Apple announces OS X 10.11 El Capitan, focusing on experience & performance

Posted:
in macOS edited July 2015
Apple's next major release of OS X will be dubbed "El Capitan," the company announced on Monday, featuring a number of tweaks and improvements, including enhancements to Spotlight, new gesture-based input methods for built-in apps, and more.




Unveiling OS X 10.11 El Capitan on Monday, Apple software chief Craig Federighi said that the new operating system will focus on two major areas: experience and performance.

Gesture-based improvements in the operating system include a new, larger mouse cursor that temporarily displays when a computer is awoken from sleep.

In Spotlight, Federighi showed searching for the San Francisco Giants and finding the team's next games, weather for that day, and more. Search results can also be resized and moved around.




In Safari, users will be able to pin sites, reducing them to an icon. And a new audio icon allows users to mute websites and identify which tab is playing sound.

A new fullscreen mode in Mail lets users work on multiple messages at once. Federighi demonstrated minimizing a compose window, then dragging a photo from another message into his composer without leaving a single full-screen view.

Additionally, El Capitan gains new window management features. OS X will help users automatically divide their screen between different apps, which the company calls Split View.




Performance improvements are also a key part of El Capitan, with Apple saying that OS X will offer two-times faster performance when switching apps or getting messages in Mail. Opening a PDF in Preview, meanwhile, is said to be 4 times as fast as in Yosemite.

El Capitan is available to developer starting today, while the public will be able to get their hands on a beta starting in July. The operating system will be freely available to all this fall.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 55

    This is Snow Leopard 2015, which is exactly what OS X needed.

     

    I'll just call it El Cap, easier.

  • Reply 2 of 55
    mubailimubaili Posts: 453member
    So it is indeed a "snow leopard" like release.
  • Reply 3 of 55
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member

    "El Capitan"?

     

    Really??

     

  • Reply 4 of 55
    dugbugdugbug Posts: 283member

    Its a famous vertical rock formation at yosemite, which makes perfect sense

  • Reply 5 of 55
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member

    I know what it is. It's just *also* funny, for other reasons. 

     

    Any word on compatibility? I assume the list is the same.

  • Reply 6 of 55
    4 x Faster... Puts it on a par with 10.5.
    "Enhancements to Spotlight"... it may work and offer the sorting and location features of Cmd-F after all the attention it has had for 10.11 release (No breath holding. No Class Action for mass asphixiation)
  • Reply 7 of 55
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post

     

    "El Capitan"?

     

    Really??

     




    Perhaps the name Smores, Rice Krispy Treats, or Mallomars is more to your liking?

  • Reply 8 of 55
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member

  • Reply 9 of 55
    drewys808drewys808 Posts: 549member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post



    A new fullscreen mode in Mail lets users work on multiple messages at once. Federighi demonstrated minimizing a compose window, then dragging a photo from another message into his composer without leaving a single full-screen view.

    Improvements to Mail is much needed and will help Mac gain traction as the over 30 crowd who use email for business and pleasure would gain from this. And with better search capabilities integrated with Mail, it'll get even better.

     

    There a lot of things I don't like about Outlook, but there are elements to reuse, like the ease of sorting/filtering lists of emails and even more stable in some ways (like Mail's quirky behaviors: showing only partial message when replying, junk mail filtering, etc.).

     

    Mail is good, but can be gooder.

     

    Looking forward to El Capitan.

  • Reply 10 of 55
    konqerrorkonqerror Posts: 685member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by stargazerCT View Post

     



    Perhaps the name Smores, Rice Krispy Treats, or Mallomars is more to your liking?


     

    "The tents in Yosemite where a bunch of people got Hantavirus and died"

  • Reply 11 of 55
    jimdreamworxjimdreamworx Posts: 1,095member
    Same computers support the update as per Mavericks and Yosemite?
    Or some being left behind?
  • Reply 12 of 55
    magic_almagic_al Posts: 325member

    Hopefully the same system requirements. It would be ironic if a release intended mainly to clean things up and improve performance left out the Macs that need it the most.

  • Reply 13 of 55
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Magic_Al View Post

     

    Hopefully the same system requirements. It would be ironic if a release intended mainly to clean things up and improve performance left out the Macs that need it the most.


     

    Agreed!   

  • Reply 14 of 55
    About time there is a split screen mode. I've been waiting for that forever
  • Reply 15 of 55
    wakefinancewakefinance Posts: 855member

    I'm looking forward to this update.  There aren't any particular features I wanted to see added to OS X, so a focus on performance sounds perfect to me.

  • Reply 16 of 55
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     

    I'll just call it El Cap, easier.


    Anything would be better than the way they pronounce El Capitan. Wow does that really grate on the ears?

  • Reply 17 of 55
    joshajosha Posts: 901member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by JimDreamworx View Post



    Same computers support the update as per Mavericks and Yosemite?

    Or some being left behind?

    ElCap sounds great, a cleaned up Yos.  

    We have two Macs we'd like to update to it.

     

    Yes. my only concern is does it support the Mav Macs?

    Wouldn't make sense not to, but you never know there could be some newer hardware function ElCap needs.

  • Reply 18 of 55
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I just finished cloning my MP's internal for safety and El Capitan has downloaded ... now to install .. Yippee :)
  • Reply 19 of 55
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    The iTunes icon in the screenshot of El Capitan on Apple's website is rainbow colored.
  • Reply 20 of 55
    9secondko9secondko Posts: 929member
    Yay! No San Francisco font!
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