Whereas we’re nonetheless ready for the official announcement, WWDC is coming. In simply a few months, most probably the primary week in June, Apple will unveil the subsequent model of macOS and exhibit all of its new options forward of its launch later this yr. Rumors about new options have been gentle—all we all know up to now is that Apple has shifted some macOS assets to xrOS—however there are many options we anticipate and hope to see make an look on the large stage. Right here’s our characteristic wishlist for macOS 14 [insert name of scenic California locale here]:
Dynamic Island for the Mac
With the iPhone 14 Professional, Apple launched the Dynamic Island, which makes use of the pill-shaped cutout for Face ID and the selfie digital camera as a unprecedented UI component. It’s an ingenious characteristic that should no less than come to the MacBook Professional.
On the very least, Dynamic Island would alleviate the litter on the fitting facet of the macOS interface, which homes notifications, reminders, and widgets. Nevertheless it may be an effective way to observe the progress of one thing an app is engaged on within the background, act as an indicator for battery life, or show what Apple Music is taking part in as on the iPhone.
In addition to, Apple’s 14- and 16-inch MacBook Professional and the M2 MacBook Air have already got show notches, so a visit to the Dynamic Island needs to be simple to e book.
Time Machine iCloud backups
Apple may make some huge cash by providing cloud storage for Time Machine backups.
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This was on our wishlist for macOS 12 and macOS 13, and it’s going to remain on each wishlist till it occurs. As I mentioned earlier than, I’ll say it once more: Having an offsite backup is all the time a good suggestion, and Time Machine might be up to date to do this alongside the choice for an area backup.
Since Apple doesn’t appear to be enthusiastic about including this characteristic to macOS out of necessity, permit me to take a distinct angle: It’s good for Apple’s backside line. Give it some thought, Apple. You possibly can make treasured Providers cash from Time Machine iCloud backups by promoting iCloud+ storage. Apple already has a $9.99/£6.99 tier that gives 2TB of storage— and I may see a brand new $6.99/£3.99 for 1TB of Time Machine iCloud+ storage tier. That’s about $84/£48 per yr, and say, 500,000 customers join that. Um, effectively, that’s some huge cash you’re making annually and a variety of pleased Mac clients. How are you going to move that up, Apple?
Positive-tune System Settings
In my macOS 13 wishlist, I needed Apple to rename System Choice to Settings to match iOS and iPadOS. My want got here true, however at a worth: Apple took it a step additional and redesigned the UI to be extra just like the iPhone. That triggered consternation for essentially the most hard-core Mac followers and confusion amongst even iPhone customers–and despatched a variety of Mac customers to Google to seek out settings they thought had been misplaced. There’s no going again now; System Settings and its UI are right here to remain. Nevertheless it may use some fine-tuning.
We’d like to see Apple separate the interface from iOS. The look is okay, however some settings don’t make sense tucked away behind Basic or Desktop & Dock. High on the listing: Time Machine (particularly if Apple unlocks iCloud backups).
Convey over extra Apple iOS apps
With macOS Ventura, Apple lastly made Mac variations of the Clock and Climate apps which were in iOS since without end. Why cease there? There are many iOS apps that aren’t accessible on the Mac: Translate, Clips (which was on my macOS 13 wishlist), Well being, Pockets (these two had been on my macOS 12 wishlist), Help…perhaps not Compass, Measure, and Magnifier. And hey, whereas they’re at it, revive Warren Buffet’s Paper Wizard and convey it to the Mac!
Extra iOS apps, similar to Pockets, ought to come to macOS.
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Sync the Clock app throughout all gadgets
As I simply mentioned, with macOS Ventura, Apple lastly introduced over Mac variations of the Clock and Climate apps which were in iOS and iPadOS. Yay! Nevertheless, the Climate app syncs between gadgets, and the Clock app doesn’t. That signifies that alarms that you simply set on one machine aren’t accessible on others. Boo!
It’s simple sufficient to set an alarm, however it will be means simpler if these alarms synced throughout gadgets. Whereas we’re at it, why not sync world clock entries? And even timers–I create a variety of timers and would really like to have the ability to management them from a number of gadgets. Oh, and since everybody won’t need their iPhone timers on their Mac, then give us the choice to show syncing off.
The Clock app arrived with macOS Ventura, nevertheless it doesn’t sync with the Clock app on iPhones and iPads.
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Unify the model quantity
This model of macOS shall be model 14 regardless that Mac OS X got here out in 2001. Within the meantime, iOS and iPadOS will finally improve to model 17. And as somebody who makes a residing off of masking these merchandise, I nonetheless get combined up with the model numbers regularly. If macOS, iOS, and iPadOS had been all the identical model quantity, it will save us a variety of bother.
Admittedly, it is a minor request and plenty of of you studying this in all probability assume it’s a foolish request. However on the identical time, isn’t versioning simply as foolish? In any case, it’s only a label. Apple already tries to get away from utilizing the quantity as a basic reference level by giving macOS a reputation after a California location.
I believe that Apple has some type of plan for this already within the works because it appears to be like so as to add a brand new working system, xrOS, into the combination. Nevertheless it looks like macOS and iPadOS are on a collision course (which is a complete completely different dialog), so maybe Apple may take the chance to align all of its OSes on the identical quantity. Perhaps 20? In any case, it’s only a quantity.
Convey stability enhancements and optimization
I can preserve going with the desires–a variety of what I needed in my macOS 12 and macOS 13 wishlist have but to grow to be actuality, and I’d nonetheless wish to see them occur. However stories have mentioned that macOS 14 gained’t have many main modifications, because the firm is supposedly specializing in the AR/VR headset and its working system, rumored to be referred to as xrOS. Improvement for macOS 14, iOS 17, and iPadOS 17 (see, wouldn’t or not it’s simpler to learn if that they had the identical model quantity?) is seemingly a decrease precedence till that machine is unveiled.
However Apple gained’t let 2023 go by with no macOS replace. With the main target of the media and customers on the headset, this might be the time to do an replace stuffed with fixes to longtime points and optimizations–and that’s it. If that occurs, that’s nice. MacOS has some lingering bugs and fixing them, together with making the OS total extra secure and quicker, can be very satisfying.
