WWDC2014: 10 big things you need to know about OS X 10.10 Yosemite

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10 big things you need to know about Yosemite

The new OS X, OS X 10.10, will be called Yosemite (sadly it’s named after the place rather than the Looney Tunes cartoon character). There’s a brand new interface, some impressive new features and the odd prospect of Macs becoming rather large and expensive iPhone accessories. Here are the ten biggest things about OS ten ten point ten.

1. It’s got a brand new interface

Yosemite has new typography, a flatter design and lots of translucency. Some observers have rightly pointed out a resemblance to iOS 7; other less kind observers have equally rightly pointed out the similarities to Windows Vista. The dock looks like a single block of frosted glass, the icons are flatter and the title bars are translucent like Safari on iOS 7. Translucency is used throughout to emphasize content; for example, in messages the messages themselves are on solid backgrounds but the message list is translucent.

There’s good news for pro app users too: there’s a new dark mode that turns the menu bar and other elements dark grey to match the darker interface of apps such as Aperture and Logic Pro X.

2. It’s got Windows Vista’s Sidebar

Apple calls it Notification Center but we’re not fooled: the presence of app widgets in the slide-in panel means it’s a 2014 take on the old Windows Sidebar. The Center provides an at-a-glance Today view, just like iOS, and there’s a second list of app notifications and other key information.

3. Spotlight does much more

Spotlight looks rather like the excellent Albert app: instead of popping out of the top right corner of the screen it takes pride of place in the center, providing easy access not just to files but to Wikipedia, your apps, to maps and associated Yelp reviews and any other content you might be interested in. It displays results as inline previews and looks rather nifty.

4. Mail works

“Email works now†isn’t much of a boast, but it solves a problem for a lot of OS X users. The revised Mail app focuses on the basics - fast fetching, not hiding sodding messages for no good reason - and also includes a nifty feature called MailDrop. It’s designed to prevent email attachments from being bounced, and if you send mail with huge attachments - up to 5GB - to a non-OS X user they’ll get a download link instead of a file attachment.

Mail also gets MarkUp, which enables you to scribble on and annotate images you send in messages. It works on PDFs too.

5. Stream smarter

The new Safari promises two additional hours of Netflix before your battery runs out. It also features significantly faster web app performance, and it’s been given a redesign too: the interface has been condensed to a single bar. When you click in the address box your favorites appear in an iOS-style grid. There’s an iOS-style sharing menu too, and private browsing is now available on a per-window basis instead of putting the entire browser into private mode. Apple also promises easy subscriptions to RSS news feeds, which it ditched after Safari V.6.

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6. It has excellent iOS integration

The new Continuity feature looks fantastic if it works as well as advertised, which, given iTunes’ ongoing inability to find our iPhones when they’re RIGHT THERE, is by no means guaranteed. Continuity makes your Mac and iOS devices part of one big happy family. Jobs you start on one device can be finished on another; for example, you can start composing a message or document on an iPad and bring it up on your Mac, and vice-versa.

Communications are shared too: SMSes sent to your phone can be read and replied to on your Mac, and you can use your Mac as a speakerphone for your iPhone via an instant, zero-configuration hotspot that works even if the iPhone is charging in a completely different room.

Apple’s strategy is clear here: it’s making iOS and OS X look more alike and work better together, but its mobile and desktop operating systems remain distinctly different beasts. Maybe that’ll change if the rumored ARM-based MacBook Air ever makes it out of Jonathan Ive’s lab.

7. iDisk is back

Well, almost. The new iCloud Drive looks awfully like Dropbox and works in much the same way, enabling you to store and synchronize any files you like between Mac, iOS and PC. iCloud gets a new pricing structure too: the first 5GB is still free, but 20GB is a reasonable 99c per month and 200GB is $3.99 per month.

8. AirDrop works properly

If you were flabbergasted by AirDrop’s inability to share between Macs and iOS devices, you’ll be delighted to discover that there are no such problems in Yosemite.

9. There’s no sign of Siri

While the revamped Spotlight does much the same on OS X as Siri does on iOS, there’s no sign of the much-rumored Siri integration in Yosemite: unlike in iOS 8, it seems that you won’t be able to control your Mac with a cheery “Hey, Siri.â€.

10. It’ll be free this autumn

Like Mavericks, Yosemite will be a free upgrade this autumn (or a free download right now if you’re one of the WWDC attendees). If that’s too long to wait there will be a free public beta this summer - and interestingly, that’s the first time there’s been a public beta of OS X since the very first version back in 2000. That one cost money, but this time the beta will be free.

We can’t stress enough the importance of patience here: while dodgy downloads of Yosemite will no doubt appear online in a matter of hours, it’s early beta software that isn’t intended for use on people’s everyday computers.

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