We have been using Yosemite for some time already and although it has been out for nearly a year, it is still worth to work on how to advance and use the features of Yosemite operating system, I have gathered them on a simple explanatory list and they are open source for you to explore.
Notification Centre and How to Add Widgets
Notification centre have been very useful to quickly check on things which are inn our best interest ranging from stocks to weather or social networking notifications on our Mac but adding widgets to Today’s notification centre is a new feature available to us by Yosemite operating system.
Notification centre will overlay on the side of your screen when you click on the three lines at the top right corner and in order to add widgets you need to click on edit at the bottom of the notification centre screen and click on + symbol to add your preferred widgets. Users also able to personalize the widgets by adjusting the information displayed to what is most pertinent to them, in weather forecasts you may choose city you live in and add also where you are making most calls to, or elsewhere that is significant to you for a personal reason.
Widgets in Mac Store has a huge range that may be interest to you, before you make all the additional widgets to your Notification Centre it would be beneficial for you to visit the Mac Store and download the most compelling ones for your daily life. We are a fan of countdown, especially when Christmas is nearly there and we all counting the days until the day comes for big get together parties, but it is free if you only add events occurring in the next 30 days period. New widgets will appear in the Edit view as simple clicking on Edit and + beside the new widget will add the selected widget to your Notification Centre.
Safari Private Web Browsing
Private browsing is a feature for users to have privacy on what they use the Safari to search, read or watch. How to do this is simple; open safari first, then choose file, new private window, the notification you will realize the page you are on is private can be differentiated by checking if the search bar is grey, if it is grey you are browsing privately. If you prefer your privacy to be kept always you can use DuckDuckGo search engine from the list by clicking on Safari→Preferences→Search→DuckDuckGo, as an alternative you can always choose, Google, Bing or Yahoo as well.
Using Spotlight Search more intense on your Mac
You can use spotlight more intensely to search quickly and effectively any content either by clicking on the magnifier glass symbol in the top right corner of your screen or press ?-Space to bring the full Spotlight Search Window in the middle of the screen, I am sure some users expect that to be in the right hand corner but in Yosemite that has changed and placed in the middle now. Typing what you would like to search on the spotlight will also enable the search on your Mac and Wikipedia, if not successful on what you are looking for, spotlight will offer to search on other engines using a web search option by Bing and others. If users need to bring up results on a specific category, you can set the criteria for a search as a folder, image or a document, spotlight will produce a Finder window with all results displayed with your search matches according to your criteria.
Last option for you will be clicking on the web engine links offered and that will take you directly to the website of the chosen search engine.
Another feature to mention about Spotlight would be making phone calls directly from Spotlight by searching for a friend where their contact details will appear on the screen and clicking on the handset icon will allow you to make direct phone calls from your Mac. The same method can be used to email your friend, hovering on the contacts email address will make and email icon appear and by clicking that icon you will be taken to the email message page.
Spotlight is mainly amazing for directions to be found, I mostly found it stunningly useful when I look for a contact’s address or location, or simply if you search for an address you will see a Map Option, when opened you get to receive the directions to the chosen location, but expectedly you need to have internet connection or WIFI to have your location known by your Mac to guide you for a Map to get to the desired destination. I also liked spotlight to allow users to have conversions for currency or measurements where you need this information quickly in your hand then you see how helpful Spotlight is, it defaults Bing as a search engine and there is no way to change this outside of a hack yet. If you still insist on having another search engine on your spotlight search there is a solution; you need to download Flashlight adding a plug-in system letting you do anything you want to change for example rather than using Bing you can add Google plug-in, you can get your spotlight page up by ?-Space and type “g Search” and your search will be performed on Google not on Bing.
Creating Shortcuts to favourite websites in Safari
This is an improvement helpful you to reach your favourite sites quicker than ever, a new smart search field which appears as a dropdown menu when clicked on search URL field and you will be provided all your favourite website icons to choose whichever you would like to visit. Opening a safari window by clicking on ?-N or ?-T you will see a large view of favourites or the top sites view with tabs on right of the window, the star represents your favourites and dot icon represents your top sites meaning most visited. Top sites and favourites not needed to be used simultaneously Favourites are preferred sue to integration to the search field.
Simple dragging and relocating icons on your favourites view allow you to list or change the order of sites due to your preferences. To add a site to your favourites click on ?-D and “Add to Favourites”. Your chosen favourite will appear on Safari on all your Apple devices synced via iCloud. Please check you iPhone settings if there is synchronisation between your devices by entering into Settings→iCloud.
Texting to Android Phones from Your Mac
iMessages were enabled from Macs since launch of Mavericks in 2013 but the change added by Yosemite is huge since you are now able to text message to Android Phones just like texting SMS from your mobile device. Communication with your connections using Android phones is not an issue anymore. Open messages and simply enter their mobile number or search them in your contacts and text your message to your friend.
Group messages are still available on your Mac but the new feature is adding your non iPhone user friends to the group, the difference is important to know, as soon as there is a non-iOS user number entered or added to the group the messages go to every individual in the group message as a single text message.
Social Sharing in Safari and How to Save Pages
Since Maverick OS X allowed us to add a web page to our Safari reading list we are used to this feature, by hovering over the search bar and clicking on the + symbol appearing on the corner will enable us to save a page on Safari. We can reveal the reader list vy clicking on the icon beside the back and forward arrows on top left. You can also see tweets shared by your friends in here if you do not have this go to System Preferences→Internet Accounts→Twitter and add your details, once all signing in process completed you will see the tweets on your side bar in Safari. In Yosemite there is an additional feature to this option; along with the Twits you can also have your RSS Feeds on the sidebar of the Safari, in order to activate this click on the Subscriptions at the bottom of the column and Add Feed.
You can add feeds from your favourite sites and many others. Show All Tabs in Safari is also new and worth mentioning, it is similar to iOS version with a larger screen view. You can click the show all tabs icon on the top right to reveal all of the websites you have opened in a preview and iCloud tabs open in other devices, if you have so many tabs open, it would be difficult to examine and understand which one is which since Apple concertinas them at the sides now and this is why it is more efficient to view them in Show All Tab.
Making and Receiving calls from your Mac
With Yosemite you can call from your Mac or receive phone calls on your Mac, to use this feature effectively right you need to make sure your make shares the same iCloud settings as your iPhone the same iCloud account is being used to make or take calls from your Mac. Bluetooth of both devices needs to be active, there needs to be a Wi-Fi connection that is from one to another, devices needs to be near each other and both needs to be signed into FaceTime again by using the same iCloud account details, do not misunderstand from this statement that it is using the FaceTime to make or take calls, it is not using FaceTime. You probably realized by now if your devices are using the same Apple ID all of them will receive calls and that might be sometimes inappropriate but you can disable that function if you would like to receive your phone calls only on your iPhone. On Mac not only ringing alert will be given for a phone call but also a notification will appear on the screen, you will then be able to accept or decline the call from this notification.
Using Hotspot on iPhone and Checking the Signal and Battery Life of Devices
As usual you can go to Cellular and hotspot option to use your iPhone to connect to the internet via your Mac and it is useful where you don’t have any other option with Yosemite this is easier to manage since you can check and see how much battery life your iPhone has and how good is the signal being received to reach targeted task completed before your hotspot goes down duw to low battery or other reasons.
Group Messages Management features changed, share location enabled
Annoying memories with group messages that you would like to add or remove someone from the group and unable to do so, those times are passed in Yosemite on your screen in group messages you can now add a new person to the conversation or delete a person if you wish. Another added feature in Yosemite is sharing your location, this is now very familiar to all of us since we share our location with even our bosses when we are late but if you prefer to this on your Mac now it is possible. As sharing made possible viewing their location of friends that shared their locations in the messages also become a normal function on our Macs. Group messaging changes does not only end here you can also choose not to be disturbed by further messages in this group by clicking on Do not disturb button if you want to completely close the conversation click on Leave this conversation option.
Drawing on images in Email and Annotating PDFs
New features added to the mail in Yosemite, we are able to draw on an attachment of an email or attach our own signature. No need to use Dropbox or iCloud to send large files in Yosemite. Mark up feature is very useful, although it may look tricky for people haven’t used it before it is very functional and follows other functions. What I mean is tools to mark-up PDFs, when an email received click on reply and edit the PDF before clicking send, as soon as that’s done you will see an icon appear on the screen for preview of the PDF or Jpeg when you click on this icon you then select the Mark up and item will zoom out into a different window and the toolbar I mentioned earlier will be presented for you to use including arrows, various shapes and a signature tool, if you don’t have a trackpad to use you can add your signature by taking a clear picture of it on a white paper and then click done.
Mail Drop in Yosemite is also an improvement encompass a third dimension to the use of emails and sharing files, you never need to use a third party cloud sharing facility again since Yosemite had Mail Drop, if your attachment is larger than 5MB the file is automatically uploaded to iCloud and when sent to another person the user downloads it from the iCloud. If both sides are using Yosemite they won’t even realize the difference but if the receiver is not on Yosemite or using a PC they will then receive a link similar to what they receive using Dropbox or other sharing organisers, then they need to download the file to their PC to view it.
Continuous Access to iCloud Drive
Yosemite has seriously added a new dimension to mail, sharing files and messaging but one of the most important features of evaluations show that iCloud Drive is what we expected from iCloud in the beginning and now it reached the level of improvement we started to get satisfied by, it hasn’t been long time that we used to use USB sticks or copy and send email to ourselves to use files at home or compress them and send them, now those are all history, after we met with Dropbox and other that was a relief but Apple has gotten the whole thing a lot easier on our devices and hands by means of a click. You can store all your files on the cloud and not even on your Mac, the files will be available to you wherever you are and whenever you need them or device you are using, this is also an online backup, there is a cost involved for iCloud Drive but it is affordable for what is on offer. If you are already using iCloud it will appear on the left column of any Finder window, by clicking this you will reach the apps that have cloud support. You are free to create any kind of file you want and not obliged to use only those apps, in Yosemite the collaboration feature has not yet been added to iCloud but now we can see that it is also possible to send a link to another user to only access the file on your iCloud from any internet connections, you don’t have to be on your Mac, iPhone or iPad. It is useful feature and anything saved on your iCloud Drive will be available on your devices.
Airdrop Files from Mac to Mac or Mac to iPhone in Yosemite
Airdrop lets users to transfer files between devices, it has been there for some time since the announcement of iOS 7 and had been available on Macs longer than this but there had been a lot issues with it reported crashes, not working issue and troubleshooting has shown us a lot of insights that devices working on different technologies had the issue of working properly in Airdrop, Mac works on Wi-Fi and iPhone or iPad using Bluetooth, what a pity, we had these conversations, now it is possible to use airdrop whichever connection the devices are using and no conjunction will be a matter in terms of connectivity technology used.
In Mac open a new Finder window and select airdrop, you can choose everyone or only your friends as who can see, on control centre swipe up and turn on Airdrop on your iPhone or iPad, by doing these steps you should now see the Mac on your device’s sharing option. I still strongly conclude that it works better from Mac to iPhone, Mac showing up on iPhone is not very common but seeing your iPhone on your mac is fairly simpler.
New Feature Handoff explained
This is a new feature added in Yosemite, Handoff means that you can work on multiple tasks while on the go and you can pick up from where left when you get to the machine you use for this particular work, or you may need to add a file to the prepared email on the train on your iPhone and when you hit the ground in the office you may need to complete the email on your main screen with adding some attachment to it. This feature brings continuity to Yosemite, simple requirement for Handoff to work is iCloud signed on to be on both devices and devices need to share the same Wi-Fi network. The only unexpected things is you can’t revert it back to the iPhone as you would presume, what you did in your phone is reflected on the Mac but if you leave an unfinished job on your Mac I am afraid even if you will be on the move you won’t be able to find it on your iPhone. Apps working with Handoff are Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, Notes, Contacts, Keynote, Numbers and Pages.
