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Just like other recent major Mac updates, OS X Mavericks arrives as an app that wants to update the current OS X installation, and with a little work you can make a bootable USB installation drive. This allows you to easily perform partitioning for dual boot situations, clean installs, upgrades on multiple Macs, and more, plus it’s just really convenient to have for troubleshooting and simple future installations, without having to re-download OS X 10.9 every time you want to install it or perform an upgrade.

But unlike before with creating prior version OS X boot install drives, the process is slightly different with Mavericks and requires an additional set of steps to make the installer actually function as a a bootable installer disk. It’s not too complicated, just a bit more time consuming.

Before beginning, make sure the Mac you want to install Mavericks on meets the system requirements for 10.9. You will need OS X Mavericks (obviously), and an 8GB (or larger) USB drive that you don’t mind formatting, we’re using a USB thumb drive for the purpose of this walkthrough but an external hard drive should work as well.

Create a Bootable OS X 10.9 Mavericks Installer

• Download OS X Mavericks (get Developer Preview from Apple, devs only for now) but do not install it yet
• Attach the USB drive to the Mac and launch Disk Utility
• Choose the USB drive from the left side menu, click the “Partition” tab, select “1 Partition” from the drop down menu, and then click the “Options” button to select “GUID” as the partition type, click “OK” then click “Apply”
• Launch Terminal to show hidden files and relaunch the Finder using this defaults command string:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE;\killall Finder;\say Files Revealed

• Go to the /Applications/ folder to locate the “Install OS X 10.9 Developer Preview.app” file
• Right-click and choose “Show Package Contents”, then open “Contents” and open “SharedSupport”



• Double-click to mount “InstallESD.dmg”
• Open the mounted ‘OS X Install ESD’ image, and right-click “BaseSystem.dmg” choosing “Open” to mount the image (BaseSystem.dmg is invisible by default, thus why invisible files must be made visible in the earlier step)



• Go back to Disk Utility, then select “BaseSystem.dmg” from the sidebar and then click the “Restore” tab
• With “Source” set to “BaseSystem.dmg”, set “Destination” to the USB drive by dragging the USB drive into the box, then click “Restore” to begin – confirm that contents of the drive will be erased



• When finished, go to Finder and navigate within the newly created USB drive to System > Installation > and delete the file (alias) located here named “Packages” – keep this window open



• Go back to the ‘OS X Install ESD’ mounted drive, and drag & drop the “Packages” folder into the /System/Installation/ directory you just deleted the Packages alias from, let this large folder copy

Once that Packages folder is finished copying to the drive, the USB drive is now ready to be booted from which it can install OS X Mavericks from.

Booting from OS X Mavericks Install Drive

• With the USB drive attached, reboot the Mac and hold down the Option key
• Select the orange drive, labeled “OS X Base System 1″ from the boot menu
• Proceed with the installation as usual

Enjoy OS X Mavericks! By the way, if there is a more direct method to create a bootable installation drive, we couldn’t figure it out. Trying to restore or use the InstallESD.dmg file does not work like it used to in the past, but it’s entirely possible there is another way. If you know how to do it, send us an email, hit up @osxdaily on Twitter, let us know on Facebook, or hollar at us on Google Plus.

iOS 7 is the most significant update to iOS since the original iPhone debuted, and Apple executives are describing installing iOS 7 as “like getting an entirely new phone”. Packed with tons of features and a beautiful new interface, with tons of animated interface elements that respond to movement of the device and provide a 3D appearance, it really must be seen to believe. Let’s review some of what was shown today at WWDC 2013, covering some of the major features and, of course, some screenshots too.

Developers can get their hands on iOS 7 Beta 1 today, but the rest of us will have to wait until Fall to install it on our iPads and iPhones (assuming they meet this iOS 7 compatibility list). Until then, check out these gorgeous screenshots and feature list…

iOS 7 Screen Shots

Many of the new interface elements must be seen live in video to understand just how fancy they are, and Apple has an excellent webpage up with videos demonstrating the features, take a look over there to see. Here are some official screenshots from Apple.

iOS 7 icons & homescreen:

Here is the quick access settings panel Control Center, the new Notification Center, and the new Multitasking interface:

iTunes Radio, Photos with Moments, and AirDrop Sharing:

New Mail app, new Weather app, and the all new Messages app:

Screen shots of iTunes Radio, new Multitasking UI, home screen, Control Center, and Safari tab browser:

So what is all this new stuff? Check out the all new features and enhancements…

iOS 7 Features

So what is all this new stuff? Here’s a greater look at the features and various enhancements, with screen caps from WWDC.

Control Center

Quick settings panel, swipe up from the bottom to reveal settings, brightness adjustments, flashlight app, access AirPlay, accessible from the lock screen

Control Center is accessible from anywhere in iOS, including the lock screen

New Multitasking Interface

Swipe between running apps, see full live previews of active apps, tapping any of them brings that app to become active

Safari

Safari gets a beautiful new interface, and a very fancy tab, bookmark, and window browsing feature

AirDrop Sharing

Easy file sharing between iOS devices (and presumably, Macs), accessible from share sheets system-wide, provides encrypted peer-to-peer transfers directly between devices

Camera with Filters

The Camera app has been redesigned, now includes filters, and an improved interface with easy swiping between features

Photos app

Photos app will now automatically organizes photos into moments, grouped by date and location, sort by month, or even by year, easy scrubbing between photos for previews, allows for instant image editing with filters, new sharing options include AirDrop and Flickr

Shared iCloud Photo Streams

Anyone invited to a Photo Stream can now add new photos to photo streams, supports video sharing as well

Siri

Siri gets a new interface, can switch between male and female voices without the old trick of changing languages, can perform system tasks like “increase brightness”, integrated with Twitter, Wikipedia, and Bing Search is now integrated

iOS in the Car

The iOS interface can now be outputted to in-car displays with support for Siri, Maps, iMessages, Phone, and more. Will debut in 2014 with many, many car manufactures.

App Store

The App Store gets a huge refresh, and apps automatically update in the background now. New ways to find apps based on age recommendations or location.

iTunes Radio in Music App

iTunes Radio is a streaming music service from Apple, built into the Music app. Featured Stations, create your own stations, share stations with friends, buy songs directly from iTunes Radio, skip songs

FaceTime Audio Calls over Wi-Fi

You can now make audio-only FaceTime calls without the quirky tricks of enabling audio-only

Phone, FaceTime, and Message Blocking

No more funky block lists to block annoying callers. You can now natively block anyone system-wide from calling you, facetiming, or sending messages and texts

Notification Syncing Between Devices

Acknowledge a notification on one device, and you don’t have to see it on your other devices. Syncs with OS X Mavericks and allows for cross-platform notification management and alerts.

Activation Lock

A huge anti-theft deterrent, Activation Lock ties iOS devices to Apple ID’s and allows you to block a device from being used, even if it was formatted or restored. Prevents stolen iPhones from being used by anyone except their rightful owner.

There’s much more too, be sure to check out Apple.com!

The next version of the Mac operating system, OS X 10.9, is officially labeled as OS X Mavericks. Mavericks, named after an epic surfing spot in northern California, has a lot of new features, but also represents a change in naming conventions away from the familiar cat themes. In future versions of OS X will follow the same naming convention and all be named after inspirational places throughout California, where Apple is located.

OS X Mavericks Features

Many of the OS X Mavericks features are aimed at power users, some of the feature highlights include:

• Finder has tabs support with drag and drop, window merging, and full-screen support
• Tags come to the Mac for searching meta data, tags show up in the sidebar
• Multi-display enhancements: support for full screen, menus span multiple displays, Docks can be summoned from any display, spaces span independently across multiple monitors
• Significant performance improvements, including compressed memory, AppNap, Timer Coalescing, OpenGL 4, accelerated smoothed scrolling
• AppNap suspends and resumes background apps and processes on the fly, behind the scene (very similar to the command line tools we have discussed here, except automated)
• Safari 7 includes major under-the-hood improvements, and includes a social stream and link sharing feature that watches your social networks for interesting links
• iCloud keychain keeps track of all passwords and logins, stores them encrypted in iCloud and remembers all logins, Safari will auto-suggest ultra strong passwords
• Notification Center improvements, you can now respond directly to Notifications from the Notification Center without launching the specific apps, and iOS push notifications will arrive in OS X, they will also show up on the lock screen of OS X
• Apps automatically update in the background
• Skeumorphic interfaces are gone, missing from apps, from Calendar, Reminders, etc
• Calendar improvements provides suggestions, weather updates for location, travel expectations for time to arrival, and much more
• Maps come to OS X, can send directions from Mac Maps to iOS Maps
• iBooks arrives on OS X as a book reader, syncs with iOS devices, allows note annotation, includes built-in study cards based on notes

OS X Mavericks release date is set for Fall 2013, and includes tons of other feature enhancements and improvements, making it an excellent update to the Mac operating system. Developers gain access to Mavericks preview today.