Is macOS Big Sur really macOS 10.16 under the hood not macOS 11

Question

Created Jun ’20

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When referencing macOS Big Sur in a swift package you have to reference it as macOS 10.16 and also it is referred to as macOS 10.16 some places in the system such as in the startup disk menu of System Preferences. I am just curious if these occurrences are temporary bugs or in fact the actual version number of macOS Big Sur that will always be used when referencing it for backwards compatibility in Xcode. Thanks

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Answer 1

Developer Tools Engineer OP

Apple

Jun ’20

macOS Big Sur will officially be version 11.

2

Answer 2

dzed OP

Jun ’20

I hope you can give a more clear answer.

Right now, the initial Big Sur developer release shows two different version numbers:
1) In About, it shows "11.0"
2) In software, or in the Terminal, it shows as "10.16".

For example, in the Terminal, if you run "swvers -productVersion", you get "10.16".

In a future Big Sur developer release, will "swvers -productVersion" return "11.0"?

1

Answer 3

Jon. OP

Jun ’20

Just to add on here, I'm seeing this as well in the Software Update pane. No indication of macOS Big Sur or another Catalina Beta, just "10.16".

It would be a very rude surprise to upgrade to macOS Big Sur when thinking that you were really upgrading to the next iteration of a Catalina Beta.

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