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MacOS 14 Sonoma is releasing tomorrow. But will your device get it or not? Here is a list of Macs that support the new operating system. First, let's take a look at the official list that Apple has published before releasing the update. The following Macs are eligible for the OS upgrade. iMac 2019 and later Mac Pro 2019 and later iMac Pro 2017 Mac Studio 2022 and later MacBook Air 2018 and later Mac mini 2018 and later MacBook Pro 2018 and later That list is not very informative, so allow us to elaborate with a more extensive list of Macs that are compatible with macOS 14. List of Macs that support macOS 14 Sonoma iMac Retina 4K 2019 iMac Retina 5K 2019 iMac Retina 5K 2020 iMac M1 2021 iMac Pro 2017 Mac Pro 2019 Mac Pro Rack 2019 Mac Pro 2023 Mac Pro Rack 2023 MacBook Air Retina 2018 MacBook Air Retina 2019 MacBook Air Retina 2020 MacBook Air M1 2020 MacBook Air M2 2022 MacBook Air M2 15-inch 2023 MacBook Pro 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro 13-inch 2019 MacBook Pro 15-inch 2019 MacBook Pro 16-inch 2019 MacBook Pro 13-inch 2020 MacBook Pro M1 13-inch 2020 MacBook Pro M1 14-inch 2021 MacBook Pro M1 16-inch 2021 MacBook Pro M2 13-inch 2022 MacBook Pro M2 14-inch 2023 MacBook Pro M2 16-inch M2 2023 Mac mini 2018 Mac mini M1 2020 Mac Mini M2 2023 Mac Mini M2 Pro 2023 Mac Studio 2022 M1 (M1 Ultra and M1 Max) Mac Studio 2023 (M2 Ultra and M2 Max) Basically, if you have a Mac that was launched in 2018 or later, your machine will get the macOS 14 Sonoma update. The only exception to this is the iMac Pro 2017, which also supports the new operating system. Speaking of which, there are a few computers that won't get the update. List of macOS 13 Ventura Macs that will not get the macOS 14 Sonoma Update Six Mac models that were compatible with macOS 13 Ventura will not receive the macOS 14 Sonoma update. iMac 21.5-inch 2017 iMac Retina 4K 21.5-inch 2017 iMac Retina 5K 27-inch 2017 MacBook Retina 12-inch 2017 MacBook Pro 13-inch 2017 MacBook Pro 15-inch 2017 The list is not as long as the one we saw last year. It is quite rare for Apple to end OS updates for Macs that are less than 6 years old, only one model from 2017 suffered a worse fate last year. The MacBook Air 13-inch 2017 was not updated to Ventura. It is rather strange that Apple has ditched the above devices, considering that Sonoma and Ventura are quite similar in terms of performance. Only a handful of Intel Macs remain in the company's favor, and I wouldn't be surprised if the company ends OS updates for these in the next year or two. Of course, just because Apple has decided not to support your old Mac does not necessarily mean that you cannot upgrade to macOS 14 Sonoma. You can use third-party tools like Open Core Legacy Patcher to sideload the update on your machine. We recommend taking a backup of your computer using Time Machine, before trying to install the update, if anything goes awry or if you're unhappy with the performance, you can restore the old OS. Want to learn more about the features in macOS 14 Sonoma, read our previous coverage to find out all about it. Source

Apple is set to release macOS 14 Sonoma tomorrow, September 26. Let's take a look at the new features that the update brings for your Mac. What's new in macOS 14 Sonoma Lock Screen and Screen Savers The lock screen on macOS 14 is slightly different compared to previous versions of the operating system. The login section, with your user profile picture and name, is no longer centered, it now appears at the bottom of the screen. The picture displays a smaller thumbnail. The clock has been removed from the menubar, and the date, day and time are now displayed directly in the top half of the lock screen. Apple has brought the Aerial Screen Savers from Apple TV to macOS. These are cinematic versions, i.e. slow-motion videos which zoom-in or move around. The screen savers feature landscapes, cityscapes from around the world. The interesting bit is that when you log in, your screen saver transforms into a still image to become your wallpaper. You can view a demo of it here. macOS 14 Sonoma shares a number of features that are also available in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, including Swipe to reply, search filters, sticker drawer in Messages, an improved Notes app, a more accurate autocorrect for the keyboard, and more. If you can't wait until Apple seeds the update, you can install the macOS 14 Sonoma Release Candidate version. It is identical to the build that will be released to the stable channel tomorrow. Wondering whether your Mac can be updated to macOS 14, check our article to find out if it is compatible with the new OS. Source

Last week, we discussed how the new Desktop Widgets work in macOS 14 Sonoma. Now, we are going to take a look at the new lock screen experience. Before that, here's a glimpse at the lock screen in macOS 13 Ventura. And this is the new lock screen in macOS Sonoma. As you can tell, the date, day and time are now displayed at the top center of the screen instead of in the top right corner on the menubar. It's kind of the same experience that you see on iPadOS. The login option with your user profile picture has been moved to the bottom, in a compact form. You can unlock the screen with your password or by using Touch ID, that has not changed. Now, the reduction of the login section's size results in quite a bit of empty space on the lock screen, even with the clock at the top. Did Apple make space to beautify the screensaver experience, to make it more immersive? Or could this be a hint that the lock screen in macOS Sonoma will support widgets? Here's the new lock screen experience in macOS 14 Sonoma

macOS 14 Sonoma was released yesterday, we have an article discussing the important features in the update. There are many subtle changes in the OS that were not announced in the Key Note. Here's one of those, clicking on the wallpaper will display the desktop. This isn't completely new to the operating system, it existed in a slightly different form in macOS 13 Ventura. To be more specific, if you activate Stage Manager in macOS 13, your app windows will take center stage, leaving the desktop wallpaper visible on all 4 sides. With the multitasking feature on, you can click anywhere on the wallpaper to view your desktop. The same "show desktop" feature is now available in macOS Sonoma, even when Stage Manager is not enabled. This can be quite handy for people who work with apps that are windowed, i.e. not maximized to fit the screen, or in full screen mode. It may also be useful for people who have a large monitor, and have multiple app windows on the screen. You may want to quickly access the desktop to view your app icons, access files on it, or to unmount drives. But there's another reason why the desktop will be more useful than ever. In case you missed it, macOS Sonoma allows you to now drag and drop widgets from the notification panel onto your desktop, or add them from the new Widgets gallery that you may access from the desktop's right-click menu. So, the new gesture to show the desktop may have been enabled to promote the use of the desktop widgets. To use the gesture, simply click outside an app's window on a wallpaper, and all your open windows will be minimized, leaving the desktop in view. Click again, this time on the home screen, to return to the app's window. Sometimes you may have to double-click to trigger the feature. The option to show the desktop when clicking on the wallpaper is enabled by default. Not a fan of it? That's understandable, you can turn the feature off in a couple of clicks How to disable the show desktop shortcut in macOS Sonoma 1. Go to the Settings > Desktop and Dock. 2. Scroll down the page to the Desktop section. 3. Click on the drop-down menu that is next to "Click wallpaper to show desktop items", and change it to "Only in Stage Manager". If you want to enable the show desktop shortcut, repeat the steps 1 and 2, but in step 3 set the option to "Always". Of course, you can always use the show desktop keyboard shortcut, Fn + F11, which some may prefer. That said, clicking on the wallpaper to get to the desktop offers a couple of other advantages. For starters, it frees up a hotcorner shortcut that you may assign to another action. You no longer need to rely on the 4-finger swipe to get to the desktop, there's a good chance that you may have triggered Mission Control instead while trying the gesture on the trackpad, we've all been there. And like I mentioned earlier, you don't have to turn on Stage Manager to use the show desktop option. macOS 14 Sonoma lets you view your desktop by clicking on the wallpaper

Apple announced the macOS 14 software update during its WWDC 2023 keynote alongside some new Macs, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, and the Vision Pro headset. The latest update for Macs is codenamed Sonoma and it bridges the gap between iPhone and Mac even further with its new features. macOS Sonoma comes with redesigned desktop widgets that can adapt their colour according to the wallpaper set on the desktop. The latest update also comes with a revamped widget picker UI which can access widgets stored on the iPhone as well. The new widgets on macOS 14 are now interactive, for instance, the user can check off reminders, play/pause media, access smart home controls, etc. directly from the desktop. Furthermore, the widgets can fade away into the background when the user is working on an app on the desktop. Along with that, Apple has also added new slow-motion screensavers to macOS 14 that users can also set as their wallpapers. A useful addition for gamers is the new "Game Mode" for macOS 14 that's designed to reduce audio latency for AirPods and make sure "games get the highest priority on the CPU and GPU." Apple says the mode can work with all Mac games and can double the Bluetooth sampling rate for Xbox and PlayStation controllers to reduce input latency. Also, the Japanese video game designer Hideo Kojima showed up during the keynote live stream to reveal that Death Stranding: Director’s Cut will arrive on macOS. Speaking of video conferencing features, macOS 14 comes with a new Presenter Overlay effect that puts the user on top of the content they are sharing during a video call. Users can also share how they feel in the form of reactions such as balloons, confetti, hearts, etc. the video. The Safari browsing experience has been improved with the addition of browser profiles. These allow each user to have their own personal space with separate cookies, history, extensions, Tab Groups, and other stuff. macOS 14 Sonoma will be released to the public later this year with all the new features and changes. Its developer beta is available to try, starting today, and the public beta will arrive next month. macOS 14 Sonoma officially announced at WWDC 2023

Forget the headliners; let's talk about some less obvious stuff. Apple released its first public beta for macOS Sonoma (among other operating systems) this month, and per usual, headlining features like desktop widgets have gotten a lot of coverage. We'll take a more comprehensive look at the big-ticket items in our review later this fall, but there are always some features and changes worth discussing that get buried or lost in the shuffle. Here are a few deeper cuts we've played with so far. Better screen sharing The new Screen Sharing app, which is actually an app and not just a window you type an IP address into. Note the mix of Macs and PCs. Andrew Cunningham Apple first added basic screen sharing support to macOS back in 2007, with version 10.5 (Leopard). Screen sharing did use a dedicated app, but it was hidden in macOS' system folders rather than in the Applications or Utilities folders—it was really only intended to be launched indirectly, either using the Finder or the Connect to Server menu. If you did launch it directly, its interface was a simple "connect to" dialog where you could enter your desired hostname or IP address. Functional, but minimalist. Screen Sharing in Sonoma revamps the app itself, as well as how the underlying technology works. You'll now find a Screen Sharing app in the Utilities folder (the same place as Terminal, Disk Utility, and others), signaling that Apple has made it a full-fledged app. The new Screen Sharing app looks a bit like a (very) light, feature-limited version of the Remote Desktop management software, with a list of all computers you've connected to in the past, the ability to see all computers on your local network with screen sharing enabled, and the option to create groups of computers so you can easily sort systems based on how you use them. Settings for Screen Sharing. The Sonoma-on-Apple-Silicon-exclusive High Performance mode unlocks additional features, though they were pretty buggy in our testing. Andrew Cunningham In the Settings of this new app, you're able to block specific users you don't want sharing your screen. By default, anyone can request control of your screen if they're on the same network as you and know your hostname or IP address—you can allow or refuse access or allow them to connect in a view-only mode—but you can limit those requests to only people in your contacts list if you want to. Screen Sharing remains compatible with the VNC protocol, so it will still provide basic functionality when connected to Windows or Linux PCs with VNC servers installed and enabled. But the app remains at its most capable when connecting to other Macs, and it has gotten several upgrades (a few of which only work with two Sonoma Macs connected to each other). Sonoma-to-Sonoma connections get a new High Performance connection mode—note that High Performance mode and all related features only work on Apple Silicon Macs, not Intel machines. High Performance mode mainly reduces latency and improves image quality when the connection between the two Macs is fast enough. But it also enables a couple of different display-related modes. The control buttons that appear when you're connected to another Mac. Grayed-out buttons represent settings that don't apply to your current connection (dynamic resolution or HDR support, for example). Andrew Cunningham The first is Dynamic Resolution, which allows you to use the native resolution of the host computer's display with the remotely connected Mac. Say you connected to an iMac or Mac mini with a 4K or 5K screen from a MacBook Air. Normally, you'd see that 4K or 5K image resized to whatever resolution your MacBook was using, resulting in a loss of detail and quality. With Dynamic Resolution on, you could use that Mac at your MacBook Air's native resolution instead, more like the way it works in Microsoft's Remote Desktop app for Windows PCs. That said, this feature seems super flaky in the Sonoma public beta and consistently either didn't resize properly or totally crashed on my test Macs. The other is High Dynamic Range over screen sharing, which will render a host Mac's content using HDR if your remotely connected Mac has an HDR screen. If you don't, this button will be grayed out. The other buttons across the top of the Screen Sharing window work when you're connected to older versions of macOS, too. Three of them offer shortcuts to the Launchpad, Mission Control, and Show Desktop functions, since pressing any of those keys or using the trackpad gestures will activate those features on your host Mac, not the one you're connecting to. There's also a toggle for switching between remote-control and view-only modes. Finally, there are a bunch of multi-monitor improvements. Connecting to a remote Mac with multiple monitors using Screen Sharing has always been a bit of a pain, since you're locked into whatever monitor configuration the remote Mac is using. This could mean trying to juggle the contents of two 4K or 5K displays on a single MacBook display; the app gives you the option of viewing one screen at a time, but both screens would still be there. For starters, the Sonoma version of Screen Sharing will let you split all of those remote displays out into separate windows; now, swapping between displays is as quick and easy as switching between app windows. For Sonoma-to-Sonoma Macs in High Performance mode, you also get up to two "virtual displays," no matter how many physical screens are connected to the host or guest Mac. If you're connected to a host Mac that has one screen (or no screens!) and you want to use it with a Mac that has multiple monitors connected, you can do that. On a local Wi-Fi network, a High Performance connection between two Macs did look visibly better than a standard connection, and the remote Mac tracked my cursor well and responded to clicks and other inputs promptly. But animations were still choppy enough that you can tell it's a remote connection, and work remains to be done on the stability of the Dynamic Resolution feature. Still, assuming Apple can get everything working as intended, it's a nice batch of upgrades for people who regularly work with remote Macs. There are other under-the-hood changes to the way that screen and window sharing works in Sonoma that we'll cover in our full review, but one to be aware of is a new menu bar icon that pops up to tell you when third-party apps are sharing or recording your screen. New Apple TV-style wallpapers and screensavers Sonoma comes with Apple TV-style screensavers-turned-wallpapers, and how they're implemented looks pretty cool. Andrew Cunningham The coolest-looking thing in Sonoma is probably its collection of wallpaper-turned-screensavers, mostly a collection of high-definition videos of cities or nature that smoothly and continuously zoom around their subjects. These videos aren't new—they're the same videos that Apple TV boxes use as screensavers—but the way Apple is using them in Sonoma looks undeniably cool. You get the best effect when you use the same video as your wallpaper and screensaver, which you can do with an easy toggle in the Settings app. To get the full effect, you'll need to use the same selection as your wallpaper and screensaver. The videos download upon first use to save disk space. Andrew Cunningham With this toggle turned on, your desktop wallpaper looks like a still image. But when the screensaver turns on, your icons and app windows fade away, and your wallpaper starts to move. Nudge the keyboard or trackpad to exit the screensaver, and your icons and app windows come back, but your wallpaper continues to move for a bit before slowing down and becoming a static image again. Same deal when you wake the computer up—you'll see the video version on the login screen, and once you log in, your icons and apps fade in, and the video slowly comes to a stop. Like some of Ventura's wallpapers, these new screensaver/wallpaper videos are downloaded on first use to save disk space. If you don't want to use them, regular wallpapers and screensavers in Sonoma work like they used to but with a more graceful transition to and from screensavers—a gentle fade instead of a cut to black. More built-in password-manager features Sonoma and iOS 17 effectively introduce the concept of "vaults" to Apple's built-in password manager. Andrew Cunningham Over the last few releases, Apple has slowly built many of the most useful password manager features into iOS and macOS, including sync between devices, automatic password generation, warnings about reused and potentially breached passwords, and more. It doesn't fully replace a dedicated password manager for advanced users who make extensive use of multiple password vaults, for people who want a password manager with a 2FA code generator included, for Android users, or for IT people who need to be able to centrally manage passwords for a large group of users, but for people at home it's considerably better than "using the same six passwords for every single site you visit." Sonoma (and iOS 17) expands Apple's password-manager capabilities by adding password sharing—essentially separate password vaults that can be shared with other people who have a compatible device tied to their iCloud account. The area where you get this up in Settings is a bit misleading, implying that people need to be in your iCloud Family Sharing group to have access to passwords, but once you set it up, the only limitation is that people you share passwords with must be in your Contacts somewhere. Multiple password groups can be created, each with its own list of people from your Contacts. Andrew Cunningham Upon setup, each group member can decide which of their passwords to share with everyone else in the group, ideal for sites or apps (daycare/school, banking, utilities, health care, and so on) where you share access with one or more people. It clears that same "good enough for lots of people, considerably better than nothing" bar that the other password management features have cleared, and the addition of shared password groups might even help it replace a paid password manager for people whose families and friends mostly live within Apple's ecosystem. Safari web apps Using Safari to make a web app by sending it to the Dock. Once there, it still has access to Safari extensions like password managers, but it runs as its own app window without Safari's window chrome. Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers have offered similar functionality for a while. Andrew Cunningham It's not as though you've never been able to create web apps like this on the Mac before; Chromium-based browsers can very easily create new web apps that are installed in the dock and run as their own separate windows, where they can be accessed separately by Command-tabbing or however you choose to manage your windows normally. This was a solved problem. But the feature could still be worth a look specifically because it's part of Safari 17, which has generally, historically been a bit easier on MacBook batteries than Chrome has been (though Google claims it has made significant improvements this year). One could choose to replace Chrome and an entire universe of Chromium-based Electron apps with Safari web apps instead, theoretically netting some small power-efficiency gains. It's also the first time dedicated Safari users will be able to use this feature, which is notable (the same goes for user profiles, also new to Safari). It doesn't matter if Chrome and Edge already have a feature if you don't use Chrome or Edge and have no desire to. Apple does release versions of Safari for three versions of macOS at once—Safari 17 will cover Ventura and Monterey as well as Sonoma. On older macOS versions, you don't get access to Safari web apps, though according to Apple's release notes (PDF) it seems like most of the other features will work on all supported macOS versions. This is frequently the case with new Safari updates; only the newest macOS gets all the features, though older OSes benefit from many feature additions and all the rendering engine and security patches. Caps lock indicator The small blue Caps Lock indicator in Sonoma. Andrew Cunningham When you push the Caps Lock button on any Sonoma Mac, in any text field, a new blue icon shows up next to your cursor to tell you that your caps lock is on. Arguably redundant with the Caps Lock light that's built into most keyboards, it's also useful for the times when you hit the Caps Lock key by acciDENT WHEN YOU ARE TYPING SOMETHING. The indicator goes away once you actually start typing, at which point the text you're suddenly yelling will clue you into the fact that Caps Lock is engaged; pause your typing for a second and it will pop back up. The indicator can show up in any text field in any app—you won't need an app to be targeted to Sonoma to benefit. The weird thing: New desktop behaviors to get used to Coming from Ventura, very little about Sonoma has been different or disruptive. But I was puzzled by one big change about how the desktop works. Click an empty spot on the desktop in Sonoma, and suddenly all of your windows will fly away, exposing the desktop (and, more relevantly, any desktop widgets you've enabled). This is the same behavior you get when pressing Command+F3 on your keyboard or swiping outward with a thumb and three fingers on your trackpad. The toggle for turning off the "click empty desktop to hide windows" feature. Andrew Cunningham Initially, I found this behavior disorienting, mostly because I wasn't expecting it. If you truly don't like it, you can revert to the old behavior in the Desktop & Dock settings. But I ended up leaving it enabled, even though I still normally expose my desktop and widgets with a trackpad gesture rather than clicking the desktop. The only reason I would click the desktop under normal circumstances is if I wanted to bring up the Finder menu in the menu bar without opening a new window or selecting a specific file, and that still works whether my windows go flying everywhere or not. In keeping with the more iPadOS-y flavor you can give a Mac with lots of desktop widgets, the new Desktop & Dock settings can hide all files, folders, and other icons entirely. They'll reappear whenever you show your desktop, whether by clicking on it or using a trackpad gesture. This is how desktop icons behave when using Stage Manager in Ventura; they're still there, and the Desktop folder still exists as a place where files can go, but the visual clutter goes away unless you're specifically interacting with your desktop. Source