{"id":29335,"date":"2020-06-23T16:52:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T20:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=29335"},"modified":"2022-11-30T10:38:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T15:38:59","slug":"macos-11-0-big-sur-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/23\/macos-11-0-big-sur-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"macOS 11.0 Big Sur Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple<\/a> (also: TidBITS<\/a>, MacRumors<\/a>, MacStories<\/a>, Mr. Macintosh<\/a>, Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

macOS Big Sur introduces a beautiful redesign that is entirely new yet instantly familiar. Safari is packed with new features, including a customizable start page, elegantly designed and more powerful tabs, quick and easy translation, and a new Privacy Report. The updated Messages app lets Mac users send and receive more personal and expressive messages, and easily keep track of and interact within group messages. Maps also offers an all-new experience with immersive features for exploring and navigating the world.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

macOS Big Sur delivers a spacious new design that makes navigation easier, while putting more controls at users’ fingertips. Everything from the curvature of window corners to the palette of colors and materials has been refined, and new features provide even more information and power. Icons in the Dock have been thoughtfully designed to be more consistent with icons across the Apple ecosystem while retaining their Mac personality. Buttons and controls appear when needed, and recede when they’re not. The entire experience feels more focused, fresh, and familiar, reducing visual complexity and bringing users’ content front and center.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

See also: Human Interface Guidelines<\/a> (also: Hacker News<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

Rui Carmo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The new look for macOS makes it seem like Catalyst is the new design language, and it makes me sad because I actually like the way macOS looks now, and the tradition behind some of it–after all, a few of those icons have been around (like me, really) since the NeXT days.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Benedikt Terhechte<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Nobdy can complain that Catalyst doesn’t look like macOS if macOS doesn’t look like macOS<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I prefer the old, more detailed and colorful toolbar buttons to the iOS 7 style. However, given that Apple is switching to symbols, I think I like the way Big Sur fully commits to this style, removing chrome so that the symbols themselves can be larger and stand out more. The main issues for me are that much of the text is difficult to read, the increased spacing effectively makes my displays smaller, and having rollover effects everywhere is distracting. Presumably, the spacing is because future Macs will have touch screens, but why compromise the desktop experience for that when iPads already exist? And, as a developer, it is annoying that the metrics for everything are changing.<\/p>\n\n

Jonathan Deutsch<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I’d love a rationale for the War on Information Density. As far as I can tell it is only designer whimsy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

My guess is that it’s so iOS apps work better on future touch-screen Macs and don’t look out of place.<\/p>\n\n

Jesper<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I am not a big fan of the continued slaughter of available-space-for-the-actual-title in the title bar, or similarly of cleanly draggable areas.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Dear god, the just barely opaque menu bar is back, and it’s just as horribly unreadable as a few years ago. Do we really need to keep doing this?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

John Siracusa<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I hope everyone else is also busy filing Radars (sorry, “Feedbacks”) about the small, low-contrast text used in many places in Big Sur.<\/p>\n

Like I said on \n@atpfm, Accessibility settings can help, but the defaults should be comfortable for MOST people. These defaults miss that mark.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Ben Thompson<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

What is striking about macOS 11.0 is the degree to which is feels more like a son of iOS than the sibling that Mac OS X was[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n

macOS Big Sur does away with the “Energy Saver” section of System Preferences, replacing it with a new “Battery” section that expands the battery reporting capabilities of the Mac.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

macOS Big Sur, the newest version of Apple’s operating system designed for Macs, brings back the classic startup chime that was eliminated from the MacBook lineup in 2016.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Apple has deprecated its long-standing Network Utility app in macOS Big Sur, with the app no longer functioning in the first developer beta.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n