Mac OS X Yosemite Beta Opens

New submitter David Hames (3763525) writes Would you like to test drive the newest release of the Macintosh operating system? Apple is opening up the beta for Mac OS X Yosemite starting Thursday to the first million people who sign up. Beta users won't be able to access such promised Yosemite features such as the ability to make or receive your iPhone calls or text messages on your Mac, turn on your iPhone hotspot feature from your Mac, or "Handoff" the last thing you were doing on your iOS 8 device to your Mac and vice versa. A new iCloud Drive feature is also off-limits, while any Spotlight search suggestions are U.S.-based only. Don't expect all your Mac apps to run either. Ars has a preview of Yosemite.

Re:Why does Apple charge for Mac OSX?

[Timothy Hartman]

The don't charge for Mac OS X actually anymore. Didn't last revision cycle and the previous two versions were $29 and $19 respectively.

Re:Mac OS X Yosemite

[Merk42]

No; Warner Bros. characters
The meanest, toughest, rip-roarin-est, Jony Ive-est OS whatever packed a XNU kernel!

Re:Flat UI Design

[macs4all]

Transparencies, in my mind, are more closely associated with skeumorphic design than flat design and their use in the Yosemite beta is a step backward.

Good thing Apple has give you two places to reduce, or completely eliminate, Transparency in Yosemite.

Read the Ars article for details.

Not Apple's first Yosemite-named Mac product

[wernst]

Those of us of a certain age will probably find the codename of the new OS X oddly familiar.

The so-called "Blue & White" PowerMac G3 was also code-named "Yosemite" (http://apple-history.com/g3blue). Mine still works fine, 15 years later - it'll be old enough to drive and vote soon.

Too bad my Yosemite Mac won't be able to run Yosemite OS X...

Re:Why does Apple charge for Mac OSX?

[UnknowingFool]

Apple hasn't charged for OS X since Mavericks. Then they charged before Mavericks:

• 10.0 "Cheetah": $0
  I don't think there was a price as it was the first OS X to be installed on new machines.
• 10.1 "Puma": $129
• 10.2 "Jaguar": $129
• 10.3 "Panther": $129
• 10.4 "Tiger": $129
• 10.5 "Leopard": $129
• 10.6 "Snow Leopard": $29
• 10.7 "Lion": $29
• 10.8 "Mountain Lion": $19
• 10.9 "Mavericks": $0
• 10.10 "Yosemite": $0

Re:Who is this aimed at?

[azav]

Yes. Yes it does. Bouncing rubber banding scroll views in Safari and the Finder if you use the Magic Mouse. Who the HELL needs this? Kill it. Kill it with fire. Windows and alerts that pop open in your face just like from iOS. So many iOS conventions that simply suck on a desktop. Full screen use on my 30 inch display is counterproductive. Full screen on a multi monitor system with a 30 inch display is a joke.