to move content across windows even if some of the windows aren't visible. So let's say I want to go back to that Finder window and get a video to drop inside this e-mail message. I can just Doc Expose into The Finder, find the image I'm looking for, drag it over to Mail, Mail springs into Expose, I select the window I'm looking for, and drop it right in.

Applause

Speaker: Yeah this really smooths out some of your MAC work flows. Very Nice. Applause

Sound Effects

==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====

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Talkback Most Recent of 5 Talkback(s)

  • that's cool...
    but it's nothing new...just eye candy!

    dragging too and from applications dates back to xp...well that's when i discovered it...could date back even further...

    but thx apple for no added functionality!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    benblush@...
    9th Jun 2009
  • Each platform takes ideas and either improves on them...
    or just copies them.

    When not actually creating, Apple does more to innovate... if you want outright copying, that company whose name starts with "M" seems to be more frequently guilty...

    I'm just amazed they can add this level of depth into eye candy yet still say it'll use fewer resources AND be more efficient. That "M" company can't begin to claim that at all...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HypnoToad72
    12th Jun 2009
  • Nonsense!
    Mac doesn't look half as good as Vista or 7 and there is no user defined customization. There goes your eye candy.
    And as for efficiency, I have used Macs for two years for design and editing and am still very unhappy with the poor responsiveness, sad functionality and very cryptic layouts for otherwise very simple actions. Ma's overdo the whole easy to use thing - no flexibility...

    "M" however isn't great at security but for everything else - Windows 7 rules the proverbial OS roost!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    joepranay
    15th Jun 2009
  • Windows 7 without Aero!
    These features are already in Vista and have become very prominent in Windows 7...Apple's going to have to do better.
    Window Previews are already part of the taskbar since Vista - that is exactly what Dock Expose is. Scalable icons? In Windows 7 you can scale through different sizes AND different layouts with the same slider! and previews? Mac Leopard had that and so did Vista and 7.
    This is going to be a tough sell for Apple...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    joepranay
    15th Jun 2009
  • It does look good, and useful...
    Personally only had Vista on one PC for a week but preferred XP and never got round to seeing features as cool as these.

    This does look good and is well presented. I would like to see more MS and Apple presentations like this to be honest. I'm not 100% sure that either company are getting their message across to the masses. I'm a microsoft user at home and at work but will definitely be looking at implementations such as this now. This is so much more use than the usual pointless sparring between devotees. Only time will tell where my next journey ends but I've got windows 7 RC and was offered an older mac last week. I refused that offer but might just grab it and compare. Positive advertising and discussion is so much better than the alternatives.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    GetReal-mac.com
    20th Jun 2009

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