I switched from years of using Windows to OS X after months of observation. I needed a laptop, and I work in an academic environment. I watched what professors and students were using. In my department, the Macs outnumbered the Windows laptops 10:1 at that time, I kept count.
I asked several people who didnt carry laptops if they had desktops at home. Most said, no, they had a Windows laptop at home. I watched Mac users many times. They would pull out their MacBook Pros, open them up, do the work they needed to do, close them and put them away. Several times, I watched this happen in the time one group member got their Windows laptop started and logged in. I concluded that even though Windows laptops outsold Apple. MacBook users were actually able to use their computers.
LOL. I use both, and they do the same thing in similar ways, I don't see a difference in opening up a Windows laptop and using it as compared to OSX.
I tell this story because Apple has enjoyed much of its laptop success in the past few years because their goal was to make the task number one and the tech fade into the background. I think this may have been a Steve Jobs influence because they forgot this while he was gone and came back to it.
Macs no longer outnumber Windows Laptops 10:1. The market share of OSX has changed little over the years Just guessing, it is more like 4:1. So, competitors are catching up. I think Apple needs to be reminded periodically that while design has some appeal; latest tech is also a factor; and portability is convenient, the reason, I think, most people justify getting Mac is because at some level they think or feel that they will get more use out of it. There is a lot to be said for no worries, no headaches.
No worries no headaches?? Bugs are becoming a staple for Mac users
This is relevant with Yosemite because, to a great degree, because users have had to start spending time dealing with the OS. While logging on with wifi has not approached the nightmare of Windows wifi login proportions, What? Wif and Apple has always been an issue, Windows is fine. Windows uses wifi as the alliance deemed it to be used, Apple's implementation of wifi is not 100% compliant, hence issues. it has been an issue, and there have been other attention grabbing bugs.
I think the current build of Yosemite is pretty stable. Wifi problems and Safari problems when changing locations seem to have been mostly eliminated. However, I agree that even though the name might change, the next release needs to primarily be focused on stability, speed and fading into the background again.
File System
Just from a practical point of view, I cant see a file system update happening until OS 11 is released. I am sure that this is being explored though. And, with the industry moving toward PCIe SSD as the drive standard, todays solutions using HDD may not be optimal for SSD.
Appearance
I do not know why this is such a big deal. Just as OS X was moved to look more like iOS in Mountain Lion and Mavericks, Yosemite has been altered to look more like the Apple Watch OS using versions of the same icons. So, even though we were told last year that the flat look was to give Yosemite a more modern look, I think that it was really in order to unify appearance across products.
My only complaint is that they have not gone far enough. As several have said before, OS X could benefit from updated fonts and animations. It would also be nice for the Apple Watch to interface with Notifications with widget versions of many of the watch apps.
If you dont like the colors of the icons take the ones you dont use off the dock. I only have five of the OS X icons on the dock. The rest are in a OS X Apps group in Launchpad.
I forgot that I changed the Accessibility settings to Reduced Transparency a while ago to improve get rid of the increasing number of pinwheels. The gray has not been awe inspiring, but it also has had the distraction of what was going on with the colors of my screen. To tell the truth, I forgot about it and I guess I have had fewer pinwheels too. Its beachballs actually
While having the option to change colors and have scalable fonts would be really nice, the cost is a not insignificant amount of overhead. We are already complaining about bloatware.
Bug fixes
One bug that drives me crazy on nearly a daily basis is after cutting text, the cursor remains in select mode, so when I start typing, it types in one spot. Several clicks will correct this, but it is annoying.
Apple seems to be starting to abandon Apple Script. For example, some Apple Scripts wont work with the latest release of Pages. I wish they would just say that we all need to learn Swift or whatever and change over our scripts or something, instead of things just letting things quit working.
Quicktime needs to be able to play MIDI files again.
Other waste of time bugs have been caused by 3rd-party apps who have problems with Yosemite. These have about caught up.
Features wish list
I use a number of 3rd-party apps that reside in the Menu Bar. I am looking at getting Bartender to make the bar do what the OS should have it do in the first place. This includes hiding the bar when not in use and giving me display and order options.
Most of these 3rd-party apps would be more efficient in the OS.
f.Lux - Allows me to automatically go to dark mode after a specified time. It also removes a lot of blue from the screen backlight in the evening, which has health and sleep effects.
Shady - Lets me control the brightness of additional monitors.
InsomniaX - Lets me disable idle sleep when I am doing something like a long download. It also lets me disable the lid sleep, which I use to listen to audiobooks and music while on the go. I know I should probably get an iPad or iPod, but why? This works really well.
Copy Clip - Lets be select and paste from the last 50 copies and cuts or whatever number I set. This is really useful to copy and paste a lot of information from one document or app to another or several others. I just do all the copies, switch apps and do all the pastes with no going back and forth. Also, if I forget to paste something and copy over it, I can retrieve it.
I also just started using a fan control app, which lets me control fan speed profiles.
I think part of the Apples strategy is to let us bloat our own OS with 3rd party apps that give us the features we want most.