Apple MacOS Big Sur Now Live: Here's How to Install It

After previously being announced during WWDC 2020 and reiterated during this week’s “One More Thing” event, Apple is now ready to publicly release its latest operating system, Big Sur.

The new MacOS slowly rolled out to developers and as a public beta earlier this year, but today marks the first official date to download the highly-awaited operating system. With it comes a complete visual overhaul of the Mac interface — complete with new opaque window borders, app logo designs, a more consistent and cohesive dock and dock icons, streamlined notification/control centers and widgets, and more. Improvements with Apple in-house applications like Safari provide stronger privacy measures, while amping performance of up to 50% according to Apple. Messages also integrates better into the OS, allowing for more cohesiveness between Big Sur and iOS devices when it comes to Memoji, group chat enhancements and @-marking individuals, etc.

Maps also receive an update, with integrated Guides to allow for better trip planning and travel suggestions. AirPods also get a much-awaited feature, allowing for handover from other Apple devices right onto Big Sur intelligently and with minimal fuss. Lastly, while it is optimized for the upcoming Apple M1 chip-installed computers, Big Sur optimizes multiple applications running for a mild-to-significant boost in general performance.

Installation is slowly rolling out to iMacs and MacBooks throughout the day, but there is a hard link to directly open the Big Sur installation page via the Mac App Store.

Learn more about the just-released Apple MacBook Air, Mac Mini and 13” MacBook Pro with M1 chipsets.