MacOS Sonoma - 15 AMAZING CHANGES! (Preview)

it's been one week since Apple announced their latest operating systems for all of their devices and in this video I thought I'd look at some of what I think are the most useful updates and improvements that have been made to their Mac operating system Mac OS Sonoma stick with me until the end of this video if you're a Mac User whilst this isn't the most significant Mac OS update we've ever seen there are some really interesting features here and I've tried to hand pick the ones that I think are going to be the most useful to the typical Mac User oh and also just a reminder I'm running the developer version of Mac OS Sonoma here the public release won't come out until most likely September 2023 this is just a preview of what's to come okay let's get into it we obviously have to do this every year and this year is no exception in fact it's probably even more relevant this year we need to check to ensure that your Mac can run the latest operating system and increasingly it would seem that Apple are pushing closer and closer towards you needing a Mac with apple silicon in order to get all of the features here so what you might find is that on the older Max on this list you may be able to get some of the features but not all of them I won't read out each Mac here you can see the list on screen if your computer is here it means you can definitely upgrade in some way shape or form and if you're running a Mac with apple silicon then my understanding is that not only will you be able to upgrade but every feature should be available to you by far the most significant changes one that you'll notice the moment that you turn your Mac computer on the lock screen in Mac OS Sonoma is completely different to the one in Ventura and it's actually now much more in line with the lock screen on your iPhone or iPad you get the same style date and time showing up at the top of the screen and you'll also notice these brand new video wallpapers if you've ever used an Apple TV 4K you might recognize these from there and they look pretty spectacular especially if you've got your Mac connected to a decent external display the videos play along in the background while you're on your lock screen and as soon as you unlock your Mac using your password or touch ID the video comes to a smooth stop and everything kind of nicely animates in there are a number to choose from including Landscapes cityscapes underwater and Earth and I'm guessing that Apple will add to these in future updates following on from the visual changes to the lock screen you'll now notice that you can add widgets to your desktop on Mac these widgets just like on your iPhone and iPad are also fully interactive which is of course a useful feature that probably should have already been there for a while now but I'm still glad that we finally got it not only can you add the usual first party widgets that have actually been available on Mac for some time now just hidden away in this sidebar you'll also be able to add third-party widgets as developers make them available and from day one you'll be able to add iPhone widgets from your iPhone to your desktop Mac video conferencing or really anything that involves you using your max webcam has seen a significant Improvement in Mac OS Sonoma if I demo this by opening up Quicktime and accessing my MacBook Pro's webcam you can see that we have a number of new features to choose from portrait mode where your computer blurs your background is still here as it was in Mac OS Ventura but in addition to that is a new studio lighting mode which actually looks pretty good from what I've seen so far you also now have reactions which you can make appear on the screen things like love hearts balloons fireworks thumbs up I don't know if you want to be the guy throwing out love hearts on a zoom call but hey whatever floats your boat you can access these by pressing the individual buttons in the menu option or you can use your hands to create the gestures and your computer will recognize them and create the effects for you we'll have to wait and see if this is anything more than a bit of a gimmick that you use once and never again perhaps a more practical Improvement here is what Apple are calling presenter overlay in an app like Zoom for example you can have the pitch deck that you're presenting in your meeting in the background and an overlay of you that can be positioned anywhere on the screen you can also change the size of this from small to large if you're making use of continuity camera you can now choose between a wide and an ultra wide image here and I do believe that these features are only available on Macs with apple silicon by the way there is an accompanying PDF for this video complete with all the text from the video plus screenshots and you can access it along with all PDFs moving forward and the growing library of old ones for just five dollars a month click the link in the description of this video that says get the PDF if you use web apps on your Mac a nice new feature in Mac OS Sonoma is the ability to create dock icons for those apps so here for example with YouTube open in Safari I can go to the file menu and choose add to Doc your Mac will create a dock icon complete with the YouTube logo and clicking on that icon will immediately take you to YouTube I guess it's much the same as the feature we've had on iPhone and iPad for a while now where you can create home screen tiles for web apps but if you're someone who uses a specific web tool all the time this is a pretty nice feature to have access to reminders has had a major overhaul across the entire Apple ecosystem and this is probably most apparent here on Mac OS first up if you use reminders for the creation of shopping lists you can specify that a list is a shopping list or a grocery list if you're watching this video from across the pond when you create it armed with that knowledge your device will treat the list differently to regular lists separating out the individual items that you add in and putting them into categories which then makes it easier to move around the store when you get there as someone who swears by having a shared shopping list with my wife this is going to be huge when we both start using this also you can now create sections to better categorize your reminders and it's really easy to move specific reminders into those sections once you've created them also if you go to view you can now view your reminders in either list view or column view which is great if you're someone who uses reminders in a kind of project management style there's now a clear way of operating in more of a project pattern ticking items off in a methodical order as you move along the project this is another feature that's come to all Apple devices but again I think it's going to have a Major Impact here on the Mac in Mac OS Sonoma you'll be able to create Safari profiles you can manage each profile however you like but the logical approach here I think is to perhaps have one for personal browsing one for work one for school Etc everything that you do and utilize online can then be separated off to those separate profiles separate browsing history separate Safari extensions separate tab groups separate bookmarks even separate cookies which is really quite impressive you can have multiple profiles open and running at the same time and even jump between them at the touch of a button if you're someone who uses your Mac for all of your different online needs this is going to be a great way to segment and declutter your online experience private browsing is now more private across the entire range of Apple devices in this year's update with apple claiming that improvements have been made in areas like reducing the ability for websites to track you across other sites and devices which is all good but in terms of an actual visual indication as to what's going on you've got one when you open a private browser tab on your Mac in Sonoma or more specifically you've got one when you open a private browser Tab and then lock your computer and then unlock your computer your private browsing will remain locked until you unlock it by the way if you're enjoying the content here why not consider signing up to my newsletter the proper weekly I include some tech news from the week and behind the scenes of what's Happening Here on the channel as well as a tip for an item in the Apple ecosystem the newsletter goes out each Friday it's free to join and I'll include a sign up link in the description of this video another feature that's coming to all major Apple devices is the ability to share passwords with a family group but I think it's probably going to be used the most here on the Mac head into settings choose passwords and follow the steps in family passwords you can create a group of trusted contacts with whom to share a specific set of passwords and pass Keys which you choose which is obviously useful if you've got say a portal that everyone in the family has access to for example this is kind of a you'll have to trust me on this one Improvement but autocorrect in fact typing in General on Mac ossonoma is significantly better than it was in Ventura with auto corrections seeming to happen much more frequently more intuitively and in a much smoother manner I'm assuming that this is an update that is going to be system-wide and something that developers can add into their own software as I've noticed so far that it is great in first party apps but not always there in third-party apps you'll also notice that your Mac will often try and finish your sentences for you in a good way where it will try and predict what the end of your word or sentence is going to be and tapping the spacebar will finish it for you not one that I've been able to experience but if you're someone who's into gaming Apple claimed to have made some significant changes that will improve your experience in Mac OS Sonoma and the feedback that I'm seeing online from people who have tried this is that they've really hit a home run here game mode is designed to focus CPU and GPU performance to the game reducing its usage on background tasks and ensuring that if you've purchased a computer with Mac silicon you can really make use of all those spangly GPU cores Apple also claimed that stability for things like Bluetooth controllers has been improved so if you're like me and you've got a PS4 controller lying around doing nothing now could be a really good time to get into some mac gaming notes like reminders is another app that's actually seen quite a few changes in Sonoma firstly you can add what Apple are calling mono style text and block quotes both of which you can see on the screen now and you can combine them both if you wish we're still a long way off of the kind of flexibility that you get with a tool like notion but it is an improvement even more useful in my opinion is the ability to add links to other notes it isn't massively obvious how you do this you right click in a note choose add link and where you would usually paste in a URL you simply type the name of a note title and then choose it from the list you can see here how the link is created and tapping on that link will bounce you right over to that note also PDF management has been totally overhauled in Sonoma with your Mac now able to identify and autofill forms with your personal information for you even on forms that aren't natively editable or ones that you've scanned in from your phone bad news if you're one of the countless companies out there offering PDF editing software come September Mac User aren't going to need it screen sharing has been on the Mac for a little while now but it looks like it's had not just a lick of paint but also a bit of an engine tweak promising huge performance improvements for the feature essentially this allows you to connect to another Mac either your own computer remotely or someone else's and operate it like you're sitting there if you're the family tech support guy like me this tool is invaluable I'll save Full judgment until someone in my family asks me why something isn't working on their Mac and let you know how the remote fix goes again this isn't a feature that I've been able to personally test but I do know a couple of people who use hearing aids that they connect directly to their iPhones via Bluetooth and I know that the ability to have this feature come to Mac is going to be a really big deal for them when it arrives with Sonoma later on in the year another accessibility feature that promises to be huge is personal voice here your Mac will guide you through the process of recording around 150 phrases in your own voice that will then be used to create a synthetic version of your voice aimed at people who are losing their voice or are at high risk of losing their voice in the future this feature then allows you to type out phrases while you're in other apps like FaceTime for example giving a realistic sounding voice to people who might otherwise not have one another you'll have to trust me feature is that dictation has seen yet another Improvement this year after already seeing major improvements in last year's OS updates and it's very very good now in fact everything that you're seeing on screen now is a result of me saying it rather than typing it on the keyboard dictation for me has reached a point where I actually use it about 25 of the time when I'm writing scripts for the videos here on YouTube and that percentage is going up all the time as I get more used to and more comfortable with dictation it is significantly quicker than typing and I'm pretty quick at typing a great addition to the update when it launches later on this year so there you go I think that was 15 changes that I think are most relevant coming to Mac OS Sonoma in a few months time there will be other changes that we'll find I'm sure I can't wait to start making proper tips and tricks content for you guys closer to the operating systems release date what do you think anything else you would have liked to see Apple ad oh and also I'll have iPad and watch OS videos coming over the next few days and as ever if you found this video useful do please consider leaving me a like and subscribing to my channel for more content like this in the future see you on the next video

Channel: Proper Honest Tech

Views: 439,405

Keywords: macos sonoma, macos 14, macos sonoma new features, macos sonoma beta

Id: zo7OIfmspok

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2023