Take In the Scenic View
Since you’ve bought this book, I assume you’ve already decided to upgrade to Big Sur and don’t need convincing that it’s worth your time and effort. However, I would like to call attention to some of the biggest changes in Big Sur that you can look forward to, especially those I discuss in more detail later in this book.
In addition, if you’re upgrading from an operating system older than macOS 10.15 Catalina, you may be interested to know what other features were added along the way—as well as some that were removed.
Find Out What’s New in Big Sur
Apple has a list of new Big Sur features on this webpage. I won’t catalog them all here, but I’d like to list some of the most notable changes and improvements since 10.15 Catalina:
New look and feel: The windows have rounder corners. All the icons have been redesigned. Sidebars in the Finder and various other Apple apps are taller and restyled. The toolbar at the top of Finder windows also looks quite a bit different. Menu bar items are more widely spaced. The Dock is no longer docked but rather a floating strip, and sheets no longer slide down from the tops of windows but rather float in front. System sounds have been reworked. And Apple has (unfortunately, in my view) gone even further with making onscreen elements translucent.
In short, love it or hate it, Big Sur takes macOS in a much different visual (and audible) direction than its predecessors. I show some examples of new interface elements in Get Your Visual Bearings.
Control Center: Much like Control Center on iOS and iPadOS, Big Sur’s new, customizable Control Center lets you quickly adjust system settings. Read more about it in Work with Control Center.
Maps: The Maps app offers enhanced features for cyclists and owners of electric vehicles, guides to local businesses, and even indoor maps of airports and shopping centers. See Find Your Way Around Maps.
Messages: The Messages app, likewise, gains a long list of new features, some of which will be familiar to iPhone and iPad users. Among other things, it now supports pinned conversations, has better searching, enables mentions directed at a particular person within a group chat and inline replies, and features fancy visual effects as well as a new Memoji editor. Read more about it in Enhance Your Messages.
Notification Center: Notifications are now more powerful and more customizable than ever. Notification Center also now supports third-party widgets. See Manage Notifications.
Photos: The updated Photos app has improved editing tools for both photos and videos. It also features better navigation, a new captioning capability, and an improved Memories feature. See Improve Your Photos to learn more.
Safari: Apple’s much-loved web browser got a big makeover, with a customizable start page, better tabs, automatic translation, privacy improvements, and more. I discuss all this further in Learn New Safari Tricks.
System-level improvements: A number of technologies in Big Sur that we commonly think of as system components rather than conventional apps have undergone minor improvements. That list includes AirPods support, Family Sharing, Siri, and Spotlight. In addition, there are new international features. See Other System Improvements.
Other apps: Smaller but certainly welcome changes have also appeared in numerous built-in apps, including Apple Arcade, App Store, FaceTime, Home, Music, Notes, Podcasts, Reminders, Voice Memos, and Weather. See Other App Improvements.
Big Sur also includes some elements that Apple doesn’t mention on its consumer-facing webpages. For example:
Time Machine can now use an APFS-formatted drive as a destination. There are, however, a few qualifications and gotchas. See Update Your Backup Strategy.
Contrary to what Apple led us all to believe when Catalina was released, Big Sur does not remove command-line scripting languages such as Perl, Python, and Ruby. Of course, those could still disappear in a future macOS update, but if they do, it should still be possible to download and install them yourself.
The startup chime is back. (Maybe!) Let me say a few more words about that…
If you’re already running Catalina, that’s all you need to know for now; skip ahead to Check Your Mac for Compatibility. But if your Mac is still using an older operating system, read on to learn about some changes in the past few releases that you may not be fully prepared for.
Catch Up with macOS Changes
The older the operating system you’re upgrading from, the more changes you’ll notice in Big Sur—and the greater the likelihood that you’ll encounter compatibility problems with old hardware and software. You’ll find great new features, but you may also have to abandon software you’ve used for many years, adopt new habits, or reorient your thinking about how a Mac works. Before you jump in, you should understand what awaits you.
Read the topics below covering any operating systems you’ve never installed on your Mac.
Changes in Catalina
Still running Mojave or earlier? Here’s a quick overview of what changed in Catalina.
Catalina replaced iTunes with separate Music, TV, and Podcast apps, moving syncing for iOS and iPadOS devices to the Finder. It also added the Find My app, which lets you locate both your devices and your friends, and a Screen Time app to track or restrict app usage. A new feature called Sidecar lets you use an iPad as an external display. Voice control was improved, and there were significant changes to Notes, Photos, Reminders, and Safari.
Architectural changes meant the end of support for 32-bit apps, deprecation of kernel extensions (KEXTs), and more security alerts. Dashboard and its widgets were removed. And the default shell used in Terminal switched from bash to zsh. A new technology called Catalyst made it easier for developers to make apps for iPadOS and macOS at the same time, and to port existing iPad apps to the Mac.
Catalina also made a change to the way your disk is structured, keeping the operating system separate from your apps and other data on a special read-only volume that makes it more resistant to hacks and malware. This change is largely hidden from users, though in some situations (such as when using Disk Utility or poking around in Terminal), you may see two separate volumes, such as “Macintosh HD” and “Macintosh HD - Data.”
Changes in Mojave
If you’re using 10.13 High Sierra or earlier, you should be aware of what changed in 10.14 Mojave.
Mojave introduced dark mode and an optional dynamic desktop picture. The Finder gained the ability to automatically sort items on your desktop using the Stacks feature, Gallery view replaced Cover Flow, and Quick Look added support for editing, annotating, and sharing documents without opening them.
Mojave also included new and easier-to-use tools for making screenshots, as well as Continuity Camera, which lets you take live pictures with your iPhone and insert them into a document on your Mac. FaceTime’s multi-user capabilities expanded to support audio and video calls with up to 32 participants. The Mac App Store was redesigned and Home, News, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps were ported from iOS to macOS. Mojave also added a number of privacy and security features—including special changes to Mail, Messages, and Safari—that make it harder for the bad guys to get at your personal information.
Apple removed a few other items from Mojave, including iCloud’s Back to My Mac feature; subpixel antialiasing; stationery in Mail; and system-wide support for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Vimeo, and Flickr.
Changes in High Sierra
If you’re running macOS 10.12 Sierra or earlier, here’s what you need to know about the changes in macOS 10.13 High Sierra.
High Sierra was a fairly minor release in terms of new features, and many of the changes were architectural improvements rather than changes to the user interface. One big change was expanded support for APFS (Apple File System), which replaced the decades-old Mac OS Extended (or HFS Plus) file system on SSD-based Macs to improve security, performance, and reliability. (See the sidebar More About APFS, ahead.) High Sierra also added support for HEVC, or High Efficiency Video Coding, and Metal 2—a significantly improved version of Apple’s graphics API (application programming interface).
Changes that were more visible to users included new tools in Safari to block advertisers from tracking you, stop videos from autoplaying when you load a page, show articles in Safari Reader by default, and customize your browsing experience in other ways. Siri also gained a more human-sounding voice, the option to type (rather than speak) your questions, and more extensive integration with Apple Music. And the Photos app saw improved organizational features, an expanded sidebar, new filters and editing tools, a looping effect for Live Photos, better integration with third-party apps, and more.
Changes in Sierra
If you’re running OS X 10.11 El Capitan or earlier, here’s what you need to know about the changes in macOS 10.12 Sierra (apart from the fact that Apple rebranded the operating system from “OS X” to “macOS”).
Sierra finally brought Siri to the Mac. It also added Apple Pay (in Safari); Auto Unlock with Apple Watch; Universal Clipboard (so you can copy something on one of your Apple devices and paste it on another); iCloud Drive sync for your Desktop and Documents folders; optimized storage (the option to delete local copies of files stored in iCloud Drive if you run low on disk space); tabs in almost every app; a picture-in-picture view for videos; and various improvements to Photos, Messages, Mail, and iTunes.
Unfortunately, fax and modem support was largely discontinued starting in Sierra. If you previously used an Apple USB Modem with your Mac—either for dial-up internet access or to send and receive faxes—you should know that Big Sur, like Sierra, no longer supports your modem. Some third-party USB modems and multifunction (printer, fax, scanner, copier) devices that include their own driver software may still work with Big Sur for both internet access and faxing, as long as the drivers support a 64-bit kernel. In particular, I’ve read (although I haven’t tested them myself) that the USRobotics USR5637 and Zoom 3095 modems should be compatible, but I can’t guarantee it.
If you need to send or receive faxes in Big Sur, there are a few alternatives (such as running a virtual machine, using an internet fax service, or copying the old drivers from El Capitan). Adam Engst lays out the options in his TidBITS article Lost in Sierra: Five Missing Features.
Changes in El Capitan
If you’re still using OS X 10.10 Yosemite or earlier, you’ll want to know what changed in OS X 10.11 El Capitan. El Capitan added Split View (like Full Screen, but for two apps at a time); major improvements to Spotlight, Notes, Safari, Maps, and Photos; new system fonts; improved performance; and a security feature called System Integrity Protection (SIP), about which you can read in Glenn Fleishman’s Macworld article Private I: El Capitan’s System Integrity Protection will shift utilities’ functions.
Changes in Yosemite
Still running OS X 10.9 Mavericks or earlier? In OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Apple added Continuity features that enable Macs and iOS devices to work together more seamlessly, a significantly redesigned Spotlight, iCloud Drive, an expanded Notification Center, and several improvements to Mail.
Yosemite also changed how the Mac handles Java. Java is a popular cross-platform programming language, which once enjoyed full support on the Mac. But largely due to security concerns, Apple stopped bundling the Java runtime (the software that enables Java code to run) with the Mac operating system. In Big Sur (as in Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan, and Yosemite), a prompt still appears when you try to run Java software, directing you to download the Java runtime from Oracle and install it manually.
Changes in Mavericks
In OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Apple switched from using big cats to California landmarks in the names of its Mac operating systems. 10.9 Mavericks also improved support for multiple displays, introduced both tags and tabs in the Finder, added the iBooks (now simply Books) and Maps apps, and introduced interactive notifications, all while improving performance on several fronts.