Apple announces OS X El Capitan
Apple announced the OS X update El Capitan at its own WWDC developer conference in San Francisco. El Capitan includes improvements to the interface, but Apple has also tinkered a lot under the hood.
Apple promises big improvements in performance in OS X 10.11, called El Capitan. For example, apps should load 40 percent faster, switching software should be twice as fast and opening a PDF in preview mode should be four times faster, Apple promises. The Cupertino company made its announcements at the WWDC developers conference in San Francisco. Apple will release the software as beta immediately; in the fall, the new version of OS X will be released as a free update.
In addition, Apple brings its development platform Metal to OS X. That platform, which was previously released for iOS, is intended to improve the performance of software that relies heavily on the graphics card. The platform replaces the OpenGL library, but software must implement support for it to take advantage of it. However, Blizzard has already indicated that it will use Metal, as well as the developers of the Unreal and Unity engines. Software developers such as Autodesk and Adobe have also indicated that they will implement Metal.
El Capitan – a place in Yosemite Park – also contains the necessary improvements to the interface, Apple promises. For example, users who have lost their mouse pointer can move the mouse, after which the operating system indicates the location on the screen. Software can also run in split screen, and Safari in El Capitan includes the option to see at a glance which tabs are making noise. Chrome includes a similar feature, but in OS X, all tabs can be muted at once. In addition, sites can be pinned in Safari, pinning them to the left side of the tab bar.
Finally, El Capitan includes the possibility to search in human language, for example in the file system, but also in the calendar app. New to this is that Spotlight, OS X’s search function, can be undocked from the menu bar, allowing the window to be moved. The screen size can also be changed.