Apple OS X Yosemite—the tenth version of the operating system already named OS Ten—is due to arrive in the fall as a free upgrade, usable on just about any Mac manufactured since mid-2007. It's a classic Apple-style upgrade: Despite dozens of changes and new features, you won't need to relearn anything to use it. But if you own an iPhone or iPad, you'll find that your Mac and iOS device will work together in ways you never imagined. When both Yosemite and the forthcoming iOS 8 are on your devices, you'll be able to answer your phone on your Mac, or start a mail message on your phone and finish typing it on your M/ac.
With each previous version of OS X, Apple made minor tweaks in the interface. This time the whole system gets a visual makeover to bring it into the flat, non-skeuomorphic modern age, in the style most recently embraced by Windows 8 and iOS 7. As usual, Apple takes the prize for fit and finish. Yosemite looks spacious and relaxing in a way that no other OS can match, with unparalleled integration among its built-in apps and networked devices.
We explored an early preview version of Yosemite on a 15-inch MacBook Pro, with a Retina display that showed off Yosemite's clean, precise look. We weren't able to test the new features that connect OS X with an iOS device because Apple hasn't yet supplied test devices with iOS 8 installed, but you can expect a follow-up story on iOS 8/Yosemite integration before long. These integration features include an Instant Hotspot that lets you convert your phone into a wireless router that your Mac can use to connect to the Internet (just make sure you've got a generous data plan). Another feature lets SMS messages you receive on your phone also show up on your Mac. Stay tuned for more details.
For now, we're going to focus mostly on the Features we were able to at least get a peek at in the new Apple OS X Yosemite. Read on for 20 of our favorites. Keep in mind that there are still several months until the system is released this fall, so some of what we show here could change. That said, Yosemite already shows an impressive level of polish. For an early look at what the future holds for iOS 8, check out iOS 8: What We Wanted vs. What We Got and How to Get OS 8.
1
A New Look
The first thing you notice about Yosemite is that it looks a lot like iOS 7, with its flat look and low-key toolbar buttons. The dock is now two-dimensional, and the only traces of three-dimensional effects are the subtle shadows under the windows. If you look closely, you'll see that some design elements are slightly translucent. The Finder sidebar is a good example. Also notice the redesigned icons for the standard apps. Does anyone else think the old Finder icon looked equally cheerful but a lot more intelligent?
2
Notification Center Updates
OS X's Notification Center now packs a lot more information, including a Today panel linked to your Calendar. Notice the stock widget—one of a new breed of Notification Center widgets programmers can create for use on both iOS 8 and Yosemite. You can still use your old Dashboard widgets, but only in the Dashboard. The Dashboard will still be available on new systems, but if you upgrade to Yosemite from an earlier version, and the installer detects that you've never used the Dashboard at all, the OS will quietly delete it to save space.
3
Spotlight on Spotlight
Spotlight moves—you guessed it—into the spotlight, right in the center of the screen, instead of tucked away in the upper right corner. Previews appear in a separate panel instead of in the cramped little window of earlier versions. Notice that searches now report items from the iTunes store, too. One interface feature that's especially obvious here is the new system font, Helvetica Neue, which replaces the Lucida Grande font used in previous versions.
4
Spotlight Gets a Calculator
If you are in the habit of opening your browser and typing simple calculations in the Google search box, now you can simply press Cmd-Space to open Spotlight and type your calculations in the search field. Press Cmd-C to copy the result and Cmd-V to paste it into any app.
5
Spotlight Gets Smarter
Spotlight also works a bit like a silent version of Siri on iOS. Type in the name of a movie, for example, and Spotlight gives you links to nearby showings. If you're really intent on wasting time, click on some of the trailers that Spotlight also offers.
6
Safari Favorites
Safari gets a major makeover, with a single toolbar at the top (you can still display your old bookmarks bar by enabling it from a menu).
7
Keeping Tabs on Safari
In iOS, you can display a card-shuffle-style view of all your open pages in Safari. Yosemite gets a similar feature with its Show All Tabs view. You can open this view by clicking the button at the far right of the toolbar, with a keystroke, or from the top-line menu. Of course, the blank icon with the plus sign lets you open a new, empty tab.
8
Mail Tooltip
We'll get to the more eye-catching features in Mail in a moment, but here's one that a lot of users will appreciate: a dropdown menu that lets you quickly add a Bcc: and other address fields. Notice also the iOS-style light-colored plus icon at the right that replaces the garish button for adding addressees found in earlier version of OS X.
9
MailDrop Drops
Just when you got used to the routine of uploading a large file to Dropbox or some other service and sending a download link via Mail, along comes MailDrop, Apple's new service that lets you upload files up to 5GB in size to a 30-day storage site, and then it sends a download link in a mail message. It's all done in Mail, and it's blissfully simple. By the way, as far as we can tell, MailDrop isn't actually working yet, but our preview version of Yosemite at least let us see how it will work when it does.
10
Mail Markups
If you're used to opening up a graphics program to mark up images before sending them via Mail, you can now mark them up in Mail itself. Hover the cursor over an image in a Mail message, and a Markup menu becomes available. The next screen shows what happens when you click it.
11
Mail Gets Arty
The toolbar offers a basic set of drawing tools—boxes, lines, text, and so on—but the really nifty part is the way OS X converts your hand-drawn scrawl into a smooth line. I used my fingertip to draw a messy arrow on the trackpad, and Yosemite converted into this perfect Bezier curve with an arrowhead.
12
Preview Markups
The same markup feature is available in Preview for when you aren't mailing an image. Here you see the endpoints of the curve that OS X offers to draw in place of the scrawling curve that I drew using the trackpad.
13
Newly Appointed Calendar
Calendar gets a revamped all-day view, complete with new options in the drop-down menus. As in Contacts and other apps, the iOS and OS X Calendars now look a lot more like each other.
14
FaceTime and Phone
We weren't able to test the feature that lets you answer a call to your iPhone on your Mac, but there's the icon that will let you do it. Notice the phone icon added to the camera icon. When a call comes in on your iPhone, and the phone is in another room, you can click on the icon to talk and listen through your Mac's mic and speakers.
15
Messages: Do Not Disturb
Messages gets a lot of new features built into a button at the upper right of the window, including an option to mute a chatty message thread that you don't want to deal with right now.
16
AirDrop Options
The AirDrop file-transfer feature, which now works between iOS and Macs, lets you restrict AirDrop to devices owned by your contacts. It looks like one minor inconvenience will result from the new AirDrop technology in Yosemite and iOS 8—you have to choose a special option if you want to exchange files with a Mac running an earlier version of OS X.
17
Extensions
A new panel in System Preferences lets you control extensions that Apple or third-party developers provide for the Notification Center and other apps that will support the new widget technology. Here I've added stocks and other features to the Notification Center.
18
iCloud Passwords
Apple borrows a feature that Microsoft introduced in Windows 8—you can now use your iCloud password to log into OS X, instead of the traditional account password. However, you can continue to use old-style account passwords if you prefer.
19
The Full Screen Button
The point of this screen isn't to show you the clean design of the Calendar but to ask you to notice the red, yellow, and green buttons at the upper left—and the absence of the old full-screen button that used to be at the upper right of many OS X apps. Yosemite ditches the old full-screen button and repurposes the green button to work as a full-screen button in apps that support full-screen mode. In apps that won't work in full-screen mode, the green button sets the window size to its default maximum, as it always did.
20
A Public Beta Program
Want to try Yosemite? If you don't have a $99 per year developer account, you'll be able to try it free by joining the Yosemite public beta program—if you're one of the first million people to sign up. Apple won't say when the beta will go public, but now is the time to sign up.
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