Keeping with its recent annual update cycle, Apple showed off the next version of the Mac desktop operating system at WWDC today. OS X 10.11, the latest system version, carries the name El Capitan following Apple’s pattern of using names of prominent locations across California including Yosemite and Mavericks in years prior. Full details below:
– 55% of active Mac users running OS X 10.10 Yosemite
– Fastest adoption rate for any PC operating system
– OS X 10.11 El Capitan
– Big Spotlight enhancements, built-in app upgrades, better window management
– New trackpad gestures across the system including Mailbox-like swipe actions in Mail
– Safari can now pin tabs to the tab bar. These return when window is closed and reopened. Pinned sites open in new windows as well when clicking links. Audio now shown in tabs easily for muting.
– Spotlight now includes weather data, window is resizable. Search results are smarter with better natural language detection. Search in apps is smarter as well including better search in Mail.
– Mission Control said to be smoother, simpler, faster. Full screen apps including Mail are smarter with multitasking features similar to iOS 8’s enhancements.
– El Capitan includes a side-by-side window feature for snapping windows to either side. Resizing is possible as well with this new split screen feature. Windows can be dragged into Mission Control to go full screen or in split view. Now calling top bar the Spaces bar.
– Notes now supports more rich editing features.
– General performances improvements as we reported to expect.
– Metal for high performance graphics is coming to Mac
– Slide shown highlights other features not mentioned including new system font, Find My Friends widget, font customization in Safari’s Reader mode, Photos editing extensions, and many more.
– Developer beta available today, public beta coming in July, free release this fall
Apple Announces OS X El Capitan with Refined Experience & Improved Performance
SAN FRANCISCO — June 8, 2015 — Apple® today announced OS X® El Capitan, a new version of OS X that refines the Mac® experience and improves system performance. Building on last year’s landmark release of OS X Yosemite, El Capitan introduces enhancements to window management, built-in apps and Spotlight® search, and makes everyday activities — from launching apps to accessing email — faster and more responsive. Metal™, Apple’s breakthrough graphics technology, is integrated into El Capitan, delivering system-wide performance gains and enabling games and pro apps to tap into the full power of Mac graphics processors.
“OS X delivers unparalleled integration between Mac hardware, iOS devices, apps and online services, and has helped Mac sales outpace the PC industry every year for the last decade,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Customers loved last year’s landmark OS X Yosemite release and made it the fastest-adopted PC operating system ever. With El Capitan, we’re further refining the Mac experience with enhancements to window management, Spotlight and built-in apps, and improving performance so everyday activities — from launching apps to accessing email — are faster and more responsive.”
Refinements to the Mac Experience
OS X El Capitan refinements begin with the new system font, San Francisco, a modern and easy-to-read typeface that looks stunning on a Retina® display. Mission Control®, the quickest way to view all open windows, has a cleaner design so you can find the window you need even faster. When your desktop gets crowded, simply drag a window to the top of your screen to access the new Spaces Bar in Mission Control and create a new Space, OS X’s intuitive way to group applications. And, the new Split View feature automatically positions two app windows side-by-side in full screen so you can work with both apps without distraction.
Built-in apps are even more streamlined in El Capitan. Safari® now features Pinned Sites to keep your favorite websites open and active in your tab bar and a new mute button to quickly silence browser audio from any tab. Mail introduces Smart Suggestions, which recognizes names or events in a Mail message and prompts you to add them to your contacts or calendar with a single click. You can also now swipe to delete messages, just like in iOS, and juggle multiple emails while Mail is in full screen. In Photos, you can add locations to a single image or an entire Moment, and sort albums by date or title. Additionally, you’ll be able to download third-party editing extensions from the Mac App Store℠ and access them directly within the Photos app.
With the all-new Notes app in El Capitan you can drag and drop photos, PDFs, videos and other files into notes, and add content directly from other apps, such as Safari or Maps, using the Share menu. Easy-to-create checklists help you keep track of important to-do items, and the new Attachments Browser organizes your attachments in one simple view, making it easy to find what you’re looking for. With iCloud®, your notes stay in sync across all your enabled devices.
Spotlight gets even smarter in El Capitan, generating results for even more topics, including weather, stocks, sports, transit and web video. You can now resize the Spotlight window to display more results or move it anywhere on your desktop, and use natural language to find documents and files on your Mac based on when they were created or who you sent them to.
Improvements to System Performance
OS X El Capitan improves system performance across your Mac, making many of the things you do everyday faster and more responsive. Metal, Apple’s groundbreaking graphics technology, accelerates Core Animation and Core Graphics to boost system-level rendering by up to 50 percent,* and efficiency by up to 40 percent,** resulting in faster graphics performance for everyday apps. Metal also takes full advantage of your CPU and GPU, delivering up to 10 times faster draw call performance for a richer, more fluid experience in games and pro apps.*
El Capitan also features enhanced international language support, including a new Chinese system font for both Traditional and Simplified, with 50,000 beautifully designed characters for crisp on-screen readability. Chinese keyboard input methods now offer regularly updated vocabulary lists and a smarter candidate window. El Capitan makes entering Japanese text faster by automatically transforming Hiragana into written Japanese and reducing the need to individually select and confirm word conversions. You can now also select the perfect font for your documents using four new Japanese typefaces.
Availability
The developer preview of OS X El Capitan is available to Mac Developer Program members starting today. Mac users can participate in the El Capitan Beta Program in July and download the final version for free from the Mac App Store this fall. Customers interested in signing up for the public beta can visit www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/ for more details. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.
*Testing conducted by Apple in May 2015 using 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5-based 13-inch MacBook Pro® systems with 128GB of flash storage and 8GB of RAM. Tested with prerelease OS X v10.11. Not all features are available on all devices. Performance will vary based on system configuration, application workload and other factors.
**Testing conducted by Apple in May 2015 using 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7-based 15-inch MacBook Pro systems with 256GB of flash storage and 16GB of RAM. Tested with prerelease OS X v10.11. Not all features are available on all devices. Performance will vary based on system configuration, application workload and other factors.
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, the Mac and Apple Watch. Apple’s three software platforms — iOS, OS X and watchOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.
Apple, the Apple logo, OS X, Mac, Spotlight, Metal, Retina, Mission Control, Safari, App Store, iCloud and MacBook Pro are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Great. And I like the name too: it stays within Yosemite (snow leopard) and, I climbed the nose route of El Cap in the late 1970s so I’m particular to that particular piece of granite, one of the most amazing on earth.
The iTunes icon in the screenshot of El Capitan on Apple’s website is rainbow colored.
It looks so shitty.
shitty is the new “enhanced”
App icons are gone from the Mission Control View preview windows. I don’t like that, as finding the correct window has already been difficult.
No enhancements to dark mode :(
Staying with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, thanks.
here here!