Apple’s latest OS X version 10.11 dubbed as El Capitan was announced this year at WWDC, which has been designed to streamline the experience on Mac. This is now the 3rd iteration of the Apple’s initiative to offer free operating system upgrades.
So, here are some of the new features added to El Capitan.
Mission Control
The Mission Control in El Capitan has been streamlined for easy multi window desktop management to make it easier to spot which window you’re after when multiple apps are opened. Mission Control panel can be invoked by swiping up with four fingers, which arranges the opened app windows relative to their location on the desktop.
For instance, when iTunes and Safari are located to the left and right of the desktop, they will be displayed in the same respective locations in Mission Control. Mission Control in the latest OS looks generally cleaner than before, since the windows are now spread in an even layer instead of being randomly dispersed.
Split View
OS X El Capitan lets users split screen to view multiple apps at once. To enter the Split View mode, you have to click and hold down the green full screen button in the app’s toolbar which lets you dock whatever app you’re working on to the left or right side of the screen. Split View takes half the width of the screen by default, but we can drag the border to make it narrower or wider.
Notes
The updated Notes on OS X 10.11 lets users integrate PDFs, videos, images and other media directly into the notes via drag-and-drop insertion and let users create checklists with a single click in out of the line separated items.
The text is automatically formatted for bold headline and a smaller font for the body text once we start typing in a new note. Images dropped into Notes can be quickly searched by clicking on the Attachments browser button, or create to-do lists using the Checklists button.
Spotlight
Spotlight has been overhauled in El Capitan to give more accurate and relevant results than before and also includes natural language search. For instance, if we enter a phrase such as ‘Find photos taken in San Francisco last week’ swiftly returns the contextualised searches. It draws information from a wide range of sources, including your documents, Calendar, Mail, Apps, Messages and web history, and has been revamped to include stocks, web video and weather forecasts.
Safari
Safari in El Capitan lets you pin sites for easy access, for instance, it lets users mute playing audio and stream content from an icon that shows up in the Smart Search bar field instantly without showing you where the music is coming from. Now the annoying autoplay ads are over.
The new features in Mail let users manage their scheduling and communication in a more interactive manner. Swiping left and right in Mail now let users mark messages as unread or trash messages quickly, which favors trackpad users. Mail in El Capitan gets Tabs which let users manage different messages in full-screen, and suggested events and contacts make it easier to populate their calendar and address book.
Photos
The built-in photo management app in El Capitan includes the support for editing extensions and also allows the third-party developers to build additional tools for Photos to make it more robust and flexible image editing tool. Users will also be able to batch change the title of images, add location to pictures and also edit the existing ones if the metadata is off.
Maps
Maps has been updated in the El Capitan to include a Transit view, which lets users see transit lines in specific cities, including subway, train and bus routes. Users will also be able to get transit directions to and from wherever they want to go with step by step instructions. Schedules are also added to the maps letting users specify when in the future they want to leave and also provides approximate departure and arrival time for trains and buses along the way.
Conclusion
The beta version of El Capitan looks extremely promising with enhanced features, but there are many areas that are still subject to change. The new OS is not set to ship until this fall so users have to wait for a while to get their hands on it.