Default wallpaper The default
desktop picture is an image of
Half Dome.
Design Yosemite introduced a major overhaul of OS X's
user interface, emphasizing
flat graphic design over
skeuomorphism, following the aesthetic introduced with
iOS 7 and certain applications from
OS X Mavericks. It is the first major redesign of the OS X user interface since
10.5 Leopard. Other changes include thinner fonts and blurred translucency effects. Some icons have been changed to correspond with those of iOS 7 and
iOS 8. Yosemite maintains the
OS X desktop metaphor. Other design changes include new icons, light and dark color schemes, and the replacement of
Lucida Grande with
Helvetica Neue as the default system typeface. Yosemite is the only macOS version to use Helvetica Neue as the default typeface, as in El Capitan it was again changed, this time to Apple's own, newly-designed
San Francisco typeface. In Yosemite, the
Dock is a 2D translucent rectangular strip instead of a skeuomorphic glass shelf, reminiscent of the Dock design used in early versions of OS X through
Tiger and in iOS since iOS 7.
Continuity Many of Yosemite's new features focus on the theme of "continuity", increasing its integration with other Apple platforms and services such as
iOS and
iCloud.
Notification Center Notification Center features a new "Today" view, similar to that in
iOS. The Today view can display information and updates from various sources, along with
widgets. It uses iCloud Photo Library to upload all the user's photos across their devices.
Other Spotlight is a more prominent part of the operating system; it now displays its search box in the center of the screen and can include results from online sources, including
Bing,
Maps, and
Wikipedia. Stock applications such as
Safari and
Mail have been updated. In particular, many security features have been added to Safari, such as a custom history clearing option that lets users clear history, cookies, and other data from the previous hour, day, or two days. In addition, Apple added
DuckDuckGo to its search offerings, a non-tracking search engine that doesn't store users' data. Safari allows you to remotely close tabs from an iOS device.
Safari now supports browsing in private browsing mode with certain windows (as opposed to all the windows having to be either in or out of private browsing). The green "zoom" button on Windows now has a different function in applications that support full-screen mode. Instead of simply enlarging the window, the button now enters full-screen mode, eliminating the full-screen button at the top-right corner of windows that has been present since
Mac OS X Lion. However, holding the
Option key (⌥) while clicking the zoom button or double-clicking on the window chrome continues to invoke the original behavior. JavaScript for Automation (JXA) is the new system-wide support for scripting with
JavaScript, built upon
JavaScriptCore and the
Open Scripting Architecture. It features an
Objective-C bridge which enables entire
Cocoa applications to be programmed in JavaScript. Along with other framework changes,
CloudKit was integrated in this release. CloudKit functions as a
Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) and is one method for
app developers to integrate access to Apple's iCloud
servers into their apps. There is a "dark mode" in
System Preferences which makes the Dock and menu bar darker. ==Beta testing==