Mac OS Big Sur was announced at Apples WWDC back in June this year. Surprisingly I haven’t really looked at this much mainly because when the first developer beta came out, I found it too buggy and ended up going back to Catalina. Now we are on the developer beta 5 I thought I would redownload it and give it a go.
Big Sur comes with a massive redesign and one that is well worth the upgrade. I’ll start with the Dock which is now floating and comes with all new redesigned icons. These icons are beautiful and mark the way forward to the return of skeuomorphism. I think next year when iOS 15 is announced we will likely see redesigned icons.
Feature continuity is also brought forward with this version of Mac OS as Big Sur brings the control centre which was first released on iOS 7 to the Mac. It looks just as you would expect it to match the iPhone design. I think it’s a welcome addition. The Notification centre has also been redesigned with Notifications finally stacking and the actual notifications themselves look more like the ones on iOS. Underneath the notification’s you now have all the new fancy widgets that are introduced on iOS 14. The widgets are a new thing on MacOS but only slightly, they might remind you of the dashboard which was removed in MacOS Catalina.
Safari gets a big improvement in Big Sur; it all starts with the all new start page. It’s a customizable page which opens when you open a new tab or safari. It’s your favourites, frequently visited and Siri Suggestions on it as well as the new Privacy report feature.
As I’m sure your probably aware Apple are promising to be committed to privacy and with this version of Mac OS Big Sur Safari gets an array of new privacy features. Including blocking ways that websites can track your information and what you do online. You can press the little shield icon on a website, and it will tell you how many different tracking features Safari has blocked from that site. Safari also monitors your passwords and lets you know if your password has been breached in a hack somewhere. Apple claim it does all this without letting anyone know your password including Apple.
Another cool feature on Safari is that it can now Translate webpages. Yes, Chrome have had this for a long time. However, it is limited to the US and Canada and can only translate English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese. Seems unusual that you can translate them languages but not use it in them countries.
Maps for the Mac has been updated as well with all the new iOS 14 features. Including guides, look around and cycling routes. It’s great to have maps on the Mac but it is often a forgotten about feature. I think it’s time we have a web-app version of Maps too, even if it’s on iCloud.com
There are so much new changes to talk about in MacOS Big Sur that I could write about it forever, but I fear people may start to get bored. There are little things new as well like Safari extensions in the App Store too Improvements in Editing on Photos.
To prove how much of a big update Mac OS Big Sur is, Big Sur is MacOS version 11. Mac OS has been on Version 10 since 2001 and almost 20 years later it has moved on to version 11. When Big Sur is released to the public I 100% recommend updating. Even if you don’t want it for the new features the new design makes it worth it.
Thanks for reading,
Kyle Wilkinson
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