The latest version of Mac OS X was available for public download few days ago. This year’s name, El Capitan, is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park. With exactly the same minimum hardware requirements and $0 (free) upgrade cost, choosing to upgrade is an easy decision.
OS X 10.11 El Capitan is not packed with a long list of new features. Instead, it focuses more on under-the-hood improvements to make the overall smoother experience of using OS X. And I agree. El Capitan brings me better performance on my i7 Mac Mini and Retina MacBook Pro 13″ (late 2012). Things are running slightly snappier, the WiFi connection is stable, all my existing apps work without any problem.
Even though El Capitan does not promise a lot of new features, it does introduce us to some. The full-screen apps can now have split-view, just like iOS 9 for iPad; Spotlight search gets smarter as we can search with “natural” language (such as “Microsoft Word document I wrote in May”); third-party add-ons for Photos app (my favorite Noiseless app now available as Photos add-on); improved Safari and Mail apps; Notes app can now include multimedia elements and checklists; transit directions for Maps (only available in few countries); and Metal low-level graphics API from iOS is now available for OS X. A new font named San Francisco is used as system font. This font was originally created by Apple for Apple Watch, then got adapted in iOS 9, then made its way to OS X. As a gimmick bonus, shaking the mouse would display giant mouse pointer on the screen, helping us to find the pointer.
I did get one annoying pop-up message that kept appearing after upgrading to El Capitan. It says “To use the Java command-line tool you need to install a JDK. Click More Info to visit Java Developer Kit download website.” Strangely, this annoying pop-up still randomly appeared even after I downloaded and installed the JDK from the provided link. After a bit of searching, I discovered that I need to install “legacy” Java from Apple using this link to stop the annoyance.
So far, a solid update from Apple. I am a happy user.
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