A Look At OS X Yosemite And iOS 8.1
by Brandon Chester on October 27, 2014 8:00 AM EST
Introduction
It has been a busy year for Apple, although one could argue it has been more of a busy few months. The yearly updates for most of Apple's products now occur in September and October, and as a result we've seen the release of a number of new products and services in a very short period of time. On the hardware side we have the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the iPad Air 2 and Mini 3, the iMac with Retina 5K display, and a preview of the upcoming Apple Watch. The software side has arguably been even more exciting with the release of iOS 8 and its first major update iOS 8.1, OS X Yosemite, and Apple Pay.
The theme this year appears to be integration and the power of a software and hardware ecosystem. Apple has always had some level of integration between iOS and OS X. As time went on, both operating systems began to share a core set of applications like Reminders, Calendar, and Notes. The iPad extended this even further by bringing the iWork and iLife suites to mobile. iCloud also played a key role in integrating both systems, by synchronizing documents and photos between all of a user's devices. However, the launch of iOS 7 with its visual and functional enhancements left many of the shared features and applications on OS X feeling left behind.
OS X Yosemite brings with it a massive visual overhaul, on a scale even greater than what we saw with iOS 7. This makes sense, as OS X is an operating system for desktops and laptops which makes it inherently more expansive and complex than iOS. Although OS X is not nearly as popular as iOS in terms of user base, the fact that the redesign changes some visual elements that have existed for over 14 years makes it quite a monumental moment in Apple's history. These changes finally unify the visual styles of both operating systems, which were once united but split with the launch of iOS 7.
The integration of these two operating systems goes far beyond a common type of visual design. OS X Yosemite and iOS 8.1 also include new features that allow them to work together in unprecedented ways. Features like Handoff blur the borders between the iPhone, the Mac, and the iPad by allowing you to continue work you began on one device on another. SMS and call forwarding takes communication abilities that were typically reserved for the iPhone and brings them to every device.
There's a lot to talk about, and it all begins at the aesthetic level with the new design of Yosemite.
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blackcrayon - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
That's notification center, it was already in Mavericks. And iOS for that matter. It's not exactly like the gadget sidebar but there is some overlap now that you can put custom widgets there.Colin1497 - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
Suggestion for 8.1.1: Recalibrate "Motion Calibration" so that it isn't constantly running location services and destroying my battery life, forcing me to simply turn off the functionality. There's no way that it's working as intended when it basically runs location services all the time to the extent that my phone is always warm and my battery only lasts half a day. Obviously everyone isn't having this problem, only people who have apps that tie into "Motion Activity," but it's a legit problem with plenty of discussion on the support forums.Brandon Chester - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
Yeah seriously, I turned it off because it runs almost constantly. I don't even know what it's doing but it hasn't impacted my device by not having it.tipoo - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
You know what I'd love is some performance tests with it, especially on older hardware, like Core 2 Duo/320M era, and on spinny hard drives. I've held back on upgrading the macbook in the family due to some mixed messages about it, some say it's the same as Mavericks (which I find a dog, tbh, Windows 7 is so much faster on the same system), some say it's a bit slicker in some areas, while others say it tanked performance.I've gotten the feeling that OSX has become less optimized for HDDs as they optimized more for SSDs. I wonder if it still even does things like hot file clustering?
xrror - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
This will sound like a cop out, but I can't recommend strongly enough just getting a cheap SSD for the older core2 iMacs and macbooks. Even without a ram upgrade (stock 2GB), the difference is astounding.tipoo - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
I would agree with that, though it's not my own system so explaining and getting someone else to invest in a SSD is a bit of an uphill battle, and besides that I think they'd rather be putting that towards saving for a new system eventually too.Maybe I'll give them the Momentus XT hybrid from my dying Dell Studio 1555, that adds a bit of peppiness.
DPUser - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - link
Only problem is Apple has really put the screws to enabling Trim for third party SSDs in Yosemite.http://www.cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite
tipoo - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - link
That sucks, but wasn't TRIM killing SSDs in OSX for some reason? It only worked well on Apple certified SSDs.DPUser - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - link
Trim works perfectly in OSX with SSDs that support it (meaning all current SSDs). I encourage anyone who cares to lobby Apple to change its policy in this regard: stop locking out Trim for third party SSDs.Penti - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
Regarding design, I don't think old users will be shocked. The dock looks essentially the same as in OS X Tiger (10.4 or reminiscence of Ceetah – Tiger 10.0 - 10.4).Translucency or semi-transparency has been done for so many years in different Window Managers and shells for *NIX system or Windows Vista–7. While they drop some skeuomorphism they at the same time introduce transparency, new animations and other stuff that Microsoft sacrificed in order to run on low-end devices. They even keep rounded of corners. Though I don't think it's much of a shift, it's more back to the roots of earlier OS X releases and still builds on NeXTSTEP looks in some ways. A simpler cleaner look doesn't go against that. Of course technology and hardware makes some things more natural today than 15 years ago. The roots isn't really on machines capable of translucency or of 16.7+ million colors, or accelerated animations.