David A. Cox: Hey, folks, and welcome to the class. Today, we are talking about
my favorite new features found in the brand new operating system for the Mac
known as macOS Big Sur. That is coming up next on Tech Talk America.
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David: Hey everyone, and welcome to the class. I apologize that it took me some time to make
today's video. I have actually been off of the air for the last seven weeks. Apparently,
moving across the country during a global pandemic is mildly stressful. Mildly.
That being said, I do have some really exciting news to share with you guys.
I want to get down to business so if you want to hear those updates stick around, I will save them
for the very end of the video or if you like you can fast forward to that timestamp. Today,
we are talking about the brand new operating system for the Mac known as macOS Big Sur. Now,
in the interest of time, I have decided to focus today's video on just my favorite new features
AKA skipping the boring stuff. Please keep in mind, not everyone should upgrade to
Big Sur. When it comes to hardware I tend to recommend if your Mac is under four years old
you can probably proceed but there are other things that you need to consider,
like software and hardware compatibility. MacOS Big Sur is a 15-gigabyte file. So you also need to
make sure that you have adequate space to install it. The good news is, for those of you out there
who are terrified of change, most of these changes are subtle compared to past operating systems.
So take a sigh of relief, sit back, relax, and let us go over the best new features.
David: But before we do, today's video is brought to you by our friends at Malwarebytes. If you have
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David: The first new features that we are going to discuss are some of the overall design changes.
Now, some of these may take a little bit of time to get used to but what I really like is that
Apple is using this operating system as a way to introduce a bit more consistency between the Mac
and iOS experience. If you look at the dock, you will see that it has a new floating design
with all new icons as well. If you look at the top menu bar, you will see that it is now translucent,
and let me show you why I think this is actually a really nice subtle change. I am going to go into
system preferences and swap this desktop background with some of the other desktop
backgrounds that are available in Big Sur. I think you will agree this subtle design change really
allows your desktop to stand out like a piece of artwork. And for those of you who do not have a
perfectly clean desktop, well, it will just have a little bit more of a Jackson Pollock flare to it.
I got an art joke in, all right. Since I just cracked out the new desktop backgrounds let us
dive into this a little bit deeper. Now just to be clear, those of you who are following
along at home, I have clicked on the Apple icon at the top-left, gone into system preferences,
and now I am here in Desktop and Screen Saver. So for example, these first images are all referred
to as dynamic desktops, which means that the images themselves will transition from daylight to
nighttime over the course of the day. Apple first introduced dynamic desktops in macOS Catalina,
and what they have done now is taken that to the next level. So if we scroll down a little bit,
you will find another option for set light and dark modes. So just to be clear, these images do
not transition, they just snap between daytime and nighttime mode. On the topic of night photography,
I did want to let you guys know that one of my future classes is going to be all about
the brand new night photography mode for the iPhone. So be sure to look for that class soon.
David: Another change in macOS Big Sur is the Control Center icon which you will find at the
top right of the menu bar. This allows you to control all sorts of different
preferences on your Mac and what is great about this is it can be widely customized.
So let us say you have a laptop and you need to constantly switch between Wi-Fi networks all the
time, you can click and drag elements like Wi-Fi into the top menu bar so that they stick there.
You can also do this with anything else that you see here in Control Center. To see a full list of
all the items you can access in Control Center, just head over to the Apple icon at the top left
then go into system preferences, and from there go into the Dock and Menu bar. There is one setting
that I would like to recommend that you consider changing. When I had first updated my Mac to macOS
Big Sur, one of the things that I immediately noticed was that the Do Not Disturb symbol
was here at the top, and do not get me wrong, I love using Do Not Disturb mode since it allows
me to actually get work done occasionally, but when I see this symbol, it is really hard for
me to distinguish the difference between when it is on and when it is off. If you, like me,
want to only see that icon when Do Not Disturb mode is turned on, go back to that same menu
and check this option so that it only appears when the feature is active. By the way, another little
trick that you might not know, if you hold down the option key and then click at the top right
of the screen which would normally reveal all of the widgets, that is actually another way that you
can quickly enable Do Not Disturb mode, and thank you to Jeff Greenberg for teaching me that trick.
David: Another cool feature here in Control Center is that you can now see and control all of the
apps that have the ability to play music. So let us say you have Spotify, you have the podcast app,
and maybe have something playing from the web, you can see and control all of them from right here,
most definitely a very handy feature. Clicking at the top right of your Mac will of course launch
all of the widgets and this next feature is going to make it look very similar to
the widgets on iOS. If we scroll to the bottom and click on where it says Edit,
you will see that we can now add widgets to your feed, and just like on iOS many of these are now
available in different sizes. So for example, for me, I really like having a big calendar,
for weather, I like to see what it is here in Palm Springs but I also like to keep an eye on
my old hometown in Provincetown, Massachusetts. If we open up a new finder window, you will see
that we have all new icons here at the top. You can customize these items by right-clicking in
this space and then select Customize. So here is another little recommendation. In my experience,
I found that the Group's feature is not very helpful. So personally,
I tend to recommend removing it from the top menu bar which you can do of course by simply dragging
and dropping it off, and instead, you might want to consider adding something like Airdrop. Now,
I do not know about you guys, but I use airdrop all the time to send files from device to device.
David: The next feature that we are going to talk about is actually one of my favorites.
It is long overdue and that new feature is Expanded Video Editing Capabilities for
videos that you have stored inside the Photos app. Now, in past versions of Mac OS pretty
much the only thing that you could do was rotate a video, but now in macOS Big Sur,
you can perform a ton of different types of corrections to video clips without ever leaving
the Photos app. For example, you can now crop your videos which is perfect for those of you
who have a tendency to shoot videos with your thumb partially obscuring the lens. You will
also now find that you can add filters to your videos and if we go here into adjustments, you
can even adjust things like exposure, highlights, shadows, brightness, contrast, and a bunch more,
again, without ever leaving the Photos app. Absolutely love that feature Apple. Thank you.
By the way, let me know which of these new features is your favorite down below in the
comment section. Now, just in case Apple is watching this video, which I have reason to
suspect they might, I do have one little request that I would like to make for a future update.
Because it is now possible to make adjustments to video clips from the Photos app it would be really
nice to be able to copy and paste those attributes to another video. Now, just to be clear,
that feature is currently available for photos but not for videos. So come on, Apple, make it happen.
David: The Maps app recently received a few new updates including indoor maps for airports and
shopping malls. So now you can see exactly how many shops you have to run past in order to make
it to the gate in time while trying to keep your mask on. There are also new travel guides built
into the Maps app which I will absolutely use next time I am able to travel. You can browse through
different guides from different brands. So let us say, for example, you are a big fan of Rick
Steves, you can see all of his recommended places to visit in that area. Another great feature,
which is not available everywhere just yet is referred to as Look Around. Right now,
this is most commonly found in well-populated cities, but if you zoom in far enough on a map,
you may see this icon here light up, when you do and you click on it, you will see a window appear
which definitely resembles Google Maps. Now, this is definitely going to be handy
next time you are visiting a place that you have never been to or I guess you could just
use Google Maps which already exists. For those of you who use The Voice Memos app,
you will be very happy to discover that you now have the ability to organize your voice memos
into folders. It should also be noted that voice enhancement is now also built into voice memos.
So if there is some sort of external background noise, this will intelligently filter it out.
David: There are a lot of new changes built into Safari. Now, personally, I am a Chrome user but
that being said, let us go over the new features. When you open up a Safari window you should see
something similar to this and in addition to your favorites, you can now see a whole bunch of other
types of items just by clicking here at the bottom right, including things like your reading list
items, websites that you visited on other devices, frequently visited websites and a lot more.
You can also add different types of backgrounds to your home page just by skimming through these
options. You can also click on this plus symbol to reveal additional high-definition wallpapers,
which again are all part of Big Sur. Intelligent tracking prevention is now built into Safari so
that when you start it up you can clearly see what websites were trying to track you. Safari
also now has built-in password monitoring, which is a great feature if you did not already have a
password solution in place. Personally, I think my favorite new feature is that if you do tend to use
a lot of tabs you can now see a preview of each of those sites just by hovering your cursor over each
item. Another big feature is you can finally watch YouTube videos in 4k high-definition on Safari.
David: Moving on to the Messages app, you will now be able to pin conversations or
group conversations, so that the people that you stay in touch with the most
stick to the top. Another new feature is In-line Conversations which is now available on the Mac.
So let us say you are in a group chat with someone and you want to reply specifically to one person,
just tap the @ symbol and then type that person's name. Another new feature I wanted to highlight
in Messages is that now you can hit this little App Store icon and get access to a few different
things including trending gifts. Another new feature is Message Effects. So for example, now
you can send balloons, confetti, echo, spotlight, or fireworks. So which of these new features in
macOS Big Sur was your favorite? Let me know about it down below in the comment section.
David: All right, so that about does it for the tutorial part. Now, let me share with you some of
the updates. So hi, everyone, I have missed all of you. I am sorry that I have not uploaded a video
in like seven weeks. It has been absolutely insane. When I moved to Palm Springs it was
my intention to rent for several months and then eventually buy a house. That did not happen. I
called my realtor and I said, "Hey, can we just look at a couple of properties, and that way I
can just kind of start to get an idea of what to expect?" Well, we looked at seven properties on
day one, nothing really that appealed to me, also, things that were at the very, very top
tier of my price range. And then the next day, he emailed me this listing, and I went to look at it
and my mind was blown. We went out that day to check it out and the next day I made an
offer. So the big news here is I bought a house. I was not intending on this happening
this quickly, but I am really excited because it really has several different spaces
that work as different backgrounds for my videos. One of the things I have always
wanted to do is really turn my house into a Production Studio so we can do it in any room
and it works, and so I made the purchase of the house. As of the date that I am recording
this right now, I have got a little over twenty days before I close on that property,
but there are big things happening and I cannot wait to take you guys all along for it.
David: A couple of other quick things, so right as soon as I moved to Palm Springs
I had this event that was part of the reason why it was so late in getting this video out,
which is a lot of you are familiar with, Final Cut Pro made by Apple. There is a Final Cut Pro
Global Summit that takes place every year and it happens in Cupertino, California. In fact,
one of the things you get to do if you go to the event is you get to actually go
to Apple, like the new spaceship, on my bucket list, totally on my bucket list. And amazingly,
I got asked to be a guest speaker at the event. Now, I am dying inside because I did not get to
go visit Apple but one day, one day. I gave a one-hour presentation and then I was also on a
panel called "How Apple Changed My Life" which was wonderful along with Caleb Marshall and Kimberly
Furst. People seemed to have a good time and I had a good time. So that is a little bit about what
has been going on here. Still getting settled, my apologies, but probably the next couple of weeks
my videos are going to be very scattered. It is just really hard to be in a temporary state
of living and be able to make videos. So thank you guys for sticking with me over the years
and I cannot wait to show you the new house. Stay tuned, it is coming soon.
Thank you all for watching everyone. This is David A. Cox with Tech Talk America. Class dismissed.
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