Big Sur brings a new design to macOS

Apple today previewed macOS Big Sur, the latest version of the world's most advanced computer operating system.

macOS Big Sur features a fantastic redesign that's completely new and familiar at the same time. Safari is packed with new features, such as a customizable home page, more powerful and better-designed tabs, quick and easy translation, and a new privacy report.

The app Messages updated allows Mac® users to send and receive more personal and expressive messages, as well as easily stay up to date and interact within group messages. Maps also offers an entirely new experience with engaging features for touring and exploring the world.

The biggest design update since Mac OS X

macOS Big Sur offers a new design with a lot of space that makes navigation easier and puts more controls at users' fingertips. Everything has been refined, from the curvature of the window corners to the color and material palette, and the new features provide even more information and power.

The icons in the Dock they have been carefully designed to follow the same style throughout the Apple ecosystem and preserve the personality of the Mac. Buttons and controls appear when they are needed and disappear when they are not. The experience is intuitive, modern and familiar, and the visual complexity is reduced, giving full prominence to the user's content.

The customizable menu bar features a Control Center completely new that offers quick access to controls from the desktop. The Notification Center updated includes more interactive notifications and widgets redesigned in different sizes, so users can see the most relevant information at a glance. And the new core app design makes it easier to organize with multiple open windows and interact with apps.

A faster, more personal and private experience in Safari

With Safari's biggest update since its original release in 2003, the world's fastest browser is even more agile, delivering industry-leading speed1 and power consumption2.

Safari's fast JavaScript engine helps it outperform other browsers on Mac and PC, and Safari loads frequently visited websites on average 50% faster than Chrome.1

Tabs have been completely redesigned for faster and more powerful browsing - the more tabs are on the screen, favicons are displayed by default to easily identify open tabs, and users simply have to hover over a tab to see a preview of the corresponding page.

Safari includes new features so that everyone can browse at their leisure. Users can customize the new home page with a background image and sections such as the reading list and iCloud tabs.

With built-in translation, Safari can detect and translate entire web pages in seven languages ​​with a single click.3 Users can enjoy the experience even more with improved extension support, and the Mac App Store makes it easy to discover and download excellent Safari extensions with a new category that includes content submitted by editors and graphic designers.

Privacy has always been an integral part of Safari, and the new privacy report offers greater visibility into how web browsing activity protects. Users can choose when and with which websites Safari extensions can work, and tools like password monitoring against data loss never reveal the password information, not even to Apple.

More power and expressiveness in Messages

Messaging on Mac includes new tools to better manage important conversations and send highly expressive messages. Users can now pin their favorite conversations to the top of their message list for instant access, and the search has been completely redesigned to organize results by links, photos and matching terms. This way users can quickly find what they are looking for.

Message effects allow users to add personality to their messages with balloons, confetti and more. Users can now create and customize their own Memoji on Mac and express themselves with Memoji stickers based on their personality and mood. And with the new photo and # image picker, sharing images, GIFs, and videos couldn't be easier.

New group messaging features simplify interactions with family, friends and colleagues. Internal replies allow users to reply directly to a message, as well as send a message to a specific person within a group conversation by simply typing their name. And now you can set a photo or emoji for the conversation shared with all group members.

New planning tools in Maps

Maps has been completely redesigned in macOS Big Sur and offers new features designed to explore the world. Customers can easily decide what to visit and what to do with guides from trusted sources, and they can also create customized restaurant, park and vacation guides to share with friends and family.

Panoramic View offers a 360-degree view of a destination, to which detailed internal maps of the main airports and shopping centers must be added. Bike and electric car trips can now be tracked on a Mac and sent directly to the iPhone® for use on the go.

Number one in privacy

Privacy is one of the cornerstones of the Mac, and macOS Big Sur gives users even more transparency and control over their data. The new privacy insights on the Mac App Store, inspired by the usefulness and readability of food nutrition labels, help users understand the privacy practices of apps before downloading them, including the types of data they may collect, such as usage, contact information, or location and whether such data is shared with third parties for tracking.

State-of-the-art development tools

More than 20 million members of the Apple developer community use the Mac to create incredible experiences for iOS, iPadOS®, macOS, watchOS®, and tvOS®. Xcode 12 makes developing great macOS apps easier than ever. SwiftUI receives a major update so developers can program fully coded shared apps across all Apple platforms, easily adding Mac-specific features like preference windows. And SwiftUI is used in more places, like the new widgets for Mac, iPhone and iPad®, thanks to the shared Swift code.

Mac Catalyst, which debuted with macOS Catalina last year, made it easier for developers to bring their apps from iPad to Mac. And in macOS Big Sur, Mac Catalyst apps automatically inherit the new design and give users powerful developers new APIs. , as well as control over the appearance and behavior of your apps.

Developers can now also offer purchases and subscriptions within their shared apps among family members using the Family Sharing feature. And support for the WebExtensions API allows them to easily adapt extensions created for other browsers to Safari.

Availability

The macOS Big Sur developer beta is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and the public beta will be available to Mac users next month at beta.apple.com. macOS Big Sur will be available this fall as a free software update.

Learn more about topics such as supported Mac models at apple.com/macos/bigsur-preview. Benefits are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or in all languages.

1 Testing conducted by Apple in June 2020 using JetStream 2, MotionMark 1.1 and Speedometer 2.0 performance tests. Tested on 13GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 1,4-inch MacBook Pro computers, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD using macOS Big Sur Preview and Windows 10 Home 2004 from Boot Camp. The scores represent the browsers that passed the tests, performed with the preview versions of Safari 14, Chrome 83.0.4103.97 and Firefox 77.0.1 on macOS, as well as Chrome 83.0.4103.97, Microsoft Edge 83.0.478.45 and Firefox 77.0.1 on Windows Home, with a WPA2 Wi-Fi connection. Page load tests performed with saved versions of 10 popular web pages with pre-release versions of Safari 14, Chrome 83.0.4013. 61 and macOS Big Sur under simulated network conditions. Performance may vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors.

2 Testing conducted by Apple in June 2020 on 13GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 1,4-inch MacBook Pro, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD with macOS Big Sur Preview. The systems were connected to a WPA2 Wi-Fi network and powered by battery, with the screen brightness at 75% or 12 clicks of the lowest setting. Safari 14 preview tested with 1080p HD content; Chrome 83.0.4103.97 and Firefox 77.0.1 tested with 720p HD content. Not all features are available on all devices. Performance may vary based on system configuration, application load, and other factors.

3 The translation will be available in beta for English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese.