Preview: Mac OS X Yosemite Public Beta

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla 

One year after what looked to be a massive revamp in look, feel, user experience and naming convention, Mac OS X has undergone and even more dramatic and comprehensive makeover with Mac OS X Yosemite. 

While expected to ship in the fall, there’s currently a Public Beta version of Yosemite available to interested beta testers who are welcome to join Apple engineers and developers in experiencing, testing and fine tuning this most innovative of operating systems. Hit jump to read my first impressions of this new OS.

I’ve had the opportunity to test OS X Yosemite for around one week as my main OS running on a MacBook Pro with Retina Display and here are some things that stand out about the new OS.

At first glance, there are huge visual refinements across the board. The icons, font and even all the menu bars have received a visual refresh. A new system font makes things more readable and easier on the eyes, specially on Retina Displays.  

Icons are flatter, losing the bouncy bubbly, beveled  and shadowy look we’ve come to expect. The result is a cleaner, no-nonsense approach that’s visually exciting but not over the top. 

Even basic functions like the ToolBar Controls have received some spit and polish.

“With OS X Yosemite, users have just as much capability—in fewer controls. Take the signature red, yellow, and green stoplight buttons of OS X apps. Hover over them and glyphs appear, indicating their function. Just like before, the red button closes a window, and the yellow one minimizes it. But the green button now takes the app full screen, eliminating the need for an extra full-screen button in the toolbar and consolidating window controls in one place.”

New Design 

There are various design changes to Yosemite from previous versions. Apple has expunged all the bubbly bezels, bevels and layers that have been part of OS X since its inceptions. The result is a cleaner, leaner and easier to read look and feel. Even the system font has been updated and is closer to Helvetica and easier to read. 

Today, Notifications and widgets…yes, widgets

The Notification Centre that was inherited from iOS and which debuted in Mavericks is now enhanced in Yosemite.

You can now get a Today view, similar to iOS, which shows all you appointments, reminders, world time and weather, stock prices plus the option to use widgets.

This time around widgets are mini-apps that can interact with various online services to give you up-to-date information. Developers are expected to add various new widgets to the mix.

Hints abound- More than the change in the visuals, Apple has added various visual clues that are subtle, yet very useful if you’e paying attention.

The use of transparency allows you to glimpse what’s behind your the window you are working on but also extends to indicate that there’s continuity above and below the page or item that you are looking at.

Spotlight gets smarter - Spotlight is the key system search feature and now is even smarter.

You can now use Spotlight to look up information from Wikipedia, Maps, Bing, iTunes, and other sources, as well as to convert units and currencies.

And Spotlight is always easy to access, no matter what you’re doing on your Mac.

I’ve used Spotlight to look up words and definitions and it can still do this quite beautifully.

Advanced features users will love include the ability to call a friend, send a message, or click their address and see it in Maps—right from a Spotlight preview. You can also look up nearby movie showtimes as well which is really convenient, or it will bring up viewing alternatives available via iTunes.

Safari is a better browser -

In a world where Chrome takes the lead in terms of browsers, Mac users now have a new and improved Safari that’s super streamlined, smart and efficient.

Understanding that people like to use lots and lots of tabs, Safari has the ability to stack these in a long line which is easily scrollable from left to right. Safari also stacks tabs from the same domain together for easy access.

Netflix users will also be pleased with an energy efficient native video playback for Netflix, Safari lets you watch Netflix for up to two hours longer when running on battery power than before.

Mail App -

Previous versions of the included Mail App for OS X haven’t been all that exciting or as customizable as say Outlook on Windows.

For Yosemite, however, Apple’s leapfrogged what people can do with their email client by adding a host of useful features.

A new Markup feature allows for Skitch-like drawing on attachments, filling up of forms by signing on the trackpad (or photographing your signature with the Mac’s camera), you can now zoom in to parts of pictures with a loupe, write text directly on an image as well as draw with various degrees of detail.

Super helpful for people who used to have to export images into Photoshop for minor edits.Best of all, you can act on PDF’s without having to go to Preview or Adobe Acrobat.

Mail Drop uses the iCloud to help send large attachments without clogging up your email server. For users who don’t use Macs or Mail, they get a link from which to download the file, which stays online temporarily and then vanishes to clear up space.

iCloud mail is also encrypted for added security which many users will appreciate.

Maps on Board -

Apple Maps are now included in OS X Yosemite and with all the awesome features such as 3D views and FlyOver. More than just another mapping application, Apple's Maps feature feeds into the location functions of Yosemite which determine the sort of contextual data and localized information gathered by Spotlight and Notifications.

Messages on Steroids -

The Messages app is a natural evolution of iOS’s iMessage and aside from the continuity features allowing you to respond to messages sent to your iPhone from your Mac (which isn’t available in the beta), Messages is still a standout messaging feature for Yosemite.

You can now have group conversations with titles, send audio messages using soundbites (instead of typing), access photos from a message thread by clicking the Details button and you can mute or leave group conversations when things get too noisy.I feel Messages will be something I will personally use more and more.

It will take longer than one week to really see how well OS X Yosemite works specially with third party applications. But this early, I can already tell it is a stable OS and one that’s fast, efficient and intuitive. I'm already having a hard time reverting back to Mavericks on my regular Mac.

Apple's Craig Federighi previewing Mac OS X 10.10 A.K.A. Yosemite at WWDC 2014

Clearly, the future of OS X is in good hands and while this remains the only pure consumer desktop operating system in the market right now, it could very well prove to be the best one in time. Keep us posted on your Yosemite experiences below and let us know what stands out for you from Mac OS X 10.10.