A full breakdown of major OS X Yosemite features

OS X Yosemite on MacBook Pros

While much of the excitement has been surrounding the arrival of iOS 8 for iPhone and iPad, Apple also pleasantly surprised us this afternoon with a more-than-impressive update to its OS X software. First and foremost, the company delivered upon the name OS X Yosemite that most bloggers figured out after a mountain from Yosemite National Park appeared on a WWDC banner at Moscone West. Now let’s dive into all of its features… 

General

OS X Yosemite Desktop
  • Redesigned user interface, including a cleaner dock
  • Redesigned stock apps, including Safari, Mail and Messages
  • Translucent menu bar, toolbars and windows
  • Initiate a text message by clicking a phone number in Safari, Contacts, or Calendar
  • Photos in OS X coming early next year — see Photos in iOS 8
  • Widgets in Notification Center
  • Today view in Notification Center
  • Share menu extensions — including app-specific share sheets
  • Smarter controls and buttons
  • Custom actions
  • New systemwide fonts
  • Redesigned Spotlight, front and center with interactive previews and search results
  • Family Sharing

Continuity

OS X Yosemite Continuity
  • Send and receive calls on your iPhone using your Mac
  • Handoff — start a task on one device and finish it on another
  • Instant Hotspot

Safari

Safari OS X Yosemite
  • Private Mode — private web browsing like incognito mode on Chrome
  • Streamlined toolbar, including a Tab View button
  • The top-left green button is now for entering full-screen mode
  • Improved and faster Nitro JavaScript engine
  • Favorites view — a drop-down menu in the smart search bar
  • Tab view — shows all of your tabs on one page
  • Search tabs by URL or a term in the article name
  • Spotlight Suggestions — based on Wikipedia, Maps, news, search engines and other sources
  • DuckDuckGo search engine support
  • Support for the latest web standards, including WebGL
  • Improved social sharing options

Mail

Mail OS X Yosemite
  • Mail Drop — for sending large attachments up to 5 GB per message
  • Mark up attachments within the app, such as PDFs or forms
  • Streamlined toolbar

Messages

Messages for OS X Yosemite
  • Record and send audio clip messages
  • Send and receive SMS and MMS messages when your iPhone is nearby your Mac
  • Name group conversations
  • Add or remove participants to group conversations
  • Leave a group conversation

Finder

Finder OS X Yosemite
  • iCloud Drive
  • AirDrop between iOS and Mac
  • Streamlined toolbar

Developer Tools

Swift
  • Swift programming language
  • Xcode 6
  • SpriteKit
  • SceneKit
  • CloudKit
  • Improved game controller support
  • Shared frameworks between OS X and iOS

Apple seeded the first beta of OS X Yosemite to developers earlier this afternoon, while a public release will follow in the Fall. There is also a public beta program for OS X Yosemite, although it is limited to the first million applicants. If you are interested in learning more about this latest OS X version, keep it locked on our OS X Yosemite section and look at the complete overview posted on the Apple website.