Top 5 Cool New Features of Mac OS X Yosemite

1. New Design: Very similar to iOS 7’s design overhaul last year. Mac OS X has new icons, new fonts, a translucent theme, and overall a flatter modern look. I personally dig this new interface. Yosemite is the turning point for Mac OS X in terms of making it consistent with the design of iOS.

2. Dark Mode: Not only do we have a new design, but we also have the option to change the theme to a dark mode which darkens the menu bar, the dock, and menu bar overlays. If you’re like me and are a fan of night mode themes then you’ll love the new dark mode.

3. Notification Center: The notification center performs more like it does on iOS with the Today column. You can now add widgets to it so you can see such things like your calendar, reminders, calculator, stocks, weather, and developers will be able to create custom widgets that you’ll be able to get via the Mac app store.

4. Spotlight: Spotlight search got put on steroids. Now it looks and acts like an old friend of us Mac users: an app called Alfred. When you access Spotlight search it pops up in the middle of your screen, and it searches a lot more than just your Mac’s hard drive. It searches the web and even gives you direct results from Wikipedia, iTunes, the Mac app store, and sites like Fandango.

5. Safari: I’ve never been a fan of Safari on the Mac, but the new Safari has a nice look and some useful new features to go along with it. First of all the green maximize button now makes the app full screen, and Safari itself got rid of some toolbar clutter. Now when you click in the address bar it drops down a list of your bookmarks and most viewed sites. You can also see all your open tabs on one screen which is useful. The browser is smarter and faster too. When searching something in the address bar you get drop-down suggestions for Wikipedia and other popular sites, sort of like Spotlight. All these features make it a great browser but not great enough for me to switch from Chrome.

By Andy Slye