Mac OS Big Sur: A Comprehensive Overview

The latest update to Mac OS, Big Sur, is packed with exciting features and enhancements that promise to take the user experience to new heights. One of the most significant updates is the improved search functionality, which allows users to quickly find what they need within the operating system.

In addition to this, the Big Sur update introduces a new feature called "Smart Suggestions" for dates and reminders. Users can now assign reminders with emojis and personalize their notifications to suit their preferences. The update also improves the search bar, making it more efficient and user-friendly.

For messaging and communication, the Big Sur update allows users to add images to messages, a long-awaited feature that has been added to the operating system. Furthermore, the update introduces smart folders for voice memos, which can help eliminate background noise and make recording easier. Users can now create folders, assign favorites, and sort their recordings into categories.

The Big Sur update also brings some exciting features to Voice Memos, including the ability to record files in a folder, with options for creating new folders and dragging and dropping files into them. The update introduces enhanced recording capabilities, which help eliminate background noise and make the recording process smoother.

In terms of weather forecasting, the Big Sur update introduces a new widget that provides users with real-time weather updates, including precipitation forecasts, severe weather warnings, and significant changes in weather patterns. While this feature is currently available as a widget, it's likely to be expanded into a separate app in the future.

Within Notes, the Big Sur update enhances search functionality, making it faster and more efficient for users to find what they need. The update also introduces new style options, allowing users to quickly access formatting options such as italics and underlining. Furthermore, users can now collapse pinned notes with ease, adding a level of convenience to the notes-taking process.

The Big Sur update also brings some significant changes to privacy settings, giving users more control over what apps can access their device's features such as speakers, microphones, cameras, and files. This update is particularly welcome for users who are concerned about data protection and want to ensure that their personal information remains secure.

In terms of software updates, the Big Sur update allows them to be faster and start in the background more quickly. The update also introduces new features that allow developers to create apps using Catalyst, which can now fully utilize native resolutions and take advantage of powerful new menu and keyboard APIs.

Furthermore, the Big Sur update includes a range of international features, including support for new languages such as French, German, Indonesian, English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Polish. The update also introduces 20 new fonts specifically designed for India, which can help enhance the user experience for users in that region.

The update is also optimized to take full advantage of Apple's A14 chip, providing a seamless and efficient user experience. This is particularly exciting for developers who are working on apps using Catalyst, as the update provides powerful new menu and keyboard APIs that can be leveraged to create more intuitive and user-friendly interfaces.

In addition to these features, the Big Sur update introduces several minor updates and enhancements across various apps, including Safari, which includes support for international languages. The update also improves the overall performance and stability of the operating system, making it a great choice for users who want a fast and reliable computing experience.

Overall, the Mac OS Big Sur update promises to deliver a range of exciting features and enhancements that can enhance the user experience. From improved search functionality to new weather forecasting capabilities, the update is packed with innovative features that promise to take the operating system to new heights.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everyone Aaron here for ZolloTechand this is the all-new fully redesignedMac OS 11 big sir this is beta 1 and youcan see here's the build number 20A4299vit's pretty early on and I'mrunning it on my 2016 MacBook Pro dualcore i7 you can see the specs here andit runs ok but let's take a closer lookat it in just a moment but first thesupported devices are actually prettygood so you have a 2013 MacBook Air andMac Pro and newer as well as the MacBookPro and newer so those are all supportedas well as a 2014 Mac Mini and iMac 2015MacBook and later and also 2017 iMac proand later if they ever have one so theseare all of the supported device anythingthat's this age and newer will be ableto use big sir so let's take a look ateverything that's new so the first thingis you can notice at the top there's anall-new translucent menu bar at the topso it shows the wallpaper through it'spretty nice I have a lot of differentthings such as ISTEP menu here and thenalso we have all new icons in the dockso you may love these you may not likethese very much but they've completelyredesigned them and if we go to launchpad you can see some of the other newicons so we have FaceTime and messagesnow these could change by the time itcomes out but just keep in mind thesemay be what it looks like now if we goover here we have some additional iconssuch as Final Cut Pro that will beupdated in the futureApple showed that in the keynote so youmay like these icons you may notQuickTime looks kind of interesting andthen also if we go out of that and go toSystem Preferences we have some newicons here as well so network thisbrings me back to earlier versions ofMac OS so there's new icons allthroughout now other than the iconsthey've updated Notification Center soyou have grouped notifications withwidgets as well so these widgetsrepresent basically what we have on iOS14 and iPad OS 14 and you can edit thewidgets you'll see that we have a coupledifferent versions here we've got mediumand large and it is a little bit slow onthis Mac maybe because it's early onmaybe because I'm screen recording isbut we can make the world clock largersmaller all sorts of things so we canchange them customize them add themremove them maybe we want daily activitymedium/large and we've got a bunch ofdifferent icons so maybe I want theforecast to be larger I can add that andit adds there we'll remove this one andyou'll see we have weather so we've gotall those different icons and widgets wecan rearrange we also have notificationsthat we can easily clear all so if wejust hover over them and there's one wecan dismiss it or clear them all so it'snice that we've got that built in now anew feature they've added is controlcenter we finally have it on the Mac andyou can see we can adjust the displaybrightness the keyboard brightness wecan turn it on or off we can go back andmaybe we want to customize this and putthe keyboard brightness let's click andhold and sometimes it's a little odd toget to work I guess we can do it withdisplay we can bring it up at the topand then we can click on it and gainaccess to it very quickly so we can godark mode turn it back off you'll seethe the wallpaper switched and there wego it goes back so we've got thoseoptions up here at the top as well nowsomething new they've added is optimizedbattery charging so just like we havethat on iphone we can go to batterypreferences and we have optimizedbattery charging turn on but also wehave our battery level and screen usagenow there's a new battery icon that'skind of interesting but if we go to thelast ten days you can see this here forusage if we go to the battery you've gotthe battery status and some other thingssuch as optimized battery charging likeI said so it will wait to finishcharging past 80% and again you havebattery health just like we have in thelatest a Mac OS catallena update so youwant to leave that on and then you'vegot your power adapter and other thingsbut usage has been updated so you cansee everything like you do on the iPhoneor iPad now finder gets a big update aswell so if we open finder it's fullyredesigned so that it looks a little bitdifferent so these are just image fileslet me make this a little bitand maybe we want to go to movies andhere's just a movie I had that wasn'tfinished but you get the idea it's justredesigned with new icons at the topeverything's a little bit cleaner with alittle bit more space and some peoplewill really like this others won't butyou can see it's fully redesigned andjust looks a little bit different nowSafari gets a huge update and Apple wasactually mentioning this in theirkeynote and you'll see here's a bunch ofdifferent things here that I have as faras a reading list and Safari now givesyou your favorites on the top it givesyou a privacy report I'll talk moreabout that in a moment but in the bottomright if we click our options here wecan now set a background image so maybewe want this is our background image wecan set that we can turn that off maybewe don't want the reading list maybe wedon't want Siri suggestions or maybe wejust want whatever we want here iCloudtabs we can add whatever we'd like tosee so that's built-in and it's supernice now if we go to apple.com we've gotsome options here as well now in theupper left next to the address bar wehave a privacy report and it says thiswebpage did not contact any trackers soyou can get more information about thisand maybe we want to go to anotherwebsite we'll just go to google we'll gohere and then we'll click on privacyreport and it says one tracker preventedand it will give you a little rundown ofwhat's actually being prevented now youcould allow these things if you wantedto if you don't want private browsingbut it gives you more information aboutit and gives you sort of a privacyoverview of whatever you're doing inSafari so that's been updated so that'sa pretty huge update they've alsoupdated speed within Safari so Safarishould be 50% faster than chromeaccording to them as far as page loadtimes and it has improved powerefficiency as well we also have anupdate to tab so maybe we want to go tomy website here I haven't updated it ina while and it's loading pretty slow letme do a privacy check and there shouldnot be trackers on here oh I guess thereis I do have analyticbut that's all there is there shouldn'treally be anything else and you can seethe tab is a little bit different we canhover over it to get a preview so if Ihover over this we get a preview of ourtab and then also we can right-click andclose other tabs close tabs to the rightmove tab to a new window or arrange tabsby title or website so we've got allthese new options built in now there's anew feature that's on iOS as well that Ireally think is a great idea and if wego to a website that's in French forexample the MacBook knows that Englishis my native language or what I've setit up as if we click this little buttonhere it appears on a website that's notin English you can translate this toEnglish or another language so if Iclick on it we can enable translationand you'll see these are the new pop-upmenus in Mac OS Big Sur will enabletranslation and everything becomesEnglish so it's really easy to just gothrough go further in your projectyou'll see it's easy just to kind of seewhat's going on and this will work onjust about any website as far as Mac OSso I love that they've added thatfeature so Safari gets that massiveupdate with all of those changes so I'mglad to see they've added that if Iclose out Safari let's go into mail andyou'll see that they've updated it alittle bit it has all new glyphs andcolors so for example we're in thisemail and we just have something fromebay we'll click on it and you'll seethat it's blue and it just looks alittle bit different it has the newconsistent menu bar at the top with alittle more space it's very clean andstraightforward so it looks a little bitdifferent there hasn't been any updatesother than that that they've mentionedanyway but hopefully mail works a littlebit better nownow photos gets a few little updates soif we go into photos you'll see here'sjust photos I took of the iPad OS videoI always take a ton of photos I canpinch to zoom out I can zoom way outzoom back in and just click on a photodown here and you'll see all the photosI took they've also added some memoriesI haven't seen any yet but they've addedthat and they've also added expandedediting capabilities I work is gettingan all-new redesign as well and let'ssee if they've updated it becauseI just installed this update I don'tthink it's the latest I think we'll seesomething new in the future so we'll hitcontinue will select a blank templateand it doesn't really look any differentso I think they're going to update thisin the future and they showed that inthe keynote very quickly now music getsan update as well so we'll go to musicand one thing if you haven't noticedalready let's see it says the musicvolumes turned way down and of course itis because I'm doing this video and ifyou haven't noticed already they'vechanged the corners on these icons andI'm not sure I'm a big fan I'm sure I'llget used to it but they've changed thatthere's now a new listen now sectionwhich is really nice they've just addedthat and then also they've improvedsearch so they haven't said specificallyyou used to be able to search lyrics butmaybe we want to search for guess howl Vhere and so you'll see they've improvedit I guess with albums that I havealready and some other things so Ihaven't seen exactly how it's beenimproved but they say that it has beenimproved and you have the new listen nowsection now Siri has been updated aswell and it doesn't get a new interfacefor Mac OS but it has updatedintelligence just like it does on iOS soupdated knowledge so we can ask itdifferent things such as how do hybridcars work and it says here's what Ifound and it gives more answers that arerelevant to what you're saying the otherexample they give is what causes seasonsand it says web answer the seasons arecaused by the tilt of the Earth'srotational axis and it gives a moreintelligent answer than what you mightget before so it's just updated tobasically match iOS 14 now Maps gets aredesign as well so let's go ahead andfind maps here and you'll see it now haslook around favorites and guides andSiri suggestions and so if we clickcontinue and so maps has been redesignedwith a new toolbar as well and we alsohave 3d and look around in certaincities so let's go to New York City andmaybe we'll just go to JFK Airport andwe now have new 3d optionsand then in certain areas we haveflyover so if I pinch out here and maybego to see if we can get in far enough tolower Manhattan but maybe we want to goto this part right here and we want tolook around so let's click on lookaround and now we can look around sojust like we have on Google Maps we nowhave this here and it works prettyseamlessly if we want to go down thestreet we can just drive down the streetso it's pretty nice simple andstraightforward and it's nice to see itupdatedthere's also indoor maps for things likemalls and everything else so if it hasan indoor map it will be available andyou'll be able to see it more clearly soyou can choose upper level lower levelthere isn't really a lower level at thatmall not too much but you can go rightin here and get maps within the mall sothat's updated for many different placesnow we also have the option to create aguide so if we click on the plus here wecan create a new guide you'll seethere's a guide over here and then if weclick on it it takes a moment and weright-click and we can add a new placeso we can search for whatever we'd likeso maybe we want to add the mall Isuppose and now we've got a guide forthe mall so we'll cancel that go to themall and we've got a guide so maybe wewant to go on a trip select places wewant to go we'll be able to do that sothose are the new updates and mapsnow messages gets an update as well if Igo to messages you'll see I have a grouphere and I showed this on iOS 14 withBrandon and Miguel so in the group I canright-click I can pin Brandon and Miguelpin them at the top it gives themimportance and then if I go into this Ican right click or option click and thenopen conversation in a separate windowgo to details and under details we canchange the group name and photo we canadd a member send my current locationand the group photo option doesn't seemto be working right now on Mac so it isa little bit buggy but as you can seehere Miguel replied with a thumbs upand it's got a reply directly to methat's what this bracket is so I can sayMiguel and click on it and select Migueland then say thanks hit reply and now hegets that reply and only he gets thatreply instead of Brandon getting bothand so you have those nice optionswithin messages on the Mac now soeverything you had you'll see he updatedhis contact will update and everythingwe had beforethat's an iOS is now here so it's supernice that they've got that messageeffects a redesigned photo picker emojiand pin conversations now search gets anupdate as well so if I hit command spaceyou can search for whatever you'd like aconversation just like I had before ormaybe we could search for a photo of iOS14 and you'll see a release photo itwill search the web or you can have itsearch within documents it's faster it'sredesigned and maybe I'm looking foriPad OS 14 it's been redesigned tosearch all throughout the OS now Iexpect this will get better as time goeson now privacy gets an update as well sothe first place they've updated privacyis in the App Store so if I go in theApp Store I think what they're going toupdate in the future isn't here yet butwhat it will do is give you moreinformation about the privacy of eachapp and how it's using your privacy sofor example if we go to discover maybewe want to check out a new app maybewe'll just pick something random heremaybe we'll pick BBEditit's been around a long time and if youwant to know how it's using your privacyyou'll see it just says privacy policybut in the future it will not bring youto a web link but instead it willactually bring you to a little pop-upthat's similar to a nutrition fact thatyou get on a box of cereal or maybesomething you bought in a grocery storeso it'll have a privacy tag that showsyou everything that they're collectingor notcollecting BBEdit you can just click onnow but every app has to do that in thefuture so they'll all have informationfor those tags also within the App Storethey've updated friend recommendationsso you can follow someone I don't see ithere on this version but I did see it oniOS so maybe they'll add it in thefuture but you'll be able to followsomeone they can follow you back seewhat you're doing you'll haveachievements and things like that so weshould have all of those in the futurenow FaceTime gets an update that allowsfor sign language prominence so ifsomeone's signing while you're in agroup chat it will pop them up on thescreen the same as it would do if youwere talking and then reminders gets anupdate as well so if we go intoreminders there's a couple new updatesthat will allow you to assign remindersyou can have smart suggestions for datesand reminders you can personalize areminder with emoji and there's improvedsearch so let's create a new reminderhere and let's see work on the Mac OSBig Sur video and we'll select tomorrowand then we can update this if we gointo I and at a time at a location whenmessaging a person we have URL add animage of course we have pretty much whatwe had before but we should be able toassign an emoji to this particularupdate assign it to a family member andthey've added some additional smallfeatures as well especially searchshould be improved now voice memos getsan update as well and it will haveenhancements for things like folders soif you want to create a folder you cancreate a folder now and voice recordingnow we have a folder and we can drag anddrop in there can also have favoritessmart folders and there's enhancedrecording to help eliminate backgroundnoise and if I hit record you'll see itwill record simply just like you wouldexpect we'll hit done and then I cansort that into a folder if I'd like soput that into voice recordings forexample and now it's there so just a fewsmall updates with voice memos nowthere's also some updates to weatheralthough I don't see this yet I'm notsure if they'll have a separate appbut right now it's a widget just likethe iPhone and it will give you thingslike next hour of precipitation severeweather reports and it will showsignificant shifts in weather patternsso I don't see that yet but it should bethere in the future within notes there'sa few enhancements as well so if I go tonotes and you'll see this is a new notewe have enhanced search we also haveadditional style options here they'remore quick to access now so italics andunderline and so also we can collapseour pinned notes pretty simply and thenalso we have better search as well sonot a huge enhancement but it'sredesigned just like everything elsenow they've updated privacy to let youknow more information when an app istrying to use not only your speakers butyour microphone your camera or files oranything else so you have the samecontrol as you did before but there'senhanced and notifications and so that'sbeen updated I noticed that the firsttime I open some of these apps it wouldpop up and ask me if it could use thecamera or if it could use my disk oranything else so it's nice that it's inthere also there has not beensignificant updates to keychain otherthan it actually monitors for yourpasswords to make sure they're notcompromisedso within keychain if you have a bunchof passwords in here I normally do butthey're not here right now and the iconactually changed from a new one to thisold one so maybe they'll update it inthe future but right now it's not doingthat but it will update you and let youknow if something's compromised yourpassword now as far as software updatesare concerned they've updated them aswell to allow them to be faster start inthe background and complete much fastersimilar to what we have with iOS soyou'll see here's details and you canrestore the defaults if you don't wantthe beta now there's a couple moreupdates that you can't really see one ofthem is air pods they should switchimmediately between Mac iOS and iPad OSwithout a problem seamlessly now if wego into Safari you can see here's someof the new international features so newbilingual dictionaries so French GermanIndonesian English Japanese simplifiedChinese and polish English 20 new fontsfor India enhanced predictive input forChinese and Japanese and alsolocalized message effects in messagesfor India so one of 23 India locallanguages you have a couple differenteditions there now also if you'recreating an app using catalyst it's beenoptimized to fully utilize nativeresolutions and there's powerful newmenu and keyboard api's and updatedgraphics and things so that is all ofthe major features and some extras within Mac OS Big Sur I'm really excited tosee how this runs in a few months whenit's more complete but so far it's greatand of course apples transitioning toarm or their own chipset and that willbe really exciting in the future as welllet me know what you think about theseicons and the updates in the commentsbelow and if you have any otherquestions or comments let me know thereas well if you'd like to get your handson this wallpaper I'll link this and aniPhone derived version as well in thedescription below if you haven'tsubscribed already please subscribe andif you enjoyed the video please give ita like as always thanks for watchingthis is Aaron I'll see you next time\n"