

I won’t delve into the minutiae of kerning and apertures in fonts, but I will say that it makes a better first impression on me than the old Lucida Grande font. It’s Helvetica Neue, and this design choice has faced its share of criticism. The next big change is the menu bar - specifically the font you’ll find both there and throughout the rest of the OS. But if Apple applies the same quality and polish to Continuity that it has to the rest of Yosemite, it’ll be worth waiting for. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test any of this and if you sign up for the beta, you won’t either. iCloud Drive is also going to be a big deal in Yosemite, syncing files from your Mac and iOS devices into the cloud just like Dropbox. It all works through a combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and your iCloud account - you’ll need to be signed in for all your devices to work together. Heck, it even shows you your phone’s battery life. My favorite feature will probably be "Instant Hotspot," which lets you turn on internet tethering directly from the computer so you don’t have pull out your phone and dig through the settings. Also, AirDrop will (finally!) work across both iOS and OS X, making shooting files across devices much easier. There’s also going to be a feature called "Handoff," which lets you start an activity on one platform - like looking at a webpage or composing an email - and then continue it on the other. You’ll be able to take calls on your Mac directly, and both iMessages and text messages will work across the Messages app on both platforms.

Once both operating systems are released, the idea of Apple’s unified ecosystem will turn into real, tangible benefits for people who have both Macs and iPhones. The best parts of Yosemite aren’t available for users in this beta because they rely on iOS 8.
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But they’re not simple copies this is Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite - emphasis on the Mac. The design principles in iOS 7 and many of the ideas that make iOS 8 so exciting are lurking behind the semi-translucent interfaces on Yosemite. It’s easy to say that Yosemite does to the Mac what iOS 7 did to the iPhone, but that’s not quite right. Instead of making the Mac ape the iPhone and iPad, Apple is making sure that they all can work together both functionally and aesthetically. With Yosemite, that strategy is clearer than ever. And every year, there are small signs that the two are coming closer together, but they never quite merge, and Apple has so far been adamant that they never will. All of the features and functionality we’ve come to expect from Macs are still here, but they have a new look that’s closer to the redesign we saw last month on iPhones and iPads with iOS 8.Įvery year since the release of the iPhone, we’ve wondered how Apple would negotiate the fact that it has two big, important operating systems. OS X 10.10 is better known as Yosemite, and the main thing you need to know about it is that it’s a big visual redesign. This fall, the 11th consumer version of Mac OS X will be released, for free.
