Apple announced at its November 2020 event that macOS 11 Big Sur will arrive Nov. 12.
Image: Apple

Apple announced the long-rumored successor to its popular and stable OS X (see macOS 10.x) line of operating systems at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The annual, week-long event aimed at developers around the world is usually held in California, but WWDC 2020 was the first time it was held exclusively online and also made available to the public.

The biggest announcement at WWDC 2020 for desktop users at least is macOS 11, with Apple finally making the leap from the venerable OS X/macOS 10.x code to the new 11.0 base. Bringing with it much more than a numerical change, the new version of macOS unveiled on June 22, 2020, brings many redesigns of iconic Apple features, a whole host of usability updates to existing applications, and a few surprises.

At its “One More Thing” event Nov. 10, 2020, Apple announced the much-awaited Big Sur would release on Nov. 12, 2020, coordinating it with the release of its new M1 system-on-a-chip.

“Big Sur is engineered, down to its core, to take full advantage of all the capability and power of M1, delivering a massive boost in performance, astonishing battery life, and even stronger security protections,” Apple said in its press release.

This guide for macOS Big Sur will be updated as new features and updates are released over the lifespan of the operating system to always bring you the latest information and keep you up-to-date on all things macOS 11.

SEE: macOS Big Sur: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

What is macOS Big Sur?

macOS Big Sur is a continuation of Apple’s operating system that powers its lineup of desktop and mobile computers. While it carries the macOS name, it is the first major version change in more than 15 years–officially dropping the 10.x and going by 11.x.

Sharing its namesake with the natural wonder in the Central Coast of California, macOS Big Sur brings with it many firsts for Apple’s newest operating system. While continuing to expand further upon some of the changes made in previous versions to unify the desktop experience with the best of its mobile OS–iOS/iPadOS–to create a user computing environment that is both powerful and unparalleled in its simplicity.

Technical requirements of macOS Big Sur

Unlike previous versions of macOS, Big Sur will not have any minimum set of requirements based on hardware components. Instead, Apple has released a minimum type of hardware based on its lineup of mobile and desktop computers and its release year(s) to serve as a guide.

Additional resources

macOS 11 Big Sur
Image: Apple Inc.

What are the main features of macOS Big Sur?

Control Center for Mac
Identical to its iOS/iPadOS counterpart, the Control Center has made the move with macOS Big Sur, providing one-click access to a series of functions to easily control many common connections and features, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, playing music, or adjusting screen settings to better suit your work environment. Additional controls can be added to customize the experience based on your favorites.

App integration
At its November 2020 event, Apple announced that all of Apple’s Mac apps are now Universal and runs natively for M1 systems. Existing Mac apps that have not been updated to Universal will run with Apple’s Rosetta 2 technology, which translates apps for systems that run Intel chips. Apps on the iPhone and iPad can now run directly on the Mac.

Notification Center
Though notifications were introduced in a prior version, macOS Big Sur’s redesigned take on notifications allows them to be grouped by app for easier management. Furthermore, widgets and notifications are now displayed together within the same window for a unified look at pertinent data at a glance. Additionally, widgets have been redesigned and may be resized to further customize information displayed in ways that work the way you do.

SEE: Apple iOS 14: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Safari 14
Safari has been given major aesthetic, efficiency, and privacy overhauls to increase usability with intuitive customizations for each user, battery life adjustments to help users be their most productive (or binge their streaming content a little bit longer), and keep tabs of sites and web apps that are trying to keep tabs on you and your personal data by alerting you if passwords used for sites have been compromised. Safari now provides a weekly Privacy Report based on Intelligent Tracking Prevention to show you how your privacy is being protected based on which sites have been visited and providing a snapshot of how users are being profiled by trackers across the web.

At the November 2020 Apple event, it was announced that with the M1 chip, Safari is now 1.5 times faster at running JavaScript and nearly 2 times more responsive.

Messages
Messages has gained the ability to pin important conversations to the top of your chat list for easier access and response times. Pinned conversations sync across the Apple ecosystem with iOS/iPadOS 14-enabled devices and macOS Big Sur-supported devices. Another usability feature is Inline replies, which allows users to reply to specific messages directly, causing the messages to thread, making keeping track of replies so much easier.

Maps and Guides
Maps have been redesigned, allowing the navigation app to take advantage of larger screen real estate afforded by the higher resolutions found on newer Macs and 4K/5K monitors. A new routing for electric vehicles has been added allowing users to plan the perfect route to include charging stops along the way. Speaking of stops, Guides offers curated destinations of the best places to visit or your favorites spots. Guides may be made for you or by you and shared for easy access. Indoor maps are also available now, with detailed interior maps of popular areas, such as major airports.

App Store privacy
A major win for privacy advocates and a big step towards more transparency is the privacy information summary included for each app in the Mac App Store. Similar to labels found on other products consumers purchase, the privacy summary will include information on what types of data developers collect, how they collect it, and what they do with that data, including if it is used to track your movements across the web.

New language features
Several new bilingual dictionaries have been added to macOS Big Sur for easier translation between several languages, such as French to German, Polish to English, and Japanese to Chinese. Additionally, enhanced predictive input for Chinese and Japanese has been included for more accurate and contextual predictions. Rounding out these features, new fonts have been added, alongside upgrades to existing fonts for India, including localized message effects.

SEE: All of TechRepublic’s cheat sheets and smart person’s guides

Apple Silicon support
Apple announced its initial plans to switch from Intel CPUs to processors of its own design based on ARM architecture at WWDC 20. Apple developed its own series of processing chips, or silicon-on-chip (SoC), for the iPhone/iPad line when the devices were initially launched and has been using them ever since for those devices.

With the launch of its new products at the November 2020 event, Apple is replacing the existing Intel-based components with its own SoC, Apple M1. The transition is projected to last two years, eventually resulting in all of Apple’s devices running its proprietary SoC, starting with the first products, the MacBook Air with M1, MacBook Pro with M1, and Mac mini with M1. All these new Mac devices are being released in November 2020.

Similar to the transition from Apple’s previous PowerPC-based operating system, System OS 9 to OS X over 15 years ago, applications will require developers to rewrite their code in order for apps to work with the new SoC architecture. Apple now has Rosetta 2, an emulation app, that will emulate the environment as needed to allow apps that have not yet updated to run natively.

SEE: Apple Silicon M1 Mac buying guide: 2020 MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro vs. Mac mini (TechRepublic)

System security
In an effort to continue to harden macOS and protect user data, Big Sur expands on the system volume enhancements made prior by cryptographically signing the volume, which ensures that once macOS 11.0 is installed, the system volume creates a key that certifies the integrity of the volume. Any malicious attempts to tamper with it will likely fail to break the key; but should it fail, this would be easy to identify and recover from immediately.

Machine learning
Apple said the foundations of Big Sur are optimized to unlock the power of the M1 chip, including for Core ML for machine learning (ML), which it said is up to 15 times faster with M1.

Additional resources

Which devices support macOS Big Sur?

Apple rigorously tests all new releases of its operating systems for compatibility among existing devices. In recent years, Apple has denoted which devices and its release years are capable–at a minimum–to support the majority of the newest features included in each release of macOS. This method of testing and verification continues with macOS Big Sur, with the official list generated by Apple included below.

The following Intel Macs are supported with macOS Big Sur:

  • MacBook (2015 and newer)
  • MacBook Air (2013 and newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Late-2013 and newer)
  • iMac (2014 and newer)
  • iMac Pro (2017 and newer)
  • Mac Pro (2013 and newer)
  • Mac mini (2014 and newer)

The following Apple Silicon Macs also support the installation of macOS Big Sur:

  • MacBook Pro with M1

  • MacBook Air with M1

  • Mac mini with M1

  • iMac with M1

Additional resources

macOS Big Sur release history

  • November 17, 2020: Apple released 11.0 publicly and began pre-installing the OS on MacBook Air (M1, 2020), MacBook Pro (13″, M1 2020) and Mac mini (M1, 2020).

  • November 19, 2020: Apple released 11.0.1, which included a security update. This update is available for all Macs except Late 2013 and Mid 2014 13″ MacBook Pro models.

  • December 14, 2020: macOS Big Sur 11.1 is released with both a security update and a feature update.

  • February 1, 2021: Apple released a security update with macOS 11.2.

  • February 15, 2021: Apple released macOS 11.2.1, which resolves a bug where installation with insufficient free space could cause data loss when using the full macOS installer.

  • February 25, 2021: Apple released macOS 11.2.2.

  • March 8, 2021: Apple released a security patch with 11.2.3.

  • April 26, 2021: Apple released macOS 11.3, which included a zero-day attack fix related to the GateKeeper system in macOS that prevents unauthorized or malicious software from running on macOS.

When can I get macOS Big Sur?

Big Sur is available now via the Mac App Store for direct download on supported devices to perform the upgrade to macOS 11.0.

Additional resources

What are alternatives to macOS Big Sur?

While Apple tailors its operating system to the underlying hardware it runs on to provide a seamless, integrated experience that does not exist anywhere else, understandably, users sometimes purchase Apple hardware for the superior craftsmanship of its computers, while opting to use an alternate OS that meets their needs.

Due to Apple’s migration to Intel-based processors many years ago, this opened the gateway to allowing other operating systems to be installed and used on Apple hardware natively. While the use of Apple macOS is licensed for use exclusively with Apple hardware legally, the OSes listed below may be installed and used on Apple hardware without a similar caveat.

Microsoft Windows: Users frequently move to install Windows client or server OSes on their shiny new Apple computers. For years, Apple has offered the ability to run Windows 10 as a dual-boot system on supported Macs, allowing users to switch between the two operating systems on-the-fly. Apple even provides the necessary software drivers to allow Windows to take full advantage of the Apple hardware foundation for the best computing experience possible.

This applies to Windows Server as well, with some choosing to pair Apple’s beefier systems with Microsoft’s flagship server operating system to provide networking, file sharing, and dozens of other enterprise-class services to their organizations.

Linux Mint: This is a version of Linux based on Debian, sharing similarities with the widely popular Ubuntu distribution. The primary focus of Linux Mint is to provide a secure and stable computing environment, while offering a complete, polished experience for users out-of-the-box. Linux Mint also includes full support from a vibrant community of enthusiasts and a “best of” assortment of open-source applications, with additional support extended through package management and the all-powerful Terminal. Linux Mint offers something for users new to Linux and experienced admins looking for a sleek, powerful open-source operating system to boost productivity.

VMware ESXi: VMware is a leader in the enterprise-class virtualization space. ESXi is compatible with bare-metal hardware developed by a growing number of manufacturers on its frequently updated Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). The Type-1 Hypervisor consists of a proprietary Linux kernel that runs the underlying host system for managing the resources used by its guests (virtual machines). While the core hypervisor is free to use based on the GPL license, enhanced management capability, High Availability (HA), and live migration of VMs are available through commercially licensed offerings.

Additional resources

macOS 11 Big Sur
Image: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

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