Getting tired of nudging Software Update every twenty seconds in the hope that Mac OS X 10.1.2 will finally appear? What you need is to start looking at the Big Picture, pal. Fretting about these imminent bug-fix point releases accomplishes nothing. What you should be doing is setting your sights on major OS upgrades that are at least six months away-- which also accomplishes nothing, but at least you're less likely to wear out your mouse button by repeatedly clicking on that "Update Now" button like some kind of hypercaffeinated TreeLoot addict.

Besides, it's the big releases that have all the chunkstyle new features-- which makes pondering, for example, Mac OS X 10.2 a lot more entertaining than waiting around for a mere collection of tweaks to USB audio support and the Image Capture application. And here's why: according to an AppleInsider report pointed out by faithful viewer Paul Ferro, based on an "early development" release currently floating around on the seedier file servers of the 'net, 10.2 (code-named "Jaguar") contains one feature that's sure to have all you Mac OS 9 holdouts scrambling to upgrade post-haste: spring-loaded folders.

That's right; if you're the type whose idea of a good time is dragging a file over a series of successively deeper folder icons as each in turn pops open to reveal its contents with a friendly wink (and heaven knows we've whiled away many a rainy day giggling quietly to ourselves as we indulged in a few hours of that particular brand of "Entertainment for the Easily-Amused"), then you'll be thrilled to hear that this summer's 10.2 release finally brings that much-loved feature to the glory of Aqua. And yes, there's a screenshot by way of proof.

In a stunning illustration of the "Don't Everybody Speak At Once" phenomenon of the Mac rumor mill, faithful viewer Paul Ferro points out that Think Secret has 10.2 notes and screenshots as well. When mashed together, all these source paint a picture of a 10.2 release already chock full of interesting improvements to the Disk Copy application, contextual menus in the Finder that might actually be useful for a change, and implementations of certain "universal access" features (like screen-flash alerts) that are finally starting to filter through from earlier versions of the Mac OS. But we suspect it's the addition of spring-loaded folders that's really going to drive widespread Mac OS X adoption this summer. Apps, shmapps; people just want their springy folders!