What's New? macOS Big Sur 11.3 Beta 3 is Out!

Hi everyone,

Apple released mac os big sur 11.3 beta 3 to  developers this is available now on all mac os big  sur supported macs if you’re using the developer  beta expect the final version a little bit later  this came in at 3.08 gigabytes on my mac pro  

let’s take a look at the build number and then  talk about what’s new so well go to the apple  then go to about this mac under about this  mac you can see here it says version 11.3 beta  and the build number is 2 0 e5 196f and within  this beta there’s a few different changes  similar to what we saw on ios 14.5 beta  3 that apple released yesterday as well  and so the first thing has to do with calendar if  you have a calendar notification set up there’s  some new snooze options so if we slide over our  notifications hers one I set up and we click  on options we have a bunch of different snooze  options we now have automatic and there’s five  minutes 15 minutes 30 minutes one hour and until  end time so this is a new option there’s quite.

A few new ones within here if you have calendar  notifications or alarms set now the next thing has  to do with podcasts so let’s go ahead and open  up that and the first thing is if we go up to  podcasts in the upper left click on preferences  you’ll see this is a little bit different  so the preference pane has changed there’s now  only automatic downloads under the general tab  the playback tab hasn’t changed but under advanced  there’s a couple new options as well so we have  saved episodes it says download episodes when  saving and then also episode display hide played  episodes so these are a couple new options if we  close this you’ll see that were under the listen  now tab they’ve changed this around a little bit  where they’ve rearranged it where it says shows  you might like first and then it says recently  played below that so its slightly different.

There also on the left under library this  has been rearranged a little bit as well  so you’ll see it says shows saved downloads  and latest episodes prior to this it used to  say recently updated shows episodes and downloaded  so they’ve changed that around just a little bit  now if we click on an individual episode so  maybe well go to Rene Ritchies podcast on an  individual episode we now have this option to save  the episode this is similar to what we have with  ios 14.5 beta 3. if we click on it says episode  saved and it’s something that’s a little bit new  also if we click the three dots on the  subscribe to or followed episode we click on  this it now says unfollow prior to this it was  actually a little bit different it used to say  unsubscribe so now it just says unfollow  also if we click the three dots next to an  individual episode it says remove downloaded and  it’s just changed some of the wording a little bit,

  

So before it used to just say remove and then dot  so that’s been changed also this has been  rearranged a little bit when you’re underneath  the individual episodes so they’ve just changed  the overall look of it and its slightly  different so there’s little tweaks throughout  just like they did on the ios version as  well so let’s go ahead and close out of that  and then talk about news so if we go into the news  app now within news if we click on help and then  click on about newsletters and privacy and scroll  all the way to the bottom there’s mentions of  issues in newsletters so you’ll see it says in  some countries if you subscribe to apple news plus  you can choose to include new issues of a  magazine you follow in your email newsletter.

 

So this looks like it’s something coming in the  future so far there’s no option for it but its  mentioned here and thanks to my friend Steve  Mosher for helping me find quite a few of these  and another thing he found is the mention within  the code of apple removing rosetta from max during  updates so for example what that means is  within this update there’s odd text that says  rosetta will be removed upon installing this  update rosetta is no longer available in your  region so it may be region specific were  not really sure but it seems like rosetta  which is the translator for x86 applications or  applications that run on Intel to work on ml. 

For  example they may not be available in some regions  what this has to do specifically with were not  sure yet but it seems like apples making a change  with it for the future now if we go into system  preferences and there’s something we can’t see  as well that has to do with game controllers  for example when you connect a game controller  you may have the option to modify your keys to be  set up for that game controller as well so there’s  images showing this and as you can see here on the  keyboard there’s hints to an r1 assignment on the  keyboard so this would be an Xbox controller where  you have x y b a the left control stick using  the w a s d keys and then maybe r one here or y  so you might have this option to actually assign  keys based on controllers in the future its  nowhere to be found within applications that I can  find but it looks like it will be coming soon now.

If you have a MacBook and maybe the battery starts  to go bad there’s a new message you could see  since MacBook’s now track battery health so if you  go into your battery health on a MacBook these are  just screenshots from my m1 MacBook pro you’ll  see it says battery condition normal maximum  capacity 100 however if the battery gets low  in capacity and needs to be physically replaced  it may pop up an option that says the battery isn’t functioning normally and requires service  please check your service options so it may let  you know that you need to change it and they’ve  changed the wording on it as well so that’s  something that if you have a bad battery after  years of use you probably will see there’s one  other thing to note about this particular update  and that is support for the developer transition  kit is no longer available with beta 3. 

So if  you were a developer and you had the mac mini  transition kit prior to the m1 max coming out that  should have been sent back in and beta 3 will no  longer work on it so that’s just something apple  mentioned in the notes there’s also five other  resolved issues or five total resolved issues  that are mostly developer focused but labels  for some controls in a customized toolbar  now show as expected in icon and text display  mode for example so those are all things that  have been updated now other than that that’s it  for this particular update as far as what’s new.  

I’ve been using it on my mac pro and my MacBook  pro the m1 MacBook pro and looking at what apple  apples doing with ios 14.5 beta 3 and this beta  we probably will have a couple more betas before  a final release if apple continues to do what they  normally do so I would expect a beta next week and  maybe the following week with a final release  later in march or early April so based off that  information I think we’ll see a final around that  time releasing to the public but at this point.

  

There’s not an actual timeline that apple is given  but performance wise it has actually been a little  bit slow with beta 2 so I’m hoping it  improves the same is true with battery on the  MacBook pro and hopefully there’s some performance  improvements final cut pro has been very sluggish  and honestly I probably should not have put it  on one of my main production macs for YouTube  and also when using applications to record audio  I had some issues as well so there’s definitely  some issues within beta 3 as well that’s with  beta 3 I had issues with audio recording so  hopefully that’ll be resolved and  of course I’ll report it in feedback  if you’d like to get your hands on this wallpaper.