The new 27-inch 5K Retina Display iMac is likely to be seen as the most dramatic of the new machines unveiled by Apple today, and the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 likely to boost tablet sales, but for my money the most significant innovation is in the new desktop operating system upgrade OSX Yosemite.
Yosemite, available today as a free download, enables any desktop or notebook Mac built in 2009 or later to work work seamlessly with iOS8, the mobile operating system in iPhones and iPads.
Once users have all their devices registered in the same iCloud account, all machines know what the others are doing. Macs can be used as speakerphones, answering and making calls. A document started on an iPad can be picked up on a Mac at just the point the user left off on the iPad , and vice versa. The same facility exists for almost any file – a video edited in iMovie, a book read in iBooks, a slide show in iPhoto.
This new environment is available now but some final touches will arrive on Monday when the next iteration of iOS 8, namely version 8.1, becomes available globally for free download.
Yosemite's arrival for me was quite dramatic. I had been running the public beta on my MacBook Air. But as I opened the computer in the on-campus theatrette Apple calls its Town Hall, a panel immediately opened on my screen telling me Yosemite was downloading. It installed in about three minutes and I was launched into Apple's new encompassing environment where all devices work, almost as if they were one machine.
Handoff, which lets you mirror whatever you're doing in an app between iOS and OSX, is one of the new features that allows continuity between devices. Open a compatible app on your iPhone or iPad and, if you're in proximity to a Mac running Yosemite, an icon will appear on the Mac's dock to indicate Handoff is available. Similarly, if you're working on your Mac, icons will appear on your iDevice's lock screen.
Airdrop, long used to transfer files between different Macs, has had its functionality extend too. Sending files seamlessly between Macs and iOS devices is now incredibly easy and baked in to both operating systems. iCloud is now better integrated with OS X too.
Perhaps most excitingly for some, your iPhone's ability to take calls and receive SMS messages is also extended to your Mac if you're on the same Wi-Fi network for both. If you wear a headset with a microphone while using a Mac, this is a brilliant feature as you can just take the call and keep working. Meanwhile the Messages app on iOS and OS X have been built with each other in mind, so you can continue text conversations across both.
With a free update to OS X, Apple has added a significant amount of value not just to its Mac systems but also to its mobile devices, be they the shiny new iPad Air 2 or iPad Mini 3, or the iPads and iPhones you already own.
Garry Barker is attending the event as a guest of Apple.
With Tim Biggs
