1. Meet Mavericks

Apple is known for its outstanding industrial design, from the first eye-catching and colorful iMacs to the svelte MacBook Air and the curvy black Mac Pro. But here’s the hiding-in-plain-sight secret about the Mac: No matter what computer you’re on, you interact with its operating system, OS X. A Mac could just as easily be a large gray box under your desk and you’d still get the full Mac experience thanks to the software that runs the machine.

Mavericks incorporates concepts from the iPad, such as controlling some actions using finger gestures if you own a trackpad; accessing applications on one screen, called Launchpad; viewing notifications; automatic saving of documents; and working with applications full screen. In this ...

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