macOS 11: All the little things!

[happyhippo1337]

I'm really interested in this, i did notice from some screenshots that in Control Panel > Appearance there is no option for smooth font

Indeed its missing and it is still not perfect on 3440x1440 but now WAY more usable then before.

 

[Watabou]

In macOS 10.15 PC are represented by this awful graphics, did Apple change that too in 11.0?

View attachment 927947

Yes, that's still present, and the same as the one on Catalina:




They have a new SF symbol for a "PC" though, which is more modern 🙂

 

[seetheforest]

any new annotation tools in Preview?

 

[nexu]

It there still the djinn effect in Big Sur?

 

[Siannath]

Can you "hide" third party menu icons in Control Center à la Bartender?

 

[Watabou]

any new annotation tools in Preview?

No.

It there still the djinn effect in Big Sur?

Yes.

Can you "hide" third party menu icons in Control Center à la Bartender?

No.

 

[alexfc]

Given that Big Sur has rounded corners that seem to fit nicely on iPad's screen (

https://twitter.com/x/status/1276627910883934209

), is this any indication that future MacBook will adopt a rounded corner display or it probably doesn’t mean anything?

 

[q64ceo]

In macOS 10.15 PC are represented by this awful graphics, did Apple change that too in 11.0?

View attachment 927947

That picture predates Catalina by quite a bit of time

 

[ErikGrim]

In macOS 10.15 PC are represented by this awful graphics, did Apple change that too in 11.0?

View attachment 927947

Thankfully not.
[automerge]1593232373[/automerge]

View attachment 928150

I love it.

 

[UltimateSyn]

coconutBattery is calling my OS version 'macOS Mountain Catalina'

 

[user1234]

In macOS 10.15 PC are represented by this awful graphics, did Apple change that too in 11.0?

View attachment 927947

It’s been there since 2007. Was introduced with Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. I loved it back then, but now I think they should update it with the Windows 10 bluescreen on a flatscreen monitor.

 

[nabla]

The "Classic" view aka "Use Column Layout" are still there in Mail.app?

Yes.
[Screenshot removed from quote]

Can someone confirm whether it is possible again to display both columns for sender and recipient at the same time?
It has been really annoying that in Catalina, it was only possible to display either sender or recipient.

Thanks!

 

[floku]

Can you still hide the time and date in the menu bar? I usually replace it with the more customizable iStat Menus Clock. It seems that it might not be possible as clicking the time triggers Notification Center/Widgets?

 

[Flurin]

Is it still possible to show the file path from an open file e.g. in Preview by right clicking on the name on the title bar?

 

[Ritsuka]

Yes.

 

[JPNMac]

Do kexts still exist? Also, is it still possible to remount the system partition as writable?

 

[h9826790]

Is it only me or does Big Sur improve the rendering of small fonts on sub 4k screens? I have a 34'' Dell 3440x1440 screen that I have to use with a windows desktop because on Catalina the fonts look like its 1982. This seems to have drastically improved on Big Sur for me. Not yet Windows levels of clarity, but way better.

Did anyone else notice this?

I use 3840x1080 monitor. For me, Big Sur default to render desktop at 7680x2160, then downsample to 3840x1080. This will make the fonts looks so much better.

I always do this since I use this monitor, but in High Sierra and Mojave, it can only be done via 3rd party software. Now, it's default.

This screen capture comparison shows the difference with HiDPI rendering.

Of course, the change in the font itself also helps. But not as much as HiDPI. The font smoothing (anti aliasing) really make font hard to read in non HiDPI environment.

 

[mikecwest]

I'd wager that this is merely a question of shifting macOS to follow the same nomenclature as the remaining OS'. So next year we will get macOS 12, to go with iOS 15, tvOS 15, watchOS 8. It is easier to remember than 10.x, since you simply skip the first and irrelevant number. It may also be the first step in going away from the naming convention of big releases. 'macOS Big Sur' is an absolutely awful name IMHO.

I liked the cat names, but I think they ran out good cat names....They didn’t use my "Reindeer Kitty" you see to the left.

 

[DeadeyeM]

I use 3840x1080 monitor. For me, Big Sur default to render desktop at 7680x2160, then downsample to 3840x1080. This will make the fonts looks so much better.

I always do this since I use this monitor, but in High Sierra and Mojave, it can only be done via 3rd party software. Now, it's default.

This screen capture comparison shows the difference with HiDPI rendering.
View attachment 928335

Of course, the change in the font itself also helps. But not as much as HiDPI. The font smoothing (anti aliasing) really make font hard to read in non HiDPI environment.

Could you elaborate this more about using higher resolution than what monitor is specified?

 

[hesoba]

Is it normal that in Safari the "new Tab" icon is now not on the right side of the tabs, but in the "menu" bar

 

[tehabe]

It seems like Apple finally updated Time Machine to work on APFS volumes

Apple adds APFS encrypted drive support to iOS 14 and APFS Time Machine backups to macOS Big Sur - 9to5Mac

Apple didn’t say much about what’s new in the Files app with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 during the WWDC...

9to5mac.com

Would love to know if they are using snapshots on the volume or how they are doing it, snapshots would be the most easy way to do it I guess. Or did APFS gain hard link support in 11.0?

 

[Ansath]

Is it normal that in Safari the "new Tab" icon is now not on the right side of the tabs, but in the "menu" bar

Yes. Part of the updated design.

 

[zorinlynx]

Yes, that's still present, and the same as the one on Catalina:

View attachment 928149


They have a new SF symbol for a "PC" though, which is more modern 🙂

View attachment 928150

This has always been one of my favorite MacOS easter eggs, the bluescreened PC. I'm glad they kept it around in some form!

 

[Takuro]

This screen capture comparison shows the difference with HiDPI rendering.

How the heck do you have a 1080 Ti running? I assume the machine is still running High Sierra before Web Driver support was dropped?

 

[h9826790]

How the heck do you have a 1080 Ti running? I assume the machine is still running High Sierra before Web Driver support was dropped?

That capture is from High Sierra indeed. I am now running Radeon VII. And I am too lazy to make another screen capture / comparison to illustrate difference of fonts rendering between HiDPI and non HiDPI environment.

The following capture was created during the testing of RadeonBoost. But anyway, it also captured the resolution’s info. In my case, that’s defaulted to use HiDPI rendering.

[automerge]1593325189[/automerge]

Could you elaborate this more about using higher resolution than what monitor is specified?

There is no absolute relationship between rendering resolution, and the “UI looks like” resolution, and the actual monitor's resolution.

For macOS, the HiDPI mode always render at 2x the UI looks like resolution.

e.g. For 3840x2160 monitor.

If you choose 3840x2160 in system preferences, that means everything render at 1x scale in 3840x2160. For normal size monitor (e.g. 27"), everything will be very small to read.

If you choose 1920x1080 HiDPI, that means everything still render at 3840x2160, however, in 2x scale. Everything will looks 2x bigger. Therefore, you are still fully utilise all 3840x2160 pixels on the monitor, but the "UI looks like" 1920x1080 (in size).

If you choose 2560x1440 HiDPI, then everything will be render at 5120x2880, then down scale back to 3840x2160. You are still fully utilise all 3840x2160 pixels. But the UI looks like 2560x1440, and the macOS actually render the desktop at 5120x2880, which is higher than your monitor's resolution.

In fact, you can also choose 3840x2160 HiDPI. So that the GPU render everything at 8k, then downsample back to 4k, and display at 4k. In most cases, this is just a waste of the resources (e.g. VRAM). But if you connect the Mac to a large size 4k TV (e.g. 84”), this setting can be useful to make the images (e.g. fonts) looks better.

In my case, the macOS render everything at 2x the monitor resolution. Then down scale back to the native resolution. This makes the fonts looks much better (also make the screen capture, and the "zoom in" image looks much better).

From memory, OSX has this function since Mavericks.