MACOS SONOMA: ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY AT THE CORE
ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY AT THE CORE
Apple’s macOS has long been the beating heart of its Mac computers, powering seamless user experiences and delivering innovative features. With the introduction of macOS Sonoma, Apple has enabled users to personalize with widgets, experience new levels of gaming performance, and gain powerful productivity for video conferencing and browsing.
REDEFINING WIDGETS ON MACOS
Widgets have become an integral part of the Mac experience, and macOS Sonoma takes them to the next level. Users can now place widgets directly on their desktops, providing easy access to the information and functionalities they need most. With the widget gallery, finding and adding widgets is a breeze. These widgets seamlessly blend with the wallpaper, ensuring users stay focused on their tasks while enjoying the benefits of real-time information updates. Continuity, a feature that enables seamless integration between Apple devices, also plays a role in widget personalization. Users can now enjoy the vast ecosystem of iPhone widgets on their Mac, expanding the range of options available to them. Furthermore, widgets become interactive, allowing users to check off reminders, control media playback, access home controls, and perform various tasks directly from their desktops. This enhanced widget experience empowers users to get more done efficiently and unlocks new opportunities.
ELEVATING VIDEO CONFERENCING
Video conferencing has become an essential tool for communication and collaboration, and macOS Sonoma brings enhanced features to make it even more effective. The Presenter Overlay feature elevates a user’s presence by displaying them on top of the content they are sharing, making presentations more engaging and impactful. Additionally, Reactions allow users to express their emotions during video calls by seamlessly adding balloons, confetti, hearts, and more. These reactions can even be triggered with a simple hand gesture, adding a
touch of fun to virtual meetings. The improved Screen Sharing picker simplifies the process of sharing apps during video calls. With a single click, users can select and share the desired app, facilitating smooth content sharing from their open windows. These enhancements make video conferencing on the Mac a more immersive and interactive experience, fostering better collaboration among users. The best part? These features aren’t just limited to FaceTime - just open your favorite video conferencing tool and enjoy them!
With the advanced media engine in Apple silicon, macOS Sonoma introduces a new highperformance mode for the Screen Sharing app. This mode enables professionals to access their content creation workflows remotely, with lowlatency audio, high frame rates, and support for up to two virtual displays. Whether editing videos in Final Cut Pro, working with complex 3D assets in Maya, or using other professional
tools, users can securely access their workflows from anywhere. The support for reference color also enables remote color workflows that were previously limited to dedicated hardware and specialized software.
PRIVACY AND PRODUCTIVITY UPDATES TO SAFARI
Safari, renowned for its speed and performance, receives significant updates in macOS Sonoma. Private Browsing, a key privacy feature, now offers even greater protection from trackers and potential intruders. Advanced tracking and fingerprinting protections go the extra mile to prevent websites from tracking or identifying users, ensuring their online privacy. Profiles in Safari enable users to stay organized by separating browsing between different topics. This feature keeps cookies, history, extensions, Tab Groups, and Favorites separate, providing a cleaner and
more streamlined browsing experience. Users can sign in to the same site with both work and personal accounts, effortlessly switching between them as needed. Additionally, Safari introduces web apps that behave like regular apps, giving users quick access to their favorite sites and providing an app-like browsing experience - another first for the Mac and a major leap forward.
And it’s not just Safari that has been given some love: macOS Sonoma brings a visual treat to Mac users with stunning screen savers. These screen savers showcase slow-motion videos of breathtaking locations worldwide, immersing users in the beauty of places like the skyline of Hong Kong, the sandstone buttes of Monument Valley in Arizona, and the rolling hills of Sonoma in Northern California. Shuffling through different themes, such as Landscape, Earth, Underwater, or Cityscape, these screen savers enhance the experience and seamlessly transition into the desktop, creating a captivating visual environment.
GAMING, LEVELED UP
Apple silicon, the powerful chip technology in Macs, has revolutionized gaming performance on the platform. macOS Sonoma builds on this foundation by offering tens of millions of Macs with Apple silicon the ability to run demanding games with exceptional performance, long battery life, and stunning visuals. Developers continue to leverage Metal 3, Apple’s advanced graphics API, to bring exciting titles like Stray, Fort Solis, and more to the Mac. To make game development on Mac more accessible, Metal introduces a new game porting toolkit. This
toolkit eliminates months of upfront work, allowing developers to quickly assess how well their existing games could run on Mac. The simplified process of converting game shaders and graphics code for Apple silicon maximizes performance and significantly reduces development time. macOS Sonoma introduces Game Mode, an optimization feature that prioritizes gaming performance by giving games the highest priority on the CPU and GPU. Game Mode enhances frame rates, delivers smoother gameplay, and reduces audio and input latency. Whether using AirPods or popular game controllers like those for Xbox and PlayStation, Mac users can enjoy an immersive gaming experience with lower latency. We can’t wait to test these new features and see which games are ported to the Mac in the coming years.
ENHANCED ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES
macOS Sonoma prioritizes accessibility, making the Mac even more customizable for users with different needs. Made for iPhone hearing devices can now connect to the Mac, allowing individuals with hearing disabilities to use them for calls and media consumption. Nonspeaking users can leverage Live Speech to type and vocalize their thoughts during calls and conversations, enabling effective communication. For users with physical and motor disabilities, phonetic suggestions appear when dictating and editing text with Voice Control. This feature enhances the accuracy and efficiency of text input. Additionally, macOS Sonoma introduces improvements for users with cognitive disabilities, automatically pausing animated images like GIFs in Messages and Safari for a more manageable browsing experience. Users who are blind or low vision can customize text size across Mac apps and leverage VoiceOver, Apple’s industry-leading screen reader, for an inclusive experience.
macOS Sonoma brings numerous additional features and improvements to enhance the overall user experience. Streamlined PDF functionality allows for quick formfilling with AutoFill and smart recipient recommendations. Notes now display PDFs and document scans in full width, facilitating easy viewing and organization. Siri activation is simplified, allowing users to activate it simply by saying “Siri.” Password management
becomes more convenient with the ability to create password-sharing groups and autofill one-time verification codes received in Mail directly in Safari. The Messages app offers an all-new stickers experience, improved search, reply features, group enhancements, and synchronization with Messages in iCloud. Reminders include intelligent grocery lists to streamline weekly shopping, along with the ability to organize lists into sections and arrange them horizontally using a new column view. The Keyboard receives an all
new autocorrect feature, inline completions for faster sentence completion, and improved dictation accuracy through advanced speech recognition. Enhanced privacy and safety measures include expanded communication safety for AirDrop, Photos, incoming calls, and FaceTime messages. Additionally, sensitive content warning prevents unexpected exposure to explicit images and videos, with options to block contacts or seek further resources for assistance.
macOS Sonoma introduces a range of exciting enhancements to make the Mac experience even more delightful, productive, and accessible. With interactive widgets, smarter video conferencing capabilities, major updates to Safari, stunning new screen savers, improved gaming performance, enhanced hybrid and remote workflows, and a wealth of additional features, macOS Sonoma transforms the way users interact with their Macs.