I might show off more screenshots later on, but probably not until Developer Preview 2. This is still very early days, on DP1, and more is broken on this OS than is working yet. There are, of course, the app compatibility issues -- those are to be expected. There are also still some very fundamental features that aren't worked out. For those who have been following official screenshots, you would probably expect the new Today Screen to be working already -- after all, it did in the Live Demo presented at WWDC. Well, not so much: Still, the new UI is far more readable, and when these features are working, they promise to obsolesce a few third party apps I've relied on for quite a while, such as Alfred and Blotter.
Discovering more broken and partially broken apps. Again, just par for the course when dealing with prerelease OS distributions, but some of what's broken is really a little perplexing. For example, Scrivener works -- for the most part. The exception being the drop-down menus on the formatting bar. Logoist launches, but doesn't display the splash screen for creating new projects or accessing previously created ones. As I understand it, some of Apple's own photo and video software (Ex. Final Cut, Aperture) won't launch at all. (Just checked iPhoto, and that seems to work all right.)
Okay, somehow -- and I have no idea how -- the Today Screen has... fixed itself. I thought perhaps there had been an automatic update while I was away from the desk, but there's no news of that in the feeds, and the version number hasn't changed. So...
^ Maybe it's pulling content from an external source? I installed DP1 also. At first I was a little shocked, but after using it a little I quite like it - however so much is unfinished or just untouched that it's hard to get an exact idea of what the thing will look like when done. Spotlight is a HUGE improvement. I like the idea of Continuity, but I'm not loading iOS 8 betas on my phone/iPad so I can't test those. Running current 3rd-party apps wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be. Unless the app is really badly done or uses a completely custom interface (i.e. Tweetbot) most apps look fairly native. Dock icons also don't clash like you might think either. So, good job in making OS X look new without going too far. A couple of thoughts/nitpicks: The white toolbar buttons are 1) clearly pulled straight from the iOS keyboard, 2) too contrasty with the translucent toolbar, 3) odd-looking with the slight drop shadows. And similarly, the search field/address bar in Safari/Finder/etc shouldn't look like they are sitting ON the window (like the buttons). Messages is a much better take on buttons/embedded fields... (it's also currently the best looking 10.10 app right now, IMHO). The standard blue theme is WAY too bright and they need to ditch the colored end-caps on pop-up list buttons and such. As with the toolbar buttons, if you are going to have translucency then you shouldn't have jarringly contrasting solid colors scattered throughout. It looks odd. I have a feeling I'll primarily use dark mode, though it's so unfinished at the moment I couldn't really get a good idea of it... The translucency on active/inactive windows seems backwards to me; active windows should be opaque and inactive windows should go translucent. They way it is now is honestly confusing. The Finder icon in DP1 is majorly stupid. I changed it to the one shown at the keynote. The mail icon is trying too hard to fit in with their new icon philosophy. Stamps are square, not elongated rectangles. Sheeesh. Like the new (old) dock, wish there was a way to turn off the way it picks up all the background colors. The dock should be a uniform color so the icons in it stand out for easy identification. They could have it, say, pick up the prominent color of the wallpaper and use that (like iTunes does with album view)... I'm hoping the black square icons in System prefs (mission control, dock) are masks that will eventually show the default or the users current wallpaper. Otherwise I don't understand why solid black squares ?? Overall I like it a lot, but those are my complaints so far... ** A warning to Mac users: installing 10.10 does appear to alter the EFI firmware (it switches back and forth for 10.9, 10.10 as far as I can tell) so proceed with caution. If something goes wrong during install or a reboot you could lose the ability to boot into 10.9... (at least in theory anyway). **
I'm not bleeding-edge enough to putz with this kind of stuff. Usually I wait until version .2 of any new software or OS release before I install it. Make sure most of the major bugs are worked out.
So many good catches here that I want to add thoughts to each. It's possible -- one thing I remembered doing that may have affected it was switching from "Blue" to "Graphite" and then back at some point. I had forgotten that I'd done that, and to be honest, I don't really even look at the Today (nee Notifications) Screen that much. I'm sure that I'll grow accustomed to the new feature and incorporate it into my habits, particularly since it obviates a couple of third party apps that will now cease to take up display space -- Blotter and Clear Day being just two. I also like Spotlight's new functionality quite a bit, though it doesn't go quite as far as Alfred, which is the solution I'm already accustomed to. Perhaps by the time Yosemite's Launch Day rolls around it will have gained functionality that it lacks in its current incarnation. I honestly hadn't noticed what you mentioned regarding the toolbar, and I'm lost when you mention "white toolbar buttons". I absolutely agree about Messages, though I'd also say the same for Reminders. I'm okay with the Blue theme -- though I strongly agree that Dark will be what I use the majority of the time, once it's finished. I absolutely agree here, though I do like the look of the partial-translucency thing they're doing. Perhaps the solution would be to render apps in focus with the partial translucency, but render a non-focused app translucent across said app's entire window. Not sure that would work out better, though -- I think I'd have to see it in action to be sure. I don't really have any complaint about the new Finder icon. It looks a bit cartoonish, but for that matter, so does the entire non-skeuomorphic design philosophy, IMO. I entirely agree about the new Mail icon, however. Hell, even I could think -- right this minute -- of a better change than that: Smooth the "stamp edges" and change the image on the stamp to Steve Jobs' face. Or, if that's too much, the Apple logo in white on a gray background with the stamp imprint over that. I actually quite like the translucency in the Dock. Though I would certainly not complain if it was optional rather than a default function. Just for contrast against the SysPrefs background? Don't know. But you're right, they look very much unfinished.
Yosemite has moved on to Developer Preview 2 -- @Apophis , now is a good time to move up if you haven't by the time you read this. Notable changes so far are minimal and seem to be focused on preliminary bug-stomping. For example, app hangs/crashes in the new versions of Safari and Mail have been reduced (but not quite eliminated). App launches and shutdowns across the board are not only more reliable but faster. This is all under-the-hood stuff, which is fine. With that said: No implementation of the Dark color scheme yet, nothing else added to the UX from DP1 to DP2. On the other hand, if you have TotalFinder, you'll be pleased to learn that BinaryAge has updated that app to work on Yosemite's DPs, and it appears to be a more-or-less complete implementation, too, Visor functionality and all. More notes as new information is discovered.
Dark Mode: In Terminal type: Code: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceTheme Dark Log Out / In Looks pretty good, even this early. I think I will be using this full-time. Haven't had time to look at everything else yet... Edit: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1740187&page=39 Some screenshots of tests done by a poster there.
Early thoughts: Finder icon is still goofy (getting a tiny bit worried that may be the final version). The System Preferences icon is much better. The toolbar buttons (top of the Finder window, for example) seem improved (less hard drop-shadow, maybe more blur?). The window controls in both blue and graphite seem to have changed somewhat... the stoplight colors are less garish and the glyphs in the graphite version are now more visible. In /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources you can see work being done on some common icons (looks pretty good). Dark mode is going to be awesome. Some other new icons, notably ScreenSharing look good hi-res, kinda weird at small size. (There's too much hard black in some of these icons.) Like the revisions to Mission Control (forgot about that in DP1 notes). Tab controls now have a thin line around them; so do inactive toolbar buttons for that matter now. Wish they'd add that to the active buttons... Found the switch to turn transparency off; looks good but locks the menu bar to 10.9 look . Weird spacing in the menubar for Spotlight/Date & Time; also my Wifi indicator was nearly invisible. Some key programs that didn't run under DP1 now run fine (FileMaker Pro 13 specifically). That's what I noticed so far. Only had it up for about 30 minutes...
Just a note about current apps under 10.10... The ones that use standard UI will look fine; the ones that use a custom interface will (mostly) look fine. The ones that use a combination look awful. Especially some whose UI predate Leopard. Super-dark and metal against the softer lightness of 10.10 looks ridiculous. Like different apps glued together. That's going to be the biggest issue with 10.10. Also, I was getting pretty annoyed with spotlight. I was typing in application names (like Terminal, PhotoBooth) and getting Wikipedia entries as the top hit?? Turns out spotlight added my boot volume to its' privacy list. Once I fixed that it works pretty damn good. I use LaunchBar right now, though I'm wondering if I will still have a use for it with the new spotlight. (I don't use many of it's power-user features these days...)
I use Alfred 2 -- never tried LaunchBar. I gave Spotlight a shot as a replacement, but I'll probably stick to using Alfred. I do find myself using the Today screen more and more frequently, and I can't wait to see what app developers come up with for it. I also tried the Dark mode through the terminal -- it was actually the very first thing I did. IMO, it's still not ready to take over as my theme of choice, though the potential is definitely looking quite a lot nearer.
When you 'activated' Dark Mode in DP1 it didn't do much, but it did hint that the Finder would be 'dark' - it had half of the list-view rows in black, and the toolbar buttons were dark/grey. This was conspicuously missing this time around. I'm not sure they have a handle exactly what will be 'darkened' in the final release yet... (I hope everything). I watched a few WWDC'14 videos, and I was somewhat disappointed that developers will be able to choose dark or light as a 'default' application theme. And it seemed if they didn't care to include a dark version, if you switch over it won't change that particular application... Maybe I misunderstood, however.
My assumption is that all OS-level visual elements will be able to take on the Dark scheme -- stuff like the stoplights, windowframes, toolbars, Finder, and dialogue boxes. I would guess that with the translucency effects, the Dark theme would look a lot like the "HUD" style we've been seeing in bits and bobs in OSX since 10.5. It's really long overdue that the entire OS should be theme-able, too. I wouldn't be surprised if, not long after Yosemite is released, we start seeing custom .car themes on sites like Deviantart.
So here we are over a month later, and the first Public Beta is out. I happen to be running it right now. So here's what I checked on, right off the bat: Broken apps. Under the Developer Previews up to DP2, the following apps were either completely nonfunctional or had some functions that would crash them or otherwise didn't work as intended: * Logoist (Broken) * Vitamin R 2 (Broken) * Photo Booth (Missing entirely in DP1, image reproduction unusably dark in DP 2) * Scrivener (Composition Mode and Word Count Target setting, broken) Those compatibility issues have been fixed as of Public Beta 1. Bear in mind that I'm saying this as someone whose workflow involves primarily writing and light image creation, but for me, Yosemite is now ready for primary OS status. Dark Mode is also now almost fully implemented. I say almost because menubar icon color inversion isn't yet fully implemented. (For example, Vitamin R 2 uses a black "R" icon in the menubar -- when Dark Mode is invoked, that dark icon isn't inverted to become a light icon.) Obviously, this would only be necessary for grayscale icons. Another app, Fantastical, uses a dark grayscale icon by default -- the grayscale icon doesn't invert to light. On the other hand, you can also elect (through the app's Preferences pane) to use a full-color icon -- and the full-color icon is unaffected by the invocation of Dark Mode. Apophis was also right when he guessed that Dark Mode will only affect OS-level UI elements like the Finder and the Dock.
Aaaand then I found a new broken app -- Skitch. Attempting to capture a fullscreen snapshot causes it to crash.
I'm on DP4, and it's now at a mostly stable state and most of the new UI seems implemented (if not entirely consistent yet...). All my apps *seem* to work fine at this point (though I've heard Pixelmator has some problems). This is the first build I have been able to actually use to do stuff; though I am still using 10.9 for any serious work. Dark mode looks good, but there are still serious issues if transparency is enabled. I have settled on using Graphite/Light Mode/Transparency OFF. In this state, 10.10 looks and runs damn good. The only serious problem I have run into is Safari sometimes pretends I have no tabs open. I have to quit and relaunch it to get them back. But Finder, Safari and QT have always been derpy in DPs, so that's not surprising. If I can rule out any application issues by release time, I will probably upgrade on day one.
Two additions: Though the new Finder icon looks good from a technical standpoint (I even kind of like it) I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Apple has been all over the place with dark mode and it still has serious problems. Plus, it depends on 3rd parties including extra artwork for menubar icons. I would not be surprised to see this feature pulled from the final release. I hope it's not, but this far in for it to be still in this shape I don't know...
I agree with you about the Dark Mode menubar issue with third party icons. Maybe someone with programming experience can shine some light on this, but the idea I have for a fix is for the system to somehow "recognize" monochromatic icons and simply reverse them from dark to light, similarly to what happens to them under the "Invert Colors" option in Accessibility. (The new feature would be enabling the system to "recognize" dark, monochromatic icons, of course.) Other than that, the apps I use in my own workflow have ascended in status from "crippled or broken" to "fully functional or crippled." I haven't run into the issue you mention with Safari, but I have encountered instances of Finder being slow to respond or completely failing to respond when launched from the Dock, though it happens nowhere nearly as frequently on Public Beta 1 as it did in Developer Preview 2, which is where I went back to Mavericks temporarily.
From reports, if it's successfully downloading, you're already having good luck. I've seen plenty of rooba-rooba about download failures for a sizable percentage of beta testers. I even had the same issue for three or four attempts over the course of about an hour, then gave up on it for a few hours. The next attempt after that was the one that succeeded.
Checking out the new Spotlight's capabilities, I decided that I like it enough to run it along side (rather than "instead of") Alfred. So I mapped Alfred, which I'll continue to use for launching applications and Bing, Wikipedia, and Youtube searches, to be Command+Space, while I'll use Spotlight, mapped to Option+Space, for "live and local" searches such as for restaurants, movie times, and local locations+directions.
It downloaded fine for me. I like it pretty well so far, it seems to be a fairly big step up from Maverick's. The new dock just looks awesome, and I like dark mode; it's plasma friendly. All in all, Apple has hit this one out of the park. Now I just have to see if Amarra is going to play nice with it.
At this stage of the new OS's development, that really is the sticking point -- broken (and half broken) apps. It's probably still too early to expect most developers to have even beta updates ready for distribution for the purpose of addressing compatibility issues. (I say "most" because BinaryAge, who make the TotalFinder app, are already on it like a fresh coat of paint. Synium and Literature & Latte, though, not so much.)
The important ones for me are working fine, MPlayerX Movist, Bitperfect, MS Office, pages, etc. Little Snitch is busted though, but that's no biggie for me. I like the update to Safari, though I wish the gradients for tabs had a little bit more contrast to them.
^^I know them feels. The edges of each tab need a little more gradient so that they're easier to find at a glance. More than a few times, now, I've found myself clicking up there just to see which tab comes into (or stays in) focus so I can find the cursor and the tab edge more easily. Then I remembered I'm using a trackpad, so the trick is to pinch in to go into Tab View, then it's a world easier -- but it's slower that way.
Discovered another bug. Safari's Tab View hangs every time it's invoked. Not instantly, though -- the time from invocation of Tab View to hang seems to be random. Used Feedback Assistant to submit the bug to Apple.
