Spotlight received a significant overhaul with Apple’s introduction
of OS X Yosemite, making it more powerful and useful than ever before.
Press Cmd+Space and the new Spotlight search bar will appear on the
screen. Just as in the previous version, it’s possible to search through
your files in real time, but what’s really useful is it will now do
currency conversions, simple calculations and word or phrase
definitions. What’s more, the searches provide interactive previews,
which means you can do all sorts of things - send emails, make phone
calls – right within Spotlight.
If you’d like to put your signature in a text document at the end of
an email or even overlay it on to an image, you’re in luck. Preview now
has a feature that allows you to scribble your signature using your
laptop’s (or an external) touch pad. Let’s say you want to sign a
document that’s in PDF format. First, open the PDF using Preview. Then,
click the Toolbox icon in the top right corner. A new Markup Toolbar
will appear. Now click the Sign icon, which looks like a small signature
and is located next to the Text icon. Click Create Signature and follow
the on screen instructions.
Yosemite comes with a Dark Mode, which can be accessed by going to
System Preferences > General and checking the ‘Use dark menu bar and
Dock’ box. This significantly changes the look of Yosemite. The menu bar
and its drop-down menus will now be a dark, slightly translucent
charcoal colour. Almost every app you use will now have dark menus. The
Dock will also be notably darker, but like the menu bar it will also
retain some of its translucency. This is a great feature that can help
battle excessive glare from your screen, plus it looks pretty good too.
Apple
Maps is still in many ways inferior to Google Maps, but recent updates
mean it might be worth taking another look at what’s on offer. The most
useful feature is the traffic option. Open Maps and click the menu on
the bottom left of the screen before clicking Show Traffic. You’ll now
get live traffic updates on many major roads across the UK, including
road closures and road maintenance. There’s also a 3D mode. Click the 3D
button in the middle of the compass on the bottom right of the screen
and the viewing angle will tilt. For the best effect, you should also
click the satellite button in the top right corner. Major landmarks and
buildings can now be seen in 3D. Search for a large city, such as
London, and a 3D Flyover button will appear. Clicking the button will
provide an impressive bird’s-eye tour of the city.
5. Rename large groups of files
This feature is small, but it’s a fantastic time saver. If you’ve
ever had a large amount of files that you’d like to rename, you’ll know
that it can be tedious clicking on each separate file and typing in the
new names individually. In Yosemite, it’s possible to rename these files
en masse. Click, drag and highlight the files you want to rename, right
click your selection and click ‘Rename X Items’, with ‘X’ denoting the
amount of files selected. This brings up a window, which has a list of
naming options. From here you can replace the text entirely, add text
before or after the original file names or format the text in a number
of different ways. For instance, you can index each file and/or add a
custom name. So let’s say you’ve selected fifty image files and you want
to rename them Photo 1, Photo 2, etc. Simply select all fifty, setup a
name and index format and Yosemite will fill the rest in for you.
6. Disconnect from a network without turning Wi-Fi off
Holding down the alt key while clicking on the Wi-Fi icon on the top
right of your menu bar will provide a list of extra options and
information. One of those options allows you to disconnect from a
network without shutting off your Wi-Fi altogether. This is useful if
you’d still like Wi-Fi networks to be discoverable, but for whatever
reason you do not want to be connected to the network you’re currently
using. In previous versions of OS X you could only turn Wi-Fi on or off
from the menu bar, with any additional control or information requiring
users to root through System Preferences, which was both inconvenient
and a bit of a faff. The menu also displays useful technical information
related to the network you’re connected to, such as your Router
Security, IP Address, PHY Mode and Country Code.
7. Quick Type
Quick Type, which was recently implemented in Apple’s mobile
platforms, is also present in Yosemite. For the uninitiated, Quick Type
suggests words or phrases that you’re probably going to type next, based
on your past conversations and writing style. Any time you’re typing in
an app created by Apple, such as Pages, you can press the Escape key
halfway through the word or phrase and a list of options will appear,
allowing you to select the correct one. This may or may not increase
your typing speed, it probably requires a bit of getting used to at
first before it truly becomes particularly helpful, but it’s nice to see
some iOS 8 features making their way to the desktop.
Yosemite and iOS 8 saw the introduction of a lot more connectivity
between your Apple devices, which Apple has dubbed ‘Continuity’. If you
open Safari on your Mac you’ll see there’s a new ‘Show all tabs’ icon in
the top right hand corner, next to the New Tab button. Clicking show
all tabs will reveal the tabs you have open on your Mac, but if you also
have an iPhone or an iPad, it will display any tabs you’ve left open on
those devices too. This also works the other way around - any tabs left
open on your Mac can be viewed in your iOS device. With this feature,
you essentially gain very limited remote control over your Mac, iPad or
iPhone. Perfect if you’ve got some sensitive or embarrassing web pages
open on your loaned iPad and you weren’t sure whether or not you closed
them down or if you want to pick up your browsing from where you left
off on another device.
9. New RSS and search features in Safari
RSS (Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication) feeds are now
particularly pleasant and intuitive to use in the latest version of
Safari, which was part of the Yosemite update. Click the RSS feed you
wish to subscribe to and Safari will ask if you want to add it to your
Shared Links page. Click add and then click the Show Sidebar icon on the
top left of the browser, next to the forward and back buttons. From
here, you can click the @ symbol and view all of your feeds, including
stories that are being shared by your friends on social media, which has
been available since Mavericks. Click the Subscriptions button at the
bottom to manually add or remove feeds. While functionality is limited,
there are some people who won’t need anything more sophisticated than
this, which means you might not need to use third party feed readers
anymore if you don’t need anything fancy.
Mail Drop allows you to send large email attachments by uploading
your content to iCloud. Simply drag whatever file you’d like to attach
and, provided you have enough space on the cloud, you can send files
well over your mail client’s limit. If the recipient is also using
Yosemite, it will appear as a regular attachment (even though it is
actually on the cloud). If the receiver does not have Yosemite, they
will instead be provided with a link from which they can download the
attachment.
If you’ve ever wanted to record your iPhone’s screen, this is the
easiest and quickest way to do it. First, you’ll need both the latest
version of Yosemite and iOS 8. Next, connect your phone to your Mac with
a lightning cable. Then, open QuickTime and Select File > New Movie
Recording. You should now be presented with your own face, because
Yosemite defaults to your front facing camera. To change this, click the
down arrow next to the red record button and change the camera from
FaceTime HD Camera to your iPhone. Now when you push record, you’ll be
recording your iPhone’s screen.
12. Share your screen
Sharing your screen is a breeze in Yosemite, provided both you and
the person you’re trying to share with is using Apple’s Messages app.
Open your contact’s message window and select the Details button on the
top right hand corner. In the new window that pops up, you’ll see a
share screen icon, which is next to the FaceTime and Call icons. Click
the icon to share your screen and a request will be sent to your
contact, which you can stipulate to either share your screen or to
request access to theirs. This is really useful if you’re trying to show
someone how to solve a problem they might be having with their Mac, or
where they can find specific, buried settings.
If someone calls you on your iPhone, you can answer the call on your
Mac provided you’re using iOS 8 and have the latest version of Yosemite
installed. This is another component of Yosemite’s Continuity, which
seeks to seamlessly connect all of your Apple devices in various
different ways. If you can’t receive calls on your Mac despite having
the latest version of iOS and OS X, make sure you’re signed into the
same iCloud account on all devices. You will also need to be connected
to the same Wi-Fi network and be signed into FaceTime. Wi-Fi calling
also needs to be turned off on your phone which, if you have it, can be
found in Settings > Phone. Making a call is as easy as accepting one,
just open your contacts folder and click their phone number. If you
find all of this too intrusive, you can stop calls from coming via your
Mac by opening the FaceTime app and clicking FaceTime > Preferences
and deselecting iPhone Cellular Calls.
Here’s another feature that was first made available on iOS that has
now been introduced to OS X. If you still want to be notified of
messages but you also don’t want a specific person bothering you all the
time, you can now mute individual people, rather than being limited to a
blanket Do Not Disturb mode. To access this, open your Messages app,
double click the person you wish to mute, click the Details button in
the right hand corner and select the Do Not Disturb box.
The Notification Centre now has widget capabilities, much like the
widgets found in the Notification Centre on the iPhone or iPad in iOS 8.
On your Mac, click the three bullet points in the top right hand corner
on your menu bar and then click Edit at the bottom of the sidebar that
appears. From here you can add or remove widgets that you already have
installed on your system. You can also quickly access the App Store at
the bottom of the screen, where you can browse, purchase and install
additional widgets.
Thanks to Continuity, any SMS messages you receive on your iPhone can
also be read on your Mac, even if the person you’re texting doesn’t own
an Apple device. What’s more, you can also send SMS text messages via
your Mac using the same feature. To do this, make sure you have the
latest version of iOS and that you’re signed into iMessage on your
iPhone. You also need to be signed in with the same Apple ID on your
phone and your Mac. Now take your iPhone and go to Settings >
Messages > Send and Receive > You can Be Reached By and make sure
your email address and phone number is selected. Go back to Messages and
under Text Message Forwarding, select the device you wish to use. After
you’ve entered a security code, you should be able to send and receive
SMS messages from your Messages app on your Mac.
If someone has sent you a PDF or an image as an attachment in an
email, you can now annotate it without leaving Apple Mail. To do this,
make sure you have ‘Include original attachments in reply’ selected by
going to Edit > Attachments in the Mail app’s menu bar. Now that this
is enabled, click reply and hover over the image or PDF. A small arrow
will appear in the top right hand corner. Click this arrow and select
Markup. A new window will open, allowing you to add lines, boxes, text,
even your own signature to the PDF/image. Click Done when you’ve
finished annotating, before emailing your new version back to the
sender.
18. Private browsing
Another great new feature in Safari allows you to set DuckDuckGo (a
search engine that claims not to track you) as your default search
engine. Click Safari > Preferences > Search and set your Search
Engine to DuckDuckGo if you would like to enable this. While we’re on
the subject of privacy, it’s worth noting that Private Browsing has now
changed a bit. Previously, Private Browsing was either on or off. Now,
you’re able to have a private window open as well as a regular window
open at the same time. This is a feature that’s been available on rival
browsers for years, so it’s nice to see it finally arrive on Safari.
19. iCloud Drive
iCloud Drive functions much like DropBox, allowing you to save your
documents, music, photos, videos and numerous other apps and files on
Apple’s own file hosting service. This is really useful if you like to
work across multiple devices and it’s a great way to backup your files.
iCloud Drive is located in your Finder window by default, under
favourites. Getting your files on the cloud is as simple as dragging and
dropping into the folder. You can also save directly into the folder
from most of Apple’s own apps. All users get 5GB of space completely
free with up to 1TB of space available for a monthly fee.
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