June 16th, 2014, By Don Catalano
With Apple announcing the release of OS X Yosemite coming some time this fall, here are 5 things you need to know.
Spotlight searches will now display information from Wikipedia, Bing, news, Maps, movies, and more. This will make searching much easier, all from one place, instead of having to open Safari and searching the web. You will also get a scrollable preview of your results. While Safari will still be using Google as the default search engine, Spotlight will now use Bing for all your searching needs.
Large attachments in Mail are now managed by Mail Drop, which allows users to send up to 5GB attachments by using iCloud. The attachments are automatically uploaded to iCloud, while the recipients of the email receive the files as a standard attachment. This will be huge as current email clients such as Outlook and Gmail only allow attachments of 25MB or smaller.
The Notification Center will now be fully customizable, allowing third-party widgets from the App Store. The weather, stocks and calendar widgets will also be in the Notification Center for quick and easy access. Allowing customization will give users the ability to have the Notification Center exactly how they want it.
iCloud Drive is a new alternative to Dropbox, in that it stores all files that you upload to iCloud in one place. The iCloud folder will reside in the Finder window so you can easily access all your files. You can add tags to your files, making finding them fast and easy. iCloud Drive will also be accessible from the iCloud website, iPhone and iPhone devices. Apple’s even making iCloud Drive available on Windows. New pricing has been announced for iCloud storage including 5GB for free, 20GB for $0.99/month, and 200GB for $3.99/month.
Just like its predecessor, OS X Yosemite will have a public launch coming in the form of a free upgrade in the fall of 2014. In comparison Windows 7 and Windows 8 still cost roughly around $100.
You can see a full preview of the features on Apple’s website. To see the new iOS 8 features click here.