A Look At OS X Yosemite And iOS 8.1
by Brandon Chester on October 27, 2014 8:00 AM ESTConclusion
It has definitely been a busy few months in the Apple world. September delivered the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, along with iOS 8, and a preview of the still mysterious Apple Watch. This month we got the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 3, the iMac with Retina 5K display, iOS 8.1, Apple Pay, and OS X Yosemite. Those last three points are some of the most interesting, and they all happen to be part of Apple's software ecosystem. I don't think that's a coincidence. We're reaching a point where it's becoming more and more difficult to differentiate your products based on hardware alone. Great software driving a great experience is where the focus needs to be moving forward.
Apple's strategy to provide that experience appears to be deep integration of their services across all of their product lines. It starts with the cloud, with new additions to iCloud like iCloud Drive and Photo Library. From there it goes to software commonality, with a design language that exists on both iOS and OS X, and applications that exist on both platforms. On the opposite end of the spectrum from the cloud are the new continuity features which provide integration between all the devices that you have right there with you. SMS Forwarding and iPhone call transferring expands communication on iPad and the Mac to new areas, while Handoff makes the transition between applications seamless and accurate right down to where your cursor was.
What interests me the most about Apple's stategy is how it provides incentive for a user with one Apple device to buy other Apple devices. This exists to a certain degree with other manufacturers as well. If you own a Samsung smartphone, you may be more inclined to buy a Samsung tablet due to the similar hardware design and user interface. But apart from any brand loyalty you feel, you don't really have any incentive to buy a Samsung laptop which runs Windows and doesn't integrate with your other devices. Apple's integration covers their entire lineup of devices. An iPhone user has a lot to gain by choosing a MacBook over a Windows Ultrabook, and an iPad over a Nexus 9. It would be interesting to analyze what percentage of people purchasing a new Apple device already own one or more Apple products.
Overall, I'm happy with the work that Apple has done with iOS 8.1 and OS X Yosemite. It's clear that a lot of this has been in the works for some time now, and integrating products and services to this degree requires a lot of planning to position your hardware and software so that it will be capable of working together in the ways you want them to. The Yosemite redesign has also gone quite well, and there aren't as many jarring inconsistencies as there were with iOS 7 at launch despite OS X being a more expansive operating system. Apple has definitely learned from their experiences with the iOS redesign. That being said, there is still a lot of work to do. Apple Pay needs to expand rapidly, and iCloud Photo Library isn't as far developed as I had expected it to be.
It's hard to say where Apple will go as we move forward. It will be hard to outdo the work that has been done with Yosemite. However, history tells me that there are still great things yet to come from Apple. It seems that year after year Apple is able to make updated products and proclaim them to be the biggest advancements in that product's history, and regardless of my initial reaction, I somehow always find myself agreeing .
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sunnohh - Friday, October 31, 2014 - link
Why on earth do you expect a pc to work after warranty? Actually it sounds like it was engineered perfectly.name99 - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
God this is ignorant.What components do you expect to fail which require a "completely new purchase"?
Let's go through my various macs:
I have an HTPC mac mini. Internal HD has failed, so I boot it off an SSD I stuck in a firewire enclosure.
I have an old 17" PPC-based Macbook Pro with a sticky keyboard and more or less dead trackpad (belonged to a friend who spilled coffee on it). I use it as a digital clock.
I have a friend's old macbook air. He (different friend) spilled diet soda on it. The screen doesn't work, neither does the keyboard. So I plugged it into a (VGA-based) LCD screen that's 10+ years old, connected a USB keyboard, and it works fine for my needs.
I had an old Macbook whose fan died. Not ideal, but I directed an external fan at it, and kept it running for about three more years.
etc etc. In my experience Macs last longer than PCs, and they're only getting more reliable. The part that was most likely to fail was the HD, which is gone from portables and on its way out on desktops. The GPU tended to run too hot in desktop machines from around 2006/2007 and so provided a point of failure, but nothing tends to run too hot in a modern mac. etc etc
And when things DO fail, you can generally work around the problem pretty easily to maintain the machine as useful IF YOU WANT TO. If you are such a princess that you refuse to engage in such workarounds, that's your decision, not Apple's.
Sleepingforest - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - link
You spent extra money on an external enclosure, one of your laptops is a clock, another one is anchored in place with a keyboard and display, and the third needs a fan to be function. NONE of the latter are working laptops, in the sense of a portable computing device. And the HTPC required you to spend a non-trivial amount to keep it working.Significantly reduced functionality is not the same as "working," and expecting an expensive product to last in full working condition without cumbersome hacks is not the same as being a princess. If I have shoes with huge holes in the bottom I don't think "well at least it still covers the top of my foot." I replace it because it no longer fulfills it's primary role of protecting the bottom of my food, regardless of any auxiliary tasks it may still perform (and poorly at that).
FATCamaro - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
Trolling. Not an MBPro owner or a 13 year OSX user. Check this users posts later in the thread. They are nonsensical coming from someone who is a 13 year OS user.ViewRoyal - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
Good one! (͡° ͜ʖ°)You are right. We come across too many of these dishonest trolls, who are just out to be a nuisance to REAL users in the comments section..
KPOM - Monday, October 27, 2014 - link
What's wrong with the new iMac? I was impressed that they pulled off a 5K display on a $2499 computer.LostAlone - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - link
The display is great. Pity that it can only run at 30fps at 5k though. And pity it doesn't have anything like the graphics muscle to actually display anything other than pictures at 5k too. And unlike proper computers, you can't upgrade, so you'll be making a MASSIVE sacrifice to get all those pixels. If you ever want to do anything other than look at digital photos at 5k, then you need to look elsewhere. Congrats to Apple for selling a system around a 5k display that is utterly unsuited to doing anything that requires a 5k display.ex2bot - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - link
Wrong! You are wrong, sir! I cannot list how many ways.:) Seriously, I'm not a huge fan of iMacs, though I am a huge fan of Apple laptops. Your statement that the only thing the iMacs are good for is viewing pictures is ridiculously wrong. Almost as if it's a sport to you or something. The iMacs have fast processors and decent GPUs. They'd be great for photographers and general computing tasks. How about editing 4k video? They can handle that just fine.
To recap: WRONG!
Sleepingforest - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - link
You really think a quad core mobile processor is enough (and that's exactly what it is, a mobile processor thanks to Apple's focus on the thickness of a *desktop*) to drive 4K video editing? 4K video editing is a slow crawl on my 8 thread overclocked desktop.x3n0n1c - Friday, October 31, 2014 - link
The iMacs use Desktop class CPUs, always have. The only exception to that is the very lowest model which uses the internals of a macbook air to cut cost.The GPUs are mobile class.