Overview and How to Install, macOS Big Sur Public Beta

Hi, everyone.

Today Apple released macOS Big Sur public beta. This is the exact same beta that Apple released earlier for developers known as beta four. They will have the same build number of two zero eight five three four three. I, and that’s how you know, you’re on the latest version. Now, if you’re not familiar with all of the huge changes within this particular update, check out my other video. macOS Big Sur beta one, where I’ve covered all of the major changes that Apple is bringing with macOS Big Sur. So in this video, Im going to explain how you can install. I’ll go over the new features with beta four and do a general overview of macOS big sur.

Now there’s obvious visual changes and everything else, but let’s first talk about how to install it. If you want to install, macOS 11, which is a huge change and a complete rewrite. You want to open Safari and under Safari, you’ll notice that it’s all new Safari can now translate information from different websites into the language that you prefer. It also can have a different background desktop within Safari. You have your favorites, a privacy report, lots of new privacy information, but if you want to install this beta, let’s go to apple.com/beta. Now, this is the official way to do this. You don’t want to do this any other way, and just be aware that it’s a beta program. There will be bugs within the beta.

So go to beta.apple.com or apple.com/beta. Well bring you to either place click sign in, and here you’ll either need to sign in or sign up. Now, once you’re in this website and you’re signed in, you can see all of the different overviews of iOS iPad, macOS and watches. And now, if you want to use this on your particular Mac, and its supported go to enroll your devices, and first make sure you back up your Mac. You can use time machine. You can have a different backup, but just make sure its backed up in general.

In fact, I don’t recommend anyone install a beta that isn’t willing to completely wipe their Mac and restore all over again. So make sure that you’re willing to do that. And once you’re willing to do that, and you’re backed up, go and download the macOS public beta access utility click on it. It will download a file. Once the file is downloaded, you’ll want to go ahead and open it up and install it once you’ve installed that file. 

You’ll be good to go and you’ll check for an update. So you want to install this file. Once its installed, simply check for an update under system preferences, go to software update, and it will show the new update. Now, keep in mind in order to go back from this particular version to macOSCatalina, you may need to completely wipe the device. So for example, you’ll see I’m already enrolled in. Let me minimize Safari.

I’m already enrolled. If I click on details, it says the Mac is enrolled. And do you want to restore default update settings?

If you restore it won’t delete anything. It just won’t receive any future updates. Now, also, when the final version comes out, you’ll be able to update to it. So you can go forward. You can’t really easily go in reverse. So just keep that in mind. Now, let’s talk about all of the new things. And the first thing is have giant visual change that you may have already noticed. So if you haven’t seen this already, you can see that all of the icons have changed. They have more of a different sort of rounded square to them, right?

And also some of the icons have completely changed like Launchpad. So you may or may not like these Apple does continue to change them in the last beta. They actually updated the dictionary that we see here, and they continue to update their different icons and different programs within macOS so that’s one major change. One other major changes they’ve brought the control center. So as you can see here, we have Y T Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and airdrop. We also have our keyboard brightness screen mirroring, do not disturb display sound, and then any music that we might have playing as well. 

And sometimes these are a little bit better, but we have the ability to adjust this right here with our mouse. It looks very much like it could be a touch interface, but we have that opportunity to adjust what we want, similar to what we have with iOS and iPad. iOS. Also, Apple has updated the numbers of occasions. 

So as you can see here, we’ve got calendars with women and its, we’ve got forecasts that failed. So keep in mind, this is a beta. And if you are having issues, make sure you report it in the feedback assistant, but some of the widgets don’t work properly from time to time. So just keep that in mind. Fine, but you can add new widgets like this. So you’ll see there’s some new widget. You can adjust the size, however, you’d like, maybe you want the stocks widget, or maybe the podcast widget.

You can change it and add it to you, your notifications here. So it’s really nice that they’ve sort of separated. It. It’s easier to read. And it just hides off to the side. Now, one of the major changes is with Safari and I already talked about price, Missy, and some of the changes they’ve made, but one huge change they’ve made has to do with 4k,  macOS big Sur, as well as 14 and iPad, iOS 14. 

So if we go to YouTube.  If I make it full screen, it takes a second just because I’m screen recording at the same time on an older Mac, but you see, I have the option for 2160 P or 4k, and then I can play this back. And so it will play back. It may take a moment to catch up and buffer, but now we have 4k YouTube videos built into Safari, along with all of its privacies. Now, Apple has also updated finder to reflect the changes throughout macOS Big Sur.

So they’re trying to make the icons more consistent. You can see all of the same things you’re familiar with before, but now we’ve got a little bit more compact menu at the top, so we can change it up. We’ve got all of the same features and functionality we had before. So new folder opened new tab. You can open multiple tabs throughout, or just open another one with command T and you have all of the same functionality. You have light and dark themes as well. So find your still works just like you would expect, but now has the visual changes to go along with the overall update. So that’s the huge update with beta four, as well as the public beta.

And there are other changes all throughout. So for example, if you’re using Apple maps, maps has been updated. Messages has been updated to basically match what we have on iOS and everything is sort of coming together to match what we have with iOS and iPad OS as well. You’ll see there’s changes to different icons, such as this mac OS, public beta access utility and things are just a little bit different, more refined, and there’s even more battery options here.

And Apple is listening to people and they’ve even changed this icon. So you can actually see your usage over time. So it gives you the general idea, just like iPhone does. So things are more consistent throughout all OS versions.

And so hopefully that helps you understand what’s new. Of course. But things like music, everything has changed and consistent with what we had with iOS and iPad iOS. So everything is the same, no matter what device you’re using.

So you’ll see music is the same as you get on iPad, basically. And Apple is really working to make everything consistent across all of the platforms. So that’s it with Mac S big Sur public beta, hopefully that gives you a general overview of what’s new. There was a ton to be found throughout the OS, everything from little tweaks to mail, to every single app you see here, Apple has changed something. They may continue to change it in the future. And of course, I’ll continue to make videos as they make major changes. Just keep in mind, there’s bugs and be sure to report it in the feedback assistant. If you’re still having issues, if you’ve installed makeover big Sur public beta, I’d love to hear from you. Of course,