Another highlight of Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference was a “first look” at the next major upgrade to Mac OS X, version 10.3, code-named “Panther”. It will roar into stores “later this year”, and will contain over 100 improvements and new features. Let’s look at a few of them.

In OS X, you use the Finder to navigate around the files and folders on your computer, similar to My Computer and Windows Explorer in Windows. Every Panther Finder window opens with a “Places” sidebar window, which lists your hard drive (and partitions), network volumes, your iDisk, optical media (CD or DVD) you may have in a drive, and any other accessible volumes (attached digital cameras or external FireWire hard drives, for example). You can customize your sidebar by dragging your favorite folders into it, providing easy access to the stuff you use the most. The Places sidebar dynamically changes size as you make Finder window larger or smaller, virtually eliminating the need to scroll. This new look is incorporated into the “Open” and “Save” windows in applications as well. It’s all designed to make the Finder more “user centric”.

The “Find” part of the Finder gets much faster. The instant you begin typing what you’re searching for, Panther starts listing results for what you’re typed so far. No more typing in the name and waiting for the search to finish. It’s blazingly fast.

Rising like a Phoenix in Panther is Labels, a popular OS9 feature missing in previous versions of OS X. Basically, you assign a color to file and folder icons that can represent a status, or category. For example, you can add a red label to all your “high priority” files (maybe the ones that you need to move over to your laptop for a trip) to make them easy to identify.

Now, OS X users, especially those with Macs with lots of RAM installed, are a pretty spoiled bunch. Why? With all the power and stability of OS X, users don’t hesitate to have a bunch of applications open at the same time. Not just a browser and an email program – we’re talking about Photoshop, Final Cut Pro – all with multiple windows and palettes that can clutter up even the biggest monitor. Moving around between windows and applications can be time-consuming. To the rescue comes Expose´, probably the most intriguing new Panther feature, which leverages OS X’s powerful Quartz Extreme graphics architecture. Using function keys, mouse buttons, or moving the mouse over one of the display corners, Expose´ tiles and scales down all your open windows, displaying the contents of the window and the file’s name. Click on the tile, and that window comes to the front. It has to be seen to be fully appreciated, but it’s gorgeous and it works great!

OS X supports multiple users on the same machine. Each user can have their own preferences, desktop pictures, data files, email, contacts, etc., all protected from other users if desired. Before Panther, changing users meant one user logging out, and another logging in. This process required quitting open applications. Panther enables Fast User Switching (like Windows XP, only faster, easier to configure, and better looking).

Mail, OS X’s embedded email application, gets a speed boost, expanded address book print options, and an improved engine for its already “best of breed” spam filtering system. Plus, HTML emails will be rendered using Safari’s very fast engine.

So ends our quick overview of Panther’s promise. Apple has not announced a firm shipping date, but they have said that Panther will cost $129. For more details, point your browser at www.apple.com/macosx/panther.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski