REVIEW: My First 5 Minutes with OS X Yosemite

Holy Caw! This beast is… SLEEK.

I didn’t think I would like the non-skeumorphic icons. I’m not crazy about them on iOS. Yosemite will probably carry me over that hump.

Right off the bat I was concerned about app compatibility. We’ve all been stung by that with these updates. Yet, here it is 30 minutes in. I’ve launched all my go-to apps and I only have 8 requiring update via Software Update. Yet, they launch fine, docs open, save, reopen. Try THAT Windows!

I’ll run Yosemite for a while on this production machine before I take anything else past Maverick. But, there’s plenty of reason to appreciate the polish Apple has applied to this latest version of OS X.

First impression of the UI is the login screen after installation. That’s a really nice “Hello”. Very subtle. Very beautiful. Very elegant. Very… Jonny Ive (honestly).

Next, and particularly impressive, is Safari. I’ve nearly exclusively moved over to Chrome (and Firefox for one very specific site cpanel). Safari hasn’t factored for a long time in my daily use except on iOS. Th new OS X Safari *may* lure me back across the aisle. Realistically, I doubt that… I have too much configuration invested in Chrome at this point to really seriously a permanent move. Kudos to Apple for getting their browser tight and right though. (fwiw, I still miss RSS)

There are so many fresh new nooks and crannies to explore. I’m genuinely looking forward to this one. Those who know me well, know I just plunge into these updates with a reckless pursuit to see what’s waiting on the other side and know the price for that will (usually) be picking up the broken pieces of busted apps and such. And, usually, that’s apparent within the first thirty minutes. Judging by the stability, ease of migration and lack of core apps misbehaving I have to say right now, barely 10 minutes in this is going to be one of the easiest updates I’ve been through of all the OS X releases. It does make me wonder what Yosemite Server must be like. That hasn’t happened in a long time. Which also makes me wonder about ZFS implementation (or lack of) in Yosemite. More on that later if there’s anything to pass along. A boy can hope 🙂

iOS 7 Better Have…

There are some things iOS7 had better have before I consider shelling out the bucks for the next new iPhone. Here’s my iOS bucket list:

• I need a way to import a high quality greeting to my voicemail. Hardline dialing and recording a new greeting is NOT Apple-worthy. I don’t mind recoding to the Voice Memo app or on my Mac. I just ought to be able to import a sound file as my greeting dangit!
• I expect a way to SEND my voicemails to my iCloud account as email attachments. Or create a rule that does it automatically.
• I expect a way to FORWARD voicemails to other iOS devices as messages. I can send a picture/video via MMS… Why not a voicemail attachment?
• I expect a heckuva LOT more out of Siri. It’s more useless than the Maps app right now.
• Maps is borked. Now that Google Maps app is on the App Store… I’m going back to what works. Still love you Apple. Just need excellent Maps when I need a map.
• Something’s still not quite right about Contact sync between iPhone, Mac laptop and iCloud. I have duplicates of many contacts in the order of 19 to upwards of 30 of the same person. There needs to be a super easy way to purge duplicates. Contact management shouldn’t be this nasty a chore.
• Speaking of chores… Apple got the Notes app sync PERFECTLY across devices. It’s not broke. Don’t fix it. 😉 Replicate it’s success for the other devices.
• Facetime is such a great idea. I’ve tried and tried and tried to Facetime on our local wireless LAN. Each time it rings once (so I know the call is coming through) and then indicates I’m busy to the other devices. Needs to be easier.
• The new messaging works pretty swank too. Not sure how they’d improve it just now.
• Can we PLEASE just sync up our phones to Time Machine? Pretty please?
• Passbook is freakin awesome! A killer, kick ass kind of awesome. The world is ready (it just doesn’t know it yet).
• Airplay = way awesome.
• Safari “Reader Mode” is slick. Wish there was a way to make Siri read the content while I’m driving or otherwise occupied. That’s one thing I love about Alex on my Mac.
• Photo streams to my AppleTV is not quite as straight forward an intuitive as I would expect from Apple. Needs Improvement.
• Newsstand is a useless icon on my phone deck. Please, let me delete it or file it in another folder.
• Faxing from my phone should be a no brainer easier than anything to do.
• Finally, PRINTING. Guys. C’mon. Really? Printing is right up there with copy and paste. We’ve been doing this a long time. Why can’t we seem to get this right?

iOS is a super platform. So good in fact that in our household we’re getting device confused. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve swiped our fingers across the screen of the laptop or the iMac. It’s silly really that we’ve become so accustomed to iOS that is’s bleeding over into how we interact with the other computers around us.

 

 

New Safari Seed Posted

Safari for Mac OS X Leopard Seed 9B4009a (only compatible with the 10.5.2 seed) was posted to the ADC recently (link here). This simply means there’s an update coming to the stage sometime soon. Keep your eyes peeled and your software update pinging for updates. As for details of what’s new… It’s downloading in the background now so there’s not much for me to tell about it. There is a ReadMe file. Pretty sure it’s not OK for me to divulge the details due to developer NDA.

The latest public release version of Safari is 3.0.4. This updater (which contains PPC and a Universal versions) takes it to 3.1.0.

I’m generally lukewarm on Safari. Yes, it’s fast. Yes, it’s nicely integrated into the OS (syncing to .mac and all). IMHO it has some serious limitations in the ‘extensions’ department though (comparatively few exist). I’ve extended FireFox to the point I’m no longer sure what’s stock and what’s not. Anyway, it’s not a slight toward Safari. Truth be told, I’m hopeful the Safari browser will find a way to surge past FireFox as I’ve built quite a bunch of bookmarks on the iPhone which makes for a pain to keep sync’d with FireFox. I’d prefer to consolidate all that stuff (or have an app in the middle arbitrating and unifying the various bits from here and there).

Safari RSS v. Google Reader (PIX)

The undisputed heavy-weight contender of the world… Is Google Reader.

Call me a pessimist. Call me a Doubting Thomas. Mr. Scoble was right. Google Reader has it all over Safari, endo, NetNewsWire, even some other things I tried that can’t quite be disclosed until some time in October (wink, wink).

Starting fresh with Google Reader is super easy. Migrating from a heavily entrenched position in Safari isn’t hard either. It’s the mental and emotional migration of going from the one thing to something world better that takes a big leap of faith. How’d I make the break? Follow along:

1. I first had to realize there was a problem. Safari RSS is actually quite good – up to a point. Past the 300 feed mark (or so) it just gets a little dicey and unpredictable. My biggest complaint was seeing updated feed notices despite the feeds not having been updated. That one thing precipitated the fall.
2. Admitting there might just be something better.
3. Downloading and evaluating the options.
4. Swapping horses.

This last one required just a modicum of work. Download Safari2OPML, run it, open up Google Reader (in Firefox… my Safari install is partially borked and doesn’t play nicely with http upload… which could also explain some of the ass pain I’m having with Safari in general… I digress.)

 

Upload the resulting OPML file to Reader.

Enjoy.

Now, you’re really not done. I mean, where do you go from here? Sure you add more feeds. But, what if you want to read content offline? No problem. Google Reader has Gears under the hood which syncs for offline enjoyment (AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT USING SAFARI 3.0.3). There are hints at the Google Gears site Safari support is not far off. Well, OK, we’ll not hold our breath.

Firefox works just peachy with Gears. So, not only is Safari RSS out… Safari is out (for the time being). Apple’s also hiring a Safari Evangelist. At least they recognize the need…

The Downfall. Safari as RSS Reader, Part II

I’m abadoning Safari as my RSS reader. Yes, I know, I’ve written several times Safari was my favorite child. Lately though, and quite inexplicably, Safari has been exhibiting repetitive repetitive disorder. Meaning, it keeps telling me about feeds I’ve already read. A waste of my time. (Even a year ago Safari had cracks in the armor.)

Second, Apple’s putting RSS into Mail.app for Leopard. This isn’t some kind of secret bit of news. Steve Jobs demo’d it on stage at WWDC07. It’s supposedly not the default method of capturing/reading feeds. But why, if I’m exposed to feeds in a browser, would I want to read them in my mail application? That’s just weird.

So, I’m either going with Google Reader (highly likely) or NetNewsWire or Endo. Since it’s been a while what’s the take on the Mac’s RSS feed reading landscape. (offline reading’s not important to me at all – when I’m on a plane I’m working on code).

Now, this also hints at something more ominous… I just realized Safari has lost a LOT of value to me. I have Firefox, Opera, Webkit and Camino installed. (No way Flock comes back onto my Mac) I’ll probably even consider buying OmniWeb (in fact, the demo is downloading in the background).

Adieu Safari.

Google Gears for WebKit (aka Safari)

Requires XCode and a Mac obviously. Hell yes! Will post more once I’ve done the nasty bits first. So excited I just had to blog it RFN. XCode is free. So, head on over to Apple Developer Connection and roll your own.

Safari As RSS Reader

Safari’s not giving up it’s secrets easily. I still like it far better than any of the options. Better than Google Reader. Better than NetNewsWire.

Occassionally, very rarely, I catch a glimpse of something it does I haven’t seen it do before. And, it gave up one more ghost to me today.

While reading Ross Mayfield’s entry on Pownce delivered by RSS to my Safari 2.0.4 browser… I noticed there were “friends” listed in the rightmost column (see picture to left). Those aren’t coming from my computer. Those are coming from Mr. Mayfield. How’s he doing that?! Hell, how can I do that?! Not because I want or need to. Just because I’m curious.

I have a gazillion feeds I keep up with in Safari. It serves me very well. So, when it does something special and out of the ordinary… I’m curious as hell WHY. Anyone want to take a crack at this? It seems Typepad blogs are the only recipients (or causal generators) of this out of the ordinary behavior. Interesting. What is Typepad doing so out of the norm? I’d really like to know.

iPhoney Goes 1.1. iPhone RSS News.

Marketcircle’s updated their iPhone emulator (iPhoney) to version 1.1.

MacRumors reports Apple has an AJAX/Web 2.0 RSS reader in the works specifically for iPhone. Safari gets a big thumbs down. However, iPhoney (using the iPhone agent string) doesn’t get turned away… Nothing is currently served up. But, no “go away” message either. Wish there was some way to ‘view source’.

AJ, how about it?

NICE! iPhone Emulator

MarketCircle’s used the latest WebKit distro to create an iPhone emulator. So far as I know, there’s nothing else out there like it.

FYI – Agent string doesn’t register on your server log files like an iPhone. Suppose you could mod that though…Way to go AJ & Team! ~ hat tip to Jill (my hero!) 

[EDIT – It’s just been updated to 1.1 and even kinda works with Apple’s dedicated iPhone app.]

OSX on iPhone and Google Gears

Since the SDK for iPhone is Web 2.0… I’m wondering if Gears is going to work any better at launch with Safari than it doesn’t now. (Yeah, you read that right… Gears no workie with Safari 3. Although DOES workie with WebKit nightly builds. Hmmm…)

My suspicion is initially no probably not. But it makes a lot of sense and I can think of at least one app I’d like to deploy RFN.

If you haven’t tinkered with Gears yet… Allow me to recommend a pretty nifty example of what it’s capable of. First, you have to have installed FireFox 1.5+ or IE 6+. Runs on Mac 10.2+, Linux and Windows. Second, Download Gears. Third, visit Remember the Milk.

[EDIT: Jason Essington of Wyoming has confirmed the install on WebKit works fine. Must now delve deeper ’cause as y’all know… below Safari lurks a beastie called WebKit. If it works there… it’s going to work just fine on the iPhone eventually. PROVIDED download/install works as I would hope. Will know on June 29 as it is now added mighty high to my list of iPhone to-do’s. Linus intimates Safari compatibility is coming – listen to the mp3]

Technorati Tags: Google Gears, iPhone, Safari, WebKit