What's New? macOS Big Sur 11.3 Beta 2 is Out

 Hi everyone,

And  yesterday apple released mac os big sur 11.3  beta 2 to developers now this is out to developers  hopefully soon to public beta testers by the time  you’re watching this it just depends on what  time you’re watching this at but this came in  at 3.44 gigabytes on my mac pro and it will vary  depending on your device now if this is the first  time you’re installing this beta it could be over  12 gigabytes so maybe you didn’t install the first  beta it could be a very large install so just keep  that in mind now let’s go ahead and take a look at  the build number and you can see if we go to about  this mac it says version 11.3 and the build number  is 205186d and this particular update does add a  few new things so the first thing that it adds has  to do with support so if we go under support for  example under about this mac click on support give.

It a moment to load let it collect the data and  as you can see this is a little bit different than  what we had before so it shows us our apple care  plus when it expires so in my case December 15  2022 and then it has accidental damage hardware  coverage and 24 7 priority access we can click  on details now and here it doesn’t really do  a whole lot for me and then also get support  isn’t doing a whole lot now some people will see  this pop open safari for example and give you more  information on the mac pro it’s not doing that so  it just depends on your device but for me it’s not  doing anything right now when I click on it and  it just gives a little more information about  it underneath so I imagine this will get a little  bit updated in the future but right now it doesn’t  seem to function 100 at least for me so let’s  go ahead and close this and I want to talk about  one feature or two things rather that I didn’t  talk about since I didn’t do a beta 1 video and the first one has to do with if you’re  using home pods. 

For example you’ll see we  have the option to use them as a stereo pair for  our mac now so maybe you have two homepod minis  and you want to use them as a stereo pair like  I’m using it works really well unless you’re  trying to do something in real time such as  edit a video there’s a little bit of lag there  so they added this with beta 1 and it works  quite well like I said but before with previous  versions you could only pick one homepod so now  you have the option for two which is really nice  the other thing they added support for with  beta 1 is ps5 controller support as well as  xbox series x wireless controller support so if  you have either of those controllers and you want  to use them for a game on your mac you can do  that with this beta now the next thing they’ve  added has to do with messages just like ios 14.5  beta 2 in mac os 11.3 beta 2 they’ve added the  same emoji to keep up with the Unicode standards.  

So you can see face in the clouds exhaling hard  on fire you have beards for different genders  you’ve got kisses for different or hearts for  different genders you also have a syringe where  they’ve removed blood from the syringe now its just sort of a saline solution and then also you  have headphones that have been updated with a new  icon that represents air pods max so you’ve got  all sorts of changes here there will be over  200 when its released to the public so this is  just to comply with Unicode standards it’s what  everyone keeps up with and apple is always  updating them to comply with those standards  now the next thing is music if we go into the  music app wait for it to open here now were in music now in beta 1 they added all playlists  so you can see all of your playlists at once  and they also added made for you with beta1 and  it says personal mixes you add will appear here.

  

Now for some reason this is not showing properly  for me and if I go to listen now for example  it takes a while to load but well give it just  a moment and there you go and if I scroll down  it’s got a bade for you section so it’s sort of  working for me but not a hundred percent and then  also you should have some of those playlists that  are curated for you here under all playlists as  well so for some reason they’re not showing and  maybe we’ll see those in the future some people are showing it some people are not but one thing  they have added so maybe we play a song let me go  ahead and just pick a song here so if I click play  and let me drop the volume here if I click play  and click the three menu button or the hamburger  menu here as many call it you’ve got the infinity  symbol now if we click on the infinity symbol it  will give us auto play just like we have on the  iphone with ios 14 and it will find similar songs  and just continue playing until you either stop it.

  

And you’ll see you can clear this as well so the  infinity symbol is really nice to have here since  it gives you the option to just find similar  songs if you just want to leave it playing in  the background for example so that’s something I  actually find that Iuse quite often and of course  you can turn it off like I said so that’s new in  music with beta2 so let’s go ahead and close that  and another thing you can do now is play webm  videos so that’s a different standard that wasn’t  available in safari before so well go into safari  and I’m not familiar with a bunch of webm videos  so I haven’t had this issue before but if you go  to Wikipedia and search for webm we can click on  it here and here’s an example of one of the videos  and if you click on that video you’ll see that it  actually plays before this would just give you a  blank screen and it wouldn’t work so now it works  and you should be able to play those videos so  it’s nice that it shows up like that so that’s  something they’ve added in this particular update  now they’ve also added something for m1 max as.

  

Well now I’m on the m1 MacBook pro and I had some  issues installing this update so I was previously  on mac os 11.2.1 or the public release and then  I installed the beta for some reason it defaulted  back to 11.1 beta after installing it then I did  another software update and it brought me to 11.3  beta 1 then I had to update again and it brought  me to the current version of 11.3 beta 2 for some  reason so just make sure if you’re installing  this that you have the same build number that I have here that matches the current version because  I had that issue only on the m1 for some reason  not on the other max that i have so as you can  see were on the 13 inch m1 from 2020 and one of  the benefits of the m1 is you can run iphone  and ipad apps since its apples own silicon.

  

So let’s go ahead and open one of those now here’s  the app any dot do and I installed the iphone  slash ipad version just so I could show you this  because there’s some changes in the preferences  so if we go to preferences you’ll see we have  touch alternatives here at the top and we have an  option for enable touch and motion alternatives  now in beta 1 we could enable or disable these  individually now it’s just back to a single check  box or individual changing of these settings  we also have a new system option as well and  this allows us to enable or disable things like  notifications or reminders or access to those  things like we would have on our iPhones so if  we open notifications for example we can enable  or disable this on a per app basis just like you  can on your iphone so location services is the  same thing you’ll see if we scroll down we have  any dot doing here looking for location so we can  enable this or disable it depending on what we’d  like to do so that’s new in this particular  update if we go ahead and close this out.

  

There’s an interesting change to the code found  by my friend Steve Moser over at mac rumors  so what that code suggests is that if you  set a calendar event maybe for a meeting  or you need to be someplace with a different  address for example by the time you’re ready to  leave if you’ve got a MacBook that needs to charge  it will make sure its charged to 100 percent now  currently if you go to system preferences on a  MacBook for example and on an m1 MacBook you have  battery health and battery health is maintained  by keeping it if you’re leaving it plugged in all  the time that’s fine but basically it learns your  daily charging routine so it can finish charging  past eighty percent when you need to use it so  ideally it would keep the battery around eighty  percent to preserve its life over time and if you  have an event it would be charged a hundred  percent by the time you leave so that’s very  convenient there’s no physical option for it yet.

  

Maybe there will be in the future but it’s based  off scheduling an event in calendar now as far as  when to expect this releasing to the public well I wouldn’t expect it to maybe march at this point usually there’s going to be a couple more betas if  apple continues to do things like they did in the past so expect maybe a new version next week or we still could be on a two-week cycle so we may not see anything until maybe the third so well have to see what apple does but either way I’ll  keep you updated as I always do now among the new features that I’ve already mentioned they’ve also  resolved 15 issues many of those were related to  developers or those who make apps for the mac but  the one thing that you can actually test out  yourself is if you use the Alex voice for siri it now works as expected where before it wouldn’t  work properly so that’s working now so those are  all the new things in mac os 11.3 beta 2. if  you find anything else though I’d love to hear.

What's New? macOS Big Sur 11.2 is Out