A dropdown video menu in the Mac’s menu bar shows a thumbnail image of what other participants are seeing on their screens-an anxiety-reducer that’s long overdue on the Mac.Īlso, if you Ctrl-click the little green button at the upper left of an app window, a dropdown menu lets you share that window on a video call, though I’m not clear on how you would ever know this if you hadn’t read this review. With an Apple Silicon Mac, you can create a small oval that shows your face floating above the window that you’re sharing-or you can open a larger floating rectangular window with your shared screen while the camera shows your face on the full screen. The most visually impressive new features are in video conferencing, though some will be familiar to anyone who uses Microsoft Teams. For example, one of my money management apps works perfectly as a widget on my phone but doesn’t appear in the Sonoma widget gallery because it contains protected data that Apple only allows on the phone on which the app is installed. This feature won't work with iPhone widgets that store sensitive data, however. If you’ve installed a widget from your iPhone, it updates when you bring your phone near your Mac, even if the app associated with the widget is installed only on your phone, not on your Mac. The widget gallery lets you choose from your iPhone widgets as well as from Apple’s long list of widgets built into Sonoma. What’s different about the Sonoma desktop is that you can place widgets on it, and, in typical Apple style, the widgets change color according to the desktop background and are available in multiple sizes. The menu and dock look the same as in macOS Ventura and earlier versions (and, as always, I recommend going to System Settings and moving your dock from the bottom to the right to get more editing room in your documents). But, as in previous versions, you can replace the panorama with any other desktop wallpaper or a solid color. I like these animated panoramas on a large TV screen, but the effect of them feels slightly queasy on a laptop screen, somewhat like the effect of wearing any virtual reality headset I’ve ever tried. You can also choose from slow-motion panoramas of major cities and other picturesque places, like the animated screens that you’ll recognize if you have an Apple TV. If your Mac has more than one user, the other users’ icons fly out from behind your icon when you hover over it.īy default, the log screen shows a breathtaking animated panorama of the Sonoma Valley-the bigger your screen, the more of your breath it takes-and you seem to be floating over it toward the cloudy horizon. The first thing you notice when you start up Sonoma is the new lock screen with a digital clock big enough to see across the room and an icon at the foot with your user avatar. In short, macOS continues Apple’s long tradition of looking better than Windows, but not offering the matchless keyboard-based efficiency that expert Windows users can enjoy. I use both Windows and macOS every day, and I’ll come back later to the advantages and disadvantages of each. In contrast, Windows 11 still sometimes seems like an awkward teenager, with its unpredictable mix of cramped old-school and spacious modern dialogs and controls. With Sonoma, macOS is now twenty-two years old (it began life in 2001 under the name OS X) and has long since settled into the kind of adult stability where almost everything works in consistent and uncomplicated ways, even if you don’t like every specific detail. (Some of these, like autofilled PDFs, won’t arrive until Sonoma gets one of its point-release upgrades.) A Lively Lock Screen The more useful enhanced features include desktop widgets, user profiles in Safari, password sharing, fine-tuned videoconferencing, automated fill-in PDFs, and iPhone-style predictive text when you type, among others. If, like me, you don’t want to be distracted by in-your-face features like animated screen savers, you can simply ignore them. Sonoma emphasizes features that let you work more efficiently, either alone or in collaboration, and almost everything in it works more smoothly, informatively, and conveniently than ever before. Last year’s macOS version, Ventura, and the version before that, Monterey, highlighted features designed for group-chatting teenagers.
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