After rolling out iOS 11 and watchOS 4 last week, Apple will be rolling out macOS High Sierra later tonight. The new Mac OS comes with iterative updates, and a focus on under the hood upgrades. Here’s a look at a list of compatible Macs that can be updated to High Sierra, and a list of features worth looking forward to.

macOS High Sierra compatibility

For updating to High Sierra, you will need to have one of the following Macs. MacBook (2009 or later), MacBook Air (2010 or later), MacBook Pro (2010 or later), Mac mini (2010 or later), Mac Pro (2010 or later) or iMac (Late 2009 or later).

macOS High Sierra: Top-10 features

With High Sierra, Apple is focusing more on boosting Mac’s performance, as well as overall productivity. As the Apple website claims, “New technologies at the heart of the system make your Mac more reliable, capable and responsive — and lay the foundation for future innovations. macOS High Sierra also refines the features and apps you use every day. It’s macOS at its highest level yet.”

Here are the top features on the new macOS High Sierra:

Apple File System: Among the biggest changes on High Sierra is a new file system, called Apple File System or APFS. This file system is optimized for SSDs and flash storage on the new Macs, and according to Apple, it is ‘faster, efficient and focuses on both security and encryption’.
HEVC video codec: Apple has introduced a new codec for high-res videos, called HEVC or H.265. This codec can basically compress videos by up to 40 percent when compared to current standards. Apple also claims that the compression is done without loss in video quality.
Powerful photo editor: Apple has improved its Photos app with the inclusion of new editing tools. These include the ability to tweaking a photo’s color, contrast, curves, and more. There is also a compare button for easy reference of before and after photos.
FaceTime Live Photos: Apple has added a new interactive element to FaceTime. So if your friend is doing something crazy, you can record it as a Live Photo. You can use the Photos app to turn these live photos into loop clips, bounce clips, or long exposure-style shots.
Safari reading mode: Apple’s native browser has been given quite a boost in its performance. Some of the new features include a new reading mode. In this mode, which removes all the annoying elements from a web page, and only leaves the text and multimedia to give a nice reading experience.
Blocking auto-playing videos: Another welcome feature on Safari is its ability to block auto-playing videos. This is really helpful, as quite a few websites have small videos embedded somewhere deep in the page that automatically start playing. While helpful, Safari does allow you to choose what websites can auto-play videos.
Mail search and split view: The Mail app on macOS will now consume up to 35 percent less space. Other improvements include a Top Hits panel in search. Powered by Spotlight, this analyzes your mails based on your interactions and makes them more visible in search. There’s also a new split view mode in Mail. This essentially lets you open a compose window on one side, while checking mails simultaneously.
Enhanced iMessage: iMessage on iOS 11 has been given a big upgrade. On macOS, the messaging app gets a much-awaited feature. On High Sierra, iMessage is more in sync with its iOS counterpart. In other words, when you delete a message on your iPhone, it disappears from the Mac app as well.
Improved Universal Clipboard: While copy-pasting stuff across iOS and macOS is not new, Apple has improved its universal clipboard feature. High Sierra allows users to copy stuff between two Macs running on the latest OS – as long as they are using the same Apple iCloud account.
DJ Siri: Siri has also massively improved on High Sierra. For one, the voice assistant can now work as your personal DJ. In essence, you can ask Siri to ‘play some music’. You can also ask it to play a song from some specific genre. Needless to say, you need an Apple Music subscription for this to work.