Apple Announces macOS Sonoma With Desktop Widgets and Game Mode (macrumors.com) 23
At WWDC today, Apple announced macOS Sonoma, the latest version of its Mac operating system that includes new features like desktop widgets, aerial screensavers, a new Game mode, and enhancements to apps like Messages and Safari. MacRumors reports: The first feature that Apple detailed was new interactive widgets, which can now be placed right on your desktop. Widgets blend into your desktop wallpaper to not be obtrusive when you're working, and with Continuity you can use the same widgets from your iPhone on your Mac. macOS Sonoma also introduces enhanced video conferencing features, including Presenter Overlay to allow a user to display themselves in front of the content they are sharing. Reactions let users share how they feel within a video session, and Screen Sharing has been improved with a simplified process.
As is usual with macOS updates, Safari is getting numerous new features within Sonoma. There's an update to Private Browsing that provides greater protection from trackers and from people who might have access to the user's device. Profiles within Safari offer a way to separate browsing between topics, like having one for work and one for personal browsing. There's also a new way to create web apps that work like normal apps and let you get to your favorite website faster.
When you're not actively using macOS Sonoma, the new screen savers feature slow-motion videos of various locations worldwide. They shuffle between landscape, Earth, underwater, or cityscape themes, similar to what you'll see on tvOS. For gamers, there's a new Game Mode in macOS Sonoma that delivers an optimized gaming experience with smoother and more consistent frame rates. It dramatically lowers audio latency with AirPods and reduces input latency with game controllers, and it works with any game on Mac. A beta version of macOS Sonoma is now available via the Apple Developer Program, with a public beta launching next month.
As Ars Technica notes, the macOS Sonoma update will only run on a couple generations of Intel Macs. "[I]f you're using anything made before 2018 or anything without an Apple T2 chip in it, you won't be able to run the new OS."
As is usual with macOS updates, Safari is getting numerous new features within Sonoma. There's an update to Private Browsing that provides greater protection from trackers and from people who might have access to the user's device. Profiles within Safari offer a way to separate browsing between topics, like having one for work and one for personal browsing. There's also a new way to create web apps that work like normal apps and let you get to your favorite website faster.
When you're not actively using macOS Sonoma, the new screen savers feature slow-motion videos of various locations worldwide. They shuffle between landscape, Earth, underwater, or cityscape themes, similar to what you'll see on tvOS. For gamers, there's a new Game Mode in macOS Sonoma that delivers an optimized gaming experience with smoother and more consistent frame rates. It dramatically lowers audio latency with AirPods and reduces input latency with game controllers, and it works with any game on Mac. A beta version of macOS Sonoma is now available via the Apple Developer Program, with a public beta launching next month.
As Ars Technica notes, the macOS Sonoma update will only run on a couple generations of Intel Macs. "[I]f you're using anything made before 2018 or anything without an Apple T2 chip in it, you won't be able to run the new OS."
Desktop widgets again? (Score:3)
Re:Desktop widgets again? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure you'll get modded troll for this, but you're absolutely right.
These companies have been trying to push this nonsense for ~30 years at this point - Microsoft Bob, Windows ME, Windows "Virtual Desktop" (the actual name of which escapes me currently, but it was basically an IE integration for the desktop that made everything run like crap).
When was the last time anyone actually looked at their 'desktop'? It's just the (one of the) default location where stuff gets saved. It's a mess. 9/10 of the time, applications are fullscreened.
Desktop widgets are a waste of time and screen real-estate - and I say that having used linux window managers like Enlightenment extensively over the years. KDE did it years ago. These widgets just get in the way, or make for visual distractions. The 'drawer' approach is the more useful approach: how many stock tickers and weather applets do I really need?
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Are polls to be trusted? (Score:2)
Back in the 80s there was a game console released called tbe Atari Lynx. Full color screen, stereo sound, tbe works. But this thing was a beast, an ungodly thing that was much more bulky than it had to be because "the polls said that users wanted a bigger unit because they felt like they were getting more for their money". This struck me as bizarre because the defacto trend back then was making electronics smaller. You want a system that you carry around with you to be the least bulky as possible. This pret
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I acknowledged in my first comment that the poll results aren't going to be a true actual representation, if only because people don't always think rat
Re: Are polls to be trusted? (Score:2)
In the case of the newer "thinnest" Macbook, I'm sure more than one product engineer must've thought "what about structural intergrity?". Like the product engineer for the Atari Linx must've been thinking "What about the ability for people to actually be able to carry it around?" And I'm sure in both cases they brought their concerns to their boss only to be ignored and possibly threatened into silence. Marketing comes first.
Pay no attention to the mechanic warning that oil is leaking everywhere in
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Personally I very seldom full screen anything. Dashboard came out with MacOS 10.4, so I'm surprised it's back too. There were useful widgets, but it just wasn't that handy when you could just pull up the calculator from the dock anyway.
So why will it work better this time? Insert scratching head emoji here.
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I had Dashboard widgets for weather (using the Bureau of Meteorology observations and forecasts directly, not some shitty web site), ISP data cap and billing cycle, exchange rates, and a few other things. They were handy. I used Spaces (virtual desktops) as well. Then Apple just shit everything up with "Mission Control" and made it less usable.
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Yeah I had a collection of widgets pretty similar. I think the problem was more bit-rot. Once the initial hype around them disappeared , developers stopped maintaining them, and one by one they just stopped working usually due to API changes at whatever backend web service they where operating off. Plus as the aesthetics off the Mac got more modern, those giant glossy gradients looked more and more garish and embarassing to have floating around the desktop.
I still think these are a good idea, they just need
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That IE Integration was actually weirdly useful to me. You could embed an activeX control (remember those horrors? Times where different then......), and at the time I was a delphi coder, so I was able to create an activeX control and embed it into the desktop so it was always there. At the time this seemed like a "good idea", although in retrospect it was a terrible idea.
Of course it was an absolute security nightmare. You could embed all sorts of absolute horrors and those horrors would have *far* too mu
Re: Desktop widgets again? (Score:2)
I think it's the problem of one size fits all that very rarely works out in reality.
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No one cares about widgets.
I actually do care. I like a widget with the weather forecast and upcoming meetings. Also I'd like to have a widget that would remind me to stand up and stretch.
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Konfabulations! (Score:3)
Didn't Konfabulator offer us desktop widgets a couple decades ago? Then Apple ripped them off with the second-rate Dashboard?
Re: Konfabulations! (Score:2)
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"Isnt this phenomena called the wheel /circle of technology or something?"
And it moves us all, though despair and hope, through faith and love.
Re: Konfabulations! (Score:2)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A0... [twimg.com]
Game Mode Yay (Score:3)
But wait. There's one more thing.
I just hope they just fix bugs... (Score:3)
What I hope for is a rev of macOS/iOS/iPadOS/whateverOS where Apple backs down on features for a year, and just does a bug stomp, refactor, and code optimize. This way, technical debt can be paid off, and a lot of long term bugs that plague the Apple ecosystem can be addressed.
It also wouldn't hurt to look at other parts as well. iCloud comes to mind. One thing iOS/iCloud needs is something to prevent password and account changes (like adding/modifying 2FA stuff) if an attacker gets your PIN and iDevice. At the minimum, perhaps prompt for the old password, ask a recovery question, or something similar. Physical mugging and holding people up for their iDevice + account is becoming not uncommon now.
Desktop Widgets and Game Mode (Score:2)
So OSX is now where Linux was two and a half decades ago? Wow! What innovation!
Widgets and Game Mode, Games (Score:2)