Sonata Details
There's no official Mac OS numerical designation yet for Sonata but it is on track to be released this fall. My guess is that it will slip to the winter quarter since other updates have slipped a quarter or more from the original plan of a year ago which is really not bad and because Mac OS 10.0 (yep, not "X") has slipped from fall to early next year because of new terrific improvements mentioned in the next blurb.
Sonata will have over 50 new features, potentially making it a much bigger upgrade than 8.5 or 8.6. Just two of the principal features, each with many major features, were highlighted in demos by Steve Jobs, Avie Tevanian and Phil Schiller yesterday.
Sherlock II -- The search feature that symbolized 8.5 will be given a great new interface with many of the features in the just-released QuickTime 4 Player. Sherlock II will be able to save sets of search engines, much like saving sets of fonts or sets of extensions. It will search LDAP servers for people and information about them like email addresses (someone in the audience at the Reston Apple Market Center moaned about easier directed spamming). Sherlock will also be able to shop across e-commerce sites and bring up links to the best prices.
Multiple Users -- People that use the same computer will be able to save their personal preferences (appearance, open apps, available apps, etc.) in a set and get them all implemented on logging in. There is a "Key Chain" arrangement that allows all passwords to be linked to the log in so one doesn't have to remember a zillion of them. They can also be de-linked for greater security. For additional security, there is a built-in file encryption utility that can be linked to the Key Chain or not. The coolest feature of all was the use of a voice print as a password.
Sonata was available to run at the WWDC and will be seeded to developers this week at an already very advanced stage as seen from the demos.
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