Apple just wrapped up its WWDC keynote, during which we got a preview of Apple Intelligence and several software releases coming later this fall. While iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 garnered the most attention, the latest version of the Mac operating system, macOS Sequoia, also brings a bunch of new and exciting features. If you’re eager to discover what’s coming to Mac, here’s a quick overview of some of the best macOS Sequoia features that you should know about.
1. Apple Intelligence
Hand down, Apple Intelligence has to be one of the most exciting features introduced in macOS Sequoia. It primarily utilizes on-device machine learning to gather data about how you use your iPhone, iPad, and Mac to offer several new AI features that can improve how you perform tasks.
Once Apple Intelligence becomes available this fall, you’ll be able to do several tasks that weren’t possible earlier. You can use Siri and ChatGPT to search the web and get responses, generate or summarize text using new writing tools, and even generate images from text prompts on a Mac.
2. iPhone Mirroring
Apple already allows you to copy text between your devices or hand off calls from your iPhone to Mac using Continuity. macOS Sequoia takes this further with a new iPhone Mirroring feature. This feature lets you see what’s on your iPhone and control it right from your Mac.
With iPhone Mirroring, you can fully interact with your iPhone using the keyboard and trackpad on your Mac. Apple says that while you’re using this feature, your iPhone stays locked so nobody can access your data, and all the notifications that you receive are simply redirected to your Mac. Last but not least, you can even drag and drop files from your Mac to your iPhone using this feature.
3. New Safari features
Safari gets several new features in macOS Sequoia to offer a better web browsing experience. You can now use Safari Highlights to automatically detect and highlight relevant information on web pages using Machine Learning. For instance, Safari Highlights can generate a summary of content on websites with text or display directions, essential phone numbers, and quick links.
Moreover, the Safari Reader has been revamped to reduce distractions and offer a simpler way to access information with a helpful summary and an organized table of contents in longer articles. And on websites that have videos, there’s also a new Viewer feature that offers a distraction-free video experience with system playback controls and support for AirPlay and Picture-in-Picture.
4. New Passwords app
While we already had a built-in password manager in System Settings, macOS Sequoia brings a new Passwords app. With this app, you can now access your website and app passwords, Wi-Fi credentials, Passkeys, and verification codes in one place across iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro. Plus, the new app also supports autofill, so you don’t need to enter user credentials yourself.
5. Window Tiling
Multitasking on Mac has also become easier on macOS Sequoia with Window Tiling. Now, you can simply drag an app window to the edge of the screen or use keyboard and menu shortcuts to place app windows however you want. You can quickly place app windows, or as Apple likes to call them, “tiles” side-by-side, on top of each other, or into corners if you want to use four apps at once.
6. New video conferencing tools
Apple rolled out several video conferencing tools in macOS Sonoma, including Presenter Overlay, Reactions in FaceTime, and third-party apps like Zoom and WebX. This year, with macOS Sequoia, Apple has added a new Presenter Preview feature that allows you to see what you will be sharing before you start a screen-sharing session. Additionally, there’s also a new Backgrounds feature that can be used to replace backdrops in video calls with wallpapers, color gradients, or photos.
7. New features for gaming
Apple introduced a dedicated Game Mode for Mac and Game Porting Toolkit in macOS Sonoma. This year, macOS Sequoia brings improvements to Game Mode for more FPS, and you can now experience your games with Personalized Spatial Audio on AirPods. Meanwhile, developers can access Game Porting Toolkit 2 to bring even more graphic-intensive Windows games to Mac.
The gaming announcements don’t stop here. Apple says it will be adding several new games to the App Store, including Frostpunk 2, Control, Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed: Shadows, and more.
In addition to the above features, macOS Sequoia also brings some quality-of-life improvements to several built-in apps on Mac. Here’s a list of the apps that got new features:
- Notes: Thanks to Apple Intelligence, summarize text, and automatically solve mathematical equations for you. Apart from this, the Notes app on Mac can transcribe audio and also offers a new Highlight tool to mark up text and collapsible sections to organize your notes.
- Photos: The Photos app has been updated to automatically organize photos into Collections using themes. Plus, search has been revamped so users can find photos and videos quickly.
- Calendar: The Calendar app in macOS 15 Sequoia can now show events and tasks from the Reminders app, making it easy to see, edit, or complete tasks throughout the day. Meanwhile, with an updated Month View, you can see events and reminders for an entire month at once.
- Messages: Similar to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, the Messages app on macOS Sequoia also gets several new features. You can now schedule messages to send them later, use all-new text effects to highlight any essential details, and send custom emojis and sticker Tapbacks.
- Calculator: Similar to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia brings an updated Calculator app with new features, including the ability to view past calculations with history and mathematical expressions as you type them.
- Apple Maps: Apple Maps in macOS Sequoia allows you to create curated hikes and custom walking routes. With this feature, users can browse thousands of hikes across 63 national parks in the United States, filtered by length, elevation, and route type, and save them offline.
Video: Best macOS Sequoia features
Wrapping up…
macOS Sequoia is a quality-of-life update that brings many user-requested features to the Mac. Like previous versions, it, too, is slated for a public release sometime in the fall.
However, if you can’t wait until then, you can install the public beta, which typically comes out in July. Or, you can install the macOS Sequoia developer beta on your Mac right now to experience its features. Mind you, developer betas are known to have many bugs and performance issues, so avoid installing them on your main machine.
Which new macOS feature are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments section.
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