MacOS Big Sur release date: Apple reveals when new operating system will arrive on laptops

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Apple will release its new operating system for Macs this week, it has announced.

MacOS Big Sur includes a range of additional features as well as a significant redesign. But it is perhaps most remarkable because it is the first ever operating system that Apple has been able to design for its own chips, after the announcement that it would move away from Intel and use its Silicon that has been designed in-house.

The new operating system will arrive on 12 November, Apple announced during an event in which it also revealed the first of those chips and three new computers that will run on it.

The M1 chip itself is vastly more powerful and efficient than the Intel processors it replaces, Apple claimed. It represents a 3.5 times upgrade for the CPU, and the GPU has up to six times faster graphics performance, the company said.

It will first arrive in a new Mac Mini, a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, all which opened for pre-orders during the event and will go on sale next week. Each of those computers will be running Big Sur, which is required for the Apple Silicon chips.

Existing Apple computers with Intel chips will still be able to download the software, though it will technically be a different version of the same operating system.

As usual, the new operating system will be available through the App Store.

The release of Big Sur comes a little later than usual. Apple’s operating system updates usually arrive towards the end of September or beginning of October, and the new one is by far the latest in the year since the company moved to annual upgrades.