The Productive Student

Apple is set to release it’s next generation of Mac OS X, christened “Snow Leopard”, this Friday. As the big names publish their reviews, I thought it’d be interesting to dig around for the more obscure features that make this release quite a treat for us productivity freaks. Here’s a list of features, sourced from Apple, that are not being touted around as big changes – though they are a big deal.

1. Text Substitution

Text substitution lets you create shortcuts for phrases you use frequently that will expand automatically as you type. Common substitutions are built in — for example, changing (c) to a copyright symbol (©) and fractions from 1/2 to ½. You can also add your own substitutions; for example, “pnc” can expand to “privileged and confidential,” and your initials can expand to your full name.

Goodbye, TextExpander.

2. Video Screen Capture

Catch the action taking place on your screen with screen recording. Start recording and QuickTime Player captures the activity on your screen and creates a movie file. It’s perfect for creating instructional media or when you need more than a simple screen shot.

Goodbye, expesive third-party screencast software (while I agree that some of the features in those apps do justify price tags – it really depends on your use of screencasts).

3. Scan directly to Preview

Snow Leopard simplifies scanning by putting scanned data directly into Preview. Now you can scan, view, and correct your files and images in Preview. The scanning interface even detects the placement of images or documents on the scanner to automate the selection of regions to scan.

4. Flight number detection in iCal

Data detectors now automatically identify flight numbers in email messages and text documents and take you directly to the Dashboard Flight Tracker widget to get up-to-date flight information.

This is pretty amazing stuff, and I look forward to it as it’ll make me use that widget more often.

5. Automatic Time Zones

Using Core Location technology, Snow Leopard can use known Wi-Fi hotspots to set the time zone — perfect for world travelers.

I recently noticed how annoying this gets when I travelled through Dubai to India. Fiddling around with your time settings should not be an issue on a laptop when it isn’t on your phone.

6. 4-finger gestures on older Macbooks

All Mac notebooks with Multi-Touch trackpads now support three- and four-finger gestures.

This is great news for my Macbook Air, which did not benefit from the new gestures introduced in the latest lineup of Macbooks.

7. GCal Support

iCal sets up your Gmail and Yahoo! calendars automatically. Just type in your address and password, and iCal configures your calendars.

All those expensive tools and importers are be-gones. Sync between GCal and iCal used to be a real headache.

8. File Sharing in Sleep Mode

With Snow Leopard and a compatible AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule base station, a computer that acts as a file or media server can go to sleep yet continue to share its files with other computers and devices, saving energy.

While it only works with AirPort Base stations, it at least show an effort on Apple’s part to be greener.

9. WiFi Signal Strength for all nearby Networks

The AirPort item in the menu bar now includes signal strength for all available wireless networks, so you can see which access point has the best signal before selecting it.

Finally, Apple doesn’t present you with a list of meaningless, random Hotspot names, but actually puts some useful signal information next to them.

10. AutoCorrect in TextEdit

Common spelling errors in TextEdit can be fixed automatically as you type. It corrects short, simple misspellings like “teh” and “frmo,” and it also corrects longer misspellings like “mispell” and “concious.”

One more feature that’ll make TextEdit a better rival to word. Does TextMate have a feature like this?

There you have it, 10 features I’m excited about that are not being mentioned in the main-stream reviews. What are you looking forward to most in Snow Leopard?

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