Saturday, September 10, 2022

macOS 13 Ventura: Everything coming in Apple’s next desktop OS

Back at WWDC, Apple announced all of the big 2022 updates for its major operating systems. Among them are iOS 16, watchOS 9, and of course, macOS Ventura. Also known as macOS 13, Ventura packs all kinds of new features for Mac users like Stage Manager, Continuity Camera, and much more.

MacOS Ventura: Release Date and Availability

Developer betas have been available since WWDC, as is always the case. But now, we’re getting pretty close to the actual release, which means a couple things. For one thing, the beta is available to both developers and the public now. The other is that the builds are getting more stable as we get close to having a release candidate.

If you’re not willing to be a beta tester, the answer is that macOS 13 Ventura is coming in October. Typically, Apple releases its new iOS and watchOS updates the week after its iPhone launch in September. macOS tends to come a little bit later though. This year, we’re expecting it to be timed with an event where we’ll see new MacBook Pro refreshes, along with new iPads. It will be a free update for supported Macs.

Those supported Macs include the following:

iMac 2017 and later
iMac Pro 2017
MacBook Air 2018 and later
MacBook Pro 2017 and later
Mac Pro 2019 and later
Mac Mini 2018 and later
MacBook 2017 and later
Mac Studio 2022

Being that all supported Macs have to be made in 2017 or later, there are a fair bit of PCs that aren’t supported anymore. With macOS Monterey, support went back to 2015.


What’s new in macOS Ventura

Collage of new features in macOS Ventura

Stage Manager

Stage Manager on macOS Ventura

Stage Manager is another way to organize the apps that you have open. It’s going to take all of your open apps and place them into groups on the side of the screen. So now, those will sit on your desktop, and you can easily use them to switch between apps.

Continuity Camera and FaceTime Handoff

Apple devices switching off FaceTime

macOS Ventura is going to let you switch between iOS, iPadOS, and macOS in FaceTime calls. So now, if you’re talking to someone on your Mac and you want to get up and show that person something in the other room, you can transfer your call to your iPhone. I think we’ve all wanted to handoff a FaceTime call at one point or another.

iPhone mounted to a Mac

That’s not all, because there’s a new feature called Continuity Camera, which will actually let you use your iPhone as a webcam. That’s right; you’ll be able to strap an iPhone to your Mac and use the camera for whatever it is you’re doing, giving you a significant boost in video quality, at least with most Macs.

That also means that Center Stage – which allows the camera to move the field of view to focus on you – will be available to all Macs, using the phone you probably already have. Indeed, it’s not just about camera quality. It also adds portrait mode and studio light, and there’s a Desk View feature that works as an overhead camera.

Freeform is a new whiteboarding app

Freeform is a new collaboration app that Apple is making, aiming at a new take on whiteboarding. You can add text, files, links, photos, and so on. And naturally, you can collaborate in real-time with this.

Mail improvements

Mail improvements in macOS Ventura

As usual, Mail is getting a bunch of new features. There’s better search functionality, which gives you better results and will give you suggestions as you type. You can also now unsend an email, schedule messages to be sent, and get reminders to return to a draft. It’s also going to notice when you’ve forgotten to include an attachment. A lot of these features seem to be inspired by Gmail.

Spotlight improvements

Spotlight search in macOS Ventura

Spotlight is getting a bunch of improvements. If you search for images, you’ll find pictures from Photos, Messages, Notes, the web, and more, and you can use Live Text to search for text inside of the image.

You’ll also find new quick actions in Spotlight. You’ll be able to search and quickly start a timer, create an alarm, find the name of a song in Shazam, and more.

Safari improvements

As usual, Safari is getting some improvements. Passkeys are a feature that lets you sign in to services and they’re end-to-end encrypted, making them way more secure. Moreover, Apple says they work on non-Apple devices.

You’re going to be able to share tab groups from Safari, and you’ll even be able to start a FaceTime call to collaborate on something. The people that you’re collaborating with will be able to add their own tabs to the group as well.

Messages improvements

It’s official; iMessages are getting an edit button before Twitter does. Yes, you’ll be able to change a message after you send it, although, of course, this doesn’t apply to those green SMS messages. You can also mark a message as unread, in case you don’t have time to respond at the moment and you don’t want to leave the sender on read.

Apple is also bringing SharePlay to Messages. This will let you chat about things while you’re watching something with friends. In fact, Apple seems to be gearing up Messages as the place where you can text friends while still doing things together. Adding onto the Freeform app and Safari features above, there’s a broader range of collaboration features you can use. If you have a shared project, there will be a button to chat in Messages or start a FaceTime call.

Photos improvements

Apple has announced iCloud Shared Photo Library, which is pretty self-explanatory. You can share photos with up to five people at a time, and while sharing photos isn’t new, the ability to edit them is. This is proper collaboration-style sharing, rather than just sending an album to someone and letting them download it. Obviously, edits sync instantly.

You can choose what’s in the album you’re sharing based on things like people in photos, so it’s intelligently figuring out who’s in the picture. And when you tell Photos what you want in the album, you’ll see more in the For Your Shared Library tab.


We’ll continue to update this page as we learn more, but ultimately, macOS Ventura is getting pretty close to release, so we don’t antincipate having that much more to say.

The post macOS 13 Ventura: Everything coming in Apple’s next desktop OS appeared first on XDA.



from XDA https://ift.tt/IwlfVNj
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment