I can begin replying to an email on my phone, then walk over to my laptop and finish it off there. While my phone charges on my nightstand, I can pick up calls from my mom with a mouse click at my desk. And when someone texts me a photo, it’s already on my laptop, where I can quickly jazz it up in Photoshop then tweet it.
With the Thursday release of the Mac’s free OS X Yosemite update, Apple is finally getting its devices to behave like a real, happy family—a family that not only talks to each other but even looks very much alike. The Mac operating system has acquired apps and features from iOS—and vice versa—over the past few years, but this is the biggest leap toward each other yet.
The advantage is so big that if you are an iPhone or iPad owner but don’t have a Mac, Yosemite might get you to consider buying one. It makes living in Apple’s ecosystem harder to resist. But before you fall into the Apple trap, keep in mind that there are still plenty of reasons to play with Google (and even Microsoft ) on a Mac or iPhone.
<< An iOS-Inspired Face-Lift >>
Late one night, Jony Ive, Apple’s design chief, threw on the “White Album,” took out a bucket of translucent primer, mixed it together with some of his rainbow-colored iOS paint and tossed it at the computer screen. At least, that’s how I imagine the Mac operating system got its new look.
There are traces of iPhone and iPad design everywhere you look. Icons have been revamped to look flatter and more modern. The edges of windows are translucent so you can see what’s behind them. The red, yellow and green window-position buttons look like a futuristic traffic light. Even the notification pane now has a “Today” view that is identical to the iPhone’s.
If you’ve not used Macs but are accustomed to iOS, you’ll face a learning curve but should feel pretty comfortable. Unlike Microsoft, Apple continues to focus on an interface that is optimized for navigating with a mouse and keyboard.
If you already are a Mac user, you’ll enjoy the fresh look while still finding everything in the right spot. Yosemite has gotten me to take more advantage of certain OS X tools, starting with Spotlight. Apple’s systemwide search tool now opens in the center of the screen, and its results contain file previews, suggested websites and Apple maps.
<< Apps in Sync >>
Yosemite also has forced me to rethink where I spend my days.
I used to steer away from using Apple’s native apps—Maps, Safari, Mail—preferring Google’s Web apps instead. But because Apple’s apps now sync across devices, I have switched to using Apple’s Mail to manage my Gmail account. Being able to pick up my iPhone’s unfinished emails instantly on my laptop is beyond convenient.
And there’s a new feature that allows you to open a document right in Mail, without switching to another application, sign your name or make some edits and send it right back. I just wish Mail had a better way to filter nonessential messages and clear out my inbox using trackpad swipes.
I’m not as game to shift to the Safari browser from Chrome, however. Yosemite gave Safari slimmer tool bars, a better tab view and an improved search bar that gives you a sneak peek of Wikipedia and map results. But I still find Google’s browser to be faster, and it’s still fairly easy to sync across devices.
The same goes for iCloud Drive. While you can now drag any file to your Drive on a Mac and see those files at iCloud.com, there’s no iPhone or iPad app that shows you all your stuff. You can only access the Drive through apps that recognize it, like Apple’s Pages word-processing app. For now, I’m still more apt to use Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive, which work across iOS and Mac, plus Windows, Android and the Web.
<< Keeping in Touch >>
I am, however, all in on Apple’s iMessage. In Yosemite, the texting app syncs with my iPhone and allows me to sign in to my Google chat. With an iPhone running iOS 8.1, I was even able to receive and send standard-carrier text messages from my computer, and access all the photos my phone has sent or received.
Apple takes this concept of continuous communication even further with phone calls. When my Mac and iPhone are on the same Wi-Fi network and both logged in to my iCloud account, my laptop starts ringing and I can accept or reject the call with just a click. I can also initiate calls. Unfortunately, all of your logged-in devices will ring in unison, not just the one you happen to be with. And you can’t hand off a call from phone to laptop, or vice versa.
Many of Apple’s apps—Safari, Contacts, Calendar, Maps and, of course, Mail—support that close-proximity handoff feature, however, using a combination of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and iCloud account authentication. I’m able to begin reading an article in Safari on my iPad, for instance, and then pick it right up on my Mac.
And don’t worry that you’ll suddenly get incessant notifications popping up on your computer whenever you start something on your iPhone or iPad. Instead, an icon appears in the dock indicating that you can pick up an activity.
It’s well thought out and simple. I had no problems getting handoffs to work on my office network and a colleague’s home network, but I had mixed results in my home.
Fortunately, all of Yosemite’s extra services don’t cause a drag on the system resources. In my tests on a new MacBook Pro with Retina display and a 2013 MacBook Air, I found battery life and overall performance remained the same with the new OS.
All three computer giants—Apple, Microsoft and Google—are trying to figure out how to create the computing platform of the future by tying together our devices. But unlike the competition, the iPhone, iPad and the Mac are playing to their form factors without requiring compromise, while adopting visual continuity and strong communication they never had before.
The Yosemite and iOS pairing feels like the glue that the others just don’t have right now.
Reference:
OS X Yosemite Review: The Mac Cozies Up to the iPhone
http://online.wsj.com/articles/os-x-yosemite-review-the-mac-cozies-up-to-the-iphone-1413486002
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