Agreed. The UI design isn't even worth mentioning if they really make it seamless to go from device to device. I'd love to leave my phone in another room and just use my tablet/computer while at home.
HandOff is the kind of thing I'm surprised took so long. Honestly, I was expecting MS to get something like it first. After all, your Windows Phone already runs Windows, right?
It's like Pushbullet built into both OSes with the polish that entails. Absolutely genius. I hope Google builds Pushbullet or something very similar into Chrome and Android, that integration is awesome.
AFAIK, PushBullet doesn't allow you to answer phone calls.
The closest analogue it comes to my mind is an early demo of Ubuntu for Android in which they showed the ability to reply to SMS messages from within the Unity desktop (although I'm certain I saw a phone call demo too, just can't find a link to the video). However, in that case, both the Ubuntu desktop and Android were running on the same device, so it was easier (still a notable feat for the time).
This kind of integration between different devices is far more impressive, though.
Nope it doesn't - that's an example of where this is much smoother. FWIW MightyText already does SMS (via an app, not proximity) on Android/Chrome - although it's not Apple smooth in terms of replying either.
I think the right way to go would be syncing the actions as well as data of Android's rich notifications - things like reply to email/archive from chrome notifications, reply to SMS, hangouts.. It'd be Google's universal apps between Android and Chrome - syncing actions. It'd need a lot of developer support but it'd be fantastic if they pulled it off as well as Apple and supported third parties in a serious way.
They kind of already have something like it with the roaming storage on 8.1, there's just not enough crazy interested developers on the platform trying to push the limits of the sdk, and MS hasn't really advertised all the neat stuff well.
I remember that that I could do far more with my Sony Ericsson W800 (and Salling Clicker) than I could with my first iPhone. Dialing numbers from the address book, sending and receiving SMSs while the phone was in my bag/pocket, turning the screen saver on and pausing music if I left the area - and reverting on return. Apart from the UI polish, this was the least impressive part of keynote (at least for me) as those were things I had to give up on.
It sounds like you underestimate how hard it is to have "UI polish" implemented just right so that it feels seamless and natural instead of a hack (because honestly we do love to hack but ultimately prefer our prototypes to be implemented first-party, e.g I've been using JACK to stream audio in sync on various devices for years but AirPlay is so much more simple and natural)
I'm not a fan of the flat design personally, but the redesign is pretty sharp. I like the minimal safari UI; its nice when the browser lets the webpage be main focus and I think it is something Safari does best.
> With this new design, OS X...now looks a bit more like iOS 7, but
> there is still quite a bit of depth. Indeed, more than flat, the
> design almost seems to focus more on translucency than anything else.
The above is an incomprehensible collection of words to me. I am not sure if this is because of my lack of an intimate connection to Apple products, terrible writing or some combination of the two.
That does seem to be a bit of a jumble. I think what they're trying to convey is that although it uses flat design like iOS 7, on the desktop it has a feeling of depth due to the layering of translucent UI elements.
Not really. On iOS you can't/don't overlap windows, so its design language never had to describe this relationship.
One of the questions floating around for the past few months was whether the next OSX would go in a flatter direction, and if so how they would cue window overlaps. It looks like the answers are (a) yes and (b) using roughly the same shadowing as before, plus translucence.
windows/views do overlap on iOS. Apple specifically mentioned translucency when demoing Control Center in iOS6 at WWDC last year. They are using the same playbook for OSX
Overlapping UIViews with interactive transitions between view controllers have rapidly become the hallmark of a good iOS UI experience. I personally haven't ever seen overlapping UIWindows though...
That's not what he means. The naming of which view or window class we're referring to is meaningless. iOS 7 features the same concept where views slide and transition onto the view you're looking at (which as you pointed out is not new in iOS) using translucency to indicate depth and layering. For example, see notification center, control center, and others. That was a new concept, and it's been brought to OS X now.
I believe Apple explicitly stated they were describing translucency and layers with iOS 7.
Both the Notification Center and the Control center on iOS "overlap" the screen through translucency. It could be argued that the parallax feature is also another attempt at differentiating layers within iOS, coupled with some of the animations i.e opening folders (also translucent), and multitasking.
That being said, I feel that iOS is unable to convey relationship of layers/overlapping windows well the way we are all accustomed to with desktop computers.
When design of an _Operation System_ boils down to just how "truculent" and "flat" (but with "a bit of depth") it is, you know we are talking less about the Operating System and more about the GUI/Window Manager.
I'm running Yosemite now. The same feel you get from iOS 7 UI is prevalent in the OS. They flattened the window headers. They flattened the toolbar on the bottom. They flattened the status bar on top. It makes for more of a content-focused approach.
The translucency they speak of is in regards to the side menus in apps. In order to give a dynamic feel to the UI, they added some translucency like they have in some iOS 7 apps.
I honestly don't understand this design direction. I know it's nice to have a change but from the few screens I have seen on the Verge it looks like something that came from one of those "I redesigned OS X" blog posts.
Similarities between the new dock and the dock in pre-Leopard is an exception, I think. There is much more not in common design-wise than there is in common.
I tried using the spacial feature of Nautilus, a file manager for Linux. What's your usage of a spatial file manager? I couldn't see it being beneficial to my file browsing in any way. Just curious.
There was a "defaults" option for a flat dock in 10.7 and 10.8... one wonders why they removed it for 10.9, only to change the default back to flat in 10.10.
I wish Apple would spend their resources on finally fixing some of the most broken fundamentals (photo sync, notifications, finder...), rather than letting Ive further trash the GUI and celebrating that as some sort of accomplishment...
Other than Finder, the rest of the keynote seems to have addressed photo sync (nonissue for me so I saw something happened but didn't follow the details), but notifications is getting a big revamp (in experience more than UI it seems).
EDIT: The Notifications UI is actually getting customized widgets finally. About damn time.
Yes, I agree. I think the current OSX UI has timeless quality and this new design feels like a fad design that will look dated in no time. Fixing finder doesn't make for exciting headlines I suppose, and that seems that's what Apple shoots for these day, trying to maintain the innovation image at all costs.
I don't know which of the two are "buggy", but command-tab and command-tidle have different behaviors:
command-tab will let you toggle back and forth between last two apps - sort of a classic alt-tab behavior from Windows and various UNIX WMs.
command-tilde goes through your windows in a stack, in one direction, and you have to modify it with shift to go a different way. Further, if you destroy a window after command-tilde to get to it, suddenly the direction gets reversed, and you will then command-tilde back the other direction.
So ... one of these is "wrong". I'll leave it to you to decide which. From my perspective, the ability to rapidly switch back and forth between two windows of the same application is valuable, and I hate having to modify it with shift as I go back and forth...
In a comment above you said that you're still using Snow Leopard on at least one machine and I can't recall if it works there (though I don't remember the last time this feature changed and I've been using since 10.1)...
Command-Shift-` will reverse the order
Command-Tab will flip back and forth unless you exceed the delay while still holding command, at which point you can cycle through the stack. Holding shift reverses the direction.
That being said, I agree that swapping back and forth in between windows of the same app is very useful and it's a pity that the two features aren't made to work in the same way. I'd like to do a quick Command-` to toggle two windows, or hold it down to see the list of windows for the current app.
Thanks for putting your finger on that niggling feeling I've always had that command-tilde isn't quite right. The really obvious difference, of course, is that command-tab gives you a nice preview of what you're about to switch to, helping you make the decision in the first place. command-tilde just dumps you somewhere else and hopes you're not too upset with where you end up.
Use 2+ monitors and 2+ desktops ('Spaces' or whatever they're called). When you're expecting to go from app A to app B, instead you're taken to app C. Or, you're taken to an unexpected window of App B on a different desktop.
Also, the Z-ordering of windows seems really odd. If you have multiple windows open from two apps, and you ⌘+` between them, sometimes all of App A windows are brought to the front and App B windows are hidden. Other times only one App A window is brought up. Meanwhile, if you have App C chilling on a different monitor, it may or may not disappear at random.
Even if it worked as intended, it would be flawed when compared with Alt+Tab on windows.
I agree, the full-screen and multi-monitor workflow stuff in OS X has been improving slightly, but it's still quite a mess. Apple seems to go out of their way to make it not work well.
That's very generous. I think a more correct response would be that the multi-monitor workflow in OSX is shockingly bad, so much so that we have to question whether anyone at apple uses 3 or more monitors as their work environment at all.
Is there some company edict, or cultural pressure that discourages it ? I don't see how any of these issues could have survived early-alpha (of Lion, and ML, and Mav., etc.)
Oh I see. I frequently use a second monitor and there are times when some app will open or show that really had no reason to. This tends to happen when I do ⌘+tab. On the other hand, window navigation for me has been fairly decent.
I left OSX for Linux 5 years ago primarily due to the unbelievably lacking window management. Having come from Windoze land with the then, and perhaps still, excellent UltraMon, I could never adapt to manually reizing app windows side by side into grids, or context switching between layers expose-style.
The tiling window manager options on Linux are so good that I've dropped the desktop environment entirely (Gnome, KDE, etc.) and am just rolling with a TM, lightweight theme and icon package for a quite nice gtk3 look.
OSX wins in out of the box "just works" and bling departments, no argument there, but otherwise it holds no appeal, this bird has flown...
I started out with Awesome as well but switched to i3, get a huge amount of functionality out of a very straightforward config (read: low PITA/high reward factor).
Anyway, for a very nice gtk3 look you can try StudioFlat off of the Gnome Look site, and gnome-icons-brave via whatever your package manager happens to be.
The tiny xcalib package (100kb) is also worth grabbing, hook up to xbindkeys and you get screen color inversion _per monitor_, very bad ass, your eyes will love it.
First thing I thought of. "Look at how the background beautifully interacts with the translucent menu bar." Didn't we all turn that feature off back in 2007?!
Though in fairness that was partly because it was such a hog on Vista. I've left translucency on in Win 7, though it sure isn't a productivity boost and it ain't 'beautiful' either.
The first release of OS X had translucent title bars for inactive windows[0] as well as a lot of transparency in sheets, menus and other UI elements. A lot off this was to show off the compositing available in the window manager.
I was disappointed when more and more became opaque over time and am glad to see the return of translucency.
A lot of it still is translucent, just not a lot. The menus, in-app sheets (save dialog, go-to-path in Finder, etc), Spotlight results panel, the Dock…
Yes, I agree. I'm a professional visual designer, FWIW.
After 22 years on Macintosh, I've completely transitioned to Crunchbang on a MacBook Pro and a Windows 7/Crunchbang dual-boot workstation. I really like the translucency and general look of Win7. I had started to feel like OS X was visually dated, but more importantly, harming my workflow.
For development and design, I am working nearly twice as fast in the OS using Crunchbang, and I've made it look and behave just the way I want it to. OS X is completely non-configurable! Since the only thing I need a consumer OS for at this point is for digital audio, I moved to Win7 as I wasn't about to lay out the $$ for the new, unfathomable, Mac Pro. What is that thing anyway? I worked with a guy in a metal shop to customize a case for my new workstation, tricked it out with an internal pro audio interface with exposed preamps and 1/4" jacks, and made it a 3U rack-mount. That versus a garbage can?
That being said, my 2007 Mac Pro is still ticking and I've been able to upgrade it considerably, though changing the processor was a PITA. It's still on 10.6.8- what I consider the high-water mark of OS X- but I would need Mavericks now, and that needs a 64-bit bootloader. (Couldn't use the hack for this since I have a flashed PC GPU in it and that precludes the hack.) Like I said, I can't fathom buying a new Mac Pro.
The way I see it, Apple is just for consumer devices now, and I love 'em. My iPad is critical to my workflow. OS X? Considered harmful. And visually dated!
I'm really curious what you use for your design process. Are GIMP and Inkscape solid enough now that you can spend all day in them without tearing your hair out?
Luckily I don't have to spend all day in any apps, since I have a lot of varied responsibilities. GIMP is sufficient for me for most bitmap/photo editing work and there's certain parts of it I like better than PS. Inkscape is underpowered; okay, but not my favorite. Then again, neither is Illustrator. In a pinch, I can use Adobe products either on my old Mac or the Win7 box, but that's usually for using old files or opening files from others. (I have a KVM.) It can be inconvenient using non-Adobe tools, but I figure now is a good time to break vendor lock-in. Five years ago I still found GIMP insufficient but that's no longer the case.
Believe it or not, two iPad apps have become really important design tools for me- iDraw, a vector graphics app, and ProCreate, a painting app. They cover most straightforward duties. I was very surprised at their power, and not having to whip out the graphics tablet is nice. Working anywhere from an iPad mini retina is pretty liberating. Obviously the laptop is still needed for on-the-move coding, but again, that's Linux, despite the (good) Mac hardware.
Funny how things come around, although the Aero glass effect is noticeably a rather poor box blur effect while the OS X has more the appearance of an extreme gaussian blur.
This does make the iOS/OS X version more tasteful.
If I haven't experienced the translucent effect on iOS 7 I would be as skeptical as you are. But despite all the amateurish things Apple did with iOS (Oh the icons),the translucency is actually very tasteful and providing a satisfactory sense of depth.
The translucency on Vista is just over the top besides a heavy system resource toll.
I'll have to wait to see how the see-through side panel works in reality to give thumbs up to Yosemite though.
I think this is a great example of control and execution. Aero's excessive borders and ornamentation drove me nuts. Yosemite is very subtle in its approach.
I have to imagine that the next MacBook Air will have a retina display, and there will be a different font used on non-retina computers, same as the iPad.
In 2 years when they announce iOS X (10), I expect that will be when apps can only be loaded from the App Store and their vertical integration will be complete.
Yep, Apple still hasn't learned that iOS Flat is Apple's Vista. Windows users used Vista DESPITE aero not because of it. So now they added it to Mac. If I can keep from upgrading, I will.
I think printing it as "OS X 10.10" is just a shorthand for "OS X (10.10)", which is necessary since combining roman numerals and digits (i.e. 'OS X.10') is awkward. You would still say it as "Oh ess ten point ten."
For marketing reasons (as some don't know about roman numerals), Apple writes it like this OS X 10.9 or now OS X 10.10 or OS X Yosemite (instead of Mac OS X.10 or Mac OS 10.10).
Not a great article: new features trumpeted include Spotlight's ability to search for mail messages and contacts, and a Private Browsing mode for Spotlight - both of which are pretty long-standing features.
These things tend to get rushed out, but maybe TC could have waited just a few more minutes to weed out the obvious stinkers.
Was this originally a TC link? Because it now points to the Apple.com page for OS X Yosemite, and some of the comments elsewhere in this thread no longer make sense. I didn't know it was possible for mods to change the link associated with a story, and now that I know I wish they wouldn't do it.
I know it's hardly the most important thing in an operating system but god that looks ugly. This dumb flat fad cannot end soon enough. I hope mavericks get security updates for awhile because I don't have plans to upgrade.
I'm really looking forward to this. Unlike iOS7, the flatter design here doesn't make me feel like a bunch of amateur artists got a hold of a free copy of Adobe Illustrator. I actually like the new look quite a bit. Now, to pray that they've made some under the hood progress on multi-monitor support.
Moving work back and forth from desktop to mobile also sounds really amazing. I get a hint of it when working with gmail or drive, but this sounds much more deeply integrated. Google will have to respond, and this makes me happy.
It's "better" in so much as I can full screen two things now instead of looking at a useless monitor full of fake fabric.
I also have two spaces and things don't really quite work right. I'm not quite sure how to make it work better, but it almost never does what I mean right now.
* when you fullscreen a window, there's a white (sometimes black) bar where the menu bar used to be
* app switcher changes monitor depending on the monitor you last used the dock (which makes no actual sense).
If possible, could someone from the Apple community please tell me if Yosemite will be faster / lighter than snow leopard? I don't want an OS that requires 8 gigs of ram to run "fast" like Mavericks requires.
I left the Apple ecosystem when I couldn't move up from my 2006 Macbook Pro and stay with Snow Leopard. Mission Control was such a huge step back for window management in my opinion. I much preferred Expose'ing all my windows across all my spaces, or being able to quickly read content from a covered window while writing an email.
The improvements shown today (especially the phone integration and Swift) are making me think about returning.
I guess you can, until you run into a piece of software that wont run on SL. SL is my favorite OS X version by far too. But Lightroom 5 requires 10.7, so that's where I'm at now...
whaaaaat? My 2012 MacBook Air with 4 gigs of RAM and SSD is lightening fast. The thing that kills performance these days on Macs is if you still have a spinning platter of rust as your storage. Don't do that. (Aside: this is not surprising - Apple has spent a lot of effort optimizing the core OS for iOS, which has always been flash-only storage)
SSD longevity is not worth worrying about, and very nearly never was. Even with all the die shrinks reducing individual flash cell durability, consumer drives of moderate capacity still have write lifetimes exceeding a petabyte. Even a brutal workload of keeping the drive full and using it for lots of swapping won't wear it out before some other critical component of a 4GB machine fails. If you've got a very early and small SATA SSD you might be able to wear it out but the most likely mode of failure is going to be controller/firmware crashing, not NAND cell failure.
Still, if an OS cannot deal with me having a platter disk, it is SLOW (regarding file system access).
Windows is the same, slooooooow. Linux is seriously fast even with a HDD.
Of course, my next PC (whenever I'm gonna need one) will have an SSD, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't optimize "disk" access or filesystem speed in an OS.
quite the opposite of psychosomatic actually. When SL came out every marketing feature was it was a lighter implementation of leopard. When the succeeding OS's were released, nothing about speed was mentioned and all of the new features seemed less useful.
It came down to: "This OS has no mention of speed, so it's probably slower." which turned out to be quite true out my five friends who have upgraded to Mavericks using 2010 equipment.
I have Mavericks running on an older MBP (2007) and it runs faster than any of it's predecessors. Memory compression feature really helps a lot with that too!
Which was inspired by LaunchBar. The cmd-space keyboard shortcut originated with LaunchBar back in the NeXT days. Spotlight has had added features repeatedly over the years, and people have said that LaunchBar/QuickSliver/Alfred are about to be "Sherlocked".
> To have developed a product and just started shipping it, only to have Apple come along and provide exactly the same functionality in a system update.
> It happened to Karelia Software twice. Once with Sherlock and again with iWeb.
306 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 255 ms ] threadThe integration between desktop and phone is pretty powerful.
The closest analogue it comes to my mind is an early demo of Ubuntu for Android in which they showed the ability to reply to SMS messages from within the Unity desktop (although I'm certain I saw a phone call demo too, just can't find a link to the video). However, in that case, both the Ubuntu desktop and Android were running on the same device, so it was easier (still a notable feat for the time).
This kind of integration between different devices is far more impressive, though.
I think the right way to go would be syncing the actions as well as data of Android's rich notifications - things like reply to email/archive from chrome notifications, reply to SMS, hangouts.. It'd be Google's universal apps between Android and Chrome - syncing actions. It'd need a lot of developer support but it'd be fantastic if they pulled it off as well as Apple and supported third parties in a serious way.
A very philosophical question indeed.
http://community.kde.org/KDEConnect
Windows has had a "Use this computer as a Bluetooth Headset" option buried in the Bluetooth preferences for a long time now.
The Address Book in Mac OS 10.0 and 10.1 would also let you send and receive SMSes with compatible phones (no joke):
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2002/11/27/sms.html
And Linux has had a few projects (like nohands) which do the same thing.
It sounds like you underestimate how hard it is to have "UI polish" implemented just right so that it feels seamless and natural instead of a hack (because honestly we do love to hack but ultimately prefer our prototypes to be implemented first-party, e.g I've been using JACK to stream audio in sync on various devices for years but AirPlay is so much more simple and natural)
I'm aware that implementing this well is a difficult problem and I have utmost respect for those who figure out how to make it feel seamless.
Depends which Bluetooth stack you have installed on Windows.
The stack that I know works is the Broadcom / WIDCOMM one.
[1]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Web
Maybe.
One of the questions floating around for the past few months was whether the next OSX would go in a flatter direction, and if so how they would cue window overlaps. It looks like the answers are (a) yes and (b) using roughly the same shadowing as before, plus translucence.
Both the Notification Center and the Control center on iOS "overlap" the screen through translucency. It could be argued that the parallax feature is also another attempt at differentiating layers within iOS, coupled with some of the animations i.e opening folders (also translucent), and multitasking.
That being said, I feel that iOS is unable to convey relationship of layers/overlapping windows well the way we are all accustomed to with desktop computers.
The translucency they speak of is in regards to the side menus in apps. In order to give a dynamic feel to the UI, they added some translucency like they have in some iOS 7 apps.
I like the faux 3d dock . . . it'd be nice if this was configurable.
[edit] That's not a rhetorical question; I'm not at home with my mac so I don't know for sure.
I like how apple is slowly reversing their design decisions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the return of the spatial finder ;)
The short answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager#Advantage...
The verbose answer: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2003/04/finder/
EDIT: The Notifications UI is actually getting customized widgets finally. About damn time.
command-tab will let you toggle back and forth between last two apps - sort of a classic alt-tab behavior from Windows and various UNIX WMs.
command-tilde goes through your windows in a stack, in one direction, and you have to modify it with shift to go a different way. Further, if you destroy a window after command-tilde to get to it, suddenly the direction gets reversed, and you will then command-tilde back the other direction.
So ... one of these is "wrong". I'll leave it to you to decide which. From my perspective, the ability to rapidly switch back and forth between two windows of the same application is valuable, and I hate having to modify it with shift as I go back and forth...
Command-Shift-` will reverse the order Command-Tab will flip back and forth unless you exceed the delay while still holding command, at which point you can cycle through the stack. Holding shift reverses the direction.
That being said, I agree that swapping back and forth in between windows of the same app is very useful and it's a pity that the two features aren't made to work in the same way. I'd like to do a quick Command-` to toggle two windows, or hold it down to see the list of windows for the current app.
Also, the Z-ordering of windows seems really odd. If you have multiple windows open from two apps, and you ⌘+` between them, sometimes all of App A windows are brought to the front and App B windows are hidden. Other times only one App A window is brought up. Meanwhile, if you have App C chilling on a different monitor, it may or may not disappear at random.
Even if it worked as intended, it would be flawed when compared with Alt+Tab on windows.
Is there some company edict, or cultural pressure that discourages it ? I don't see how any of these issues could have survived early-alpha (of Lion, and ML, and Mav., etc.)
The tiling window manager options on Linux are so good that I've dropped the desktop environment entirely (Gnome, KDE, etc.) and am just rolling with a TM, lightweight theme and icon package for a quite nice gtk3 look.
OSX wins in out of the box "just works" and bling departments, no argument there, but otherwise it holds no appeal, this bird has flown...
Anyway, for a very nice gtk3 look you can try StudioFlat off of the Gnome Look site, and gnome-icons-brave via whatever your package manager happens to be.
The tiny xcalib package (100kb) is also worth grabbing, hook up to xbindkeys and you get screen color inversion _per monitor_, very bad ass, your eyes will love it.
So... OS X 10.10 is... Windows Vista with Aero Glass?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Windows_Vista....
Though in fairness that was partly because it was such a hog on Vista. I've left translucency on in Win 7, though it sure isn't a productivity boost and it ain't 'beautiful' either.
I was disappointed when more and more became opaque over time and am glad to see the return of translucency.
0 - http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/dec00/images/appleosx.l.gi...
After 22 years on Macintosh, I've completely transitioned to Crunchbang on a MacBook Pro and a Windows 7/Crunchbang dual-boot workstation. I really like the translucency and general look of Win7. I had started to feel like OS X was visually dated, but more importantly, harming my workflow.
For development and design, I am working nearly twice as fast in the OS using Crunchbang, and I've made it look and behave just the way I want it to. OS X is completely non-configurable! Since the only thing I need a consumer OS for at this point is for digital audio, I moved to Win7 as I wasn't about to lay out the $$ for the new, unfathomable, Mac Pro. What is that thing anyway? I worked with a guy in a metal shop to customize a case for my new workstation, tricked it out with an internal pro audio interface with exposed preamps and 1/4" jacks, and made it a 3U rack-mount. That versus a garbage can?
That being said, my 2007 Mac Pro is still ticking and I've been able to upgrade it considerably, though changing the processor was a PITA. It's still on 10.6.8- what I consider the high-water mark of OS X- but I would need Mavericks now, and that needs a 64-bit bootloader. (Couldn't use the hack for this since I have a flashed PC GPU in it and that precludes the hack.) Like I said, I can't fathom buying a new Mac Pro.
The way I see it, Apple is just for consumer devices now, and I love 'em. My iPad is critical to my workflow. OS X? Considered harmful. And visually dated!
Believe it or not, two iPad apps have become really important design tools for me- iDraw, a vector graphics app, and ProCreate, a painting app. They cover most straightforward duties. I was very surprised at their power, and not having to whip out the graphics tablet is nice. Working anywhere from an iPad mini retina is pretty liberating. Obviously the laptop is still needed for on-the-move coding, but again, that's Linux, despite the (good) Mac hardware.
This does make the iOS/OS X version more tasteful.
The translucency on Vista is just over the top besides a heavy system resource toll.
I'll have to wait to see how the see-through side panel works in reality to give thumbs up to Yosemite though.
Eager to see how it looks on non-retina displays.
It looks horrible. Very blurry and some of the new menu bar icons are barely visible (like the time machine one).
I really hope they won't launch like this. Either they will finally make big external retina displays or they will have to fix the fonts and icons.
http://www.pilif.ch/menu.png
On the download page they call it "OS X v10.10"
For marketing reasons (as some don't know about roman numerals), Apple writes it like this OS X 10.9 or now OS X 10.10 or OS X Yosemite (instead of Mac OS X.10 or Mac OS 10.10).
No one will use ten ten ten.
These things tend to get rushed out, but maybe TC could have waited just a few more minutes to weed out the obvious stinkers.
This isn't like the Vista Aero catastrophe.
Moving work back and forth from desktop to mobile also sounds really amazing. I get a hint of it when working with gmail or drive, but this sounds much more deeply integrated. Google will have to respond, and this makes me happy.
I also have two spaces and things don't really quite work right. I'm not quite sure how to make it work better, but it almost never does what I mean right now.
* when you fullscreen a window, there's a white (sometimes black) bar where the menu bar used to be * app switcher changes monitor depending on the monitor you last used the dock (which makes no actual sense).
You can't pour all of this time and energy into iOS and phones and still make something as clean as SL. Which is too bad.
FWIW, I continue to run SL on an early 2009 Mac Pro with no problems or annoyances ... hope that can continue.
The improvements shown today (especially the phone integration and Swift) are making me think about returning.
i stayed on SL for as long as I could (aka had to upgrade my computer).
Windows is the same, slooooooow. Linux is seriously fast even with a HDD.
Of course, my next PC (whenever I'm gonna need one) will have an SSD, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't optimize "disk" access or filesystem speed in an OS.
It came down to: "This OS has no mention of speed, so it's probably slower." which turned out to be quite true out my five friends who have upgraded to Mavericks using 2010 equipment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_%28software%29
> To have developed a product and just started shipping it, only to have Apple come along and provide exactly the same functionality in a system update.
> It happened to Karelia Software twice. Once with Sherlock and again with iWeb.