Welcome to our Mac OS X El Capitan review video. Apple's OS X is the operating system that all modern Macs run on, and the latest version, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, was released in September 2015. Since its initial release, Apple has issued three updates to OS X and OS X 10.11, three forms the basis for this video. We've had four months to test out El Capitan, and its story has changed along with each new update.
El Capitan introduced a few new features, some have become indispensable. Each OS X update has fixed some problems, yet many users report issues with El Capitan, and the speed and frequency of El Capitan software updates are a cause for concern. Best new features. Let's start with something simple but overwhelmingly positive, shall we? When you shake the mouse, or a finger on the trackpad, you now tap it.
The pointer briefly becomes enormous, enabling you to find it. This giant pointer is such a dumb-sounding feature that nobody paid any real attention during the launch. Mostly, it was treated as a now for something completely different in reviews.
Which is a shame, because it's Ace. Four months on and El Capitan Shake defined as the one new feature that we use relentlessly and wouldn't want to be without. Features that stand the test of time. Beyond the giant pointer, El Capitan did introduce a lot of new functions that have stood the test of time.
Notes? The update to notes is coming soon. Notes 4, in particular, has brought us to the app and away from rivals, such as Wunderlist or Evernote.
The ability to create lists and notes is a bonus, and we often use it for quick disposable lists of items, such as a shopping list. The ability to add videos, audio, and PDF have helped transform Notes into a throwaway text tool and a useful app. San Francisco. Moving from Helvetica to San Francisco was a big move for Apple, a system font replacement permutations throughout the whole system. For us, San Francisco is one of the most important places to start.
bolder and friendlier and more space efficient. It was jarring at first, but now we're used to it. Mission Control Apple's move away from overlapping windows and mission control has proved to be a good move. We find ourselves using and enjoying mission control. The ability to get previews of windows by pressing the spacebar is a neat feature.
We find the continued absence of windows that snap to edges and corners somewhat odd, but apps like Moom and Better Snap Tool replicate this much-loved windows feature. Recent bug fixes and updates Many users users have noted problems with OS X El Capitan, which we've come to expect from most major software updates. It's always good advice to wait until the first update before upgrading Critical Work systems. What has surprised us is the speed and frequency of updates. We're now four months in from the launch of OS X, and we've already had three software updates, with the fourth OS X 10.11, four in beta testing, and due to launch soon.
Given that the most recent versions of OS X all maxed out with five updates, having four in strikes us as odd. It may be that Apple has moved to a faster and more frequent update cycle for OSX, or it could be a sign that El Capitan has many unresolved issues. So far Apple has fixed countless Wi-Fi, mail and photos problems, fixed compatibility issues with Microsoft Office, and improved installation reliability.
We were hoping that El Capitan would be the modern snow leopard. An OS with few new features but much faster and more reliable. El Capitan certainly is faster, but it's dogged by reliability and reliability.
liability issues. Here's hoping Apple fixes them all soon. Spotlight in El Capitan.
Also getting a significant change is Spotlight, Apple's tool for searching UMAC. One of the criticisms of Spotlight in Yosemite was that Apple moved it to the center of the screen from the right-hand corner. This gave Spotlight more space for its results. But people were frustrated that the Spotlight window couldn't be moved from its new location. Well, that's changed in El Capitan.
You can click on the Spotlight result box and move it around the screen. We are disappointed that when you click away from the Spotlight results, the box vanishes, though we often find ourselves having to jot down conversions from Spotlight so we can copy them into a document we are working on. Now the box can be moved out of the way it is only logical that we should be able to keep it on the screen if we want to.
You can also resize the results window. Spotlight also gets natural language search, which hints that Siri may be coming to the Mac. You will be able to construct your search query in a more colloquial way. For example, Documents I wrote in July or emails sent by Ashley.
Move towards natural language queries makes a lot of sense because many people search using natural language queries because they don't know how to search any other way. Just look at the way people search Google. Speed boosts in El Capitan.
Apple claims that in El Capitan, apps launch up to 40% faster. Switching between apps takes half the time. And opening PDF is up to four times faster.
Some of these speed boosts are due Apple's decision to bring metal. The high-speed graphics technology launched on iOS last year to the Mac. Metal is the graphics technology that was introduced in iOS 8. Metal will bring improved game performance and improved performance in processor-hungry apps.
Adobe has already committed to adopting Metal for its OS X apps and demonstrated how Metal has improved After Effects and Illustrator. Autodesk and The Foundry have also committed to using Metal, and it is thought that using Metal will also drastically speed up the likes of Autodesk's Maya. We are going to end this video right away.
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