5 ms·

I remember just how buggy Yosemite was when DP 1 was released. But it's come a long way, the third GM candidate for Yosemite is really stable, maybe one of the

by Watabou 12y ago

I remember just how buggy Yosemite was when DP 1 was released. But it's come a long way, the third GM candidate for Yosemite is really stable, maybe one of the most stable OS X .0 release. It even has less lag for animations like for Mission Control for retina displays so maybe they finally figured out how to handle a Retina display. The one thing I'm not a fan of is the horrible, and absolutely terrible animation to take windows fullscreen. It takes a proper 2 seconds for a window to go full screen. I just can't see the reason behind this. At least provide an option to disable this animation or provide a terminal command to speed it up like the mission control animations. Handoff is one feature I use more than I thought I would. It still feels like a novelty but I'm glad it's there. I use it most to continue my emails on my Mac from the iPhone. Airdrop on both iOS and the Mac is simply amazing. Now I don't have to wait for Photostream to sync between the two devices. And the little things like Javascript for automation, built in actions for batch renaming and encoding media files inside the right click contextual menu, the dark mode all add up. I'm also looking forward to Siracusa's multi-page review about Yosemite. He hasn't been a fan of transparency, so it will be interesting to hear his thoughts on it. I'm not a fan of it either but I like the transparency used in Yosemite. It's not as distracting and the dark theme really helps with that.

jdswain 12y ago
Mountain Lion was crashing on my Retina MacBook Pro about every day, since I upgraded to Yosemite it hasn't crashed once. Only a single data point, but it appears to be a really stable release now. I still have the impression that the GPU is struggling with the retina display though, I was just using a 4 year old MacBook Air and the display animations were smoother on it than on my rMBP. I do have it scaled up to the max resolution though, I think that makes the performance worse as the scaling is more complex.
- Watabou 12y ago
  I have it set to the max too. It still stutters here and there, but definitely not as much as Mavericks did.
  - eeturunen 12y ago
    That's why I feel like upgrading right now, the handling of graphics is terrible on Mavericks.
intruder 12y ago
DP 1 was terrible. Preview would crash so often, folder icons werent visible on retina displays, many other random crashes. I really can't believe they fixed so much in so little time.
cal2 12y ago
I go between hating transparency and loving transparency. The "Reduce Transparency" option in Universal Access is useful at times.
- qqz 12y ago
  Just curious, why would you love transparency? IMO it’s distracting at best and crashy at worst.
jawns 12y ago
I really dislike the fullscreen behavior in Yosemite, not only for the animation (as you mention), but also because I feel like the average user is going to want a "maximize" button more often than a "fullscreen" button. Besides, most sites that have content that lends itself to fullscreen mode (e.g. YouTube) allow you to enter fullscreen mode through the site, so being able to enter through the browser window is not typically necessary. At work, I use multiple displays, and it's really not seamless when you have one display in fullscreen mode and another not. Imagine having three monitors side-by-side, with the middle in fullscreen mode, and trying to drag a window from Display 1 to Display 3. Maybe this is fixed by now, but in beta, Yosemite sometimes let the fullscreen mode "overrule" the window dragging, so you couldn't see it on Display 2. I know, first world problems, but it's jarring nonetheless. What's especially frustrating is that there doesn't seem to be a built-in "maximize" function anywhere! The closest I've come to in Chrome is Window > Zoom, but there's not even a keyboard shortcut for that.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  Double click the tip of the window and it will maximise.
  - cerberusss 12y ago
    This is a great tip, and much easier to remember than option-clicking the green button!
  - nbertram 12y ago
    Thanks!
- hjuutilainen 12y ago
  Option-clicking will do maximize instead of full screen.
  - jawns 12y ago
    That seems to only work some of the time. It doesn't work for me in Chrome, at least in the beta.
lpsz 12y ago
The full-screen animation has been around since 10.7 or so and it is absolutely frustrating due to how jerky it looks. Compare this with say, Exposé or switching Spaces. Both are pleasant, smooth animations. I've come to have a subconscious association of "full screen button" == "slow painful animation" and essentially avoid this feature just as I avoid touching fire.
- jws 12y ago
  This may be device specific. On my 5 year old iMac full screen is smooth enough I can't detect its individual frames. It takes about one second. Edit: Shooting it at 240fps in video and counting frames confirms 60fps animation.
freshyill 12y ago
I think the slow full-screen animation is intentional. It's easy to trigger by accident, but getting out of full-screen mode isn't so easy or obvious. I think they want people to really see what's happening.
- bosky101 12y ago
  try shift+enter on a terminal.
huskyr 12y ago
Siracusa's review is up here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/
calebm 12y ago
You say it is stable; would you say it is...rock solid?

by Watabou 12y ago

jdswain 12y ago

Mountain Lion was crashing on my Retina MacBook Pro about every day, since I upgraded to Yosemite it hasn't crashed once. Only a single data point, but it appears to be a really stable release now. I still have the impression that the GPU is struggling with the retina display though, I was just using a 4 year old MacBook Air and the display animations were smoother on it than on my rMBP. I do have it scaled up to the max resolution though, I think that makes the performance worse as the scaling is more complex.

Watabou 12y ago
I have it set to the max too. It still stutters here and there, but definitely not as much as Mavericks did.
- eeturunen 12y ago
  That's why I feel like upgrading right now, the handling of graphics is terrible on Mavericks.

intruder 12y ago

DP 1 was terrible. Preview would crash so often, folder icons werent visible on retina displays, many other random crashes. I really can't believe they fixed so much in so little time.

cal2 12y ago

I go between hating transparency and loving transparency. The "Reduce Transparency" option in Universal Access is useful at times.

qqz 12y ago
Just curious, why would you love transparency? IMO it’s distracting at best and crashy at worst.

jawns 12y ago

I really dislike the fullscreen behavior in Yosemite, not only for the animation (as you mention), but also because I feel like the average user is going to want a "maximize" button more often than a "fullscreen" button. Besides, most sites that have content that lends itself to fullscreen mode (e.g. YouTube) allow you to enter fullscreen mode through the site, so being able to enter through the browser window is not typically necessary. At work, I use multiple displays, and it's really not seamless when you have one display in fullscreen mode and another not. Imagine having three monitors side-by-side, with the middle in fullscreen mode, and trying to drag a window from Display 1 to Display 3. Maybe this is fixed by now, but in beta, Yosemite sometimes let the fullscreen mode "overrule" the window dragging, so you couldn't see it on Display 2. I know, first world problems, but it's jarring nonetheless. What's especially frustrating is that there doesn't seem to be a built-in "maximize" function anywhere! The closest I've come to in Chrome is Window > Zoom, but there's not even a keyboard shortcut for that.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
Double click the tip of the window and it will maximise.
- cerberusss 12y ago
  This is a great tip, and much easier to remember than option-clicking the green button!
- nbertram 12y ago
  Thanks!
hjuutilainen 12y ago
Option-clicking will do maximize instead of full screen.
- jawns 12y ago
  That seems to only work some of the time. It doesn't work for me in Chrome, at least in the beta.

lpsz 12y ago

The full-screen animation has been around since 10.7 or so and it is absolutely frustrating due to how jerky it looks. Compare this with say, Exposé or switching Spaces. Both are pleasant, smooth animations. I've come to have a subconscious association of "full screen button" == "slow painful animation" and essentially avoid this feature just as I avoid touching fire.

jws 12y ago
This may be device specific. On my 5 year old iMac full screen is smooth enough I can't detect its individual frames. It takes about one second. Edit: Shooting it at 240fps in video and counting frames confirms 60fps animation.

freshyill 12y ago

I think the slow full-screen animation is intentional. It's easy to trigger by accident, but getting out of full-screen mode isn't so easy or obvious. I think they want people to really see what's happening.

bosky101 12y ago
try shift+enter on a terminal.

huskyr 12y ago

Siracusa's review is up here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/

calebm 12y ago

You say it is stable; would you say it is...rock solid?