Posts tagged with "YosemiteReview"

iCloud Drive: What Is It, How It Works & Its Fundamental Problem

With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, Apple is introducing a new feature of iCloud: iCloud Drive. Apple bills it as a feature that will let you:

…safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud. Documents you store in iCloud Drive will be kept up to date across all of your devices, and you can access them from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.

This brief article aims to clarify what exactly iCloud Drive is, how you access it, as well as the big problem that it has.
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Extensibility and Automation Changes in OS X Yosemite

The headline making news of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, released yesterday as a free update on the Mac App Store, is that it brings an extensive UI overhaul, modernizing the look of Apple’s desktop operating system to fit in with the design language pioneered by iOS 7. This is a great change, and maybe would have been enough to satisfy the average Mac user, but if you’re reading further into this article than the title, chances are you’re looking for a little more than a surface adjustment. Thankfully, Apple was kind enough to oblige.

OS X Yosemite introduces a series of interesting and useful changes under the hood, particularly in the category of automation. The first of these is the addition of extensions to the Mac. Yes, those extensions. If you have a device running iOS 8, you already know what extensions are, and extensions on the Mac are built on the exact same concept of extending the functionality and content of your individual apps out across the entire operating system. Although the idea is the same, extensions on the Mac are a bit different in their implementation due to the fact that the restrictions and capabilities of the operating system are not the same as those of iOS.

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OS X Yosemite Apps I’ve Been Trying

OS X Yosemite, first announced at WWDC in June and released today by Apple, brings a major redesign of OS X and a variety of new features such as widgets, extensions, Handoff, and Continuity. While I don’t use OS X as much as I did a few years ago, I still rely on the system for tasks that I can’t complete on iOS alone.

Below, you’ll find a roundup of the third-party Yosemite apps I’ve been testing over the past couple of weeks, which should give you a good idea of the design changes and new functionalities Yosemite is bringing to OS X.

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OS X Yosemite & iOS 8 Continuity Explained: Handoff, Instant Hotspot, SMS & Phone Relay

Perhaps the headline feature of OS X Yosemite (besides the visual overhaul) is what Apple has called ‘Continuity’.

Continuity is really just an umbrella-term for a few key features that allow OS X and iOS to, in Apple’s words, “connect like never before”. Those key features that make up Continuity are Handoff, Instant Hotspot, SMS Relay and Phone Relay.

Please note: iOS 8.1 is required for Continuity features.

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Taking a Tour of OS X Yosemite’s Revamped Spotlight

Spotlight in OS X Yosemite is improved not only in its appearance, but also utility. The biggest and most obvious change is that Spotlight no longer resides in the right corner of your menu bar. Triggered by the usual CMD+Space keyboard shortcut, it now appears as a floating bar in the center of your screen. As you start typing, the bar will expand downward to display your results on the left and a Quick Look-esque panel on the right.

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OS X Yosemite: Tips, Tricks, and Details

At MacStories, we believe in knowing all the little features and details of the software we use every day. We enjoy finding all the tweaks and hidden tricks that Apple ships with OS X and iOS every year, we love to round them up in a comprehensive collection. In this post, you’ll find over 60 tips, tricks, and details of OS X Yosemite that we’ve collected throughout the summer since the first beta release of Apple’s major redesign of OS X.

The release of OS X Yosemite was announced today at Apple’s media event in Cupertino, and the new OS is available now as a free upgrade on the Mac App Store. Yosemite – version 10.10 of OS X – brings a radical redesign, better integration with iOS thanks to Continuity and iCloud, and several changes to apps like Safari, Mail, and even the Finder.

We will have more articles on Yosemite today and throughout the week in our Yosemite hub on MacStories. In the meantime, you can enjoy our collection of tips and tricks to get the most out of OS X Yosemite below.

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