Yosemite Beta quick Impressions

Overall:
I’ve been running the pre-release beta versions of Yosemite or 10.10 for a few weeks now, bottom line is: I like it, with reservations.

After installing on just 2 test macs with limited apps on them, I’ve had it on my daily MacBook Air for about 3 weeks now with NO problems. It is fast and fixes a number of small issues I have had ever since Lion or Mountain Lion. Nothing big, just things like, when your mac wakes from sleep it would take forever to rejoin the wireless network, or occasional hangups when changing screens in Mission Control. Those little bugs/features are fixed in Yosemite. In Calendars instead of defaulting to one calendar for new entries it defaults to the last calendar you used. The blue folder icons have been updated to a more modern look. Trash icon is new, but sometimes is hard to tell if there is trash in it. Dock prefs are gone from the apple menu.
Now for the downside: colored labels are still gone, tags are still in. The dock and system preferences icons are as flat as they are in the iOS since 7 came along. Safari looks like it does on your iPad, in other words this is the iOSification of the macs, as one poster said, “my mac is not a @#$% iPhone.” The system font (Helvetica Neue) is the first time apple has changed it in years, if ever. It is different but ok.  If you upgrade to iCloud drive you are going to have to update all your devices too.  Once I (kind of, mostly) got past the aggro that apple is forcing people to update to the latest OS to take advantage of  features, I am becoming ok with Yosemite.

In (a little) depth:
Have installed on a MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo with only 4 gigs of ram, runs fine, is even fast.
Also installed on Mac-mini Core i5 with 8 gigs ram, as fast as you’d expect.
Plus the Air, 1.6 Core i5 with 4 gigs ram.

Changed the system font to Avenir, much easier for me to read, especially on the 11” air.
Have not had any issues with Mail, not in mac, gmail, or 3rd party accounts.
Have not had any compatibility issues with software that was running in Mavericks.  Safari seems as though it is becoming less useful to web developers but no worse than Mavericks version.

Potential Snafus:  
When you first setup Yosemite it asks if you want to enable iCloud Drive.  If you enable it, any other devices you have that you want to share data with will have to either have Yosemite or iOS 8.x.  So if you’re currently sharing documents or photos among devices you might want to think twice before upgrading.

Bottom Line:
Do you need to go to Yosemite? Not really just yet, it will only get better as updates come along.  Especially do not upgrade if you are not ready to upgrade all your devices.
If you are happily running Mavericks now, I’d say wait until 10.10.2 or so. If you are on Lion or Mountain Lion I would say go for it, your mac might even run faster with Yosemite.
Now, about that upgrade process, you can do a clean install or upgrade on top of your current OS. I know ever since Lion came out Apple has said you can just install on top of your current OS, but I’ve seen a lot of people with a lot of problems after doing that.
If you use your mac for email, web-surfing and light duty things, you can probably get away with upgrading to Yosemite (can’t believe I’m giving the go-ahead on this), IF, beforehand, you do all software updates and run Disk Utility a couple of times to make sure your mac is in tip-top shape.
If you use your mac for work, and/or have a lot of programs on it (design or music programs, etc.) you should probably do a clean install.

Rating: 3 / 5 mice. I’m sure it will get better over time.