Apple introduces macOS Big Sur with the big design changes

Today, Apple announced its next big update for macOS, alongside of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7, and tvOS 14. The company says that this is the biggest design change since the introduction of Mac OS X.

macOS Big Sur adds different transparent layers, a new floating dock that sits at the bottom of the screen, and more. Apps are being redesigned with things like Photos being backed by Metal, so it will have smoother animations.

Next up is Control Center, which is making its debut on the Mac. You can do things like adjust brightness, and other things that you want to do via shortcuts.

Notification Center is getting a redesign as well, and it's going to include widgets now. moreover, macOS is getting the same redesigned widgets, which come in new shapes and sizes, as iOS 14.

Messaging and Maps are getting new features, and they're both based on Catalyst now, which means they're the same as the iPad apps. Messages is getting search, new group text images and threads, mentions, and more. Maps is getting a cycling feature, EV routes, and so on. It's similar to what we're seeing on iOS and iPadOS 14.

Safari is getting new features, as usual. Apple is doubling down on privacy, letting you see compromised passwords and allowing you to control which sites extensions can access. You can also set extensions so they will only have permissions to work for a certain amount of time.

There are tabs improvements, such as the ability to hover over tabs to see a preview, and you can choose to close all tabs to the right of the active tab. It also now supports translations.

macOS 10.16 Big Sur will arrive this fall.