As mentioned a few weeks ago, iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and tvOS 14 support 4K video playback on YouTube for the first time. Now macOS 11 Big Sur is following suit.
Apple released the fourth beta of iOS 14 and Co. yesterday evening. In the current Preview With macOS 11 Big Sur, support for 4K video playback in YouTube has now been added to Safari. Anyone who has previously played 4K videos on YouTube on a Mac knows that browsers such as Google Chrome were required for this. But with macOS 11 Big Sur, this is changing. From now on, Safari will also support 4K. This means that in the future, users will be able to watch YouTube videos in Safari in 4K resolution instead of 720p or 1080p - if available.
Why has it not been possible to stream 4K content via Safari in macOS?
The reason why users were unable to stream 4K content via Safari for macOS is because Apple did not support Google's VP9 codec in the older versions. But this year, Cupertino decided to implement the VP9 codec in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, tvOS 14 and macOS 11 Big Sur. In addition to supporting the VP9 codec, Safari 14 also supports WebP images and HDR videos - this enables a 4K HDR stream on Netflix. In addition, Apple is also working on supporting the WebExtension API on macOS Big Sur, a cross-platform technology that allows users enablesto install the same extensions on different web browsers. Safari 14 will be released to all users this fall, along with iOS 14, iPadOS 14, tvOS 14, and macOS 11 Big Sur. (Photo by Jirapong Manustrong / Bigstockphoto)
