If you are still on the fence about upgrading to OS X Yosemite, here is a roundup of the best features in Yosemite, a roundup that might just convince you enough to take the plunge and go all Yosemite!
1. Ready for Handoff?
Apple customers have always loved the fluidity of use across the Apple ecosystem, easily jumping from one Apple device to another. With the average Mac user having at least an iPhone and maybe even an iPad, it made great sense for apple to release a Mac OS that allowed Macs to seamlessly integrate with other Apple mobile devices. The result is Handoff, the ability to start reading a web page on your Mac, say your MacBook, read some more on your iPhone and maybe finish it off on your iPad, always starting from exactly where you left off. That is the power of Handoff. Handoff also offers exciting functionality with Mail, Safari, calendar, contacts, numbers, pages, keynote as well as messages. Many third party applications are also now modifying their programs so you will be able to take advantage of Handoff in the future.All you will need to get Handoff to work is one iCloud account that you will use on all your Apple devices. That’s it! Here’s a link to a very good article on how to use Handoff.
2. Your Mac goes Ring, Ring, Ring!
That’s right. You will now be able to make phone calls on your iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or any other Mac that can run on Yosemite. If you wish, you can use Yosemite’s continuity feature to receive calls, make calls, read messages, reply to messages and pretty much use your Mac as a smartphone. Why, you might ask? Well, if you have buckled down in front of your Mac in serious work mode and want to stay focused without having to attend to your iPhone or iPad, continuity in Yosemite will allow you to do just that.
3. Yosemite brings more privacy
Yosemite makes your browsing activities more private. Previously, if you went to clear your cache in Safari, all you saw was an option called “Clear Website History.” What about cookies, history and all that other stuff you might want to clear? When you load up Safari in Yosemite, you will be given the option to clear up these components specifically. Thus, Yosemite gives you more control over your level of privacy protection. Also, Yosemite has been modified in such a way that search queries typed into the address bar will now return results from DuckDuckGo, an oddly named but very impressive search engine that has become very popular, primarily because it doesn’t collect and store your search patterns, unlike Google.
4. Edit mail attachments while in mail itself
Almost everyone has been in the following situation; you have attached a file in your email and are ready to hit the send button. Then, you realize that you have to edit that attachment. Groan! Open the word document, edit, save and re-attach, right? Wrong, at least when you are using Yosemite! Yosemite mail will allow you to edit your attachment right when you are inside of mail, before you rocket off that email into cyberspace. You can add text and even add pictures or doodles to your email attachments if you want! Our guess is that this is a feature you will end up using even if you are the most meticulous person out there.
5. File transfer from iPhone to your Mac? No more cables!
Considering how technology has advanced, you would think that sending a file from your phone to your Mac would take just a push of a button, right? The answer, as you might know, was a big, frustrating No! You were required to connect your iPhone to your Mac with that little cable that is always just a little inconveniently short open up finder, find the file and drag drop it onto your Mac or vice-versa. Yosemite changes that and makes file transfers with a push of a button possible, all wirelessly. The feature is called AirDrop. AirDrop actually isn’t new. It was available before but only worked between iPhones and iPads. Now, with Yosemite, AirDrop works all across the Apple hardware ecosystem, even on your Mac computers. Of course, it is not just the above features that make Yosemite an attractive upgrade for your Mac. You also get a fantastically minimal, transparent and refreshed UI, a faster and more robust Safari browser, polished maps with 3D views, an exciting dark mode for distraction free work, a vibrant dashboard corner, advanced and more intuitive notifications and even cool things like the ability to add mail signatures with trackpad signatures. Considering that Yosemite is a free upgrade, it is definitely worth upgrading to right away. Despite the many goodies that Yosemite can bring to your Mac, you must also be aware that there is a small chance that Yosemite can also result in slowed performance on your Mac. However, thankfully, such problems are very fixable. Here’s a great resource on fixing Yosemite related performance issues that might come in handy if you do run into problems after the upgrade to Yosemite: Mac slow after Yosemite Update? Fix It. Go on, go Yosemite and enjoy your Mac like you never did before! Here’s the official download link for OS X Yosemite at iTunes.
