macOS Sequoia Preview

https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-sequoia-preview/

by davidbarker • 2 years ago

338 342 2 years ago

I never thought I’d see the day macOS would get tiling window management. Wonder how it will interact with Stage Manager if at all.

spike021• 2 years ago

Yeah it looks like this will usurp Magnet for me, which I've used for years now.

minimaxir4• 2 years ago

The better question is why it took so long for Apple to copy Magnet.

imbnwa3• 2 years ago

Rectangle and Magnet devs not happy

alejoar• 2 years ago

Now if they only would allow me to take the focused window to the next workspace without using the mouse.

prcrstntr• 2 years ago

There's a new app on the block that allows this using virtual workspaces. https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace

LogHouse2• 2 years ago

I know it’s simple but I am so pleased with this. Now if they fixed the mouse acceleration curve and the scaling issue for monitors, I’d be at peace.

imbnwa3• 2 years ago

What's the scaling issue?

cmiller1• 2 years ago

It's the only OS that offers a good acceleration curve for my trackballs, been dying with the lack of configuration for the curve under wayland :(

freediver4• 2 years ago

I use BetterSnapTool for ages and love it. Wondering if this will be good enough to replace it natively.

mvanbaak• 2 years ago

This was exactly what I was thinking as well. Let's see!

flenserboy• 2 years ago

It's great for those who want it, but I really hope it can be turned off just as with most of their recent UI additions, such as Stage Manager.

saagarjha3• 2 years ago

It's opt-in.

zeusly• 2 years ago

I hope it supports thirds and not just 50/50 layouts.

doublepg233• 2 years ago

I think that’ll require the crackpot team that made Calculator on iPad possible.

nico• 2 years ago

I use Moom for basic keyboard-based window management. Great for maximizing windows and quickly resizing them

LeoPanthera• 2 years ago

Yes! I've been using Moom for I think over a decade now. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

xyst2• 2 years ago

the tiling is very basic though. reminds me of windows. i3/sway is superior, especially once you get it customized to your workflow.

thfuran• 2 years ago

Really basic tiling would be a vast improvement over the pathetic current built-in window management.

xlii• 2 years ago

2 days ago I complained that Apple has stalled when it came to window management. I wonder if Tim Cook is reading HN ;)

lioeters• 2 years ago

He might have someone (or something) who reads and summarizes HN, so he can keep a finger on the pulse.

wiseowise• 2 years ago

Finally Windows and Linux fanatics will shut up.

fckgw• 2 years ago

No they just switch from "Mac doesn't have X" to "Welcome to 20212 Mac"

superjose• 2 years ago

TBH, we still need to see how it integrates with the keyboard.

Ever since I've been using a Mac since Nov. 2023 that's been one of the things that I've battled with, and I've assigned a heck tons of shortcuts to make that happen.

mmcnl2• 2 years ago

Why the fanboyism? It's not a tournament. Let's embrace competition and enjoy that it brings the best out of each OS.

anthk• 2 years ago

CWM is not tiling and yet it can be crazy fast.

lttlrck• 2 years ago

This isn't i3/sway

gnatman• 2 years ago

I installed Rectangle about 4 hours ago based on another thread! Tim Apple knows all.

mortenjorck• 2 years ago

I'm honestly surprised and disappointed that all they appear to have done is Sherlock Rectangle.

Stage Manager was the most interesting and useful thing to happen to window management in over a decade, and I was really hoping we'd see Apple do more with it. Its dynamic nature (windows don't always live in just a single context!) solved a lot of problems inherent in Spaces, and yet there's still plenty of room to build on its foundation.

I was hoping we'd at least see the window snapping behavior ported over from iPadOS. It's a really well-thought-out way to simplify window resizing and overlapping, and it would go a long way on MacOS (perhaps with a toggle in Control Center for those edge cases where you actually want pixel precision). Maybe in MacOS 16...

thiht2• 2 years ago

Stage Manager was the most interesting and useful thing to happen to window management in over a decade

… really? I’ve tried to use it a few times but it’s just… not good. Not very intuitive, full of idiosyncrasies, and it doesn’t solve the basic "I want to snap 2 windows side by side" problem. Maybe it’s more interesting on iPad?

I’m glad they finally bring window snapping to Mac.

cassianoleal4• 2 years ago

I disabled Stage Manager after trying it out for a week or so. How the hell does that thing make any sense? Really, this is a legit question. How is that thing useful?

thiht2• 2 years ago

FINALLY! I really didn’t it to come to Mac, ever.

Now so just need a clipboard history manager, a way to make cmd+tab behave like Windows alt+tab, a way to mute the mic in the status bar, and a different setting for the trackpad/mouse wheel direction, and I won’t need to install random apps for basic features anymore.

pxc5• 2 years ago

don't forget per-app volume control, linear scroll wheel speed, some reasonable way to manage menu bar icons and ensure all can actually be accesses and used, a way to prevent the system from going to sleep (the built-in `caffeinate` command hasn't worked for years!), and searching through open windows by typing!

accidentalborg2• 2 years ago

Oh man, I couldn't live without Alfred's clipboard manager [paid] feature. I started using Alfred eons ago, bought their Powerpack, and haven't looked back since. The ability to resurface text or images I copied up to 3 months ago has saved my bacon too many times to remember.

merlindru• 2 years ago

Clipboard history manager: Paste App (https://pasteapp.io - freemium) or Raycast

Cmd+Tab: AltTab (https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/)

Different setting for the trackpad/mouse wheel: Mac Mouse Fix (https://macmousefix.com) or LinearMouse (https://linearmouse.app/) or Mos (https://mos.caldis.me/)

bitsoda• 2 years ago

Nailed it. It's honestly criminal and something I consider UX terrorism the way macOS lacks this basic functionality when even something like ChromeOS ships these by default. Wonderful hardware, but boy is the OS rough 20+ years later.

mmcnl2• 2 years ago

No mention of Stage Manager at all if I'm correct? Seems like Apple is quietly abandoning that path.

karmakaze3• 2 years ago

I never really understood the appeal of tiling window managers. I've gotten used to having overlapping windows with appropriate parts peek out out behind others. e.g. tail of a log behind an editor running a program, and I can bring it to the foreground to see older lines and/or scroll. To do the same with a tiling manager, I would zoom the logging pane. I suppose I just prefer less layout changes. Same for Slack, I have just enough peeping out to know there's some messages but I can't see the message text so I can ignore them until I'm ready.

Are there situations that make more sense to use a tiling manager like on larger (where all the tiles are usable) or smaller screens (where full expansion makes sense)?

harshaxnim• 2 years ago

With tiling managers you can do all you just listed + quick snapping. Who would say no to that?

sircastor4• 2 years ago

I generally agree with you. I use my Mac with most of the windows overlapped most of the time. But occasionally I need them side-by-side to do some work. Typically referencing documents or code. Fortunately the introduction of this looks to just be an optional feature rather than a dictated "way things are".

An overlapped/stacked interface is fine a lot of the time, but the flexibility is important.

What really drives me crazy is the 100% tiled-interface. I feel like something important is just below the tiles, but I can't see it.

nativeit2• 2 years ago

I have a 55” 4k television that wasn’t being used, and as a joke plugged it into my Mac Mini, and with a tiling window manager it’s functionally 4 decent sized FHD monitors at once. I have left it plugged in much longer than I thought I would, it’s really much more functional than I’d imagined. I still probably prefer a regular 1440p display, for most tasks.

michaelmrose• 2 years ago

3x 27" monitors provides lots of space for multiple usable windows it helps to also be able to switch workspaces per monitor so you switch monitors with a hotkey rather than switching windows.

Compared to peek and switch it provides more usable space since windows can be maximized without leaving space for another window to peek out, less manual arrangement since Windows need not be carefully arranged. Also I normally switch because I want to do another task or in resource to a notification.

That said however we choose to analyze it it's in part subjective matter of taste. There is no singular correct answer.

somat• 2 years ago

For me it was a couple of X11 features not often found on mac or windows that made me think about the desktop in a desktop environment and what I want out of my window manager. My timeline sort of goes as follows.

1. focus follows mouse, the window you are pointing at gets the focus. This feels very strange at first. but pulls a surprising amount of friction out of working with multiple apps. However you have to pair this with.

2. don't raise on focus. this let you work on a lower window. to raise you click on a specific part of the window, usually the title bar. if you don't have this focus follows mouse is terrible. this lets you have the main window(usually the documentation or reference) open on top while you type away on the lower window.

3. At this point I heard of i3 and it made perfect sense to me. I have never said "boy I sure am glad this window is half covered up" I ether want one app full screen, two apps side by side(reference and work) or many small apps(terminals). why not just have the window manager enforce this instead of me fiddling with windows. these days I use mainly use spectrwm because it fills that perfect middle ground between too sparse(dwm) and too featured(i3).

That said, for my day to day operations(I sys-admin, so lots of terminals) it works great. however there are many apps that do not play well. for example, I recently set up a linux box for steam games and steam was not happy with i3(all menus were separate windows) this is probably fixable but I just went with a normal wm. And when I do actual work on it I am reminded why I like tiling wm's as I find myself shuffling windows all the time.

Closing thoughts, an example of a tiling wm internal to an app is blender, even before I started using tiling wm's I thought blender had a very good ui for getting work done, much better than the mdi type apps that were common at the time. so just imagine your whole desktop working that way. And tabs, really tabbed interfaces should be a function of your window manager not the app, but that ship has sailed and I don't think there is any way to fix it now.

tayloramurphy• 2 years ago

I used to use Slate[0] to manage my windows but have since switched to Raycast since it was a more enjoyable experience.

I have a 49" ultrawide so it's super useful to have precise control over where a window goes. I also use 3 desktops (as Apple calls them) and have different windows sizes depending on what I'm doing. Having overlapping windows would just be super annoying now!

[0] https://github.com/jigish/slate

gloryjulio2• 2 years ago

I used 40 inch screens for many years. Tiling is must have for big screens and it works better than multiple screens combined togather

dangus2• 2 years ago

I don't know how one can't see the appeal. Once I installed Rectangle on macOS I can quickly put windows side-by-side with a couple of keystrokes, and change which windows I want side-by-side extremely quickly

Fiddling with the mouse to resize windows manually or having windows overlapping and covering up information on each other is not really a great way to interface with them. Maybe it's helpful to locate the windows and bring them into focus, but once they're in focus and in use, I want to be maximizing their screen real estate and making sure they're 100% readable.

And, really, it's something the OS should have had at the very least as an optional feature for over a decade now. Windows introduced this feature in Windows 7. It's been a sore spot of a missing feature and it's especially detracting for the Windows users that Apple wants to have switch over to the Mac platform.

browningstreet• 2 years ago

I do the same. It’s a hierarchical steppe like system. Maybe if we gave it a name, people would develop to this target.

Solstinox• 2 years ago

Agreed. Messy overlap + an app called HazeOver where you can dim apps out of focus is the best approach to this.

pxc5• 2 years ago

You still haven't seen that day, have you? macOS still offers only a floating window manager, now with some window snapping capabilities. But there is no mode or window manager built into macOS where new windows are arranged in tiles spanning the whole screen by default.

rochacon• 2 years ago

Exactly, by the description of it on the announcement, this is not "tiling window management" as we're used in Linux, this is just "Window Snaping" that been available on Windows and Linux for what, a decade now?

I really hope there is a "automatic tiling" option, otherwise this is just mouse support for the current "Move Window"/"Tile Window" options already available on the OS (and easily bindable via custom shortcuts).

vladsanchez3• 2 years ago

Been a happy Magnet user for long time! Nothing remarkable in this OS that hasn't been seen yet elsewhere. No innovation, only #MeToo features.

It took them a decade to release a "Send Later" feature? How's that for innovation? Snobs!

foxandmouse• 2 years ago

Since it's not available on iPadOS, I think the answer is.. it wont?

gloosx• 2 years ago

I wonder if they made horizontal 50/50 split possible. It is so freaking odd they decided to implement vertical 50/50, but flipping the variables and making a horizontal 50/50 is a no-no. Like no-one at Apple ever used a portrait orientation monitor.

minimaxir4• 2 years ago

The iPhone Mirroring was the most interesting announcement (and I don't think was leaked).

I suspect it will only be useful for emergencies as latency will be terrible, though.

k8sToGo• 2 years ago

With WiFi 6e latency should be ok.

tsujamin• 2 years ago

Sidecar/display mirroring from my macbook to my ipad is pretty low latency, so presumably this will be based on a similar technology stack

gfaure• 2 years ago

This is occasionally quite useful. A few weeks ago, my phone's display went haywire, and the only way I could operate it to secure a backup was through the somewhat hidden mirroring functionality via QuickTime screen recording.

eddieroger• 2 years ago

as latency will be terrible, though

Based on what? AirPlay mirroring is great today, and this is that with data in the other direction. Current Wifi is perfectly capable of bidirectional voice and video. Adding touch/key events is incremental.

fragmede• 2 years ago

Yeah, I use my AppleTV As a monitor for my laptop all the time via Airplay mirroring and it's fine.

minimaxir4• 2 years ago

"Terrible" might be an exaggeration, but even in my personal uncongested network the feed can get randomly choppy from wireless AirPlay mirroring.

wwalexander3• 2 years ago

This used to exist via QuickTime, but I wasn’t able to get it working recently.

I suspect it will only be useful for emergencies as latency will be terrible, though.

If they can make the macOS display feature in visionOS usable, I imagine they can make this work too.

navanchauhan• 2 years ago

I thought you could only do screen recording via QuickTime This mirroring feature actually lets you interact with the phone

dereg• 2 years ago

Can't wait to attempt GUI automation on my iPhone using the mac.

sleepybrett2• 2 years ago

I hoping my mom can share their phone with their laptop and i can sreenshare into her laptop to troubleshoot her phone.

Also I will use this often to approve okta 2factor requests.

crummy• 2 years ago

Oh shit - that's a great point, this will make remote tech support a lot better

djxfade2• 2 years ago

You can already remote control an iPhone through FaceTime I think

jayd16• 2 years ago

Why? It's not like remote desktop tech is new or anything.

m463• 2 years ago

apple's mac to mac remote desktop is quite good.

xyst2• 2 years ago

Wasn't this always possible though? Apple just turned what was once a development feature (Xcode) into a mainstream feature.

drewg123• 2 years ago

I'd like to use it for watching Netflix/Hulu/etc on a plane on a larger screen than my phone without being forced to carry an iPad.

I really wish Apple would just force companies to enable their iPhone/iPad apps on Apple Silicon. But if I could display a video from my phone onto my 15" laptop screen, that would be a nearly as nice.

quenix• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, the DRM might not let you AirPlay Netflix content..

inickt• 2 years ago

You can already AirPlay from an iOS device to a Mac– doing this on a plane is a bit trickier because of the networking setup though. I think I have managed to successfully do it once by either 1. doing some sort of tethering/creating a local wifi network on my Mac 2. connecting both devices to the in flight wifi

I use AirPlay to my Mac (and external monitors) even at home since I can watch the 4K feed from apps, which isn't available for some services if you use the web browser (cough HBO cough),

ttul3• 2 years ago

Apple would not be releasing iPhone mirroring if the latency were terrible. If they had a low bar for latency, they’d have released iPhone mirroring ten years ago. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines do not specify an exact maximum number of milliseconds for interface latency. However, they emphasize the importance of responsiveness and recommend that any user interface should feel instantaneous and fluid to create a positive user experience. The general goal is to keep latency as low as possible to ensure interactions feel immediate and natural.

pazimzadeh• 2 years ago

this is needed on Vision Pro

agloe_dreams2• 2 years ago

Which, weirdly, should be simple. The Vision Pro’s Mac mirroring is probably the exact same stack as the IPhone to Mac feature.

cassianoleal4• 2 years ago

Goodbye having to lift my phone to use crappy enterprise MFA solutions.

Detrytus• 2 years ago

The only use case for iPhone Mirroring I can think of is online shopping, when I'm trying to finalize transaction on my Mac, but then realize that I have to login to my banking app to confirm payment, and my iPhone is in another room... I guess you can call that "an emergency".

And of course, there are all those MFA apps which I need for work...

agloe_dreams2• 2 years ago

I’m fully expecting this to just be a ported version of the Vision Pro’s feature that allows a Virtual Desktop of your Mac. In that context, it seemed to have extremely low latency.

pmx• 2 years ago

I have high hopes for the background replacement tech, the segmentation built into teams isn't very good.

minimaxir4• 2 years ago

The demo they showed used the iPhone Continuity Camera, which has depth information and already does a great job of segmentation as it's required for the Portrait and Studio Light effects.

I suspect quality will be worse on a typical Mac FaceTime camera.

xenonite• 2 years ago

Good point, but not for details: I doubt that the depth information is of much help for separating hairs from the background.

viraptor• 2 years ago

You can always use your own removal with OBS. There's a plugin for automatic background removal and you can re-export the video as a virtual camera that any other app can use.

corytheboyd• 2 years ago

I’d love to have a proper window organizer with keyboard shortcuts built into the OS, one less thing to have to install on the side. Hopefully it’s fast, with no annoying flair.

sleepybrett2• 2 years ago

I'll probably still use phoenix since I can code it to do whatever I want. https://github.com/kasper/phoenix

kalb_almas• 2 years ago

Dude thank you SO MUCH for sharing this. I use Rectangle to tile windows and I've been looking for a way to switch between windows based on their position on my screen rather than their type for probably about a year now.

AnonC2• 2 years ago

The iPhone mirroring feature and the related feature of being able to control the screen on another person’s device is going to be quite helpful, personally speaking. But the screen control feature can also be a threat that scammers could convince someone to allow and then defraud them. I’ll be looking forward to try this out and see how (well) it works.

UniverseHacker• 2 years ago

I don't think scammers will be able to exploit the control feature, as you will most likely need to have two apple devices in close physical proximity.

AnonC2• 2 years ago

GP here. I said "related feature" because I didn't recall what was exactly said in the keynote. FaceTime calls can be used to take control of the other person's iPhone in iOS 18. This is where scammers could convince people to allow access and perform actions when they (the scammers) get control.

adamors2• 2 years ago

Should have called it Sherlock as they seem to be Sherlocking a lot of apps. For instance I only use Fantastical because I can see my reminders with my events, I assume many people will also switch from a paid password manager to this as well.

akagr• 2 years ago

I don’t see myself switching from 1password simply because I don’t think Apple passwords autofill will work natively with non-safari browsers or Linux, both of which I also use. Also, I find the handy 1password mini source pretty convenient.

macintux2• 2 years ago

I haven't determined yet whether the new Passwords app will support my killer feature for 1Password: non-password-stuff.

I keep family members' social security numbers, security questions and answers, passport numbers, etc in there, and I don't want to split that data between a passwords app & secure notes.

ssbash• 2 years ago

Other browsers could add support for the native macOS password autofill apis (introduced back in 2020 in macOS Big Sur). So far both Chrome[1] and Firefox[2] have refused to add support.

[1] https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40744291#comment15

[2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1650212

djxfade2• 2 years ago

It already works for Chrome. Apple has an official extension. However, it’s a bit annoying since you need to authenticate each new browser session with MFA

amelius• 2 years ago

Isn't it illegal to push your own products by bundling them with other products?

adamors2• 2 years ago

Well Apple has been doing this since forever

Watson became very popular, and stayed that way right until Apple released Mac OS X 10.2 with Sherlock 3. In that release, Apple added just about everything Watson could do to Sherlock's own interface.

arresin• 2 years ago

Yeah I think that's what MS was doing before one of their antitrust lawsuits.

macintux2• 2 years ago

That can result in anti-trust action if you have a monopoly, which isn't true for Apple in the U.S. The EU has different rules which I don't pretend to understand.

WillPostForFood• 2 years ago

It is not illegal to push your own products by bundling them with other products. Both MacOS and Windows have dozens or hundreds of their own bundled products.

mpalmer• 2 years ago

They're not even charging for these things, what's the objection exactly?

runako• 2 years ago

Isn't the Passwords app essentially just existing features of the OSes extracted into an app? Or does it add new capabilities as well (other than obviously the Windows app)?

jerbear4328• 2 years ago

The Windows app already existed, actually, as part of iCloud for Windows. It uses a Chrome extension for autofill. https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud...

agent86• 2 years ago

Math Notes certainly appears to be moving into Soulver/Numi territory. I'm a bit surprised by this one as while I personally love Soulver I didn't know how appealing it would be to Apple's overall user base.

JZL003• 2 years ago

I was going to say too, I love literate-calc in org mode but it's all pretty niche and not a well developed set of sofwtare https://github.com/sulami/literate-calc-mode.el

twixfel• 2 years ago

Honestly, I support it. I got burnt by Tijme Gommers selling Raivo to someone shady and getting all my passwords locked behind a subscription (and subsequently lost). I don't want to have to check once a day to see if my TOTP app has been sold to some guy in Morocco and my passwords monetised.

woah• 2 years ago

I'm guessing (and Apple is probably betting) that far more new users of Passwords will be switching from not having used a password manager at all, not switching from a different password manager. I pay for Bitwarden, and will probably continue doing so because I can't be bothered to switch.

yunwal• 2 years ago

Also until Passwords is easily usable on non-Apple devices, there’ll be a place for password managers.

maronato• 2 years ago

My thought exactly. Today must’ve been a sad day for many app developers.

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

Can you use an arbitrary account in the new password app ?

The screenshots had no indication of it, and it doesn't seem to have a web counterpart.

One of the major PITA for keychain was the association with your logged in AppleID. If it 's still that way, I don't see a real appeal for people who already went their way to pay for a full-fledge product.

Imagine killing your phone and asking a nearby friend to borrow theirs to quickly cancel an appointment to give you time to deal with it. That's the kind of situation that should be gracefully handled by a password manager service.

freediver4• 2 years ago

A cool tidbit shown in one of the screenshots is that Apple Pay will be unlocked to other browsers. It is not clear whether they will need to be running WebKit or not for this to work, but looking forward to support in Orion.

lxgr3• 2 years ago

Given that all relevant browsers on macOS either bring their own WebKit build or run another engine, system-WebKit only would be close to false advertising, so I really hope it's not.

I'm really looking forward to this – big fan of Apple Pay, but I'm not switching to Safari and rebuilding my shopping cart for non-logged-in purchases, and that's where it's arguably most useful.

azinman2• 2 years ago

Chrome is not using system webkit.

xenospn2• 2 years ago

I’ve been wishing for iPhone notifications on my Mac for the longest time!

dmitshur• 2 years ago

I wonder if it’ll do anything about duplicate notifications. As a basic example, the Weather app exists both on iOS (and iPadOS) and macOS, so if it’s enabled, would you get duplicate notifications on macOS?

xenospn2• 2 years ago

I could always use more reminders that it’s going to rain in 13 minutes

Cthulhu_2• 2 years ago

I really need to unfuck my notifications; I'm getting them from Chrome (Google Calendar), Office (work calendar), and MacOS calendar (where I have a copy of all of them). Should unify that stuff.

Oh, and I get more notifications on my other laptop which has some similar calendars.

And my phone, too.

autoexecbat• 2 years ago

Just waiting for yet more of "Apple Arcade Free For 3 Months" style notifications

srott• 2 years ago

I wish they’d have an LTS version, I’m in constant fear of what will go wrong next…

cyclecount• 2 years ago

Every release is an LTS version, with support for about 8 years.

The current stable release of macOS (10.14 Sonoma) supports all Macs introduced in 2017 and later.

luuurker2• 2 years ago

Older macOS versions don't receive all security fixes, so while you'll receive security updates from time to time, the OS isn't fully patched. It's a bit different from, say, Ubuntu LTS.

rafaelturk• 2 years ago

You still receive security updates for all manjor MacOSes, so albeit lack of proper naming you can assume each new release as LTS.

luuurker2• 2 years ago

Small, but important detail: you receive some security updates, not all. Same with iOS.

alberth• 2 years ago

Tech Debt

Wow, those are a lot of features being added (even if it's largely userland).

I can't even imagine the amount of tech debt for an OS that's 23-years old (and older if you count NextStep).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS

Cthulhu_2• 2 years ago

First off, you don't need to title your comments. That said, just because a codebase is old doesn't mean it has a lot of tech debt; that's down to maintenance, discipline, and setting priorities. There was a blogger which kept tabs on what Apple's iOS (apps?) were being written in, showing a steady migration towards Swift, which tells me they're not just letting code sit and rot.

xnx• 2 years ago

I'm very productive in Windows, but Microsoft's recent behavior (jamming Windows full of Edge dark patterns and ads) and the improvement of window management in macOS tempts me to give it another try.

htk• 2 years ago

I know your situation very well, I still develop a lot on Windows, but my main computer is a Mac. I find the hardware amazing, and the software a joy to use.

Windows 11 is behaving more and more like the viruses and adwares I spent so many years defending against.

lawlessone2• 2 years ago

I just switched to Kubuntu.

Everything I want/need including games via steam run perfectly on it now. I can't see a reason to return to MS or got to Apple.

spartanatreyu4• 2 years ago

I've used Windows solely for gaming and MacOS solely for MacOS/iOS development (work).

But now...

- Windows is full of AI/Adware bloat with more getting added every few months

- Linux's gaming/nvivia support has come such a long way that in some games it's beating Windows in some benchmarks now

- Apple's app store policies over the last 10 years have caused so many issues that our company is switching everything to webapps.

So I'll probably be switching from Windows+MacOS+Linux this year to just Linux next year.

Thinking of using the KDE or Cosmic desktop environments for personal computer and NixOS for development computer (just so I can test/rollback changes, and if the computer ever dies I can be up and running again in under an hour if I need to meet a deadline).

aurareturn5• 2 years ago

You don’t have to use the App Store on MacOS.

imbnwa3• 2 years ago

Windows with multiple displays makes me tear my hair out, no matter what you do to the settings. I try to use Playnite on my TV in extended display mode and it is the most maddening thing.

kaba03• 2 years ago

Windows 11 can’t even move a window in “overview mode” from one screen to another. Something single-men projects trivially do. It is absolutely useless, I rather use Gnome than that.

spankalee• 2 years ago

I wonder - if you're not an iPhone user, will Macs soon just not really be for you anymore? I don't care about iPhone integration, Siri, or Apple's AI.

buzzerbetrayed• 2 years ago

Your Mac being able to control an iPhone somehow makes it worse for you if you don't have an iPhone? And what do Siri and Apple AI have to do with iPhone other than them also being on iPhone in addition to Mac?

Toutouxc2• 2 years ago

You don’t have to be an iPhone user to use the AI or Siri. And it’s not like they’re taking non-integration features away — if you’re happy with the current version, you’ll probably be happy with the next one, won’t you?

I mean, I get the sentiment, macOS releases have gotten a bit more exciting since I got an iPad and an iPhone, but macOS is a perfectly good OS even without the iDevices.

nottorp6• 2 years ago

TBH i have both Macs and iPhones and not only I don't use any integration options (with the exception of reading and sending text messages from my laptop) but I'm pretty sure I don't even know about 90% of them.

chatmasta2• 2 years ago

I explicitly use different Apple IDs on each device because I don’t want to accidentally opt into features like mirroring my messages across them.

mgrandl• 2 years ago

The only thing I use is the clipboard sharing.

eviks5• 2 years ago

Note transcription is useful without an iPhone

etherlord• 2 years ago

Man I hope they expose the tiling functionality so software like Yabai can hook in and make it automatic.

nostrademons6• 2 years ago

I wonder how the "seamlessly drag and drop files, photos, and videos between your iPhone and Mac" will work. Right now, if you just want to grab the raw files of your photos and videos and not deal with the Photos app, your best bet is Image Capture, a 20+ year old seemingly unmaintained program that seems to glitch out disturbingly frequently. I really hope they can introduce something that seamlessly lets you drag photos off your phone and into your filesystem, just in the Finder.

magnio• 2 years ago

I thought that's what AirDrop is for? Even Android can drag and drop files to Windows.

crazygringo2• 2 years ago

That's exactly what AirDrop is for. I think the commenter must just not know about it?

lucianbr• 2 years ago

What do you mean from Android to Windows? How exactly can that happen? I have an android phone in my hand now and a windows desktop in front, and no clue how to even begin this drag and drop operation. Where would I even start dragging in Android?

dsego• 2 years ago

I frequently just airdrop stuff between my iphone and mac, that's the best thing coming from android, that and pasting text between devices, eg iban, passwords, etc.

marricks• 2 years ago

Right? Airdrop "just works" and so does copy paste between devices.

If this is a better AirDrop I'm all here for it. AirDrop was already leaps and bounds better than email my android phone to my PC.

ttul3• 2 years ago

AirDrop is great in theory, but in practice 80% of the time I try to send a photo to my partner using AirDrop, it simply fails to bring up a notification on her devices. In my experience, Apple often delivers well much of the time, but will allow mysterious bugs like this to pervade a feature for years without finding a fix despite much discussion in their customer forums. I wish they did a better job of fixing such problems.

nostrademons6• 2 years ago

I want the source list to be the Finder on my Mac, not "All Photos" on the iPhone. I frequently have 2000+ photos to bring over at once; I hate dragging through all of them to select them, with one mis-touch resetting the selection. I've also found AirDrop to be very unreliable at that scale (does it even work? I've never used it for more than ~a dozen items), and want reliable file transfer functionality that can pick up where it left off if it gets interrupted.

talldayo• 2 years ago

I use KDE Connect to do the same thing across Android, Mac and Windows: https://kdeconnect.kde.org/

Well worth checking out.

StrLght• 2 years ago

It's already been working for quite some time: shared clipboard on iOS and macOS has supported photos and videos since more than 2 years ago. I'd expect drag-and-drop works the same way.

nostrademons6• 2 years ago

Like I mentioned in another comment, I've got 2000+ photos to dump onto an external hard drive (Samba share technically, but I can always move from local disk to SMB easily). I'm not going to cut & paste 2000 photos individually. Hell, I don't even want to select 2000 photos for a batch operation.

amarshall• 2 years ago

Drag and dropping photos and other files from iPhone (plugged via USB) works well on Linux in the file browser. Too bad it seems Apple can’t figure it out on their own OS, though maybe they have now.

isametry2• 2 years ago

and not deal with the Photos app

What’s the point of this qualifier?

Why not use the current, up-to-date default app for photo import that has been there since 2002 to literally serve this purpose? Yes it has a lot of extra functionality, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it. You can get originals from Photos and be done with it…

cantSpellSober• 2 years ago

Every time you email a file to yourself so you can pull it up on your friend's laptop, Tim Berners-Lee sheds a single tear.

https://xkcd.com/949/

dataflow360• 2 years ago

iMazing might be worth checking out, for photo and video import/export.

It also has a Quick Transfer feature so you just drag and drop a file to your target device, and iMazing gives you a choice of apps to send the file to. It's similar to AirDrop but also works for Windows and seems a bit faster and more stable.

josefdlange• 2 years ago

Universal Access (Control? Whatever it's called) between multiple Macs not only allows sharing input methods but also dragging files back and forth, and works pretty seamlessly. I imagine the same mechanism is at work here.

thih9• 2 years ago

iPhone notifications on Mac

I was hoping for improvements to iPhone's notifications, not have them expand to other devices.

I'm quite happy with all the social media notifications being confined to a single device; I can pick it up and check it when I want to, or put it away and ignore for a while. I know Apple wants me to set some sort of focus / do not disturb, but managing that seems too complex when the analog "put the phone away" works.

djhworld• 2 years ago

The iPhone mirroring looked interesting, I'm not sure why I would use it but it might come in handy in a pinch.

One thing not clear in the presentation (or maybe I missed it) was how this feature works when apps ask for FaceID, e.g. finance apps. Presumably either they fail, or fallback to some other authentication means e.g. passcode.

nofunsir5• 2 years ago

Wish I could use Safari with uBO, so that I could use Safari. Tired of feature fragmentation in 3rd party software, but equally tired of ostensible limitations in 1st party software that try to control and prevent every single edge case use in the name of "uSeR ExPeRiEnCe".

EDIT: I'd like to add the following, in case any Safari team members come across this in the wake of today's keynote. I remain utterly disgusted by things like:

- hiding the full url by default

- force hiding the full url on certain ($) search engine sites

- force injecting 'client=safari' into my urls for ($)

- {google, yahoo, bing, duckduckgo, ecosia}

- inability to specify custom search engines and their urls

- removal of RSS reader (still salty)

doublepg233• 2 years ago

I quite like the Wipr “Content Blocker”. It’s paid, but at least that’s incentive to continue working on something a dreadful as ad-block.

ilrwbwrkhv• 2 years ago

Safari has issues with audio pitch correction on sped up videos.

freediver4• 2 years ago

Rather WebKit used to have this, and it was fixed a year ago.

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191053#c31

https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/pull/9489#issuecomment-1519...

runjake• 2 years ago

If anyone is wondering why uBlock Origin is no longer available for Safari, since version 13, see:

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1123#is...

And for watching Safari status ongoing:

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/issues/52

nofunsir5• 2 years ago

Yes. But,

"... if ever there is a port to Safari, that will be MV3 uBO Lite, not uBO, which requires MV2." --gorhill

nottorp6• 2 years ago

It's not available because Apple don't want to allow it. Hence I use Firefox.

carlosjobim• 2 years ago

NextDNS solves ads. Anything super special you can use the Stopthemadness plugin.

strunz• 2 years ago

I don't believe either of those block YouTube ads on Safari

nofunsir5• 2 years ago

uBO isn't just about ads, and the mechanisms Stopthemadness uses should be readily available to me without having to install an app-store blessed plugin, for monies.

rzzzt• 2 years ago

Orion uses WebKit and also lets you access extensions like uBO.

nofunsir5• 2 years ago

I don't really care what engine is used. Bad javascript between sites raises the noise floor above browser/engine speed differences, and ads and trackers do the same wrt site functionality.

I want Safari for the OS integrations and cleanliness. I need Firefox for manifest v2 and UI customization.

skydhash• 2 years ago

The only thing I would add is enabling javascript per tab. And remote fonts. This is my most used feature on UBO. The web is finally snappy again.

InfiniteVortex• 2 years ago

I was one of the main people that tried to port uBO Lite to Safari. uBO isn't possible to port because Safari doesn't support the relevant APIs. uBO Lite is also not possible, despite supporting _most_ of the APIs (IIRC), the ones that are essential for a MVP aren't available on Safari. With that said though, it's possible to use Apple's Safari-specific API to build an ad blocker for Safari that might actually be better than uBO Lite.

OldGuyInTheClub• 2 years ago

Kagi's Orion browser is based on Safari but allows FF and Chrome extensions. uBO works although the Youtube ad blocking is not quite as good as FF.

chatmasta2• 2 years ago

- {google, yahoo, bing, duckduckgo, ecosia}

Even as an Apple fanboy, this is my least favorite part of the ecosystem. It’s so blatantly anticompetitive and obvious that this is a list of search engines that pay Apple money. (Actually, it’s just Google + 4 re-skinned Bing engines).

This needs to be customizable to include any website with a ?q= parameter, like Firefox does with custom search engines.

It should honestly be an anti-trust issue that this is not possible now.

nofunsir5• 2 years ago

100% Agree.

ilikehurdles• 2 years ago

First time in recent memory that I’ve been totally blown away with a macOS announcement. I’m excited for a majority of the features here. Maps, tiling, smart reader, info extraction.

Yaggo• 2 years ago

Still no re-nameable virtual desktops? Bummer.

cjk22• 2 years ago

Err we already have that in Sonoma. Press F3 and move the mouse to the top of the screen.

You can even switch between them with a triple swipe on a magic trackpad...

aldonius2• 2 years ago

If you can _rename_ desktops though, I've never seen how.

e.g. in Mission Control right now I have "Desktop 1", "Desktop 2", and full-screened iTerm2 on my external monitor, plus "Desktop 3" and about 6 other fullscreen apps on my laptop.

I have somewhat semantic meaning for what each of those three numbered desktops are, but it'd be nice to _name_ them.

bsimpson4• 2 years ago

My corp desktop is an iMac Pro (2018). For a long time, it was the best way to get a Retina-quality desktop without getting into VFX budgets. It was also in that weird period in Apple's product calendar when the one-and-done trash can was obsolete, but its replacement hadn't been released. Work usually issues whatever panels they can buy in bulk from overseas, but for a magical window, we could get a nice screen with no shenanigans by ordering an iMac Pro.

My heart dropped for a second when I saw Sequoia only supports iMacs from 2019, until I saw it supports iMac Pros from 2017. I wonder how much longer I have before Apple stops releasing updates, and corp IT decides the iMac Pro is now e-waste.

It's really unfortunate that they don't do Target Display Mode anymore. These iMacs have panels that are still top-of-the-line 6 years later. (A Studio Display is basically an iMac Pro with Apple Silicon in Target Display Mode.) I wonder if there will be a Linux distribution to convert these things into monitors when they go obsolete.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

I've got so much perfectly-working e-waste from Apple. It's so sad. I'm on a Late 2014 Mac mini that's stuck on Monterey macOS 12 and a Late 2014 retina iMac that's stuck on Big Sur macOS 11(!!) An iPhone7 that's stuck on iOS15. The display on that iMac is still IMO second to none. These computers do everything I need, yet their software support is stuck back in time. And 3rd party developers are terrible about supporting previous version of macOS. They alway seem to assume you are running the latest and greatest, and deliberately remove support for earlier OSs.

Hell, I have an O.G. iPad 1 that still works perfectly as it did the day I bought it, but most of the built-in software no longer works, and the App Store is basically empty. What a sad state of affairs.

EricE2• 2 years ago

Your not stuck (the Mac's at least) https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

jamesy0ung• 2 years ago

I have a 2012 Mac Mini, running Linux with a bunch of services on it. Works quite well as a server. Low power and silent.

Eric_WVGG• 2 years ago

top of the line panels

A few different people have figured out how to convert these panels into stand-alone displays. It's a pity that it would be impractical to make a small business out of this.

- https://ohmypizza.com/2023/04/converting-a-5k-imac-into-an-e... - https://mschmitt.org/blog/convert-5k-27-imac-external-displa...

bsimpson4• 2 years ago

Thanks for the tips!

Wild that a hobby project I've never heard of has a whole outfit in China supporting it: http://chiyakeji.com/

I wonder if I'll be able to expense one of those when/if Apple finally deprecates the iMac Pro on my desk.

ray__• 2 years ago

I've done this and it's amazing-it's the only monitor that I can use for my workstation (Linux/Windows) and my laptop (macOS) because even the (relatively) cheap LG UltraFine monitors don't work with the Nvidia GPU on my workstation.

hcarvalhoalves2• 2 years ago

Apple is now imposing the same iOS obsolescence program to MacBook/iMac. That’s how you make easy money nowadays.

setopt3• 2 years ago

iPhone XR was released in 2018, and I got mine in 2019. It will still be supported by iOS 18, which is being released in 2024.

5-6 years of fully functioning hardware with official OS updates is much better than the Android phones I had before it.

musictubes• 2 years ago

Not quite a perfect solution but you can use the iMac as an airplay display.

graeme• 2 years ago

The line seems to have been drawn at the T2 chip.

One thing I can tell you though is that Intel has EOL’ed the chip in the iMac Pro. Meaning no more security support for the chip.

So I’m not sure the iMac Pro will get the next update. Though possible Apple has found a way to mitigate any security issues.

This is the best article I found on the topic. Note also that once the iMac Pro is out of support, it’s os will still get security updates for two years past that.

So with this announcement today we are guaranteed security support until Oct 2027 or so.

I own an iMac Pro and was pleasantly surprised today. Had been concerned the Intel EOL might end things.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/with-macos-sonoma-in...

bsimpson4• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, I don't think our IT dept will support an old OS if a newer one is available; even if the old one gets security patches and the new one doesn't work on some machines.

aikinai• 2 years ago

I also really appreciated that magical window with my 2018 iMac Pro at work! Never going to be able to justify a Studio Display…

bsimpson4• 2 years ago

It's insane that it costs as much as an iMac, but it's also insane that it effectively _is_ an iMac (with nerfed software).

dev_daftly• 2 years ago

I would love it if I could have different natural scrolling settings for mouse and trackpad, but that's apparently too much to ask for despite it being supported by every other os.

mjmsmith• 2 years ago

https://github.com/ther0n/UnnaturalScrollWheels ?

SamuelAdams• 2 years ago

There is also Mos, it is a bit smoother in my experience:

https://mos.caldis.me/

btmiller• 2 years ago

https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

seaal2• 2 years ago

This drives me crazy. The amount of low hanging fruit that Apple continues to fail on delivering is disappointing.

lawlessone2• 2 years ago

So is this as problematic as Co-pilot / Recall?

lxgr3• 2 years ago

iPhone mirroring sounds great from a usability point of view, but I wonder if this will enable new types of scams.

Many people use their phone as a second authentication factor these days via TOTPs etc., the assumption there being that somebody with access to your computer can't get to it.

This kind of invalidates that, which could be a problem when screen sharing to tech support scammers.

mrpippy• 2 years ago

Rosetta now supports AVX2, this is a big deal for running Windows games in CrossOver/Wine

ksec4• 2 years ago

macOS Sequoia update is interesting. It has been at least 5 - 6 years I felt macOS had some useful upgrade. But It is also arguably the smallest OS update in terms of number of new features sans Apple Intelligence. Most of the time macOS update talks about features that I have no idea who are they aiming for, or it felt more like certain people had to get new features in every macOS update for the sake of it. This time around most of them very small but useful additions.

iPhone Mirroring and Notification. No longer do I have to find my phone when I am at home sitting in front of my Mac just to check on notification. I could also enjoy most of my iPhone Apps and even some gaming without leaving my Mac. Making the Mac an extension of my iPhone. Very handy and useful. Something I wanted a very long time but thought Apple wouldn't do it.

Seamless drag and drop between devices - Probably need more testing, but AirDrop isn't reliable for doing massive amount of Files between iPhone and Mac. And again transferring files from Mac to an iPhone Apps no longer requires 5+ tedious steps.

Control over web video - Semi-Full Screen Video and the important thing here is "system playback controls". Some of the online video controls are just awful.

Notes - It does 90% of what I need from Soulver. I guess unit conversion won't be as good. And the Collapsible sections meant another note taking app of mine wont be needed.

Unfortunately Safari doesn't seems to get much update. It is still the worst browser for Tab Heavy Users. And their world fastest browser tagline for so many years is annoying because it is clearly very specific to limited cases. Both Chrome and Recent Firefox are simply faster.

Apart from Safari, my current major annoyance, unless there are some new problems from Sequoia, I am not even sure what is missing from macOS. At least right now it does seems macOS, in my view is 99% complete.

The only Apps [1] I will need installing as I wrote a few months ago are;

IINA - Media Player

QuickLook Video - Adds non-quicktime supported Video to Finder Preview.

Unarchiver or Keka - RAR or Zip files.

Little Snitch Mini - Network Monitoring

Transmission - Bit torrent

Apple Numbers, Pages - Alternative to M$ Office if you dont need all the features.

Text Editor - VS Code or Sublime,

And that is it. Other than the Apps above and Default Apps by Apple like Stocks and Notes, 99% of my time are inside Browser.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39164362

sircastor4• 2 years ago

The commentary stream I was watching described it as "An whole lot of Sherlocking going on": Passwords app, Window Snapping, iPhone to mac Display mirroring. It feels especially tone deaf that they're doing it at their developer conference

If you're unfamiliar with the term, "Sherlocking" is the act of Apple introducing some 3rd-party's App features as a core component of the operating system, essentially obviating the app and the developers that created it.

An incomplete list of "Sherlocked" things:

- Watson - a tool for finding stuff on your Mac. Replicated by Apple's "Sherlock", hence the name of the phenomenon.

- Growl - Popover notifications Replicated by Apple's "Notifications"

- Konfabulator - provided a layer of widgets that could do various things, sort of like the old desk accessories applets. Replicated by Apple's "Dashboard"

- Camo - Allowed you to use your iPhone as a webcam. Replicated by Apple's "Continuity Camera"

The list goes on and on.

aurareturn5• 2 years ago

What’s the problem? 99% of Mac users would never download and use those apps due to convenience. But if Apple builds the features into the OS, it will get used much more and benefit the users.

I don’t use a password manager. I refuse to pay a subscription for one. Yet, I’ve been wanting Apple to convert Keychain into a real password manager for a long time. They actually did it and I’m happy.

sircastor4• 2 years ago

I think there is a significant ethical issue related to inviting others to build software on your platform, prove that software’s market value, and then you under-cutting them by creating your own version of it for free to increase sales.

eviks5• 2 years ago

The main problems:

- this reduces the incentive to develop better solutions, and

- Apple's version of power user utilities will 99% of the time be worse, so your expanded user base will come at the expense of a loss of functionality for the power users (since backwards compatibility is poor, so eventually those more powerful single apps break)

Also bitwarden is free, no subscription.

steve1977• 2 years ago

To be precise, Sherlock was first and Watson came later (hence the name). However, Sherlock 3 then seemingly took quite a bit of inspiration from Watson in terms of features.

thenaturalist• 2 years ago

Might seem like a small one, but finally: a passwords app.

That one really makes me happy.

1Password was a bliss until they went all in on subscriptions, and Bitwarden, for all its benefits is, I gotta say, rather abysmal when it comes to GUI and UX of their native app.

The Passwords app looks like the best of both worlds in terms of UX and functionality.

samuria2• 2 years ago

I really hope that there's a way to integrate the new passwords app into browsers other than Safari. The only reason I'm still with 1Password is because of their Firefox extension for auto fill.

mstolpm• 2 years ago

You can already "autofill" Firefox (and other) input fields with keychain data in Sonoma. Its a bit cumbersome, but right click into the field, select "autofill" from the context menu, then either "passwords" or "contacts", search/select/confirm the data to be inserted.

jairuhme2• 2 years ago

I didn't see any details, but I'm hoping that you can easily import password lists. I just set up 1Password, I'd hate to have to input each individual password again

seaal2• 2 years ago

Keychain already allow for imports from a .CSV file for years now.

lycopodiopsida• 2 years ago

I would worry more about export in the long run, since lock-in is a thing and re-typing 100 login entries is not fun, I've been there...

thoughtpeddler• 2 years ago

Do the hardened InfoSec folks here on HN have an opinion on how the new Apple/iCloud Passwords setup will make one vulnerable to a SIM swapping attack, per this anecdote [1]:

apple sherlocked 1Password today, so i'd like to remind you that your Apple ID is only as secure as your carrier. if you have 2FA on and get SIM swapped, attackers can lock you out of it PERMANENTLY. last month it happened to me. make sure it doesn't happen to you

[1] https://x.com/blader/status/1800263787746066646

dmix• 2 years ago

This seems like one of the best MacOS release I can remember

I hold Snow Leopard to high esteem still because it made everything faster and smoother.

ksec4• 2 years ago

Agree. Now I just want bug fix and performance improvements in future release and stop cramping more and more useless features for the sake of it.

inferiorhuman• 2 years ago

Counterpoint: this is one of the most disappointing releases I've seen.

  I hold Snow Leopard to high esteem still because it made everything faster and smoother.

Well there's the rub. Snow Leopard was largely a bug fix release. Sonoma is atrocious. It is the buggiest release I've dealt with since the pre-Tiger days. You name it, it's broken. File sharing (both SMB and AFP are broken in different ways). Dtrace. Keyboard input. The atrociously enshittified settings app. Hell iMessage stopped synchronizing with my phone while I'm on a VPN.

As long as the focus is on whiz bang bullshit I can't imagine Sequoia will be any good.

ksec4• 2 years ago

Safari 18 no longer support Monterey. i.e MacBook Air before 2018 is no longer able to update. Not sure if there is anyway to get around this limitation. Unfortunately Safari seems to be tied to three macOS release support.

freediver4• 2 years ago

You can run latest WebKit as far as Catalina with Orion [1]

(disclaimer, one of those crazy devs still maintaining support for latest WebKit on older macOS versions)

[1] https://kagi.com/orion

ksec4• 2 years ago

Thank You. Will try that. Was surprised at the KeyChain Integration.

Reason0772• 2 years ago

I hate the notification centre on macOS. Don't see why I need to have notifications appear both on my iPhone and Mac, it's just an annoyance. I'd rather have the notification centre widgets (weather, clock, calendar, etc) always appear without notifications.

(Also, I miss the old widget Dashboard from old versions of macOS. Wish they'd bring that back with the new widgets tech).

setopt3• 2 years ago

Not a huge fan either – mainly because it’s hard to interact with it purely via the keyboard.

Depending on the implementation, I am however looking forward to this. I need to use some systems that only provide 2FA via a mobile app (i.e. Push OTP), and having to reach for my phone during work hours is pretty bad for my productivity and flow.

(I really prefer TOTP, which I can just let 1Password handle…)

nozzlegear• 2 years ago

I'd rather have the notification centre widgets (weather, clock, calendar, etc) always appear without notifications.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but did you know you can pin widgets to your desktop in Sonoma? They don’t have to be tucked away in the Notification Center anymore; the entire bottom half of my second monitor is a big widget dashboard.

Reason0772• 2 years ago

That does sound like an improvement: in combination with the "Show Desktop" keyboard shortcut it will give quicker access to widgets than going through the clunky notification centre. And it will mean the widgets stay in one place and don't move around because some tiresome notifications got piled up above it.

However, it still doesn't sound as good as the old Dashboard, where widgets effectively got their own desktop (available for quick access at any time with a single keypress or touchpad gesture). This would also be more consistent with iOS, where you can just swipe to the left-most home screen to see a dashboard of widgets.

I like to maintain a "clean desktop" look so not sure if I love the idea of cluttering it up with widgets, but I'll give it a try!

rqtwteye• 2 years ago

For me as hiker the trail map stuff looks interesting. I wonder if it will compete with Alltrails or Gaia.

charles_f• 2 years ago

Tapback with any emoji or sticker
Express yourself in more ways than ever.

This is quite an overselling of "allowing emojis as answers".

Isuckatcode• 2 years ago

I wish the password manager app allowed you to set a custom password to open the app. The iPhone password is something that people often share easily with those around them. With just the passcode, a person with bad intentions could easily gain access to all the passwords

divbzero• 2 years ago

I like that Apple is still investing in the basics, e.g. “a table of contents and high-level summary” for Reader mode in Safari, “topographic maps with detailed trail networks” in Maps, and “history and unit conversions” in Calculator.

Axsuul• 2 years ago

I wish there was a way for Siri to dictate an article too from that dropdown.

suneater921• 2 years ago

iPhone mirroring is going to be terrible for schools, especially those with a “keep it in your bag” policy. Good luck getting any research or typing work done.

devinprater• 2 years ago

Yeah, I'm glad I didn't get a new Mac. I'll wait until VoiceOver can easily be used in the Terminal, on Google Docs, and Salesforce.

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