With Apple's new operating system, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, finally released to the public many Mac fans are wondering what benefits it brings.
The answer? More than a few and more than enough reason to upgrade from OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Here are just a few reasons not to dawdle.
User Interface
The change in user interface is rather radical compared with the change we saw from Mountain Lion to Mavericks. Everything looks sleek, with a wider adoption of flatter colors. This change in design as almost as radical as the change in design from iOS 6 to iOS 7, and Mavericks looks pretty outdated because of it.
All the gloss previously found on the buttons, toolbars, and so on, is gone. There's also much more transparency present in Yosemite as far as aesthetics go. Users can see much more of other apps and their desktop through things like toolbars.
The design changes are reflected across all bundled apps such as Mail, Calendar, iTunes, Safari and so on.
Other aspects include flatter icons and a changed global font, providing a slimmer and more modern look.
AirDrop
Apart from the aesthetic changes in Yosemite, which really will be the main difference for many users, there are also a number of functional changes.
With Yosmite, AirDrop finally supports file transfers between devices running iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite. This is a feature that was sorely missed in Mavericks and was largely expected but did not make an appearance.
Continuity
One of the biggest functional changes in OS X Yosemite is called "Continuity" and essentially means that a user's Mac computer, iPhone and iPad will be more connected than ever before.
Continuity allows users to take and make calls and texts straight from their computer, rather than their phone. It also allows a user to start working on a document on any device, then open it up and continue working on it on another device.
That's just simply pretty cool.
iCloud Drive
iCloud has also been updated in Yosemite, allowing users to access it straight from the Finder. This is perfect for those who do not want to lose important documents. Not only that, but with the release of Yosemite Apple has slashed the prices of additional storage, so now is a great time to upgrade.
Miscellaneous
Apple has upgraded a number of other, smaller features in Yosemite. For example, Spotlight has been updated to pop out of its own dialogue box, and it can search online. Mail has also been given a number of new features such as Markup, which allows users to view images in Mail rather than opening a file in Preview. Another feature is called Mail Drop, which gets around file size limitations by uploading a file to iCloud and inserting a link into the email.
Conclusion
OS X 10.10 Yosemite is a clear upgrade from Mavericks. Even just the aesthetic changes make Yosemite look far better than Mavericks. Yosemite is much more modern. Add the functional features on top of that and Yosemite is a winner. The fact the upgrade is free makes upgrading really a no-brainer.
