Apple officially announced the latest version of its operating system, OS X Yosemite at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco yesterday.  It’s a name that continues the theme of branding OS versions after California landmarks, which in this the honour went to the Yosemite National Park.

The new OS has been redesigned and refined with a fresh modern look where controls are clearer, smarter and easier to understand along with a set of new features. Spotlight results now include information from Wikipedia, Bing, Maps and other sources.  Mail Drop will allow users to send files up to 5GB worth of information via email using the iCloud service, while an improvement to Apple’s AirDrop will allow for a seamless level of communication between Apple’s various iOS devices and a standard Mac.   Users for instance will be able to receive or make phone calls from a Mac computer if an iPhone is within range.

As a result of the update, app icons now have a clean, consistent design and an updated system font which improves readability.

“Yosemite is the future of OS X with its incredible new design and amazing new apps,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering who presented the new OS at the WWDC Conference. “We engineer our platforms, services and devices together, so we are able to create a seamless experience for our users across all our products that is unparalleled in the industry.”

The developer preview of Yosemite is available to Mac Developer Program members today. To help make OS X even better, Apple is introducing the OS X Beta Program, which gives customers early access to Yosemite and invites them to try out the release and submit their feedback. Mac users can participate in the OS X Beta Program for Yosemite this summer and download the final version for free from the Mac App Store this fall.

Customers interested in signing up can visit www.apple.com/osx/preview for more details.