PlayBlox!: OS X Yosemite Review: An Equal Partner for iOS 8

Apple released on Thursday the latest version of its Mac operating system, OS X Yosemite, to the public.

With Yosemite, OS X not only gets a brand new look and feel, it also gains even tighter integration with iOS 8.

We've covered OS X Yosemite quite a bit already, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conferenceand with the OS X Yosemite Preview that became available in July. Read those posts if you want to see how Yosemite has evolved into its final form.

New look and feel

The first thing you'll notice when you upgrade to OS X Yosemite is its new look. The design is flatter, brighter and more modern feeling. OS X Yosemite was crafted in the same design language as iOS 7 and iOS 8, albeit customized for the desktop.

As we've said before, this is the most radical design change since OS X was first released in 2001. But while the look is new, everything works just as you would expect, with just a few exceptions.

Nearly every inch of the OS has a fresh coat of paint. From the chrome on application windows and the Dock, to application and sidebar icons, almost everything has been redrawn and redesigned.

The flat aesthetic is clean and modern. It looks especially great on Retina screens. Non-Retina screens look great, too, but Yosemite was clearly designed for the high-resolution experience.

One of my favorite new features is the Today Screen in the Notification Center; this mirrors the same feature in iOS 8, and effectively replaces the Dashboard.

Getting darker

One of the features Apple touted at WWDC was a new "dark mode" — that is, a dark menu bar and dock. This makes the menu bar and all of its associated menus a translucent dark color, rather than the frosted transparent white coloring by default.

The effect's only downside is that for it to work seamlessly, third-party apps need to update for this view; that way, if the apps have a menu-bar icon, those associated menus will also be dark.

For my own day-to-day use, I likely won't use dark mode all the time, but can see it being helpful for those who frequently use Final Cut Pro X, Adobe CC and AutoCAD.

Spotlight, Safari and Mail

Some of the core apps and functions to OS X received a big overhaul in Yosemite.

Spotlight

Spotlight, Apple's brilliant system-wide search tool, now has web smarts built-in. This means you can get web results, mapping details and data, such as movie times or sports scores, simply by holding down the command key and space bar, or clicking on the search icon.

The idea is to give users the information they want based on what they type. You can also perform quick calculations or unit conversions, as well as pull up a contact to make a call or send an email.

Spotlight uses a lot of the same information that powers Siri, but uses search terms for input rather than voice.

The center, full-focus view within Spotlight is clearly influenced by third-party app launchers, such as Quicksilver, Launchbar and Alfred. Those apps still do more, but Spotlight is catching up.

For now, Apple doesn't have any public APIs for extending Spotlight — so fans of Launchbar and Alfred will still have a reason to use those apps — but its new design and the functionality makes OS X's already superior search options that much better.

Safari

The same contextual search features that are available in Spotlight are also available in Safari. This means you can type in a film title, and see information about it in the web search — including movie times at nearby theaters — as a suggestion. Likewise, typing in a more general term, such as "Yosemite," will bring up a Wikipedia preview on which you can click, as well as conduct a standard Google search. The feature is reminiscent of the old Inquisitor plug-in for Safari (for those of you who remember that far back), and adds a nice contextual view to web searches.

Apple has also added DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn't track you, as a search option to Safari — ideal for users who value their privacy.

What's more, Apple has redesigned its tabs view. Instead of truncating the tab titles to fit into a window's width, you can scroll across a tab list to see everything that's open. Plus, you can view tabs visually in stacks. Tabs from the same website are grouped together, so you can instantly eyeball how many Mashable windows are open. In addition, you can see which tabs are open on your other devices, including the iPhone and iPad. You can even remotely close those tabs, which will help avoid any embarrassing instances of your spouse finding your food porn collection on the iPad.

Safari for OS X Yosemite also has support for many new web technologies. On Macs that run a Sandy Bridge processor or later, Safari can now play Netflix without the need for a Silverlight extension; this means you get pure HTML5-driven video support, native in the browser.

Apple has also made it easier to clear history and data. A link is available in the main Safari window, and clicking it can clear history not just from your Mac, but from all devices signed into an iCloud account.

Mail

Apple made some major redesigns to Mail in OS X Mavericks, which means that in Yosemite, the changes are more functional.

The big news is that there is a new feature called MailDrop for sending huge attachments to other users. You can send files up to 5GB in size, without having to go through your mail server. Instead, the file is uploaded to iCloud, and then a link is appended to the message. If a user opens it in Mail for Mac, they can see the attachment and download it. For users on other mail services, they get a handy link.

It's basically exactly the same as how services like Hightail work, but integrated into your Mac. Even better? It's free. Links last only 30 days, but for most users, that's more than long enough. MailDrop isn't limited to iCloud accounts; if you have a Gmail, Yahoo or Exchange account configured in Mail, it can take advantage of MailDrop, too.

The other big feature in Mail is the ability to do markup, or annotations, directly in messages. The annotation features from the Preview app are available inside Mail, which means you can fill out PDF forms, add signatures, and even add annotations and text notes to images.

You can even sign your name by drawing on the trackpad, which is just as magical as it sounds.

These built-in annotation features, coupled with improvements to how Mail works with various accounts, makes my most-used (if least-favorite) app that much better.

iCloud Drive

Apple has finally added a built-in cloud-storage system into OS X. iCloud Drive allows users to not only access iCloud documents from their iOS 8 devices, but also use iCloud as a more general file-storage repository.

iCloud Drive isn't as granular as something like Dropbox, where you can selectively pick and choose files available on your Mac locally. Instead, Apple will try to download content from your drive to your system (when available) for offline use.

From an ease-of-use point of view, this makes a lot of sense, but for power users with 500GB or 1TB storage plans — who prioritize the ability to choose what takes up space locally, and what stays on the cloud until you need it — options such as Dropbox, OneDrive or even Google Drive will still be better.

Still, if you primarily use iOS and Mac devices, having iCloud Drive on the Mac is great because it finally enables you to access everything, everywhere.

Continuity with iOS 8

For a lot of users, the best parts of OS X Yosemite are the way the system integrates seamlessly with iOS 8 and iOS 8.1.

Handoff

A new feature called Handoff lets you switch from one device to another in a way that is so fast, it almost seems like magic.

This is how it works: If you're in a system app on iOS 8 (or an app that was built with Handoff support) and you're in the proximity of a Mac that is logged into the same iCloud account, you can switch from one device to another.

An icon pops up to the left side of the dock, separated and with a mobile-phone indicator, showing that activity is happening on a nearby device. Click on the icon, and the web page, app or email on which you were working will now appear on your Mac. Likewise, on iOS, a small icon on the left side will appear on the lock screen in iOS 8 when you're working on an app on your Mac.

Handoff uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for its proximity state detection, and it works fantastically well. In the past, I've used third-party utilities to pass web URLs or information from the phone to computer, but now it's built-in.

Third-party apps can build in support for their own apps, and our hope is that other browsers — including Chrome — take the time to do it.

AirDrop

Finally, you can share files from Mac to iOS 8 in OS X Yosemite, using AirDrop.

AirDrop between Macs has been available for some time, but the ability to send files, such as images, to a Mac from your phone (or vice versa) really does reduce a ton of friction.

You can also use AirDrop to send files to other iOS users nearby, as long as they accept your request. This is helpful when, for example, you're sending directions, or sharing a photo from a computer to a cadre of devices in the area.

AirDrop uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but doesn't necessarily require an Internet connection. Instead, you can transfer files over a direct network connection between the two devices.

Like Handoff, AirDrop is seamless, and that's part of what makes it so great.

Support for calls and SMS

If someone calls your iPhone and you're on the same Wi-Fi network in OS X Yosemite, you can now answer that call directly from your Mac. You can also place calls through your iPhone from the Mac. This is a fantastic new feature that will make anyone who sits at a desk with a headset plugged in very happy. Use the headset and microphone connected to your Mac for your calls.

Although third-party tools such as Audio Hijack Pro will doubtlessly make it easy to record a phone call from your Mac, we do wish Apple had added a record functionality (with a message announcing that a recording was being made) to the setup. But that's just a personal request. The feature, as it stands, works great.

With iOS 8.1, SMS relay support comes to the Messages app.

This means you can send and receive SMS and MMS messages from your laptop or desktop, thanks to Yosemite. Previously, you could only use the Messages app to chat with other iMessage users, but now users can also chat with "green bubble people" (as non-iPhone users are colloquially known) from a Mac.

SMS relay works in such a way that the phone doesn't even need to be in the same room to work. As long as you've associated your iCloud account with the phone and computer, you can get SMS messages delivered.

The net effect is that Apple has created a place where all of your conversations are accessible from anywhere. No more using 15 messaging apps just to reach all the people you know — simply use Messages.

Instant Hotspot

Also in iOS 8.1, Apple is introducing a new feature called Instant Hotspot. It's designed so that you can quickly connect to your iPhone or iPad's cellular connection from the Wi-Fi menu in OS X.

Your phone will show up as a "Personal Hotspot" and you can automatically connect to your own devices. You can also see the connection strength and your battery life.

Connecting to an iOS hotpot was never difficult in the past, but this seamlessness really makes things work well together. This is doubly true for anyone who has ever had to tether on a train or in a hotel room.

When you're using the Instant Hotspot feature, the Mac will do what it can to be data efficient, so things such as auto app updates and backups won't take place when you're on cellular data.

A more cohesive Apple

Over the last four months, I've given a lot of thought to how Apple has approached Yosemite and iOS 8. To me, it feels like the two operating systems are now being developed truly in tandem with one another.

Past OS X releases, most notably OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion, felt like they were playing catchup with certain iOS features. Design cues from the mobile UX were shoehorned into the system, and apps were ported over. Although OS X Mavericks was a great release, most of its core improvements were under-the-hood, and really designed to make the Mac work better.

With OS X Yosemite, the Mac doesn't just work better, it works better with your other Apple devices.

For the average Mac user, that is a significant value proposition.

Using Yosemite, especially with iOS 8, I like using my Mac andmy iOS devices more. I don't have to worry about going through hurdles to transfer files from one device to another; Handoff and AirDrop just work.

Likewise, having a similar, but not identical UI, is familiar and encouraging.

This approach, of keeping the Mac the Mac and iOS iOS — but still letting them learn from and work together — is something that just makes sense.

With Windows 10, Microsoft has admitted that it made the wrong decision when it tried to turn a desktop OS into something more akin to a phone or tablet. Apple avoided that mistake, and with OS X Yosemite, actually shows that the real marriage between mobile and desktop is to treat them as equal partners.

OS X Yosemite is free and available now. It's a worthy upgrade for all Mac users, but if you're an iOS 8 user, it's an even better experience.

OS X Yosemite

The Good

Great new look • Works great with iOS 8 • Fast and stable

The Bad

No Spotlight extension support • Some features require a newer Mac

The Bottom Line

OS X Yosemite is a great OS for any Mac owner but it's must-have if you have iOS 8.'

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Friday, 17 October 2014

OS X Yosemite Review: An Equal Partner for iOS 8