I just happened to be doing an update check and saw the new OS x was up this afternoon, so I decided to go ahead and make the jump…

First, download of Yosemite took me about half an hour, install and set-up about the same time. It was very easy, almost effortless. It prompted for the iCloud stuff, but other than that, it transferred my settings, wallpaper, and everything else without a problem. iTunes, of course, “lost” my external drive library, but unlike other iterations of iTunes, it found the library with no issues when i pointed it in the right direction. None of the usual rebuilding the library. It looks like the iTunes on the iPad, which is the say it looks clean and finding material is easier than in old iTunes. I haven’t attempted to sync an iPhone or iPad yet and am dreading it. It looks like you can swap libraries on the fly through the home icon at the top left. I haven’t tried that yet.

Once up and running, it seemed to be running about the same, if not a bit faster on my Late 2010 Air. The fan was coming on a lot at the start, but I think that was Spotlight indexing. It found my external drives and connected almost immediately; Mavericks used to fart around a good long while connecting. The Time Machine connected quicker than usual (but still pretty slowly) and ran a backup while i was typing this.

Other updates came fast and furious while I was experimenting — iWorks was up and running in minutes, with the look of the interface much more iOS, but the functionality seems to be returning to Pages and Keynote. Haven’t tried the other apps, yet. The apps open on the iCloud folder, but if you redirect to something local, the next time you open a new document, it points to the local folder.

The new notifications center is very easy to use, looks nice, and is quickly customizable. Chrome seems to be glacially slow and hitting the CPU hard, but Safari is running quick and smooth; right now, it might be worth swapping and using the baked in browser. The new mail app is a mail app — I use it for the most basic functions, so nothing big to say here. Seashore — my go-to photo manip app still works, but good ol’ Onyx is dead now.

iPhoto is still here, waiting to gum up your photo library and piss you off. Apparently they haven’t sorted the iCloud integration, but I won’t be using that. I don’t have near enough iCloud storage for my picture library.

I made an attempt to do Handoff with my iPhone — no joy. An attempt to send a file failed, as well. The phone and computer don’t seem to want to talk to each other. I suspect my Bluetooth isn’t compatible with the function…couldn’t program a fix for this? Really? Isn’t that half the draw to Yosemite — the ability to move from one device to the next easily?

Look: It’s got the “flatter” look of iOS, but it’s more colorful. I keep hoping for an “aluminum” option to go minimalist in the look of my desktop. The skeumorphics seem to finally have been banished, and good riddance. The new font is very easy to read for my LASIK improved vision (I’m farsighted now.)

Power usage — keep in mind I had a backup running in the background, and had started at about 65% battery, but in the half hour or so since then, I’ve eaten 20% of the battery, tying in Safari, doing a few bits and bobs on the side to experiment with the OS. The first 35% of the battery was doing work in Pages with multiple windows open at the same time. and that was over the course of about 3 hours…about the same as with Mavericks. I figure 7-8 hours usage if you don’t have video or Flash heavy websites eating up your power for my older MacBook Air. About on par with the last two or three iterations of OS X.

So first impressions: It looks nice, has a few very good updates — the notifications center, better connection with external drives, and the functionality is returning to iWorks. iTunes is, for the first time in a decade, not a complete cowpat to deal with. Battery and performance are mostly unchanged. So far, no bugs after five hours with it.

I’d say go for it.