OS X Yosemite & iOS 8.1

A little over a week ago I updated to Yosemite. At first most of the things I noticed are aesthetic changes and my computer waking from sleep must faster. That was before I updated my devices to iOS 8, which is required for what I think will end up being the most useful and visible features. These are the features that will allow me to use my iPhone, iPad, and Mac interchangeably when it comes to phone calls, texts messages, and picking up where I left off when switching devices. One of the other new things in Yosemite is Family Sharing, which in short allows linking Apple accounts and sharing purchases. My guess is it’s the precursor to allowing people, like myself that have separate iTunes and iCloud accounts, to merge their them. The annoying part of family sharing so far is it added a family calendar that I can’t delete, so I now have a calendar that I don’t want, won’t use, can’t hide, and can’t delete in my calendar program. I later realized it also added a Reminder list that I can’t delete. I’m sure I’ll figure out a workaround at some point.

A couple days later I upgraded my iPad to iOS 8.1 and a couple more days later updated my iPhone and started playing with the continuity features. Having texts go to my computer may prove to be useful when I’m because I don’t always pay attention to my phone when working at my computer. It may also prove to be an annoying detraction, but hasn’t been bad so far. I haven’t used the phone call feature yet, which just allows me to answer call via my computer instead of phone. The picking up where I left off feature has proven useful a couple times so far and will probably be used more as I get used to it.