In a marathon event, Apple announced many new and updated software bits at their World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC).
The interwebs were all abuzz at the first announcement from the stage: the newest version of OS X called El Capitan. Now, from the looks of things, you would have believed that just the mere naming of an operating system was enough to break the Internet:
Apple unveils OS X El Capitan, which is all about experience upgrades: http://t.co/1tk3nLZdvo pic.twitter.com/yGiX2bLMRk
— Engadget (@engadget) June 9, 2015
I admit, I’m a pretty big fanboy but I don’t necessarily get excited about the names of operating systems (especially since Apple moved away from naming their OS after big cats)
But I digress…
You’re going to hear a lot of buzz over the next few days about some features like swiping actions in Mail (available in other apps already), better maps (use Google Maps), pinnable sites in Safari (do bookmarks not work for you?), and improved notes (I already have an improved note and it’s called Evernote), but I could honestly care less about any of these things.
Frankly, there are only a handful of things I’m excited about in the next version of OS X.
What Excites Me about OS X El Capitan
First things first, let’s talk about window management. Since the release of Windows 8, you could simply drag a window to the edge of your screen and it would lock into place. Drag another window to the other side of your screen and BOOM, you have two windows on your screen displaying at the same size, right next to each other.
I can’t tell you how productive that can be sometimes. And until you download El Capitan on your Mac, you won’t be able to do it without some 3rd party app. Thankfully, it’s finally coming along with more improvements to window management. If you have several apps open most of your day, like I do, you pray for better window management all the time. This is a welcome improvement.
Next…
Improved Spotlight search. I use Spotlight on my Mac quite often to find files. Now that I know it will actually speak English (sort of) I’ll use it even more. Spotlight will act even more like Google for your computer in El Capitan and that’s a good thing. Being able to do contextual searches rather than exact word searches will be a great improvement.
Also…
This doesn’t have anything to do with OS X directly, but when Apple announced that they were taking their Swift programming language for iOS open source…
My soul leaped just a bit. What a HUGE move forward to more open collaboration amongst developers. I never thought I’d see the day when Apple would make something open source for people around the world to use as they see fit. Very cool, gang, very cool.
Finally…
We’re getting a new system font. Apple is switching from Helvetica Neue to their own San Francisco font, which was introduced with the Apple Watch. Woohoo.
Overall, El Capitan sounds like a minor update that addresses some much-needed fixes (hopefully Wi-fi stability is one of them) and brings OS X on par with offerings from some of the other major OS platforms out there.
The good news, if your current Mac is running Yosemite, you’ll be able to upgrade just fine. And it is, of course, a free upgrade.
More to come soon…
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