OS X Yosemite ( ; version 10.10) is the eleventh major release of

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computers. OS X Yosemite was announced and released to developers on June 2, 2014, at

WWDC 2014 The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is usually held at Apple Park in California. The event is usually used to showcase new software and technologies in th ...

and released to public beta testers on July 24, 2014. Yosemite was released to consumers on October 16, 2014. Following the

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

landmark-based naming scheme introduced with

OS X Mavericks OS X Mavericks (version 10.9) is the 10th major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mavericks was announced on June 10, 2013, at WWDC 2013, and was released on October 22, 2013, ...

, Yosemite is named after the

national park A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individua ...

System requirements

All Macintosh products capable of running OS X Mountain Lion (v10.8.x) are able to run Yosemite as the two operating systems have the same requirements. However, to take full advantage of the Handoff feature, additional minimum system requirements include a Mac with Bluetooth LE (Bluetooth 4.0). As with Mavericks and Mountain Lion, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of available storage, and Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or later are required. These are the models that are compatible with OS X Yosemite: *

iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In i ...

(Mid 2007 or later) * MacBook (Aluminum, Late 2008 or later) *

MacBook Air The MacBook Air is a line of ultrabook computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. It consists of a full-size keyboard, a machined aluminum case, and, in the more modern versions, a thin light structure. The Air was originally positi ...

(Late 2008 or later) * MacBook Pro (Mid 2007 or later) * Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later) * Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later) * Xserve (Early 2009) These are the models that support new features such as Handoff, Instant Hotspot as well as

AirDrop An airdrop is a type of airlift in which items including weapons, equipment, humanitarian aid or leaflets are delivered by military or civilian aircraft without their landing. Developed during World War II to resupply otherwise inaccessible ...

between Mac computers and iOS devices: *

(Late 2012 or later) * MacBook (Early 2015 or later) *

(Mid 2012 or later) * MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or later) * Mac Mini (Late 2012 or later) * Mac Pro (Late 2013)

Features

Design

Yosemite introduced a major overhaul of OS X's

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

, emphasizing flat graphic design over skeuomorphism, following the aesthetic introduced with iOS 7. It is the first major redesign of the OS X user interface since 10.5 Leopard. Other changes include thinner fonts and blurred translucency effects. Some icons have been changed to correspond with those of iOS 7 and iOS 8. Yosemite maintains the

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

desktop metaphor In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it i ...

. Other design changes include new icons, light and dark color schemes, and the replacement of Lucida Grande with Helvetica Neue as the default system typeface. It was the only macOS version to use Helvetica Neue as the default typeface, as in El Capitan it was again changed, this time to Apple's own, newly-designed

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

typeface. The Dock is now a 2D translucent rectangle instead of a skeuomorphic glass shelf, reminiscent of the Dock design used in early versions of OS X through

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...

and in iOS since iOS 7.

Continuity

Many of Yosemite's new features focus on the theme of continuity, increasing its integration with other Apple platforms and services such as iOS and

iCloud iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...

. The Handoff functionality allows the operating system to integrate with iOS 8 devices over Bluetooth LE and

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio w ...

; users can place and answer phone calls using their iPhone as a conduit, send and receive text messages, activate personal hotspots, or load items being worked on in a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on ...

(such as

Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

drafts or Numbers

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ce ...

s) directly into their desktop equivalent.

Notification Center

Notification Center Notification Center is a feature in iOS and macOS that provides an overview of alerts from applications. It displays notifications until the user completes an associated action, rather than requiring instant resolution. Users may choose what a ...

features a new "Today" view, similar to that in iOS. The Today view can display information and updates from various sources, along with widgets. The widgets in the Today view are similar to those of iOS 8.

Photos

As of OS X 10.10.3, Photos replaces both iPhoto and

Aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...

. It uses iCloud Photo Library to upload all the user's photos across their devices.

Applications found on OS X 10.10 Yosemite

*AirPort Utility * App Store *Archive Utility *Audio MIDI Setup *Automator *Bluetooth File Exchange * Boot Camp Assistant *

Calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-size ...

* Calendar *Chess *

ColorSync Utility This is a list of built-in apps and system components developed by Apple Inc. for macOS that come bundled by default or are installed through a system update. Many of the default programs found on macOS have counterparts on Apple's other operat ...

*Console * Contacts * Dictionary * Digital Color Meter *

Disk Utility A disk utility is a utility program that allows a user to perform various functions on a computer disk, such as disk partitioning and logical volume management, as well as multiple smaller tasks such as changing drive letters and other mount p ...

DVD Player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...

* FaceTime * Font Book * Game Center * GarageBand (may not be pre-installed) * Grab * Grapher * iBooks (now Apple Books) *

iMovie iMovie (known at times as iMovie HD) is a preinstalled video editing application developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices. It was originally released in 1999 as a Mac OS 8 application bundled with the first FireWire-en ...

(may not be pre-installed) * iTunes *Image Capture *Ink (can only be accessed by connecting a graphics tablet to your Mac) * Keychain Access *

Keynote A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework fo ...

(may not be pre-installed) * Maps *

Messages A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. A ...

* Migration Assistant * Notes *

* Numbers (may not be pre-installed) * Pages (may not be pre-installed) * Photo Booth * Preview * QuickTime Player * Reminders * Script Editor * Stickies * System Information * Terminal * TextEdit * Time Machine * VoiceOver Utility * X11/XQuartz (may not be pre-installed)

Other

Spotlight is a more prominent part of the operating system; it now displays its search box in the center of the screen and can include results from online sources, including Bing, Maps, and

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read ref ...

. Stock applications such as Safari and

have been updated. In particular, many security features have been added to Safari, such as a custom history clearing option that lets users clear history, cookies, and other data from the previous hour, day, or two days. In addition, Apple added DuckDuckGo to its search offerings, a non-tracking search engine that doesn’t store users’ data. Safari allows you to remotely close tabs from an iOS device. Safari now supports browsing in private browsing mode with certain windows (as opposed to all the windows having to be either in or out of private browsing). The green "zoom" button on windows now has a different function in applications that support full-screen mode. Instead of simply enlarging the window, the button now enters full-screen mode, eliminating the full-screen button at the top-right corner of windows that has been present since Mac OS X Lion. However, holding the Option key (⌥) while clicking the zoom button or double-clicking on the window chrome continues to invoke the original behavior. JavaScript for Automation (JXA) is the new system-wide support for scripting with

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

, built upon JavaScriptCore and the

Open Scripting Architecture AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system automa ...

. It features an

Objective-C Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its N ...

bridge which enables entire

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

applications to be programmed in JavaScript. Along with other framework changes,

CloudKit CloudKit is an integrated macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS API that functions as a backend as a service (BaaS). CloudKit is the framework that powers iCloud iCloud is a cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a s ...

was integrated in this release. CloudKit functions as a Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) and is one method for

app App, Apps or APP may refer to: Computing * Application software * Mobile app, software designed to run on smartphones and other mobile devices * Web application or web app, software designed to run inside a web browser * Adjusted Peak Performan ...

developers to integrate access to Apple’s iCloud servers into their apps. There is a "dark mode" in

System Preferences System Settings (System Preferences on macOS Monterey and earlier) is an application included with macOS. It allows users to modify various system settings, which are divided into separate Preference Panes. The System Settings application wa ...

which makes the Dock and menu bar darker.

Beta testing

Apple initiated a new public beta program for OS X, a practice not seen with its operating systems since 2000's Mac OS X Public Beta, which had preceded the release of Mac OS X v10.0. Yosemite is part of the OS X Beta Seed Program, a public program that allows the first 1 million users to download and test the Yosemite beta at no charge. Beta testers are required to acknowledge the potential risks involved with prerelease software, and sign a

non-disclosure agreement A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legal contract or part of a contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wis ...

(NDA). The program began releasing Public Betas on July 24, 2014. Six public betas of Yosemite were released.

Reception

On release, Yosemite received positive reviews, with users praising the simplified user interface. Programmer John Siracusa, who had reviewed every OS release, wrote for ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sc ...

'' that "Yosemite is an aesthetic one-way valve... switching back to Mavericks after a week or two in Yosemite is like returning to iOS 6. Everything looks embarrassingly chunky, glossy, and gaudy." ''Macworld''s review generally praised Yosemite for its design, but noted that it had found WiFi network issues and that Continuity had proved unreliable.

Criticism

Yosemite faced problems with network stability and the discoveryd DNS program. Because of this, Apple replaced discoveryd with the mDNSResponder system (used in Mavericks) in 10.10.4. Another notable bug experienced on Yosemite was the 'Unicode of death' problem, following a similar bug in 2013, in which a meaningless Arabic text string could crash applications using the system text-display APIs. Some users who upgraded to Yosemite complained that the Finder fails to show the contents of folders. Software developers and users have argued that Apple's yearly release schedule and development practices have compromised stability, and mean that no version of OS X is truly recommendable for users prioritizing reliability over new user interface design and features. Spotlight on Yosemite by default reports the user's current location (at the city level) and all their search queries to Apple and third parties. Reporting by Spotlight can be disabled by the user, although, even if this is done, the Safari

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

will continue to send search terms to Apple unless the function is separately disabled.

Release history

Timeline of Macintosh operating systems

References

External links

*
OS X Yosemite: The Ars Technica Review
{{Authority control 10 X86-64 operating systems 2014 software Computer-related introductions in 2014