Apple has yesterday announced updates for OS X and iOS at their annual developer conference – WWDC. A lot of focus was on OS X this time, and rightly so.
Last year’s Mavericks release was all about memory/battery efficiency, with iOS 7 taking center stage at the WWDC. It was OS X’s turn this time and they did what everyone expected – integrate it deeply with iOS.
Design
Though Jony Ive is touted as one of the best industrial designers of current time, most people, even fanboys, would accept that he didn’t do a great job with iOS 7 redesign.
Excessive use of Helvetica, neon colours, childish icons and more, there’s nothing perfect about iOS 7.
Now here’s the bad news: All of this is going to make it to Yosemite.
That’s pretty scary right? Turns out Apple didn’t do such a terrible job with design in Yosemite. The icons do look terrible, but as a whole it looks not too bad. Apparently, one needs to use it, to make a firm comment on design.
One of the most intriguing feature for me is dark mode. It basically turns all the context menus dark, which is a huge visual change.
Spotlight
Spotlight is one of the standout features in Yosemite. Apple basically borrowed a lot of inspiration from Alfred, a third party app launcher.
It’s not just a menubar app anymore. Instead it floats as a small window on top of all apps.
Apart from searching for files/apps, you can now get showtimes for Movies, locations, unit and currency conversions and more. Think Google Now.
I really wish they open it up for developers to add custom search engines. You could then search Spotify for songs etc.
Continuity
This is probably the best feature Apple has baked into OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. It’s a problem many people face and Microsoft has tried to solve it with Windows 8. They couldn’t, but Apple probably has got it right.
The idea is simple: you are composing an Email on your iPhone, turns out the Email is lengthy, you want to use your Mac. You put the iPhone to desk and start drafting the exact same Email on your Mac. Exactly where your left off.
This works with most system apps and of course developers can use it for their apps.
In addition to this, you can now make and receive calls/SMS messages right from your Mac. That’s pretty amazing. You can even start a Wifi hotspot on your iPhone, from your Mac (which isn’t connected to internet).
There’s a lot more stuff packed into this update, like redesigned system apps, mainly Safari, bringing widgets to Notification Center, MailDrive and iCloud Drive.
The update will be available this fall. For free.
For the first time, Apple has a public beta program, where you can sign up with your Apple ID and get hands on OS X Yosemite this summer. Follow this link.
Have you watched WWDC? Tell us what you think in the comments.