What’s New in OS X Yosemite?

Posted on June 3, 2014 by BjTechNews in Apple, Yosemite // 0 Comments

What's New?

During the WWDC14 event Tim Cook touched based on several key elements on the new Operating System. Some of these key elements consist of App Extensions, Handoff, Storyboard and iCloud.

App Extensions

OS X lets you extend select areas of the system with an app extension, which is code that enables custom functionality within the context of a user task. For example, if you have an app for a great photo sharing service, you can provide an extension within your app so your service becomes available throughout OS X from the Share menu. You create an app extension by adding an app extension target to an app. After users install an app that contains extensions, they can enable the extensions in System Preferences. When users are running other apps, enabled extensions can be made available in the appropriate system UI, such as the sharing menu. OS X supports app extensions for the following areas, which are known as extension points:

Share. Share content with social websites or other entities.
Action. Perform a simple task with the selected content.
Today. Provide a quick update or brief function in the Today view of Notification Center.
Finder Sync. Enable services for custom file and sync providers.

Handoff

Handoff enables users to begin an activity on one device, then switch to another device and resume the same activity on the other device. For example, a user who is browsing a long article in Safari moves to an iOS device that’s signed into the same Apple ID, and the same webpage automatically opens in Safari on iOS, with the same scroll position as on the original device. Handoff makes this experience as seamless as possible.

Storyboards

Starting in Xcode 6, you can use storyboards to lay out all the different views you will show your users, arranging them much like the storyboard for a movie. Each view, also called a scene, is connected to other views by transition or containment relationships known as segues. You specify a trigger for a segue in terms of an action such as a button click or a menu item choice.

iCloud

iCloud includes changes that impact the behavior of existing apps and that will affect users of those apps.

Document Data Migration

The iCloud infrastructure is more robust and reliable when transferring documents and data between user devices and the server. When a user installs OS X v10.10 and logs into the device with an iCloud account, the iCloud server performs a one-time migration of the documents and data in that user’s account. This migration involves copying the documents and data to a new version of the app’s container directory. This new container is accessible only to devices running OS X v10.10 or iOS 8. Devices running older operating systems will continue to have access to the original container, but changes made in that container will not appear in the new container and vice versa.