OS X Yosemite unveiled at WWDC, features big UI overhaul

Eleventh formal release of OS X coming for free this fall.

Lee Hutchinson – Jun 2, 2014 12:15 pm | 145

This morning at Apple’s 2014 Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Apple SVP Craig Federighi gave us our first official look at the upcoming version of the Macintosh desktop operating system. This is the eleventh formal release of OS X (which is pronounced “oh ess ten,” never “oh ess ecks”); Apple’s naming convention uses “OS X” as the brand, separate from the version, and so the brand and version of this release is indeed “OS X 10.10”—“oh ess ten ten dot ten” (or “ten point ten,” if you insist).

Starting with OS X 10.9, though, Apple has given the OS California-themed names—10.9 was “OS X Mavericks,” after a famous surfing location, and this new version is “OS X Yosemite,” named after California’s Yosemite National Park. Mavericks’ branding and banners were all wave-related, after the surf theme; Yosemite’s desktop features the famous slab-sided southwest face of Half Dome, one of the park’s most recognizable rock formations. (PC gamers who cut their teeth in the late ’80s and ’90s will also recognize Half Dome from its role as the logo of the legendary adventure gaming company Sierra On-Line.)

“Translucency” is the name of the day, with translucent panels and sidebars popping up in all windows. The icons in the Dock have also gotten a big overhaul, gaining a very iOS-like appearance across the board. “You wouldn’t believe how much time we spent crafting that trash can,” joked Federighi. The revised interface can also be shifted to a “dark” mode, where windows and menus shift to light text on a smoky background instead of the Mac’s more typical black-on-white.

Slim typography is also everywhere, taking a page from iOS. OS X’s staid typography has gone on a crash diet and now looks much thinner.

Notification center gains quite a bit of extensibility, allowing you to customize a “Today” view with the components you actually care about.

Yosemite Spotlight’s search bar has shifted from the upper corner to the middle of the screen (much like some aftermarket launch utilities). Additionally, the places Spotlight pulls from have expanded and now include online sources.

Spotlight now looks and acts more like an independent launcher.

iCloud Drive

iCloud also gets some love in Yosemite with “iCloud Drive,” which appears to finally deliver seamless Dropbox-like functionality to the Mac desktop. iCloud Drive files can be viewed and edited and tagged in the Finder just like normal files; according to Federighi, iCloud Drive also works on iOS and Windows.

Safari improvements

Yosemite smushes down Safari’s UI substantially, removing most of the interface chrome and leaving it with a minimal iOS-like interface. The address bar functions as an all-in-one search/URL/lookupanything bar, and it now features other interface buttons that look identical to iOS7’s browser design. Under the hood, Apple claims to have drastically reduced the amount of power the application uses, while significantly bumping its Javascript performance.

Safari’s new everything-bar.

The updated UI includes a birds-eye view of stacked tabs and smooth scrolling through top browser tabs. Sharing is also heavily integrated, enabling users to quickly send Web images and pages to each other without having to copy and paste URLs.

Continuity

Apple wants to assist users when they switch from OS X to an iPhone, and to that end they’ve made a number of improvements. First and most welcome, Airdrop now works between OS X and iOS.

More, Yosemite includes a new feature Apple calls “Handoff.” iOS and OS X devices are now aware of each other’s application states. This depends on proximity awareness between devices (likely based on Bluetooth) and allows users to do things like start composing an e-mail on an iPhone, walk up to their Mac, and write the rest of the e-mail on their Macs.

Continuity will make apps on iOS and Macs aware of each other and let you hop seamlessly between them.

Continuity is also designed to help with what Apple calls “green bubble friends”—non-Apple users who send text messages instead of iMessages-enabled messages. iOS devices can now relay SMS messages to Macs so that they appear in your Messages app, along with iMessage messages.

This high level of integration isn’t limited to just SMS—Macs can now be used to accept calls made to Handoff-friendly devices. This works even if your phone isn’t near the Mac. Yosemite-equipped Macs can also be used to dial Handoff-friendly iPhones, too. Federighi demonstrated this dramatically by calling Dr. Dre on stage from his demo Mac, delayed via his iPhone; Dre thanked the developer audience and asked what time he should show up to Apple’s campus to beat the notoriously early rising Tim Cook in to work (“About four am,” responded Federighi).

Talking to Dre on a Mac via Craig Federighi’s Handoff-capable iOS device.

Apple developers will get Yosemite today; normal folks will be waiting until the fall. However, non-developers interested in living life on the bleeding edge can sign up for Apple’s new public beta program and get access to early releases.