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Apple will release macOS 11 Big Sur on Thursday, November 12. The operating system supports Apple’s own ARM processors. They are in the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13 “and Mac mini that Apple announced Tuesday.
Apple sets up macOS 11 Big Sur the new MacBooks and Mac mini released next week, but the operating system will also be released for existing Macs. Big Sur supports both the Intel x86 processors included in current Mac systems and the ARM chips that Apple will be using in its own laptops and PCs from now on.
According to Apple devices with the M1-soc in combination with Big Sur work very smoothly. Waking up from sleep mode is said to be just as fast as iPhones and iPads, and Safari is “up to 1.5x faster” handling JavaScript and “up to 2x” responsive.
All software that Apple itself provides with the operating system runs natively on both ARM and x86 hardware. The Rosetta 2 emulator allows x86 software to be run on the new MacBooks and Mac mini with ARM chip.
In addition to innovations under the hood, Big Sur also has a new look. Various elements of iOS are coming to the desktop and laptop operating system. Tweakers wrote about this earlier in a preview from a beta version of macOS 11 Big Sur.
The new operating system is not coming to all Mac systems. MacBooks and iMacs from 2012 and older are not supported in macOS 11 Big Sur. Those devices will continue to run on macOS Catalina.
| Big Sur | stays on Catalina | |
|---|---|---|
| MacBook (12″) | 2015 model and newer | – |
| MacBook Air | 2013 model and newer | 2012-model |
| MacBook Pro | Late 2013 model and newer | 2012 and early 2013 models |
| Mac mini | 2014 model and newer | 2012-model |
| iMac | 2014 model and newer | 2012-2013 models |
| iMac Pro | 2017 model and newer | – |
| Mac Pro | 2013 and newer | – |
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