Posts tagged with "yosemite"

Apple Announces OS X Yosemite Launching Today

At a media event held in Cupertino, California, Apple announced that the next major version of OS X, Yosemite, will be released later today.

Introduced at WWDC in June, OS X Yosemite (version 10.10 of Apple’s desktop operating system) brings a complete redesign, updates to core apps such as Safari and Mail, and better integration with iOS devices thanks to Handoff and Continuity. Alongside an elegant design that prioritizes content, Yosemite will feature an updated Spotlight with rich inline previews, a revamped Notification Center with widgets (also available in iOS 8) and iCloud Drive, a new unified folder to manage all documents stored in iCloud.

OS X Yosemite will be a free update and available through the Mac App Store.

For more coverage, check out our October 16 news hub and follow @macstoriesnet on Twitter.

Apple Asks Developers to Start Submitting OS X Yosemite Apps

Apple today notified registered developers that Mac App Store submissions are now open for OS X Yosemite apps. Apple repeated its previous statement that Yosemite will be made available to customers “later this fall”, but it may arrive as early as next week. By comparison, Apple notified developers to submit their OS X Mavericks apps last year on October 15, with Mavericks becoming available to customers a week later on October 22.

Add powerful new functionality throughout OS X Yosemite with app extensions, explore the innovative new Swift programming language, and take advantage of advances in game technologies, Safari, iCloud, and more. To prepare your apps for the Mac App Store, download and build with the OS X Yosemite GM candidate and Xcode 6.1 GM seed from the Mac Dev Center. With these latest releases, Swift is now final and you can submit your Mac apps written with Swift to the Mac App Store.

Inspecting Yosemite’s Icons→

Nick Keppol has published a great look at the icons from the developer beta of OS X Yosemite:

When 10.10 ships this fall, your users will expect your icons to feel at home in the new system. Rather than critique the icons, I’m going to dissect the icon system and focus on the small details that will help you make icons that look great in Yosemite.

When I saw this link in my Twitter feed, I thought the article would focus on colors, gradients, and comparisons with iOS 7. Instead, Nick has inspected the tiniest details of Apple’s icon design on Yosemite, such as reflections, materials, grids, and combination of shapes. If you’re a designer or just curious about Apple’s new dock icon language, I recommend reading this post.

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Apple Ending Development of Aperture, New Photos App Will Also Replace iPhoto for Mac→

Jim Dalrymple, reporting at The Loop, received confirmation from Apple that the company will stop development of Aperture, replacing it with the Photos app introduced at WWDC:

Apple introduced a new Photos app during its Worldwide Developers Conference that will become the new platform for the company. As part of the transition, Apple told me today that they will no longer be developing its professional photography application, Aperture.

The new Photos app is on track to be released next year for OS X Yosemite, and it will also replace iPhoto for Mac, integrating photo editing and organization features into a single interface with iCloud support.

As reported by Matthew Panzarino at TechCrunch, Apple will provide compatibility updates for OS X Yosemite users and the company is working with Adobe to create a “transitionary workflow” to move to Lightroom.

According to Apple, the discontinuation of Aperture doesn’t indicate a shift away from “pro” apps, as both Logic and Final Cut will continue development. At this point, it’s not clear whether iPhoto for iOS will also be discontinued with the release of iOS 8 and the new features in Photos for iOS.

Aperture came out in 2005. In 2011, Apple started offering Aperture 3.0 at a discounted price on the Mac App Store.

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Jason Snell’s Hands-on with OS X Yosemite→

In his first hands-on with OS X Yosemite, Jason Snell points out an issue with the redesigned title bars that no longer show a title:

I have to admit I’m also a little nonplussed about the disappearance of titles from the top of many windows. In apps that never really have more than one important window (Calendar and Maps come to mind), the title is unnecessary; labeling my Calendar window with the word Calendar seems pointless. But in many other contexts, the title of the window imparts important information, and there’s a danger that some of that information could be lost if Apple takes this approach too far. It’s something worth keeping an eye on, especially given the radical changes Yosemite has in store for Safari.

I’ve been trying the first Yosemite beta on my MacBook Air, and I find it annoying that Safari doesn’t show the title of a webpage (just the domain in the address bar) when a single tab is open. It’ll be interesting to see if third-party apps will switch to this integrated toolbar approach with no separate area for a title.

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JavaScript for Automation on OS X Yosemite→

As detailed by Apple in a technical document, OS X Yosemite will add JavaScript support for scripting and automation:

The JavaScript OSA component implements JavaScript for Automation. The component can be used from Script Editor, the global Script Menu, in the Run JavaScript Automator Action, applets/droplets, the osascript command-line tool, the NSUserScriptTask API, and everywhere else other OSA components, such as AppleScript, can be used. This includes Mail Rules, Folder Actions, Address Book Plugins, Calendar Alarms, and Message Triggers.

From the developer session video’s description:

With OS X Yosemite, application scripting support has been added to another popular language, JavaScript. JavaScript for Automation (JXA) extends the standard JavaScript environment provided by the JavaScriptCore framework with support for querying and controlling all of the scriptable applications running in OS X. JXA scripts are supported at all layers of the system and can be invoked from the command-line, from the system-wide Script Menu, and can even be distributed as code-signed applications.

This is an interesting change for automation on OS X going forward, and JavaScript will be available alongside AppleScript in the Script Editor. You can watch the session video “JavaScript for Automation” here or in Apple’s WWDC app.

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OS X Yosemite Beta UI Compared to Mavericks→

Min Ming Lo has published a good initial comparison of the OS X Yosemite beta UI compared to Mavericks:

Apple revealed a sneak peek into Mac OS X Yosemite earlier this week. Not surprisingly, Apple updated its desktop OS to match iOS 7’s design language. The new OS X now embodies a brighter and flatter styling, coupled with icon updates, font changes, and translucent materials. Here’s a quick look at the visual design changes in Yosemite and my impressions of them.

Clearly Apple has a lot of work ahead to polish Yosemite before the final release, but I’m a fan of the new direction. And, unlike others, I’m glad to see a happier Finder. Who doesn’t like smiles?

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OS X Yosemite Will Feature Option to Record Real-Time Footage of iOS Apps

Apple will provide an easier and integrated way to create screencasts for iOS apps with the upcoming iOS 8 and Yosemite software updates, using a Lightning cable and QuickTime Player on OS X. As reported by Benjamin Mayo at 9to5Mac, the feature is primarily meant to let developers create App Previews for the improved App Store launching with iOS 8, but it’ll also come in handy for users willing to capture videos of iOS apps for screencasts, reviews, and other video content.

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