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OS X 10.2 takes the operating system onto a new level by incorporating several new technologies and enhancing many of the core OS X applications, such as Mail, Address Book and Sherlock. The new version will also be the only one capable of running Apple's latest iApps - iCal and iSync and iChat.

Apple has based the upgrade on a number of key changes to the core elements of the OS. So there is an updated version of the Unix underpinnings as well as improved graphics handling and - at last, some would say, a rebuilt, multithreaded Finder that should prove much slicker than before. Changes to the Finder include a quick search and the reintroduction of what Jobs called the most-requested feature - spring-loaded folders. A feature of OS 9, these were excluded from previous versions of OS X.

Spring-loading makes for easier navigation between folders; when an item - whether a file or a folder, is held over another folder, that folder opens to reveal its contents, where the item can be dropped or the process continued with another folder. It allows user to quickly 'drill down' through the folder hierarchy without filling the screen with open folder windows.

Jaguar will also include Sherlock 3. Mac users familiar with Watson

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will recognise many of the changes, which turn Sherlock from a simple disk and Internet search tool into a service capable of delivering real time live information in a variety of areas, whether it's news, share prices, eBay auctions or local cinema listings. Quite how this will work in the UK, however, we can't yet say, as the version that Jobs demonstrated in New York yesterday was configured for the US.

Apple has also made changes to Mail, its email application, and to Address Book. Mail now has improved searching and better multiple email account handling and rules. It has also introduced a new Junk mail filter, which it claims is the best of its kind, capable of 'intelligently' learning what and what is not spam. Address Book has been converted from a simple addendum to Mail to a system-wide contacts database, which any OS X application will be able to access. Users will be able to send SMS text messages from the desktop and, if the Mac has a bluetooth adapter, will be able to connect to a bluetooth-enabled mobile phone and make it dial a number from the Address Book. Bluetooth software will be built into Jaguar.

Announcing the release of Mac OS X 10.2, Jobs also took the opportunity to outline Rendezvous, a new networking technology. Rendezvous automatically connects networked devices to each other without any configuration or software and should make the process of setting up a network, which at the best of times is a laborious process, much simpler and quicker.

Though developed by Apple Rendezvous is an open technology available to anyone. Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark and Epson have already announced that they will be introducing Rendezvous-enabled printers; yesterday Jobs was able to successfully demonstrate the technology with an HP prototype.

OS X 10.2 will costs £99, though anyone who bought a Mac after 17 July will be able to get reduced-price upgrade. Whether an upgrade will be available for longer-term OS X users has not been revealed, despite the fact that it is these people who have given Apple the springboard it needed to make a success of the transition from OS 9.