At its recent WWDC 2020 event, Apple has unveiled its new macOS version called “Big Sur.” The biggest change that comes with Apple’s macOS Big Sur is its UI redesign. The WWDC 2020 event also featured announcements for iOS 14, iPadOS 14, updates to AirPods, Macs’ transition to ARM-based processors and many others.
Apple Unveils macOS Big Sur
Apple has labelled macOS Big Sur as its biggest redesign since the introduction of macOS 10. What’s particularly interesting about macOS Big Sur is the fact that it has borrowed several design elements from Apple’s iOS. Examples of these borrowed elements include: app icons, customisable Control Centre, grouped notifications and several others. This change may indeed be beneficial, especially in terms of enabling users to have a sense of ‘familiarity’ with the Apple’s other operating systems.
Design changes were also applied to macOS’s native apps including Photos, Mail, Maps, Notes and Messages. The latter also comes with a new search feature as well as added Memoji sticker support. Furthermore, macOS Big Sure comes with improvements to Safari as well. Apple claims this improvements results in its browser bring up to 50% faster than Google Chrome.
Additionally, Apple’s Safari browser also features support for browser extensions along with a dedicated page for this feature on the App Store. Other new features that will come to Safari are: customisable start page, tab preview and automatic page language translation (only available in 7 languages). Apple also made announcements on several features it will introduce to enhance user security.
Apple stated that its redesign was made in an effort to ensure that “the entire experience feels more focused, fresh, and familiar, reducing visual complexity and bringing users’ content front and centre.” More information regarding macOS Big Sur can be found on Apple’s official website.