OS X Yosemite: The Missing Manual

What’s New in Yosemite

Apple says there are over 200 new features in OS X Yosemite, but it’s pretty generous with its counting procedure. Still, there are many, many goodies.

In the index, “what’s new in Yosemite” gives you a pretty comprehensive listing. But here are the big-ticket items:

• A massive redesign. This is the big one, the one that will make people freak out just a little. Things look very different in Yosemite: sparser, simpler, flatter. Compare the old and the new, for example, in Figure 1.

  Truth is, things mostly look different; they work just as they always have, and the features are pretty much in the same places.

  If you really can’t stand the new look, you can turn off the transparency and beef up the razor-thin button and menu edges (see Zoom). But, the truth is, the new design grows on you. The sparser, cleaner look makes it easier to spot what you’re looking for when you’re in the middle of your workflow.

• Continuity features. If you also own an iPhone, you’re in for a real treat. In Yosemite, Apple turns the phone into something of a cellular accessory for your Mac.

  For example, the Mac can now be a speakerphone, taking and making calls over a wireless connection to your iPhone. You can send and receive standard text messages, too, right from the comfort of your full-sized Mac keyboard. Your phone relays them.

  Then there’s Handoff, which passes documents between the iPad or iPhone and the Mac. If you’ve been writing a message on your iPhone, for example, you find a ...