Hey Kalvin,
I also use MATLAB R2013a (Student Version) and read a lot of reports about incompatibility of OS X Yosemite and MATLAB versions < R2014b. So my first try was an installation of Yosemite in Parallels Desktop as a virtual machine.
Within the VM these steps made MATLAB run:
- Install Java 6 for Mac: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572
- Install MATLAB
- Change the System Version in /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist. Search for the key ProductVersion and change the string from 10.10 to 10.90. You cannot edit this file directly, you have to copy it to your desktop, edit it and copy it back.
- Change the Bundle Version of MATLAB in /Applictions/Matlab_XXXX/Contents/Info.plist. Search for the key BundleVersion and change the string from 8.x.x to 9.x.x . To access it, you have to right click on MATLAB app in Applications and select Show Package Contents.
- You may have to start MATLAB manually by opening /Applictions/Matlab_XXXX/bin/matlab. (Currently I can open it directly after applying the changes above).
However these changes will break the disk utility and maybe have some additional (currently unknown) effects. So it would be a good idea the revert the changes described above when you quit MATLAB.
Please tell me if this workaround helped you, maybe I would then be convinced to upgrade my system, too. :-)
UPDATE
I found some reports, that the changes described above may cause your Mac to not start, therefore I wanted some automatism for this workaround. I found out, that the changes are only necessary until MATLAB is started, you can revert the changes directly afterwards.
So i wrote a little shell script which can be used to start MATLAB:
sudo sed -i '' 's/>10.10</>10.90</' /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
open -a MATLAB_R2013a_Student
read -p "Press any key when MATLAB started..."
sudo sed -i '' 's/>10.90</>10.10</' /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
Within execution of this script you are asked to enter your password and you need to confirm when MATLAB has successfully started.
