I haven’t had a chance to test this particular feature, but it sure looks useful. There’s also a Portrait mode that blurs your background, helpful for messy home offices like mine, and a studio light feature that changes the lighting of your video stream.Īpple also added a new Presenter Overlay feature that allows you to customize the video feed, separating yourself from your background and showing your desktop or presentation as a floating window. On more than one occasion while scratching my face I accidentally activated the thumbs-up gesture, which was awkward. There are several gestures, some of which I’ve found are easy to accidentally trigger. You can also make a heart shape with your hands to trigger animated hearts floating up and off your screen. For instance, if you present a thumbs-up to the camera, your Mac will show an animated thumbs-up. There’s a new Reactions feature that lets you use hand gestures to trigger animations during a call. Like many of us, I’ve spent my fair share of time on video calls over the last few months, which has given me ample time to test out some of macOS Sonoma’s new video conferencing prowess. New video conferencing features are welcome The first thing you should do after upgrading to Sonoma is add widgets and start messing with them. It’s insanely cool to have so many widget options without losing any of the core functionality that makes them so great across Apple’s latest software updates. Other widgets, such as adding the iPhone-specific Home widget for controlling your smart home devices, are completely interactive just like a native Mac widget. When you click on a widget from iPhone apps without any interactive aspects, such as the Carrot weather app, you’re prompted to open the respective app on your iPhone. ![]() I’ve added several widgets from my iPhone to my desktop, such as the air quality monitoring app Paku and Carrot Weather. ![]() You can place widgets you drag out of the picker anywhere on your desktop, with any other widgets, files or folders automatically moving. Your iPhone will need to be near your Mac and connected to the same Wi-Fi network for them to show up. To add widgets to your Mac’s desktop, you can either drag and drop the widgets you already have added in the Notification Center, or right-click on the desktop and select “Edit Widgets.” You’ll see a list of apps with available widgets, including apps that are installed on your iPhone that have widgets. Eventually, my habits changed and now I purposely click on the desktop to view my widgets, be it my calendar, the weather or even the Find My app. ![]() I didn’t realize how often I clicked on the desktop for no real reason. You’ve been able to add them to the Notification Center that you have to manually open every time you want to view them.īut starting in macOS Sonoma, and this is probably my favorite part, all of your open app windows will immediately fly off the screen to reveal your desktop and your widgets with a single click.Īfter updating to Sonoma, I admittedly found this feature a bit jarring at first. That means I can check an item off my daily task list without opening Fantastical, or control a light via the Home app just by clicking on its tile. Not only can I view widgets with snippets of information, but just like in iOS 17, the Mac’s widgets are now interactive. Widgets on the desktop are downright amazingīy far my favorite and most used feature in macOS Sonoma is the ability to add widgets to the desktop. MacOS Sonoma is available on the following Macs: iMac 2019 and later, Mac Pro 2019 and later, iMac Pro 2017 and later, Mac Studio 2022 and later, MacBook Air 2018 and later, Mac mini 2018 and later, and MacBook Pro 2018 and later. Previously, I shared my early thoughts about Sonoma when the public beta launched in July, and with the official launch now upon us, it’s worth revisiting the new features and the age-old question: Should you upgrade? The update brings several new features and improvements to the Mac, including the ability to add widgets to your desktop, improved video conferencing features and new slow-motion screensavers. MacOS Sonoma, Apple’s latest software update for the Mac, is officially available to download for those with a compatible Mac.
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