Whereas we’re nonetheless ready for the official announcement, WWDC is coming. In simply a few months, most certainly the primary week in June, Apple will unveil the following 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 to this point is that Apple has shifted some macOS assets to xrOS—however there are many options we count on and hope to see make an look on the large stage. Right here’s our function 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 factor. It’s an ingenious function that should at the very least come to the MacBook Professional.
On the very least, Dynamic Island would alleviate the muddle on the correct aspect of the macOS interface, which homes notifications, reminders, and widgets. Nevertheless it is also 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.
Apart from, 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 straightforward to guide.
Time Machine iCloud backups
Apple might 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 at all times a good suggestion, and Time Machine may very well be up to date to try this alongside the choice for a neighborhood backup.
Since Apple doesn’t appear to be excited about including this function to macOS out of necessity, enable me to take a unique angle: It’s good for Apple’s backside line. Give it some thought, Apple. You could possibly 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 might 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, nicely, that’s some huge cash you’re making every year and quite a lot of comfortable Mac clients. How are you going to move that up, Apple?
Superb-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 quite a lot of Mac customers to Google to seek out settings they thought have been misplaced. There’s no going again now; System Settings and its UI are right here to remain. Nevertheless it might use some fine-tuning.
We’d like to see Apple separate the interface from iOS. The look is ok, however some settings don’t make sense tucked away behind Basic or Desktop & Dock. Prime on the checklist: 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 ceaselessly. Why cease there? There are many iOS apps that aren’t out there on the Mac: Translate, Clips (which was on my macOS 13 wishlist), Well being, Pockets (these two have 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, resembling Pockets, ought to come to macOS.
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Sync the Clock app throughout all units
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! Nonetheless, the Climate app syncs between units, and the Clock app doesn’t. That signifies that alarms that you simply set on one gadget aren’t out there on others. Boo!
It’s straightforward sufficient to set an alarm, however it could be approach simpler if these alarms synced throughout units. Whereas we’re at it, why not sync world clock entries? And even timers–I create quite a lot of timers and would really like to have the ability to management them from a number of units. 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, however 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 ultimately improve to model 17. And as somebody who makes a dwelling off of protecting these merchandise, I nonetheless get combined up with the model numbers continuously. If macOS, iOS, and iPadOS have been all the identical model quantity, it could save us quite a lot of hassle.
Admittedly, it is a minor request and lots of of you studying this most likely suppose it’s a foolish request. However on the similar 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 normal 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 so as to add a brand new working system, xrOS, into the combo. Nevertheless it looks as if macOS and iPadOS are on a collision course (which is an entire completely different dialog), so maybe Apple might 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 needs–quite a lot of what I needed in my macOS 12 and macOS 13 wishlist have but to turn into actuality, and I’d nonetheless prefer to see them occur. However studies have mentioned that macOS 14 received’t have many main modifications, for the reason that firm is supposedly specializing in the AR/VR headset and its working system, rumored to be referred to as xrOS. Growth for macOS 14, iOS 17, and iPadOS 17 (see, wouldn’t or not it’s simpler to learn if they’d the identical model quantity?) is seemingly a decrease precedence till that gadget is unveiled.
However Apple received’t let 2023 go by with out a macOS replace. With the main target of the media and customers on the headset, this may very well be the time to do an replace full of 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.
