Daniel Hruska The year has come to a close and OS X is getting ready for its next version – El Capitan. OS X Yosemite last year brought a big change in terms of user experience, and it looks like the next iterations will be named after objects in Yosemite National Park. Let's summarize what major news the "Captain" brings.
System
Font
Lucida Grande has always been the default font in the OS X user experience. Last year in Yosemite, it was replaced by the Helvetica Neue font, and this year there has been another change. The new font is called San Francisco, which Apple Watch owners may already be familiar with. iOS 9 should also undergo a similar change. Apple now has three operating systems, so it is not surprising that they are trying to visually resemble them.
Split View
Currently, you can work on a Mac with windows open on one or more desktops, or with a window in full-screen mode. Split View takes advantage of both views and allows you to have two windows side by side at once in full screen mode.
Mission Control
Mission Control, i.e. a helper for managing open windows and surfaces, was also slightly revised. El Capitan should bring an end to stacking and hiding one application's windows under one another. Whether it is good or not, only practice will show.
Spotlight
Unfortunately, the first of the new functions does not apply to Czech - that is, search using natural language (supported languages are English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish). For example, just type "Documents I worked on last week" and Spotlight will search for documents from the last week. In addition to this Spotlight can search for weather, stocks or videos on the web.
Finding the cursor
Sometimes you can't find the cursor even if you're frantically flicking the mouse or scrolling the trackpad. In El Capitan, during that brief moment of panic, the cursor automatically zooms in so you can find it almost instantly.
Application
Safari
Panels with frequently used pages can be pinned to the left edge in Safari, which will remain there even when the browser is restarted. Links from pinned panels open in new panels. This feature has been offered by Opera or Chrome for a long time, and I personally missed it quite a bit in Safari.
Swipe left to delete an email. Swipe right to mark it as read. We all use these gestures on a daily basis on iOS, and we'll soon be on OS X El Capitan as well. Or we will have multiple messages broken down in multiple panels in the window for the new email. Mail will intelligently suggest adding an event to the calendar or a new contact from the text of the message.
Notes
Lists, images, map locations or even sketches can all be stored, sorted and edited in the completely redesigned Notes app. iOS 9 will also get all these new features, so all content will be synced via iCloud. That there would be a serious threat to Evernote and other notebooks?
Fotky
Applications Fotky only the recent OS X Yosemite update has brought and we are already being showered with new features. These are third-party add-ons that can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. Popular applications from iOS can also get a chance on OS X.
Maps
Maps are not only suitable for car navigation, but also for finding public transport connections. In El Capitan, you'll be able to look up a connection ahead of time, send it to your iPhone, and hit the road. So far, unfortunately, these are only selected world cities plus more than 300 cities in China. It can be seen that China is a really important market for Apple.
Under the lid
Performance
Even before the launch of OS X El Capitan, there were rumors that optimization and stabilization of the entire system would come - something like the "good old" Snow Leopard used to be. Applications should open up to 1,4 times faster or PDF previews should be displayed up to 4 times faster than Yosemite.
Metal
Macs have never been gaming computers, and they don't try to be. Metal was primarily intended for iOS devices, but why not use it on OS X as well? Many of us play a 3D game from time to time, so why not have it in better detail on Mac as well. Metal should also help with the fluidity of system animations.
Availability
As usual, beta versions are available to developers immediately after WWDC. Last year, Apple also created a testing program for the general public, where anyone can try OS X before its release - the public beta should come in the summer. The final version will be free to download in the fall, but the exact date has not yet been specified.
"Metal should also help the smoothness of system animations." - So I hope that's the main thing. Federighi actually mentioned it there and he wasn't saying it just for fun imho, he was admitting that it's not quite the same at the moment. It really needs to do something about the age-old parade of jerks, tearing, and GUI glitches and lags. Now to put words into practice, only then will I believe they meant it...
Well, they haven't announced which GPUs will support Metal, which makes me nervous because I have a non-retina Mid 2012... the fact that they didn't drop iOS 9 support on the iPhone 4S gives me a glimmer of hope, but the fact is that writing a low level driver for an Intel HD 4000 is a bit different calibre.. I'm installing the developer preview right now, so I hope to scare it up somewhere..
Well, this scares me a bit too, because I have a Mid2010 17" and that is already a grandfather, but it does not have an adequate replacement for me - the super fine but small displays that Apple now offers on laptops are nothing for my eyes (I tried some been working with the MBP15 Retina for some time and it's really much worse than my old MBP17)…
It's really a shame that Apple is so successful in consumer products (=phones) and therefore can afford to criticize us for not playing, but working (no offense - this is of course a deliberate ironic understatement :)
Someone has already written a demo application to test the availability of Metal http://netkas.org/?p=1405 ... there are also min. requirements pulled from somewhere in the driver. I recommend running the test directly on El Capitan…
Thanks, but when I run it on 10.11, it just crashes (MBP 13″ Mid 2010 with nvidia 320M)
It is a pity. Last night I programmed a new utility that goes through all GPUs, since this one from netkas always activates the most powerful GPU, which in my case is the GT650M. When I get home from work, I will install the utility.
Thanks, that will be great :-)
Here is my utility, I'm curious if there will be anything different.. http://uloz.to/x1SosrFt/metal
Thanks, but you have to advise me what to do with that file :)
just run it, if that doesn't work, open the terminal and write (without quotes) "chmod a+x" and drag&drop the icon of that file into the terminal window, then enter... and ideally drag&drop again and enter.... it should be enough to do only the first command and the application should go to start with the mouse... I'm sorry for making it so complicated, but before uploading I should have packed the file into a ZIP or a DMG image, then it wouldn't have lost the executable file flag
Thanks, so the output is:
2015-06-12 15:10:49.825 metal[1992:475876] Metal devices :0
logout
Saving session...completed.
Deleting expired sessions...none found.
So for 320M, probably the expected result. It's hard to say whether Apple will loosen up support over time, we're in beta, but I don't have much faith in it myself.
so I'm sorry... it's a developer preview, but I wouldn't expect more support...
2015-06-12 20:16:25.786 metal[667:30270] Metal devices :2
2015-06-12 20:16:25.787 metal[667:30270] Device 1:
{
name = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M";
}
2015-06-12 20:16:25.787 metal[667:30270] Device 2:
{
name = "Intel HD Graphics 4000";
}
By the way, this morning my phone rang and I had El Capitan on, my Mac started ringing automatically, as soon as I picked up the call on the phone, after 10 seconds of the call I hear the buzzing of the drive in the Mac, Handoff dropped the OS X set, it's only a Developer Preview , but in my opinion, no service like Handoff&Continuity should bring the operating system to its knees even if it is a DP, it scares me quite a bit...
The function is great, only the presentation of Metal is a bit laughable in 2015, when it will be possible to run really graphically sophisticated games like GTA 5 on OS X, then they can talk about success.
So 10.11 rolled out, so far it's working nicely. The new font is excellent. I haven't figured out yet how to verify the functionality of Metal, I'll probably launch Xcode and make a demo application, there might be some API through which I could learn more. Anyway, one thing bothers me….THE 3 FINGER GESTURE TO MOVE WINDOWS(click & drag) IS GONE!! Gestures were somehow miscalculated, gestures that were for 4 fingers are now for 3, I put it back, but you can't turn on the 3-finger gesture anywhere.... maybe it's the preview or the fact that I don't know some new gesture, but it would bother me a lot if it disappeared...
Thanks, now I know I don't have to install it yet, I use that gesture every 5 minutes.
Nothing went anywhere. You have everything in Accessibility – Mouse & Trackpad – Trackpad Options... There you can choose Dragging: without drag lock, with drag lock or three finger drag.
As for the preset gestures in System Preferences / Trackpad, the default is always three-finger gestures, four-finger gestures are optional. However, if you've always upgraded on previous systems, your preferences won't change that, so after doing a clean test install of 10.11, you might have thought on the side (I assume) that something is different now - it's not.
Thanks, I looked in Accessibility but missed that option. Anyway, I never had to access previous versions of the system at all.
And as for the 4-finger gestures, I have 2 macs at home that I started on OS X 10.8, I never upgraded, but always a clean install of nightly OS X, and on both computers I always had 4-fingers for mission control and switching surfaces by default. The only thing I always had to change was to enable tap-click, two-finger right-click and exposé... I have OS X 10.11 on an external drive.
It's a fact that moving windows with three fingers has probably been pushed into Accessibility now, before it was maybe in the Trackpad settings. I use dragging without drag lock, so I've always climbed there, that's why it doesn't work for me anymore. I can't use three fingers to move windows, because moving back/forward wouldn't work for me, for example in the Finder, which is done by swiping with three fingers and I use it practically all the time.
However, I haven't really seen 4-finger gestures as a default yet (the last time it was on Exposé and the desktop view in the old 10.6). Since there is Mission Control, Application Exposé and scrolling between surfaces to the sides, starting with 10.7 the default is 3 fingers (and I also always reset it - also because I wouldn't be able to go back/forward again). Maybe some kind of recovery from Time Machine was responsible for it, for example, I don't know.
PS: To avoid confusion, I am one and the same person :-) somehow a different name crept in there, probably someone was in office here.
Oh, and metal, see below.
So I figured it out, I read the Yosemite dialogs and it was there. Indeed, by default they are gestures for 3 fingers, the problem was that Yosemite (and older) takes a gesture with 4 fingers as if they were 3.. I have 3 fingers set but I use 4 :) ... anyway, El Capitan is no longer so tolerant and does not nothing on 4 fingers... I've been living with it for so long that I'll have to set it to 10.11 on 4 :D ... What about the Metal utility, any results?
It's a fact that it takes 4 fingers like 3. In my case, even on 10.11 :-) Also clean installation on ext. disc. I've also experienced the 4 fingers, because that's how the classic Exposé was always invoked before they came with Mission Control.