All happy owners of a Mac computer can update, starting today, their operating system to the new version number 10.11, with the code name El Capitan which comes one year after the previous OSX version 10.10 Yosemite. All Macs that could install version 10.10 will be able to install, free of charge, the OSX version 10.11 El Capitan and, precisely, the update concerns:
iMac (mid 2007 or later)
MacBook (13-inch, from late 2008)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, mid 2009 or later)
MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, from late 2007)
MacBook Air (late 2008 or later)
Mac mini (early 2009 or later)
Mac Pro (early 2008 or later)
The only requirement to install this update is that it starts from a version older than OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) which is the one that introduced the Mac App Store.
To install El Captan as an update just open the Mac App Store and find El Capitan in the updates tab.
The upgrade process should work smoothly but, in case that doesn't happen, before trying the installation from scratch make sure you have a backup of your important data.
The procedure to install Mac OSX El Capitan from scratch is the same already explained for previous versions (see here MacOS clean installation guide) which, in summary, requires you to use a USB stick of at least 8 GB, the Diskmaker X program and the download of the installation file.
After downloading OS X El Capitan from the Mac App Store, connect the USB stick to the Mac and start Diskmaker X.
At the first request, choose to create the USB stick of Yosemite (at the moment it has not yet been updated, but it will be soon) and after having searched in vain, you can press the Select button and manually search for the El Capitan installer who is saved in the applications folder.
Finally select the USB stick and let the installation files be copied.
At this point you can turn off the Mac, insert the USB stick created and start the Mac by holding the ALT key to bring up the boot choice screen and to be able to select the same USB stick.
From the menu select Disk Utility and proceed to initialize (or format) the main disk (which should have the name Macintosh HD) choosing as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
To complete the installation, after formatting, close Disk Utility and follow the wizard.
There are, of course, many improvements in this new version of Mac OS X El Capitan, although not as flashy as it was a year ago for Yosemite.
We have seen, in another article, the best features and hidden options in El Capitan .
There are tons of bugs fixed, general performance and speed improvements, and changes to the core of the system.
The most visible changes are, synthetically:
- By shaking the cursor this becomes bigger, useful to not lose sight of it.
- Spotlight search is improved and more efficient.
- You can split the screen between two applications with the split screen (like in Windows).
- The Swiss Post app is more similar to that of iOS and has a smarter search.
- Mission Control has also improved with the ability to see apps open by swiping three fingers up on the touchpad.
- In Safari you can anchor the tabs of favorite sites on the left side, as does Chrome.
