The pending launch of Sonoma won’t be the first or even the last bit of news you’ll see from last night’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The fruit company allowed us (and the world) a peek at the upcoming iOS 17 and the R70,000 Vision Pro that’s so far hogged all the headlines. Some attention was paid to the company’s various other operating systems, including the facelift coming to Mac systems in the form of Sonoma (or version 14 if you’re being finicky).
Unfortunately, the preview was not terribly exciting. It ventured into the territory of underwhelming as soon as it became clear that the focal point of macOS Sonoma would be less about the ‘new’ and more about perfecting the stuff we’ve grown used to. Don’t be too down – Apple’s put some focus on widgets, and there’s even a Game Mode coming. Try not to let out all that excitement at once.
Stop widgeting and pay attention
First up are changes coming to widgets. They’ve been a staple of macOS for years, though they’re usually tucked away behind the Dashboard and Notification Centre. Well…
No longer. Apple is putting widgets on the centre stage (the desktop) to offer quick access to the more-used apps and features in your Mac’s arsenal. They’ll adapt to your background to better blend in whatever vibe you’re going for – and you can add as many as you’d like. Even iOS widgets will work, with no need for the app to be installed locally – though there’s a chance it’ll require your Mac to be handy for those.
Get to gaming (yes, on a Mac)
Perhaps the most interesting addition – for this is an addition (and the only one) – is the new Game Mode. Just like all of those ‘gaming browsers’ out there, Game Mode channels the power of your Mac’s CPU and GPU into whatever game you’re playing, leaving everything to simmer quietly in the deepest recesses of the Mac. It’ll also slash AirPod latency almost in half, and double the Bluetooth Sample rate for third-party controllers. Why there’s AirPod latency in the first place, we’re not quite sure. It makes the announcement sound far cooler; we reckon.
And just like Death Stranding is coming to Mac (no, seriously), Apple estimates that it’ll have a fair few more games to play on your laptop, what with the new game porting toolkit it’s handed around to developers.
Going on a Safari
It wouldn’t be an Apple event without the company bandying about how much better Safari has gotten. This year was no different. Though, thanks to the updates to WebKit, Apple might not just be making empty promises.
It’s faster than ever, includes various typography options and passwords can be shared across the iCloud Keychain. Profiles, though, are what caught our eye. Think of Chrome’s profiles – typing history, widgets, and more to each user. Yeah, Apple is just doing that.
The usual suspects
Like macOS 13 and its father before it, there’s some major polish coming to Sonoma. You’d expect that from a software update, but when it’s Apple, you can expect more than just a couple of bug fixes, upgrades to basic features, and a general overhaul in the smoothness department. There’ll of course be a few new wallpapers and screensavers of the aerial variety, like you’d find on an Apple TV.
You can check out the rest of the changes heading in the direction of Sonoma right here.
You’ll have to wait a bit to play around with macOS Sonoma, though. Unless you’re a developer who just got access to the beta build this week, you’ll have to wait until September like the rest of us plebs. No official dates have been announced, though we can safely assume it’ll be on or just before the iPhone showcase.
