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OS X 10.10 Yosemite Review
An anonymous reader writes: With the release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Ars Technica has posted one of their extremely thorough reviews of the OS's new features and design changes. John Siracusa writes that Yosemite is particularly notable because it's the biggest step yet in Apple's efforts to bring OS X and iOS together — new technologies are now being added to Apple's two operating systems simultaneously. "The political and technical battles inherent in the former two-track development strategy for OS X and iOS left both products with uncomfortable feature disparities. Apple now correctly views this as damage and has set forth to repair it." Yosemite's look and feel has undergone significant changes as well, generally moving toward the flat and compact design present in iOS 7 & 8. Spotlight and the Notifications Center have gotten some needed improvements, as did many tab and toolbar interfaces.
Siracusa also takes a look a Swift, Apple's new programming language: "Swift is an attempt to create a low-level language with high-level syntax and semantics. It tackles the myth of the Sufficiently Smart Compiler by signing up to create that compiler as part of the language design process." He concludes: "Viewed in isolation, Yosemite provides a graphical refresh accompanied by a few interesting features and several new technologies whose benefits are mostly speculative, depending heavily on how eagerly they're adopted by third-party developers. But Apple no longer views the Mac in isolation, and neither should you. OS X is finally a full-fledged peer to iOS; all aspects of sibling rivalry have been banished."
Siracusa also takes a look a Swift, Apple's new programming language: "Swift is an attempt to create a low-level language with high-level syntax and semantics. It tackles the myth of the Sufficiently Smart Compiler by signing up to create that compiler as part of the language design process." He concludes: "Viewed in isolation, Yosemite provides a graphical refresh accompanied by a few interesting features and several new technologies whose benefits are mostly speculative, depending heavily on how eagerly they're adopted by third-party developers. But Apple no longer views the Mac in isolation, and neither should you. OS X is finally a full-fledged peer to iOS; all aspects of sibling rivalry have been banished."
From the summary:
Excuse me, but the only way for OS X to become a "peer" to iOS would be for iOS to become a whole lot better (e.g. to gain better multitasking and multiuser support, the ability to freely install software without a walled garden, a command line, etc.) or for OS X to become a whole lot worse!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Nope, no Windows 8 tiles, thank Jeebus. I've been using it since an early DP release and have been fairly impressed with the look/feel compared to past versions. A little buggy at first but that was to be expected being an unreleased OS and all. Even that first copy I installed was better than any iteration of Windows 8, and I'm primarily a Windows user.
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More dumbed down, more attempts to sell you things via the App Store, more childlike IU (serious, who the fuck is designing this shit? And this is also true for Microsoft, Gnome, Unity, KDE...), and more hipsters not going to shut up this WHOLE FUCKING WEEK about this shit because it came from Apple.
I really wish this sad trend of minimalism would go away.
In a way, I feel minimalism reflects the decline of our society because let's face it, we aren't putting all that much effort into our designs at this point.
Place something witty here
Siblings should not be the same. Are you and your siblings exactly alike? You're better and some things and they are better at others.
A desktop and a mobile OS should not be exactly alike. Sure, they can share similarities, just like you share traits with your siblings. But even twins are not exactly the same. Nor should they be.
A desktop OS should be designed for different jobs than a mobile one.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Look, Apple couldn't have developed this technology themselves. This came from the UFOs they have at Area 51 and the alien flying saucer technology from the Roswell crash. Do some basic research before you post these stories.
Swift must be really in demand. In the past few weeks, I've gotten at least five recruiters with positions open, but with requirements of at least five years work with the language.
What a damn shame.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I love how most of the comments state that the interface looks worse than in previous releases.
And I agree.
This iOSification of the UI of the Mac OS with the crappy Helvetica Neue and bright blue graphics needs to stop yesterday. It's just ugly and I don't want to use ugly.
iOS has touch screens. Windows has touch screens. ChromeOS has touch screens. Come ooooonnnn, Tim, you know you want toooooo!
TLDR: toolbar still not in window; close/minimize still on the wrong side; no more glossy aqua buttons.
Everyone's taking that snippet waaaay out of context.
OS X and iOS work better together now, they don't work the same.
As in, for example, you start typing a document on your desktop, like you normally would, and you can continue it on your phone seamlessly and automatically if you have to go out. Both with different, and appropriate, interfaces.
This isn't about making your desktop work LIKE a phone. It's about making your desktop work WITH your phone.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
These Ars OSX reviews have always been really impressive things, full of technical examination and as you can see, very long to write...
It made more sense to me back when you had to pay for an upgrade though, so you could see if it was worth getting. Now that it's free, the need for long technical examination seems to diminish...
That said I hope they keep doing them because it is nice to have a deep technical examination of what is new.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Upgraded yesterday. I can't comment on the internal changes, but IMHO the new look is ugly. It even looks like the 'X' in the close button isn't centered. I want my old look back.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Ah, that takes be back to the late 90s and early 2000s with all the Java hype when we needed 10-15 years experience in Java to get a job.
What I really think happened was HR-types and headhunters, just did a search and replace for C and C++ in all job postings and replaced it with Java. I mean they couldn't have been that clueless, or could they?
The issue I have with Windows 8, and OS X.10 is the fact that they are trying to make the OS into the next tablet/mobile OS.
Yes the Table/Mobile market is eating up the Desktop share. But this hybrid doesn't make things better. The need for your desktop PC/Mac is for more serious work. And we need a more serious OS for the job.
The new OS needs to be less worried about grandma or the kid who wants to go online. It needs to become a serious Work Station solution. This includes better task switching, and viewing job status. Control of the performance in real time. Data retrieval and backup, and presenting the data in a clean uncluttered manner.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I recently started a new role, where we predominately use Macs. As a long-term Linux user, I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out Macs, in case one day I decided to switch. Initially, I was very impressed, but after a few days, I find the whole thing to be dumbed down, unnecessarily.
The mouse scrolling was odd; the whole concept of "accelerating" while operating the wheel doesn't feel as natural as moving 2-3 lines with each movement. I had to download an app to get it the way I wanted (or, the same as it works in Windows and KDE).
It took me ages to realise that Command-Tab cycles through open applications, but not the windows. I found several windows all hidden behind one another that had been there for days, because OS X's window manager didn't present them to me. Apparently, I have to use Expose or something like that to see all of them.
Oddly, most things on Mac are Command+. However, on the command line, Ctrl+C is still used to break a program.
My Mac has been set up to be case insensitive. LS, GrEp, cAT, TAIl all behave as if they had been typed lowercase.
Pressing home and end take me to the top and bottom of the document, rather than the line I'm edit, making me have to do some finger gymnastics when I want to highlight an entire line I'm working on. That's probably just personal preference, though.
I'm not entirely sure why, when I click on the green plus, some windows will resize to fill the whole screen, while others will just get a little larger. Is that configurable somewhere..?
Maybe KDE has spoiled me, with its lashings of customisation options, but I can see if I were to switch to a Mac, I'd spend a lot of time downloading hacks and scripts to bring back the features I like to work with, and other scripts to do away with those that I don't. Can't see myself switching to a Mac any time soon, if I'm being totally fair.
Nope. The failed Microsoft experiment of the same GUI on desktop and mobile was not and will never be done by Apple. They are aligning technologies, not UIs.
With the recent announcement, I'm so relieved my favorite object store is now integrated with with OSX.
You DARE denigrate the OS X God that is John Siracusa*? You miserable infidel!.
How can you NOT bow down to the man who must have spent every waking minute of his life since 10.10 was released in alpha form working on this magnum opus? How can you NOT revel in his insights as to the amount of white space needed to click on a menu bar? How can you NOT bask in the glory of a 25 page Ars article (thank His Noodliness for Adblock).
Philistine.
* Thanks John, I mean really. I've followed you since BYTE Days (not that I understood half of what you were saying). But 25 pages?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The official release must have been the same as Beta 5--no update showed up for me. I've been running it since the first beta without issue, although I was hoping they'd redo the Trash icon.
Damn... you beat me to it.
M$ should sue for copying their idea!
M$ grumble grumble antitrust 2001...
Do you ever get tired of talking like a juvenile underwear skidmark?
It's not a failed experiment.
'Success' does not need to mean, "Everyone universally enjoys this XXXX".
I'm a Windows Phone user as well as a Windows 8 user. I like both of them. I like that they've combined them. It works very well for me.
The interface needs to be refined in order to appeal to more people, but that does not mean it is a failure. It just means that Windows 8 was the first iteration of something that could/should/can be very, very good.
Taking the first steps toward a goal is not failure- it's building a foundation.
No reason to lie.
And yet, everyone that I've talked to in the hardware business still doesn't believe a touchscreen laptop adds any value. They exist specifically because of marketing hype and touch hysteria.
I'm normally one that rolls his eyes when I hear this term, but I think in the case of Yosemite, there's definitely an instance of planned obsolescence. Handoff requires Bluetooth-4.0 (BLE). This is fine. Any Mac that has BLE should work with the feature. And they do...except for the mid-2011 Macbook Air. Luckily, there's a hack you can do with a hex editor and mucking about with kexts. Do so, and the feature works flawlessly. It's ridiculous that Apple would do this.
http://forums.macrumors.com/sh...
If you can't convince them, convict them.
And yet, everyone that I've talked to in the hardware business still doesn't believe a touchscreen laptop adds any value. They exist specifically because of marketing hype and touch hysteria.
And yet, everyone that I've talked to in the hardware business still doesn't believe a touchscreen laptop adds any value. They exist specifically because of marketing hype and touch hysteria.
You're right, Apple would never do anything driven by marketing hype or touch hysteria.
On a serious note, I love my capacitive touch laptop (running Windows 8.1). As a developer I don't use the touch screen that much except for testing my cross platform, multi-touch enabled apps, but when I do use it "as an end user", it is nice as an extra option. Mostly I find myself gripping the side and casually scrolling a web page with my thumb, or pinching to zoom into a web page, etc.
Now let's get to the easy stuff that is obviously wrong with your post -- nobody said anything about restricting this to laptops. My kids love to use the 24" Windows 8.1 desktop with a screen that tilts, or more accurately reclines backward and down for a more natural angle. Microsoft is (justly) eating Apple's lunch in that particular space until they finish burying Steve Jobs and get around to introducing something. iPads are nice, but they aren't a 24" touch screen.
Can you program it? It is perfectly reasonable for lots of people to want a "mobile device as an appliance", if that's not your brand of tea then shop elsewhere.
I thought we were done with all this walled-garden hysteria.
We have had themes like that on Linux desktop for decades. Terrible OS/X mocks and compromises for the unstylish layout they make on desktop apps. Even KDE looks better than that now.
Did they fire all Aqua designers and fill the seats with Unix geeks instead?
I need to look deeper but so far there's been 12 pages of "these buttons look different" and "the window titles are now vibrant!" but nothing about how applications actually work the way they should now ... So far I still don't see any real advantage to moving up from 10.6.8...
Unless I missed them fixing some of my nits:
- When you move a mail message out of your inbox, one option needs to be "move this to the same folder you previously moved messages _from_this_sender_"
- When I switch desktops, it should leave me in whatever app I'm currently in, not switch to Finder...
Personal likes can be subjective. But the failure of Windows Phone & Tablets in the market and the need of Microsoft to backpedal on the desktop is objective, The same Windows UI everywhere failed. A failure is not a foundation. It could be a learning exercise from which they'll recover. But in no way was it not a failure.
You're probably one of a dozen people outside of Redmond that believes this. I'm really not kidding.
A unified ecosystem for mobile and desktop and everything else is a grand idea but honestly Microsoft is the last company I'd trust to do it.
There is tremendous infighting inside the company. The company is literally structured like feudal ancient Japan where powerful warlords fight each other for power under the watch of an emperor. I don't believe for a second they could tie all their products together without stabbing each other in the back.
Windows phone is a fine product in many regards, but Microsoft's behavior, history, and policies, and past actions have ensured that developers don't want to touch their "app store" with a 10 foot pole. I've used windows phones. They're great. Particularly for unskilled users that just want their smart phone to work. Leagues better than android in that regard, and a lot cheaper than an iphone. Today, though, it really is about apps and windows don't got 'em. Which is fucking awful because that means there is no software for their new grand platform.
And speaking of their new grand platform (Windows modern interface as they call it) - They forgot something important. It fucking sucks on anything that's not a tablet or a smart phone.. And yet they tried to forcefully shoehorn it in to their bread-and-butter windows desktop system. Again, nobody cares to develop apps for it because it's pretty crap. Why bother when it's just an annoying layer over the sytem that everyone already knows and loves?
What makes all of the above even more laughable is that Apple already knew all of the above. Interface modes for tablets, phones, laptops, and desktop are all very different and they never attempted to smash them all together in an awkward ham-fisted manner, exactly like Microsoft tried and failed to do.
Furthermore Microsoft has been trying to push touch screen/pen input windows for nearly 2 decades and it's never, ever, ever been anything than a failure in the general market, and lukewarm in specialized niches where it actually bring some benefit.
Apple has never attempted a touch screen on OSX because touch screens on desktops and laptops are fucking stupid. Full stop. End of story.
Flattening: all bad. I don't know how anyone wouldn't be laughing at them over this. This is the final nail in the coffin of "Aqua" but Aqua was one of the besthings Apple ever came up with.
"Within window" vibrancy: I think this is fucking awesome, and I love it. It's basically "free" second-rate vertical space, within your windows. ("Second-rate" make it sound like I'm back-handedly complementing it, but I don't mean it that way at all, since it's free space, an add on. It's like it you prefer ice cream over cherries, but someone puts a cherry on top of your ice cream. As long as you don't hate cherries, then you came out ahead since they didn't take away any of your ice cream.)
"Behind window" vibrancy: old hat; many of us have been doing stuff like this since the late 1990s. Not bad, but nothing to get excited about. And overall I think these kinds of effects should be very subtle, at most -- but that's what they did, so it's ok.
Overall net effect on appearance: negative. Upgrade for functional reasons if you can find them, but you're going to pay an uglification price for that.
Mac OS X Yosemite should be called Mac OS X Barstow since it's so flat and ugly.
The icons on this release are mostly horrible. I replaced the finder with the one from a previous version and will probably replace the bright folder icons. I like the gray sidebar icons in finder and wish they had used full size versions instead of the horrible bright blue.
that implements the application of cooking something--why don't you expect to be able to re-write that program? Why don't you expect that you can re-write the code on the dozen micro-controllers in your car, or your refrigerator. What about your cable box? your DVR? your DVD player? How about that PS3 your kids play?
You probably own a few dozen processors which are similarly handicapped by the manufacturer to function as an appliance.
Your ethical criteria is arbitrarily created to castigate Apple for doing the same thing that hundreds of other manufacturers have done over the last 100 years. The point of technology is not "to let you tinker"--the point is to perform a specific function. Enabling tinkering is valuable and there are lots of computers made for that purpose (including Apple's entire Mac line)--but it is hardly the only valuable thing out there.
Been using it since yesterday. Yeah, I live dangerously. So far, mostly a good upgrade. I like the new look, modern with a reasonable level of skeuomorphism so I can still feature out the functions of the icons.
Tested: MBP 2012 (16GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) and iPhone 5s
Some features are just not working for me:
* AirDrop from iPhone to Mac. I can AirDrop from Mac to iPhone, but my iPhone can't see the Mac.
* Placing a cellular call from the Mac, I can't hearing the ringing. But it works just fine otherwise.
* it took iCloud Drive awhile (1+ hour) to show up properly on the Mac
* still doesn't show my network transfer speed. Occasionally, I'm moving 5+ GB files between my computer and NAS, I would like to know if there's a bottleneck somewhere.
Too smart for its own good:
* short-hand/text expansion you set up on your iPhone will automatically transfer over to Mac OS X
I'm still on 10.6 or 10.7, but have they fixed the following bugs yet?
"I'm a Windows Phone user"
WOW! Finally, I've 'met' one. According to the sales states there was someone who bought a Windows Phone but I didn't expect to actually make contact with you. Hey, how's it working out?
Your skidmarks talk to you?
That sounds serious.
The download has been stuck on "waiting" for hours. I should format this fucking laptop and put windows 8 on it.
When did they run out of cats? Or dd they mummify them and bury them all with Steve Jobs?
That is all.
I too have no problems with Windows 8.... on my Lumia. On my laptop, however, it was such a bitch that I replaced it with PC-BSD
It's not a failed experiment.
'Success' does not need to mean, "Everyone universally enjoys this XXXX".
I'm a Windows Phone user as well as a Windows 8 user. I like both of them. I like that they've combined them. It works very well for me.
The interface needs to be refined in order to appeal to more people, but that does not mean it is a failure. It just means that Windows 8 was the first iteration of something that could/should/can be very, very good.
Taking the first steps toward a goal is not failure- it's building a foundation.
I own a Windows Phone as well. Right now, a Lumia 929 - the one from Verizon. It's great, as was the 520 when I had that.
Windows 8 on my Dell laptop, OTOH, was a pain. While typing, when the cursor would get near the right end of the screen, the charms bar would prop up, and there was no turning that off - even if I went into the desktop. Also, once I hit Start, I'd see the icons, but to discover all the installed apps that weren't showing up in the 'home' screen, I had to go south - something I accidentally discovered. I did try tweaking that thing, installing Classic Shell and so on, but the whole experience was really annoying. Finally, once I figured out how to install PC-BSD on it, I did it, wiping out Windows 8 from the whole thing altogether. After a few initial hiccups, PC-BSD now purrs like a kitten.
Another beef I had with that system - the native apps were something you now got from the app store, as opposed to the good old downloading it from a web site or inserting a DVD. This just felt too retarded. The other issue I had - if you have a Metro screen, why not have the possibility of multiple virtual desktops, particularly since the apps now insist on going fullscreen? That just didn't make sense - even in Classic shell, I'd be running, say IE, but if I went into Metro and invoked IE, it would go back there.
My point - the same interface on a touchless laptop and a phone and a tablet never made sense. On a phone, Windows 8 is just perfect, and the only thing lacking are some apps that I could use there, like ADP and Vonage. I don't mind games missing - I use that phone only for work. On a tablet too, Windows 8 is fine. On a touch laptop, it's at least usable, if less than ideal. If I have a 16" screen in front of me, the last thing I wanna do is touch it: even for my phone & tablet, I've put screen guards. But for touchless laptops, it absolutely sucks!
I am glad that Microsoft is finally bringing back the Windows 7 interface, at least in laptop mode. Windows 10 should ideally not take much time - they should just take Windows 8.0 (not 8.1), combine it with Windows 7 UI and give USERS the option of which interface they want when they start. Make the Windows 7 the default on laptops if users know no better, and make Windows 8 the default on tablets. And it's okay to have cute features like switching from one to the other, but allow people to turn that off if they like only one interface for everything.
Whichever it is
More like they are trying to rip off the Windows look and feel. Flattened graphics and Aero glass blurring...yeah, Microsoft did those first. They're also trying to rip off Microsoft's idea to unify their platforms.
Microsoft definitely has the best mobile UI out there. Fast, responsive, intuitive, light on hardware and not just a rehash of the same graphical interfaces we've seen for the past 40 years.
My dream mobile would be Windows Phone UI + Android-sized application library. If Microsoft starts making x86 based phones, that will be the end for iOS and Android because it instantly have the largest app library and would run everything that most people use.
Can someone ... ANYONE! Explain to me why in the era when we have 4k (and with iMAC 5K) displays with almost unmeasurable performance, we have to make our GUIs all flat and ugly like some kind of Windows 3.0 desktop? iPad came out, and Microsoft misread the tea leaves and instead of realizing that the PC market was a replacement market, and the table market was a new expanding market, decided the world wanted everything to be tablets, ... So as Microsoft's market share starts to drop, everyone starts to copy them with dumbed down GUIs and THEIR market share drops too (Hello Gnome and Ubuntu). Then Microsoft who still can't read tea leaves, dumbs down their flying window to make it a flat ugly square and takes away all 3D effects... So now even Apple is copying this silly trend.
I like pretty windows with 3D icons. I don't like this new "flat" look at all. It's boring and ugly. What's next gray scale? Maybe ACSII graphics!
You could have installed Classic Shell in 2 minutes instead of installing an entire OS.
I've met one too, in person. They worked for MS.
What about skilled users that just want their to work, dumbass? I expect all of the devices I purchase to work without a lot of hassle. Which is why I gave my Samsung Android phone back to AT&T and went back to my iPhone.
If somebody wants to keep fiddling with gadgets I'm glad there are options out there, but it's not what I want to do all the time. I spend 8-10 every weekday fiddling with technological gadgets and don't want to have to do it when I take a phone call or try to use Bluetooth music via my vehicles stereo system. Calling anything L337 just because it's a pain in the ass is redonculous.
Do you ever get tired of commenting as an anonymous coward? It's OK... hide in your dark corner and make the internets proud.
I did - and it did squat for my problem of the charms bar popping up everytime my cursor would get even near the right end of the screen. It was after that that I pulled the plug, deleted one entire OS and installed another.
That's because you didn't disable them. Classic Shell has an option to disable all hot corners. I'm surprised someone who uses BSD couldn't figure that out.
but it looks to be a 25 page commentary on how fucking ugly the new osx is.
"I'm a Windows Phone user"
WOW! Finally, I've 'met' one. According to the sales states there was someone who bought a Windows Phone but I didn't expect to actually make contact with you. Hey, how's it working out?
Have one, and I also have access to an Android. For my needs, long battery life was the only criteria. In the end, I stick to the desktop for Slashdot, and mainly use the W phone for email, skype and some occasional browsing.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
the point is you shouldn't have to install third party apps for this kind of stuff. don't you think it's pretty sad that one must install a third party app to disable these features.
Why would I? I haven't ever seen an OS that didn't require 3rd party software to get working right.
Oh my I have a fan! Too bad they are shy and remain anonymous... Only someone with a personal vendetta OR a true fanboi would get so worked up over that innocuous comment. Guess I hit a little too close to home.
I'm on my second Windows Phone — $400 for a Lumia 925 (a while ago). I'd rather like an iPhone instead but they are just too expensive for the marginal benefit.
In the US? Here, an iPhone costs just about as much as a Lumia - from Verizon, I got a 5s a few months ago for $99 (on one of their deals) and a month ago, I added a line and got a Lumia Icon, for the same amount. If you are getting it from carriers, you're getting it at equal prices, depending on when. Other carriers, like AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile might vary.
I won't describe the iPhone benefits as marginal. I do FaceTime with family outside the US - something I can't do on a Windows Phone (and no, Skype ain't the same thing). The iPhone also has plenty of important apps (not talking games here) that Windows Phone doesn't. Like my banking app, or the Time Warner Cable app that lets me check into my account, as well as access TWC hotspots in town. Or ADP, so that I can access my payroll account. Or Vonage Extensions, so that I can use the phone to make calls abroad. Also, whenever I go various places - malls, hotels, et al, I see them advertize apps for iPhone and sometimes both iPhone & Android, but rarely do I see Windows Phone on offer.
There's another issue w/ the Lumias - a lot of them are still on Windows Phone 8.0. This is certainly the case w/ Verizon - at the moment, I can't upgrade my phone to 8.1 until Verizon rolls that out (according to Microsoft), unless I decide to go w/ a developer's edition. I don't usually care about versions, but in 8.0, there is no way one can buy & download music the way one can with iTunes. The official way around that is in 8.1, where Music & Videos have been split, but that's not available on 8.0. While I do use a YouTube downloader to download music, there is no way to make playlists in the Music & Videos in 8.0. Result: I don't use the Lumia for music, while I do have a few playlists & songs in the iPhone. My only beef about the iPhone 5s now is that Apple Pay won't be available on it.