Apple macOS Big Sur brings fresh coat of paint, refines desktop experience

Apple's macOS Big Sur or macOS 11 is being touted by the company as its most significant redesign since OS X came out nearly 20 years ago. Announced at WWDC 2020, we get a glimpse at the future of macOS. It seems the company is pushing to unify the design language across its platforms further, and in some ways, seems to be blurring that line further as The Verge mentions.

While the biggest Mac news is that the company will move away from Intel processors with future machines shifting towards the Apple Silicon, we also need to talk about the changes coming to macOS Big Sur, which we will summarize under the cut.

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OnePlus teases new smartphone with upcoming documentary

OnePlus has been teasing an upcoming release of a new phone that has been called the OnePlus Z or the OnePlus Nord. Aside from putting up a mysterious Instagram account, the company will release a documentary called New Beginnings to give us a better insight into the device rumoured to be coming out in July. The documentary's trailer recently went online, with the documentary set to premiere on June 30. 

The documentary itself has an interesting premise. The OnePlus team working on the phone had only six months to get everything done. And from what the teaser has shown us, it hasn't been an easy time given the shorter than usual development cycle. There will be four parts to New Beginnings, and we aren't sure when the other parts are dropping.

Source: GSMArena

Microsoft to close all of its retail stores

Microsoft will be closing all of its physical retail stores. The company announced on LinkedIn that while they hope to continue to serve customers, it will not be in their retail locations mostly found in upscale malls. "Our retail team members will continue to serve customers working from Microsoft corporate facilities or remotely and we will continue to develop our diverse team in support of the overall company mission and objectives," said David Porter, corporate VP of Microsoft Store. 

While this could be seen as a reaction to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic and a move to promote social distancing between staff and customers, it can also be seen as Microsoft transitioning out of the consumer space altogether. Microsoft Stores, after all, were the best places to see and buy the latest Surface devices or Xbox game consoles. Surface represents a very small percentage of Microsoft's profits and the company is clearly focused on the cloud, which means that it could very well diminish or even cease production of its hardware devices moving forward. As for the Microsoft Stores, they never had the foot traffic of competitors like the Apple Store, but still served customers well and were highly regarded for the level of service they provided. 

Apple tvOS adds picture-in-picture mode, multi-user support for Apple Arcade

Aside from adding support to HomeKit, Apple's tvOS platform adds a few small but useful features. Like iOS 14, it's getting picture-in-picture mode across the entire Apple TV experience, with AirPlay videos able to show up in picture-in-picture mode. Multiuser support is coming to the platform, but it seems only to be available for continuing gameplay on Apple Arcade games at the moment.

tvOS is also getting support for Microsoft's Elite 2 and Adaptive Xbox One controller, better audio sharing with AirPod earbuds, as well as up to 4K video streaming from your iOS devices' Photos app.

Source: The Verge