Apple announces OS X 10.11 El Capitan, focusing on experience & performance
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.
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.
Comments
This is Snow Leopard 2015, which is exactly what OS X needed.
I'll just call it El Cap, easier.
"El Capitan"?
Really??
Its a famous vertical rock formation at yosemite, which makes perfect sense
I know what it is. It's just *also* funny, for other reasons.
Any word on compatibility? I assume the list is the same.
"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)
"El Capitan"?
Really??
Perhaps the name Smores, Rice Krispy Treats, or Mallomars is more to your liking?
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.
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"
Or some being left behind?
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.