AppleInsider is reporting that the recent build of Snow Leopard, 10A261, commonly known as Beta 3, will use triangulation features via the Internet to pinpoint your location. Not only this, but Apple has helped developers out by including a new multi-touch framework, allowing people creating programs for Mac OS X to make better use of the recently released aluminium MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
The new location framework, dubbed CoreLocation, and will use the same system the original iPhone and iPod touch uses to find the users" location, as, of course, many computers don"t have a GPS to make it easier. This may be useful in mapping programs, or indeed Apple"s recently released iPhoto "09, which allows photos to be geo-tagged and placed on a world map.
Why, you ask, has Apple improved support for developing applications on the newest MacBooks and MacBook Pros? Surely, you can add multi-touch already? That"s true enough, but it"s difficult. Difficult enough indeed, that few applications that aren"t written by Apple support it. That"s why access to the new frameworks is being added -- to tap a currently untapped resource.
Snow Leopard is the name for Apple"s upcoming OS X 10.6 operating system, which is widely expected to be released this year.