Apple Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan: Release Date, Beta Download, Features & What We Know So Far

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicked off on June 8 in San Francisco, California, unveiled new details and improvements to Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, the latest update to its desktop operating system.

We compiled the latest reports about the El Capitan, the successor to OS X Yosemite.

Exciting Features

OS X El Capitan boasts impressive new features such as Split View on the desktop screen, fresh gestures, tabbed email composition, the capability to pin tabs in Safari, Metal API for gaming, Force Touch APIs for Safari, and App Extensions for Photos, Softpedia listed.

Apple's introduction of Metal to Mac will enable apps to have "unprecedented graphics and computing power," Softpedia reported. Game developers are now allowed to access future Mac GPUs, with improved graphics and speed rendering by more than 50 percent, Wired noted.

A new Notes app is included as well, letting users add images, videos, drawings, and maps to the app, Wired reported. In addition, Notes is also equipped with interactive checklists and notes syncing across Apple devices.

Users can now mute tabs in Safari just like in Google's Chrome browser, Wired wrote. The Spotlight app, meanwhile, will provide an enhanced search feature that gives cleaner and more precise results. The new version of OS X also allows swiping gestures in e-mails. Swipe right to mark messages or swipe left to delete them.

OS X El Capitan also allows bigger mouse pointers, as well as an improved Maps app, which now includes more transit info involving directions and transfers, Wired added.

Faster Launch

The OS X El Capitan is said to have faster and more responsive performances. Apps can launch up to 1.4 times faster and app switching can now be done up to 2 times faster, Mac Rumors wrote. Aside from these, "displaying the first Mail messages when opening mail is up to 2x faster, and it's up to 4x faster when opening a PDF in preview," the news outlet explained.

Download OS X 10.11 Beta

Developers are allowed to download a beta version of the OS X 10.11 El Capitan Build 15A178w for their Mac computers starting on June 8, Softpedia reported. Head to the Apple Developer website for details.

It should be noted that updating Mac computers to the latest OS X El Capitan won't allow users to go back to the previous version of their OS, the news outlet explained. The pre-release version also has rough aspects and is not recommended to be used in production environments.

Release Date

A beta for the OS X El Capitan will be available for the public in July alongside the iOS 9, Softpedia reported.

MacBooks that can run Yosemite can also support the OS X El Capitan, Mac Rumors added.