Apple has announced the latest version of its desktop operating system macOS at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California. The tech company, which is headquartered in California, kicked off the keynote speech at the event by revealing macOS 10.13.
The new version will be referred to as “High Sierra” and Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi took to the stage to announce the new system. During his presentation, the executive revealed a raft of new features included in the software.
Safari updates
And focus was placed on major improvements made to the Safari browser, with Apple keen to emphasize the benchmark performance of this software. The consumer electronics giant claims that High Safari is now the fastest browser in the world, outperforming rivals such as Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Edge; the latter a replacement for the more commonly known Internet Explorer.
The next generation operating system also includes a feature referred to as Autoplay Blocking, which will automatically detect sites that are not expected to play video and block any such material automatically. Of course, users will still have the option of manually playing video should they choose to do so.
Safari also includes intelligent tracking prevention, ensuring that sites no longer have the ability to track you as you browse the internet. This feature will not block advertisements, but does enhance the privacy of an individual user.
Mail improvements
Meanwhile, Apple has also updated the Mail function in High Sierra, delivering a split view feature that will make the software more flexible. The next generation operating system will also promote searches in Spotlight as well.
Photos changes
A lot of the presentation was also devoted to improvements to the Photos software, with the operating system update delivering a persistent sidebar for the widely used program. A new view will also enable items to be sorted in chronological order, or by dates, names and other characteristics. Photos will now synchronize users automatically across devices as well.
Apple was also keen to emphasize the editing tools that it has built into Photos, with a new feature called Curves particularly strongly pushed. This enables even the less talented artists among us to fine tune the edges of drawings and other artwork. it is also possible to color in a selected range with the new software, while users switching to another editing tool to make further edits will be able to benefit from an automatic syncing with their Photos library.
Release date
macOS 10.13 High Sierra beta 1 is available to download today for registered members of the Apple Developer Program, with the final version following in the fall.
