Apple today announced the latest version of OS X, Yosemite, at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA with a brand new user interface designed for clarity and utility, iCloud Drive and improved continuity between iOS devices and Mac.
Continuinity is the biggest new feature of OS X Yosemite, improving the connection between Macs and iOS devices. AirDrop now allows users to share items between iOS devices and Macs. Handoff is a new feature that allows devices near you to recognize when you’re using a Mac. For instance, it allows users to answer phone calls to their iPhone on their Mac, instantly start a Hotspot from your iPhone and allows users to see “green dot” conversations on their Mac.
The new UI is very similar to the flat look of iOS 7 with translucent windows, a new dock and app icons and an all-new notification center with a Today pane and both first- and third-party widgets like Weather and SportsCenter. There’s also a new dark mode, which lets users turn the overall interface into the more darkened tone of Notification Center.
Also new to the UI is a brand new interface for Spotlight, which looks like third-party Mac apps like Bartender and Quicksilver and pops up in the center of the desktop. The new Spotlight allows users to not only search through their computer, but online through sources like Wikipedia, Yelp and movie times. In addition, Spotlight can do certain conversions, like converting miles to kilometers.
The second big improvement is iCloud Drive, a Dropbox-like addition that syncs all your documents across Macs, iOS devices and Windows. It allows users to browse documents and photos on devices even if they’re not stored on that device.
Mail’s improvements include Mail Drop and Markup. Mail Drop’s intention is to solve the problem of sending attachments that are far too large and result in failed sendings. iCloud now encrypts the attachments and sends the recipient a link to the attachment if it’s too large. Attachments, however, are limited to 5 GB. Markup, on the other hand, allows users to sketch and doodle on emails.
Safari has also seen improvements with a new tab view, increased privacy, and new HTML 5 video, which allows for 2 hours more battery life when streaming Netflix. The new tab view allows users to see a bird’s eye view of all open tabs and allowing users to bunch tabs together. In addition, Safari includes 6.5x faster on Javascript and includes WebGL, SPDY, IndexedDB, Javascript Promises, CSS Shapes and more.
Leave a Reply