This month’s cover star is macOS Big Sur, and boy does it live up to its name. macOS 11 - note the significant jump in its primary number from 10.15 for macOS Catalina - is surely the biggest update to the operating system in the 20 years since this number last changed. This isn’t just a light sprinkling of fairy dust, Big Sur is a pretty seismic shift to a newer and better kind of macOS.
It might not come as a massive surprise, but Apple is better aligning macOS and iOS/iPadOS (in version 14 - check out our hands-on over on page 24 for more on that) and we’re starting to see the features now look and work very similarly. Control Center, for example, is the most obvious of these, giving your Mac the same easy access to commonly used settings that we’ve been enjoying for ages in iOS/iPad OS. Big Sur’s Messages app is now more or less the same and Widgets are becoming a prominent feature on both macOS and iOS/iPadOS. Then there’s the visual changes to Big Sur - Apple has given macOS 11 an iOS-like redesign to make it fresher, cleaner, and easier to use. One glimpse at the new Finder or the Dock and you’ll notice just how similar it looks to iOS/iPadOS.
macOS Big Sur is due for launch this fall, so you’re looking at just a few weeks from the time this magazine goes on sale until you get to start using the new OS. If you’re desperate to take a test drive, you can download the public beta right now, but you’re probably better off waiting for the official launch as it’s so close. The big question about Big Sur is: will your machine be able to run it? The good news is that the majority of modern Apple machines appear to be supported, but if you want a full run-down of exactly which Macs work with Big Sur, then head over to page 10.