Apple reveals macos Big Sur

Mac OS X is dead, long live macos 11!

Those of us with a keen eye for detail will have noticed that when Apple was revealing the new macos update at WWDC20, the ‘About This Mac’ screen shown in the demo revealed the update to be called ‘macos 11’. So after 15 or so additions to what was originally Mac OS X, version 10 has finally been retired. These new beginnings are fitting because macos 11, subtitled ‘Big Sur’, features some major enhancements to the system.

Big Sur delivers a spacious new design that makes navigating your Mac easier, while putting even more controls at your fingertips. With a richer palette of colours, more rounded windows and reworked app icons in the Dock (tweaked to be more consistent with those in IOS), Big

Sur looks beautiful and feels more in tune with IOS, with buttons and controls appearing when needed and receding when not. A prime example being the all‑new ios‑style Control Centre that has been added to the customisable menu bar. Safari also gets its biggest update since it was originally launched in 2003. It now features a fully customisable start page that you can personalise with your own sections, such as your Reading List and icloud Tabs, and has built‑in translation so it can detect and translate entire webpages from seven languages with a single click. Privacy also plays a bigger role in Safari. A new Privacy Report delivers added visibility into how Safari protects browsing activity across the web and tools like data breach password monitoring never reveal your password info. We’ll be back with a complete guide to Big Sur next issue.