At its Worldwide Developer's Conference keynote event today in San Jose, CA, Apple revealed macOS High Sierra (version 10.13), the latest edition of its desktop operating system. What's new? Super fast performance gains across the system, more privacy in Safari and an easier-to-use Photos App.
The developer beta is available today, and a public beta will be available later this month, once it's finished baking.
I use Safari at home, but have always thought it could stand to get faster. In this speech, Apple VP Craig Federighi promised improved speed, including 80 percent faster Javascript performance when compared against Chrome. Safari will also automatically protect your browsing privacy so ads have a hard time tracking you. My favorite change? Safari will stop sites from autoplaying videos.
A new file system may not sound sexy, but the new Apple File System (APFS) will make your Mac far more zippy. An on-stage demo highlighted that filecopy times willplummet thanks to these new advances. Further, APFS willoffer native encryption for privacy and crash protection for greater stability.
Those who use Apple's Mail app will be happy to hear that High Sierra will make it easier to find the messages you're looking for. Apple will do this by improving how its Spotlight search works within the application.It's also introducing a split-screen view for simultaneous composing and reading. The app will also use 35% less disk space than before, so your emails won't clog up your Mac.
Apple's also announced the second iteration of Metal, its proprietary graphics technology, which it simply dubbedMetal 2. This means that Macs can finallysupport VR, which Apple demo'd with a rep fromLucasfilm’s ILMXLAB who showed off a new Star Wars VR experience featuring Darth Vader.
Apple's effort to promote the H.264 video codec pushed the streaming industry to smoother video that didn't take as long to buffer, and the company looks to repeat history. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) also known as H.265 video,willimprove compression rates so clips take up less space locally.
Notes sorts documents bymost recent editing date, but what if you have a file you want to keep at the top of your list? The macOS Notes app now lets you pinitems to the top, solving this issue.
Spotlight, the search toolmost Mac users utilize to find files on their machine,will get smarter in High Sierra. Now it will accessflight information, and other information found on line relating to culture, sports, nature and history.
