We thought about Windows 8.1. Really, we did. It's a not insignificant upgrade, and maybe if Microsoft had taken more than half a step toward restoring the desktop Start button—i.e., a button that opened a program menu instead of bouncing back to the tiled Start screen—we'd be writing about it here. But as is, it's overshadowed by another free operating system upgrade, one with both more sizzle and more steak: Apple's OS X 10.9. (Apple dubbed it "Mavericks," after a popular California surfing spot, rather than giving it the name of a big cat like its predecessors.)
On the surface, the way to describe Mavericks is that it makes the Mac OS more like the tablet- and phone-centric iOS, from adding Maps and iBooks apps to a cleaner look that drops the "skeuomorphic" fake realism of things like a leather cover for Contacts' address book or torn edges for Calendar pages. But its more important enhancements and time-savers, such as tabbed folders and color-coded tags in the Finder, and the ability to reply to a new message from its corner-of-screen notification, without switching to the Messages app, go deeper than that.
