Announcing new macOS Big Sur and iOS 14 Books
It has become my own tradition to write two books about Apple's latest operating systems. Despite everything going on in 2020, I have managed to do just that. There are two books, one for macOS and another for iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. The title's of this year's books should not be any surprise. These books are not yet available for pre-order yet, but will be soon.
macOS Big Sur for Users, Administrators, and Developers
macOS Big Sur for Users, Administrators, and Developers covers the new features with the latest release. macOS Big Sur brings a slew of new features like new icons, a refined design with updated toolbars, menu, and alerts. The new design is accompanied by Messages and Maps now having feature parity with their iOS versions, which means new features coming to the Mac that were not present before. One of the most used apps on the Mac is Safari, and there is a whole new privacy section to help you see which websites are tracking you and which trackers they are using. Reminders and Notes have seen a couple of updates like assigning reminders and easier access to text styles in notes. The biggest change for the Mac this year is that it is moving to Apple Silicon and a significant portion of the book is dedicated to that, including a history of the Mac
For administrators we dive into managing Macs running Apple Silicon, scripting language updates, some changes to how updates are handled, and the updates to Profile Manager.
Developers can learn about how Apple Silicon will affect their applications, the changes to Xcode, enhancements to the Swift programming language and SwiftUI. Also discussed are some new Swift Packages, how to implement Widgets using WidgetKit, SF Symbols 2, and Safari extensions.
macOS Big Sur for Users, Administrators, and Developers has something for everyone.
iOS 14, iPadOS 14, tvOS 14, and watchOS 7 for Users and Developers
iOS 14, iPadOS 14, tvOS 14, and watchOS 7 for Users and Developers somewhat mirrors macOS Big Sur in that there are some design tweaks like the new Widgets and your ability to place them on the home screen for device running iOS, the new App Library system, which can help you organize your home screen. Along with the home screen changes, search and Siri have seen some improvements as well, and those are covered. Safari can now help keep you informed about who is tracking you across the web.
Communications is a big part of today's society, so the updates to Messages is covered, and there is a whole new help to help you translate text, called the Translate app. Users will be able to learn about the new updates to Notes, Reminders, and Maps. If you prefer to handwrite items there is a new feature just for you called called Scribble, which will take your handwriting and covert it into text.
Health is a huge topic and there have been some big changes like the renamed Fitness app on the iPhone and a way of tracking Sleep on the Apple Watch. These are both covered along with updates to Face ID and masks, as well as new ways to protect your hearing.
The Music and Home apps have been slightly changed and updated and the Shortcuts app gets some new tricks to help automate things even better than before.
Developers will learn all about Apple Silicon, because their iOS and iPadOS apps can run natively on Macs running Apple Silicon. Along with Apple Silicon, developers can learn about changes to Xcode, the new Swift, SwiftUI, and Swift Packages, as well as how to implement WidgetKit, some things to keep in mind about AppClips, how to implement the new Color Picker and how to support PencilKit and Scribble with their custom interfaces.