I am part of the test team for OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" (I guess all the Salesforce.com work gets you on other companies radar ). Started the test today. Impressions so far:
a) Visually it's interesting. Similar to the visual update in iOS7 they have gotten rid of almost all the skeumorphic nonsense and also most of the 3D stuff. The result is a very clean, simple look to the OS. There has been a good deal of hate coming out of certain quarters over this change but to me it was time to update the look and feel.
b) The OS is completely "de-Googled". Google is still available as a search provider choice but all the hooks have been removed and their operation disabled if you reinstall them by adding Google applications (I tried this to verify and it's true). Also, DuckDuckGo no longer requires a separate install to be a search provider - it is now a single click in Preferences.
c) Overall system speed is better. Maybe Apple is FINALLY figuring out how to properly optimize OS X to work with the ultra high speed SSDs they are using? Let me be clear - OS X wasn't slow before but it did not feel as fast as it should have on a PCIe SSD. As I noted in another thread it felt silly that Windows 8 was by far the fastest OS on a Mac. Well, now they feel VERY close to a tie.
d) Safari is FAR better now. Not only is the visual look better and the ability to integrate DuckDuckGo important but it is far snappier. For example, Gatefans had a definite load lag in the "old" Safari and now it does not. This feels like they rewrote the javascript engine as I am seeing all message boards and such running a lot faster.
I haven't checked out a lot of things yet and also Apple is rolling out a new development language and environment for both iOS and OS X (Swift). So there is plenty to explore and I'll do my best to keep you all up to date within the NDA specifications.
a) Visually it's interesting. Similar to the visual update in iOS7 they have gotten rid of almost all the skeumorphic nonsense and also most of the 3D stuff. The result is a very clean, simple look to the OS. There has been a good deal of hate coming out of certain quarters over this change but to me it was time to update the look and feel.
b) The OS is completely "de-Googled". Google is still available as a search provider choice but all the hooks have been removed and their operation disabled if you reinstall them by adding Google applications (I tried this to verify and it's true). Also, DuckDuckGo no longer requires a separate install to be a search provider - it is now a single click in Preferences.
c) Overall system speed is better. Maybe Apple is FINALLY figuring out how to properly optimize OS X to work with the ultra high speed SSDs they are using? Let me be clear - OS X wasn't slow before but it did not feel as fast as it should have on a PCIe SSD. As I noted in another thread it felt silly that Windows 8 was by far the fastest OS on a Mac. Well, now they feel VERY close to a tie.
d) Safari is FAR better now. Not only is the visual look better and the ability to integrate DuckDuckGo important but it is far snappier. For example, Gatefans had a definite load lag in the "old" Safari and now it does not. This feels like they rewrote the javascript engine as I am seeing all message boards and such running a lot faster.
I haven't checked out a lot of things yet and also Apple is rolling out a new development language and environment for both iOS and OS X (Swift). So there is plenty to explore and I'll do my best to keep you all up to date within the NDA specifications.