Apple Capitalizes On Performance Features With New OS X El Capitan

At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, the smartphone giant unveiled its newest OS X upgrade aimed at Apple's desktop and server base: El Capitan.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company touted El Capitan as a performance booster to its preceding Yosemite operating system, with features like enhanced built-in apps and improved window management for end users.

"OS X delivers unparalleled integration between Mac hardware, iOS devices, apps and online services, and has helped Mac sales outpace the PC industry every year for the last decade," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering.

[Related: 10 New Apple Software Features That Will Make Partners Cheer]

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OS X El Capitan refines the Mac experience and improves the system performance of OS X Yosemite, the preceding version announced last year, which had a 55 percent adoption rate among PC users, according to Apple.

In terms of performance, the software integrates Metal, Apple's graphics technology, to boost system level rendering by up to 50 percent and efficiency by up to 40 percent, according to Apple.

This means that users will have faster graphics performance for apps, said Federighi.

The OS' other big improvements, according to Federighi, are enhancements to window management, built-in steamlined apps and smarter Spotlight search features.

Partners cheered the significance of the new operating system's key improvements in performance for customers.

"I liked the focus on performance on El Capitan, I think performance is the core underlying feature in the success of software," said Michael Oh, CEO and founder of Tech Superpowers, a Boston-based Apple solution provider. "I hope Apple continues to focus on the quality and performance of their software in the same way they are focusing on other features."

Raul de Arriz, national government sales manager for Waitsfield, Vt.-based Small Dog Electronics, an Apple specialist, said these performance upgrades of OS X El Capitan will make the new software "very successful."

"What's nice about these upgrades is that they make Yosemite more mature. ... El Capitan has new features honed down to the point where it performs better and faster," he said. "Everything I've seen sounded like a managed improvement for an already interesting experience with Yosemite."

A developer preview of El Capitan is available to Mac Developer Program members starting Monday, while the final free version will be available for consumers in July, according to Apple.

In addition to OS X El Capitan, Apple also previewed its newest iOS version, iOS 9, which included new proactive features for the smartphone assistant tool, Siri; upgrades to built-in apps, such as Notes, Maps and News; and new productivity features for the iPad. Apple CEO Tim Cook also showed off the new OS for the Apple Watch, watchOS, which will be available to users in the fall.

For Tech SuperPower's Oh, the three parallel previews of the new software versions reinforce Apple's commitment to promote interconnectivity among devices.

"What I see is that for the first time, Apple is showing its software platform as a whole with the Watch OS, El Capitan and iOS 9," he said. "I think there's a larger strategy of how Apple is releasing these features that speaks really well to the Apple users. I see this as a potential for the releases to work in lockstep with each other."

PUBLISHED JUNE 8, 2015