Did you hear about the new macOS Sonoma? It's got some new features, you can personalize your desktop with interesting stuff, and even use iPhone widgets on your Mac. They've also made video conferencing more engaging with Presenter Overlay and gesture-triggered video effects. Safari got some significant updates too, with separate browsing profiles and faster access to web apps. Plus, gaming on Mac just got better with Game Mode and a new game porting toolkit. Let’s walk you through the new updates in detail.
Apple WWDC 2023: 5 new features of the Apple macOS Sonoma
Making 'user-friendly' look easy-peasy
Interactive widgets
Widgets on Mac have got more powerful and personal.You can place them right on your desktop and access the widget gallery to find the ones you want. They blend with your wallpaper, so you can stay focused while you work. Thanks to Continuity, you can enjoy all the iPhone widgets on your Mac too! These interactive widgets let you check off reminders, control media playback, access your home controls, all straight from your desktop.
Enhanced video conferencing experience
macOS Sonoma is all about making your presentations and sharing more effective, Apple says. With Presenter Overlay, you'll be displayed on top of your shared content, giving you a real presence. Reactions let you express yourself with fun video effects like balloons, confetti, and hearts, which you can trigger with a hand gesture. Sharing apps during video calls is also easier now with the improved Screen Sharing picker. Just click the green button on the top-left corner of your app, choose to share it in the call, and you're good to go!
Updates to Safari
Private Browsing gets a significant update, offering even stronger protection against trackers and people accessing your device. Advanced tracking and fingerprinting protections keep websites from tracking or identifying you. Plus, Private Browsing windows now automatically lock when you're not using them, so you can keep your tabs open even when you step away.
Profiles help you stay organized by separating your browsing between different topics, while keeping everything else separate too, like cookies, history, extensions, Tab Groups, and Favorites. You can sign in to the same site with both work and personal accounts and switch between them seamlessly. Safari now lets you create web apps that behave like regular apps, giving you quick access to your preferred sites and a simplified toolbar for an app-like experience.
Games on Mac get better
The Game Mode optimizes your gaming experience, ensuring smoother and more consistent frame rates by prioritizing games on the CPU and GPU. Apple says, it even enhances audio latency with AirPods and reduces input latency with popular game controllers like those for Xbox and PlayStation. Game Mode works with any game, including recent and upcoming Mac games. It's all about giving you the edge in your gaming adventures on Mac.
Thanks to Apple silicon, tens of millions of Macs can now run demanding games with promising performance, enhanced visuals, and long battery life. Metal 3 is taking full advantage of this, with developers bringing new titles to Mac like Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stray, Fort Solis, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.
Metal introduces a game porting toolkit that makes it a breeze for developers to bring games from other platforms to Mac. Months of upfront work are eliminated, and developers can see how well their existing game runs on Mac in just a few days. Converting shaders and graphics code to leverage Apple silicon performance is easier, reducing development time significantly.
Enhanced accessibility features
macOS Sonoma brings a range of accessibility features to make Mac even more customizable for you. For those with hearing disabilities, Made for iPhone hearing devices can connect to Mac for calls and media consumption. Non speaking users can utilize Live Speech to type and vocalize their thoughts during calls and conversations. Users with physical and motor disabilities benefit from phonetic suggestions when dictating and editing text with Voice Control. To support those with cognitive disabilities, animated images like GIFs can be automatically paused in Messages and Safari. Additionally, for those with visual impairment, you can easily customize text size across Mac apps and utilize Xcode with VoiceOver.