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Sometimes software upgrades just fuzz together, all part of a continuum of changes over time. Others are more momentous, when theres a clean break from what has come before. After a few years of fuzzy updates, macOS Catalina is one of those clean breaks.
Among the reasons are a major redesign to macOS security, the long-promised deprecation of older software, the replacement of a nearly two-decade-old core app, and the introduction of the ability to run software born on iOS on the Mac for the first time.
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Oct 11, 2019 Installing Catalina is a sweeping upgrade because the new operating system will no longer support apps designed to run on the 32-bit processors that most computers had in the 1990s and early 2000s.
MacOS Catalina (10.15) is the next major Mac system software release with many new interesting features like SideCar which lets you use an iPad as an external display, ScreenTime for Mac to see what apps are used and set time limits for them, Activation Lock to deter theft, an all new VoiceControl accessibility feature, along with new features.
DriverKit is a new SDK with all-new frameworks based on IOKit, but updated and modernized. It is designed for building device drivers in userspace, outside of the kernel. Mac apps, installer packages, and kernel extensions that are signed with a Developer ID must be notarized by Apple to run on macOS Catalina.
The Mac is entering a new era, but for a while things are going to be bumpy. macOS Catalina creates incompatibilities, alters workflows, and ends what has been a period of relative stability. This is a huge update that shows the direction Apple is taking the Mac and all its platforms. We are headed into a future with more unified apps and interfaces and an increased security focus. But as for the present? This is an update that users should be wary of installing because of all the changes it brings.
But Catalina isnt all about breaking things. There are also major new additions to parental controls and device management, a huge upgrade to accessibility, the ability to use an iPad as an additional display and input device, a new machine-learning-driven facelift for Photos, and big upgrades to many other built-in apps. End of an era
Its been coming for a long timeApple announced it at WWDC in 2017 and started warning users in April 2018but with the release of macOS Catalina, its finally reality: macOS is done with 32-bit apps. This means that a huge number of older apps will not run under macOS Catalina. Utilities, games, older professional tools, even Apple system softwarethe end has come for them all.
If youre using the latest versions of all the apps you use to do your job, this will probably not be an issue. Ive spent the summer using Catalina and most of my key appsBBEdit, Photoshop CC, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Office 365work just fine. But if youre clinging to the final non-subscription version of Adobe Creative Suite, you cant upgrade to Catalina. And if youve got some app thats a key part of your workflow and has been put out to pasture by its developerDragThing is hanging it up after 24 yearsyou will have a choice to make. Either put off upgrading macOS as long as you can and keep using old software, or get ready for change.
If you are someone who relies on old software thats about to diefind out here if you doIve got a few suggestions. Put off upgrading and, while using High Sierra or Mojave, try out new software that will work on Catalina. This will let you fall back to your tried-and-true apps if you need to, while you build a new 64-bit-clean workflow that will survive your eventual transition.
If you need to upgrade but have one key app you just cant live without, consider making a disk image of your existing Mac (even better, make it a fresh install with just your important apps) and using it in an emulator such as VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
If you have more than one Mac in your life, you could also consider holding one back and using it as a compatibility backstop. It doesnt necessarily need to even have a keyboard and monitor attached, since you can remote-control it using screen sharing.
The fact is, Apples taken the Mac through many transitions like this in the past. (I remember when we freaked out about whether apps were 32-bit clean, a lifetime ago.) Theyre necessary for the platform to move forward, and they bestow technical benefits that help Apple advance the operating system and hardware that define the Macbut in the moment, they can be a colossal pain. Apple has done a very good job at giving developers and users fair warning about this one, but here in the moment of truth theres no denying that an awful lot of old software is no longer capable of running on the current version of macOS. Mac Catalyst
One of the biggest changes in Catalina is not a feature that you can use. Its work Apple has done behind the scenes to allow the developers of iPad apps to transform them into Mac apps via a technology Apple is calling Mac Catalyst. Apple tested a version of this technology in Mojave, bringing Stocks, News, Voice Memos, and Home to the Mac from iOS. With Catalina, not only has Apple brought a few more of its own apps over, but every other iOS developer can do so, too.
Im sure Catalina will launch with the Mac App Store populated by a bunch of new Mac Catalyst-created apps, especially from developers that Apple has been spotlighting and presumably aiding with development. Ive seen many of them posting preview screenshots of their apps on Twitter and Im encouraged by how many iOS developers are bringing their productivity-focused apps to the Mac for the first time. This is the promise of Mac Catalyst: That iOS developers who have been more or less locked out of the Mac for the past decade (unless they learn a different set of development frameworks and build alternate versions of their apps) will now finally have access to that platform.
Despite this initial rush of interest, it feels like its going to take months, if not years, for us to see just how Mac Catalyst might change the Mac and the software that we use on them every day. The technology behind Mac Catalyst is very new, and despite the years run-up via those four apps in Mojave, its still quite rudimentary. Developers who spent the summer using it to build apps point out numerous headaches and missing features that make building Mac Catalyst apps a lot more complicated than just checking a box in Xcode and building. (They also complain about a lack of documentation and a lot of bugs.) Some Mac-friendly features and actions actually require undocumented implementation using the Macs native APIs, which will raise the difficulty level for developers not already familiar with the Mac.
Mac Catalyst apps dont feel quite like Mac apps, thanks to a lot of modal windows and an everything-inside-the-window-frame approach to app design thats necessary on iOS but not the Mac. Over time, we might get used to it, or developers will learn how to do the extra work required to add those features, or Apple will expand Mac Catalysts capabilities. Right now its all an open question.
In the long run, developers of apps that are already on both iOS and Mac may choose to simplify development by building a single app using Mac Catalyst, but right now developers Ive talked to suggest that such a move would require some pretty severe feature regressions on the Mac side. I hope those developers decide to resist the temptation to toss their Mac apps aside until they can be proud of what they ship using Mac Catalyst.
Then theres the interesting problem that Mac Catalyst apps are entirely separate from their iOS equivalents when it comes to the App Store. For a lot of developers with existing iOS apps, thats a dealbreaker, since they want the option of letting their existing iOS customers use the Mac version without re-buying. A shared store may be coming, but its going to be a while.
Mac Catalyst is a work in progress, and Apple still has a lot of work to do to make it a better experience for users and developers alike. Given how enthusiastic the company was on stage in June at WWDC about its new SwiftUI technology, and how little it said about Mac Catalyst, I have to admit to being a bit dubious. Is it possible that Mac Catalyst isnt the future of Mac software development, after all?
I hope not, because there are many iOS apps that would be at home on my Mac. But what seemed for more than a year like a forthcoming sea change in how apps work on the Mac now feels more like an experiment in progress. I reserve the right to change my mind if Im blown away by the first Catalyst apps to ship this fall, but its feeling like this issue will probably take a while to resolve itself. Dumbing down iTunes
The writing has been on the wall for the monolithic Mac iTunes app for a few years now: Apples strategy on iOS (where iTuness features have been served by separate Music, Podcasts, and TV/Video apps for years) set the course. Screenium 3 2 8 player games. With macOS Catalina, the separation has arrived. While the broad strokes of the change are pretty much what anyone might have guessed, the details are interesting: the Music and TV apps appear to be built out of the code of iTunes, while Apples pioneering implementation of podcast browsing from 2005 has finally been put out to pasture, replaced by a new Podcasts app sourced from iOS and brought to the Mac via Mac Catalyst.
Despite being sourced largely from iTunes, the Music and TV apps have been given a new coat of paint, with more colorful sidebarsand the Podcasts app has been designed to match, giving the three media apps some visual consistency. This is definitely intended to be Apples new design language across its Mac apps, and perhaps the iPad as well.
Musics design is heavily influenced by Apples decisions on iOS. Up Next and Lyrics panes now slide out over the interface, obscuring whats behind unless the main content area is more than 1,330 pixels wide. Its a decision that makes sense if youve got a single-window interface, but I dont use my Mac in full screen mode and I didnt mind the popover approach that iTunes took with those windows.
The deck chairs have been rearranged on the top-level play barNow Playing content is now aligned left, with controls moved to the center and volume to the right. I dont know why thats better, but perhaps its more consistent with iOS?
As someone who uses iTunes every day to listen to music, Im disappointed to report that some features I use have failed to make the transition to Music. The venerable Column Browser in the Songs view, which was once the primary way users interacted with iTunes, is gone. It was ugly but functional, and let me do things like quickly focus on a specific album or artist, or shuffle through an arbitrary set of albums in a temporary, impromptu playlist. All thats left are prettier and less functional alternatives.
That said, does the Music app benefit from being an app devoted only to music, and not also to podcasts and videos and iOS device syncing? Yes, it does. Its also a bit more Apple Music focused, which makes sensethough you can hide that stuff if youre not into music subscription services. Apple TV on its own
The Apple TV app is a good step forward for video viewing on the Mac, since the video features in iTunes were designed around buying movies on iTunes, while Apple is now offering streaming content from various providers (and will be providing its own content soon, too).
This app can provide video and audio quality (on certain Mac models) beyond anything previously available on the Mac. Apple says that on Macs released in 2018 and later, HDR/Dolby Vision videos and Dolby Atmos surround sound are available. The TV app is also able to stream 4K and HDR video, if youve got a 2018 MacBook Pro or a 2017 and later iMac with the T2 chip. (I believe this is the first time that any major source of movies and TV has allowed iMacs to stream 4K video, and thats awesome, though its sad that the original round of 4K and 5K iMacs have been left out of the 4K party.)
The new Watch Now view is very much like the one youll see on iOS and tvOS, presenting the content youve got available to view based on your activitybut unlike on iOS and Apple TV, it doesnt have any way to understand that youve got content subscriptions on other services outside of Apples own channels content. On my Apple TV and iPad, it knows Ive been watching shows on Hulu, but my Mac doesnt know anything about that. Ill grant you that theres no Hulu app for macOS, but there is a Hulu websiteand Apple could link to it from within the TV app for Macbut that connection is just not there. Mac Podcasts get modern
The Podcasts app, which comes over from iPad via Mac Catalyst, is just fine. iTuness podcast features were once groundbreaking, but have since become horrendously out of date. Its great that the Mac now has a modern podcast player of good quality, with a solid view into the Apple Podcasts directory.
The translation of the app from iOS to Mac is not without quirks. Youre not able to delete episodes via a keyboard shortcut or menu itembut you can swipe from right to left to delete them iOS style. And episode show notes, which can contain very useful information, have been hidden away under a little Info icon next to the Up Next toggle.
In true Apple fashion, the Podcasts app does the job and will work well for most people. At the same time, its lack of features will mean theres a good niche to be had for more feature-rich podcast player apps, as there is on iOS. I assume well be seeing some of those arrive on the Mac eventually, via Mac Catalyst. Find devices in the Finder
Perhaps the best result of Apple turning iTunes into Music is that device management has been removed from iTunes and plopped down in the Finder. Managing iPods inside iTunes made sense once, but controlling iPhones, iPads, and iPods today is more about backup and software updates and file access than it is music.
When you attach a compatible device to a Mac running Catalina, it will appear in the Finders sidebar as an external hard drive would. Click on that item, and after pairing it with your Mac (youll need to enter in the devices passcode), that Finder window will fill with more or less the same stuff you used to see when you clicked on a device in iTunes.
There are still some things here that Apple needs to work on, most notably the disconnect in the Files section of the browser, which should probably display exactly the same contents as the On My iPad/iPhone section in the Files app, but doesnt. Theres also no progress bar when you transfer files to and from the devices, which can be frustrating if youre transferring large files. Find My people and devices
I use Find My Friends all the time to figure out where my various family members are. In Mojave, I spent a lot of time swiping into the Today view in Notification Center and expanding a small widget. In Catalina, Find My Friends finally gets its own appand along the way, picks up the power of Find My iPhone via a new cross-platform (via Mac Catalyst) app called Find My.
Find My definitely shows its iOS heritage. Floating panels look identical to those on iOS, though Apple has added some decent control-click equivalents, populated the View menu, and offers some keyboard shortcuts. Still, this is a major upgrade in terms of Mac access to functionality that has existed on iOS for quite a while. Im glad to have it.
The device-finding functionality is a great bonus, since I can now spot the location of any device associated with my Apple ID (or those of my family members) anywhere. Even better is Apples new approach to finding offline devices in iOS 13 and Catalina. Essentially, offline Apple devices will send out a Bluetooth ping that can be detected by other Apple devices and sent back to Apple, encrypted and anonymized but with a date and location that will appear in your Find My app. This means that if your devices are lost or stolen and are spotted by another Apple device that just happens to be nearby, youll get a location fixeven if that device isnt actually online itself. I havent had a chance to test this feature, but if this all works as its supposed to, it will be an enormous step forward for finding lost and stolen devicesespecially Mac laptops, since none of them have cellular capabilities of their own. A little tablet buddy
Sidecar is a new macOS feature that lets you use a nearby iPad 1 as a Mac display and use the Apple Pencil as a Mac input device. Its a clever idea, because so many of us are carrying around tablets with Retina displays and Apple Pencils these days.
You can initiate Sidecar from the Mac in a whole lot of ways: by clicking on or hovering over the green icon in any window bar, via the Displays pane in System Preferences, via the Window menu in most apps, and via the Displays menu bar item, just to name a few. If you initiate Sidecar from a window, the Mac connects to the iPad as a second display and places that window in it. But otherwise it acts just as if youd plugged in a second display, so you can drag windows to and from Sidecar and even set Sidecar to mirror your Macs desktop.
Once that window appears on your iPad, you can interact with the app interface as you would on the Mac, using the Apple Pencil as a pointing device. (You cant use your finger to interact with the Mac screen.) Sidecar provides a strip of icons that are mapped to modifier keys on the side of the iPad screen, so you can hold down Command or Shift as you click with the Apple Penciluseful since those modifier keys are frequently used to alter what happens when you click. There are also icons to show and hide toolbars, the Dock, and the software keyboard. The Touch Bar, previously only available for users of certain MacBook Pro models, also makes an appearance, docked at the bottom of the Sidecar iPad, and thats a smart use of that feature.
But if Im being honest, Im not sure I really see the point of Sidecar beyond using it as a general-purpose second screen for your Mac. Yes, Mac apps can be updated to support the Apple Pencils pressure and tilt sensitivity, so you can use your iPad to draw in Mac apps. But in most cases wouldnt it be better just to draw in native iOS apps? Also, Mac apps really arent designed with a stylus in mindand using apps designed for a mouse with an Apple Pencil can be weird and awkward. I find Apples Markup extension on the Mac to be pretty unfriendly, but its downright maddening when I try to use it via Sidecar.
Probably the best case scenario for Sidecar is that some very specific graphics apps will be updated with support for Sidecar and Apple Pencil, and users who prefer those apps to using iOS equivalents will be able to use an iPad rather than an expensive tablet from a third-party source. But as someone who loves the Mac and loves my iPad, I found using Sidecar disconcerting. Its not a good Mac experience or a good iPad experience. And its much less useful than other Mac-on-iPad apps like Luna Display and Screens, which let me initiate connections from my iPad (and from way beyond 10 meters) and dont require an Apple Pencil.
In a feature thats not quite Sidecar, but is Sidecar-adjacent, Apple has added a new Continuity feature to iOS 13 and Catalina. You may be familiar with Continuity Camera, introduced last year, which allowed you to click on a document on the Mac and then ask an iOS device to take a picture to be inserted there. Now theres Continuity Sketch, which uses the excellent new Apple Pencil markup mode on iOS to let you make a drawing, which is then inserted on the Mac. Its a feature thats easy to use and eliminates the need to transfer files back and forth for simple sketches. Accessibility: More voice, different colors
macOS Catalina and iOS 13 take a leap forward in terms of accessibility for people who have difficulty using traditional input methods thanks to Voice Control, a new and comprehensive system for driving Apples interfaces solely via voice.
As with most accessibility features, they have broader applications than you might think. If youre someone in a context where you cant use your hands on a keyboardlets say youre cooking something and your hands are covered in foodyou could turn on Voice Control and still move around on your device, going to webpages and advancing them and responding to texts and everything else you would normally do while using your computer, all via your voice.
Or imagine that you were someone who needed to reduce the amount of time they spend using a traditional input device. (Perhaps you have been diagnosed with some sort of repetitive strain injury.) Voice Control could dramatically reduce the amount of mousing you need to do. The dictation system thats a part of Voice Control is a major upgrade from previous versions of macOS, allowing you to make corrections and move around your document with voice commands. For much more about this feature, check out Steven Aquinos piece at MacStories.
Picking up a feature from iOS, macOS now supports color filters. This feature alters the colors that are displayed on the screenwhich can make your interface look a bit weird. But if youre somebody like me who is color blind, these filters can allow you to differentiate colors that you might not otherwise be able to. This can make software that wasnt built with color blind people in mind more usable. (Theres nothing like reading a chart thats got two colors, both of which look exactly the same.) Locking down Mac security
The world is really different than it was when macOS was first created. Modern operating systems like iOS are hardened, paranoid, and locked down. Over the last few years, Apple has been attempting to rejigger Mac security so that it can be made more like iOS while still retaining the trademark openness and flexibility that make the Mac a very different kind of platform for a very different user base.
Catalina adds many new changes that are meant to make the Mac more secure by default, and while thats welcome, it will cause a bunch of side-effects that may frustrate expert Mac users who are used to going beyond the default settings.
The Macs core system files are now stored on a separate volume, set as read-only, to prevent them from being tampered with by malicious software. When youre booted into Catalina, youll only see a single volume, but in reality theres a separate volume lurking in /System/Volumes that contains your system data. You can look but you cant touch.
Gatekeeper, which scans apps the first time theyre launched to verify their identities and that theyre secure, has been expanded to run periodically on existing apps on your system. By default, Gatekeeper will require every app that it launches 2 to pass notarization, a system by which developers submit their apps to an automated scanning and verification system before release. Gatekeepers scope has also expanded, as it now scans all software, regardless of how it was loaded onto the system.
If this sounds like Apple is creeping closer to limiting the Mac to only running software approved by Apple, it isbut Apple would be quick to point out that these are all default settings that can be adjusted by the user. If you want to run random software you picked up off the Internet, youll be able to do it, probably forever. Youll just need to turn off a bunch of Apple security settings to do it. (In the case of non-notarized apps, youll see a scary alert warning of potential malicious activitybut if you control-click on the app and choose open, itll give you the option to launch the app. This is the same approach previous version of macOS have used to bypass Gatekeeper, and Im happy to say that it still works.)
In Catalina, apps will also ask you for permission before accessing more aspects of your Macs system. Get ready for a hail of Notification Center permission requests when you update to Catalina. Apps that monitor keyboard input or screen recording will now need to ask permission before getting access to those portions of the system. Apps that want access to specific folders, including the Desktop, Documents, and Download folders, iCloud Drive, removable disks, and network volumes will need user consent before theyll be able to do so. This feature is designed to stop apps from sneakily accessing your disk without your knowledgeif you open or save a file via a menu or via the Finder, your consent is implicit and you wont be bothered.
The best-case scenario here is that the apps you use every day will have been updated for Catalina and, as a part of that update, will have eliminated any extraneous attempts to access folders that they dont really need access to. But if youre using older software, or software that really does need access to those folders, you may find yourself having to click through a bunch of approvals in order to use your software.
When there are many security prompts, users stop paying attentionMicrosoft learned this the hard way with Windows Vista. Apple is walking a fine line here with all these permissions requests, and to be honest, as a Mac user I sort of expect that my apps have access to certain portions of my Mac, like my Desktop and my Documents folder.
Theres probably more work to be done here to smooth out this process, but theres good evidence that Apple can improve the user experience for security prompts. In Catalina, its much easier to grant special permission to apps. In Mojave, if you denied permission for something like Full Disk Access to an app by mistake, adding that app back required you to dig around and find the app to add it to the Security preference paneand some of those apps were weird helper apps that were very hard to find. In Catalina, if an app asks for permission and you decline, that app will still appear in the Security preference pane (unchecked), making it easy to check the box and go about your business.
Another major security shift in Catalina is DriverKit and user space extensions. Certain peripherals and apps would essentially patch the central code of the OS using kernel extensions, which was a handy way to extend the features of macOS, but one that came with some serious security and stability issues. In Catalina, kernel extensions are basically outlawed, but apps can now come with extensions embedded within them that do more or less the same thingbut securely and, one hopes, with more stability. Even better, when you delete the app thats extending the system, the extension gets automatically uninstalled and removed. (I frequently find Im still running kernel extensions from apps I ditched years before. Its not great.)
This change adds another level of potential user frustration, however. Some of the utilities included with peripheral hardware you bought might require an update (or just be flat-out incompatible). The same goes for apps that patch the file system to add access to cloud storage, and virtualization tools. Most actively developed apps will adopt this new approach and may already have been updated for Catalina, but you should check before updatingespecially if you rely on older external hardware.
If youve got a Mac with a T2 processorthats the iMac Pro, 2018 Mac mini, Retina MacBook Air, and recent MacBook Pro modelsyour Mac is now protected with the same Activation Lock technology thats been built into recent iOS devices. If someone were to steal your computer, it would be unusable by anyone without your Apple ID username and password.
And for users with an Apple Watch but without a Mac with a Touch ID sensor, Apples expanding biometric authentication. A bunch of authorization requests on macOS Catalina will allow you to approve them by tapping the side button on your unlocked Apple Watch, rather than entering in your user name and password. As someone who has an iMac (no Touch ID) and an Apple Watch, Ive been wearing this feature out. Yes, I would rather double-tap my Apple Watch than type my password over and over again. Screen Time comes to the Mac
Though the System Preferences app in Catalina has gotten a redesignlike the Settings app on iOS, your Apple ID and iCloud settings are now at the top, prominently displayed along with the identity of your currently logged-in accountmost of the preference panes are the same as they were in Mojave. The big difference is that the venerable Parental Controls feature is gone, replaced by Screen Time.
Screen Time was introduced in iOS 12 last year, and it brought greater control over how people use their iOS devices. Its not just a feature for parents to monitor their kids and control how they use their devicesthough it is thatbut its also a way for us all to get information about how much were using our devices and perhaps nudge us to use them more wisely.
The problem with Screen Time was that it was only for iOS, and both of my kids also have Macs. I was also unable to manage their device usage from my own Mac, instead needing to get an iPhone or iPad in order to do so. With Screen Time on Catalina, that should all be history. You can manage usage across Macs and iOS devices and see statistics across platforms.
The old Parental Controls was better than nothing, but not great. Using Screen Time for the last year on iOS has just made me want it for the Mac, and Im happy that Apple has unified this feature across its platforms this year. If I have one complaint, its that the System Preferences window is a little too small to fit in all the Screen Time data comfortable. I wish it was resizableor if you could optionally open a separate Screen Time window or app.
Unfortunately, I wasnt able to get reliable device statistics from my Mac or other devices during the beta period, so Im going to have to spend more time with Screen Time once all of my family devices have been updated to the latest operating system. Another shot at Photos
Catalina brings the third big rethink to the Photos app during its relatively short lifetime, as Apple continues to strive to find ways to better expose great old photographs out of gigantic photo libraries using advances in machine-learning technology.
Im impressed with the way individual events are curated by Apples machine-learning magic. Events are intelligently segmented based on time and geography, and then cover photos chosen and cropped via an algorithm thats trying to find good photos and crop them to display the key people or objects in them. (Videos also appear, and autoplay as you scroll past them.) It made my photo library look pretty fabulous, if I say so myself.
The new Years/Months/Days views in Photos are all heavily curated and not all of your images or videos will be displayedApples actually analyzing them behind the scenes and hiding some near-duplicates, screen shots, and other stuff that it things are generally undesirable. You can still click into the All Photos view to see everything, though.
A Photos feature thats been on iOS for years has finally migrated over to the Mac this year: the ability to view and edit Memory Movies, which are little auto-generated video slideshows of individual events. Its a fun little feature that lets you quickly share a bunch of images from a moment in time without building an entire slideshow project yourself, and it was always a shame that the Mac didnt have access to it. Now it does. And dont forget Reminders
As someone who uses Apples Reminders app for basic list management and Todoist for certain timed to-dos, Im optimistic about the new Reminders app in Catalina and iOS 13. This new app should still be able to compile simple lists like the ones I build all the time in the current version, but offers features to make it easier to hang times, dates, locations, attachments, and individual sub-tasks onto itemsso you can make it much more complex if you want.
Theres a new enhanced natural-language scanning system that Apple says will allow Reminders to make some guesses about how you want to tag an itemthough when I tried to get it to set a recurring event for every month on a certain date, or every other week on Wednesday, it couldnt figure me out. Oh well.
Im reminded of the way that Apple upgraded Notes a few years ago, taking it from a very simple app into one that was remarkable full featured. While Im sympathetic to the ecosystem of notes apps (and now reminders apps) that will be challenged by Apple upping its game when it comes to bundled apps, its important to remember that most users never stray beyond the preinstalled apps, and bad preinstalled apps reflect on the quality and usability of Apples platform.
At the same time, Apple never builds these apps to hit all of the edge cases that power users require. Im sure to-do apps will find all sorts of ecological niches that Apple will simply never address, and of course full-fledged organizational apps like OmniFocus should have no fear at all. But for those of us who just need some basic task management, Reminders will be better, and thats good. A grab bag of app improvements (or not)
The app improvements dont stop there! There are a lot, and that is a welcome sight for all the reasons I mentioned aboveimproved bundled apps elevate the platform. Mail has added the ability to mute threads, block senders, and auto-unsubscribe from mailing lists. Safari has tweaked its start page, will warn you when you enter in a weak password, and lets you sent video straight into a picture-in-picture window by clicking and holding on the audio icon in the location bar. Notes now supports shared folders and will automatically use machine learning and text recognition to make your photos and scanned documents searchable.
Even the QuickTime appnow the only one, since QuickTime 7 wont run on Catalinahas gained a few new pro features, including an enhanced movie inspector, the ability to generate a movie from a sequence of still images (thats an ancient QuickTime feature, revived for Catalina), support for time code in video, and support for some videos with alpha channels.
Unfortunately, a few apps havent really improved muchthe four apps sourced from iOS last year as a part of the Mojave update, via what we now call Mac Catalyst. Theyre all still pretty rudimentary, and while its better to have them than not, they could be much better than they are. The Home app has added support for home automation shortcuts (but its so buggy as to be unusable), and setting time-based automations still requires you to spin an iOS-style date picker. That date-picker design should not ever appear on macOS, periodits a touchscreen interface that doesnt work with a mouse or trackpad. I cant believe Apple has left it untouched. A big steptake only when prepared
Catalina takes the Mac in a new direction. Im encouraged by the fact that Apple is cranking up its focus on security and privacy without locking Mac users out from running the software they want, when they want tothough the security notifications are more than is probably necessary. And while pulling the plug on 32-bit apps is something that needed to happen, it also throws up a brick wall for anyone who is still relying on apps that havent been (or wont be) updated with Catalina compatibility.
Mac Catalyst has the potential to improve the Mac by bringing in a lot of new apps, but my enthusiasm for this technology has diminished over time as developers have discovered so many of its limitations. It will take time for us to learn if Mac Catalyst can really make a difference in terms of the health and life of the Mac, or if its more of a curiosity. The ball is in Apples court.
Apple wants everyone to update to the latest version of all their operating systems, of course. But with Catalina, Id advise you not to upgrade immediatelyand tell your friends and family to do the same. This is an upgrade that will, by design, break apps. Be sure that you dont rely on any of those appsand more to the point, be sure youve got a motivation to upgrade to Catalina beyond the good feelings you get from being on the latest and greatest.
Can i use snapchat on a computer . If theres a must-have app that only runs on Catalina, or you want to use Voice Control or Screen Time or Find My or Apple Arcade, and all your go-to software checks out, then by all means, make the jump to Catalina. (Ive been using it for the last month with only a few minor app incompatibilities that I expect to be resolved as updates roll out alongside the new release.) But if you can wait, you should. Let other people discover the early bugs and suffer the app incompatibilities. Catalina will still be there for you when youre ready for it.
Sidecar is a Continuity feature of macOS, meaning that it uses both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to sense the nearby presence of the deviceand setting a fairly strict range. You cant use Sidecar beyond about 10 meters from the host Mac.
Apps built before June 1 of this year wont have to be notarized.
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macOS Catalina updates improve the stability, performance, or compatibility of your Mac and are recommended for all Catalina users. To get these updates, choose System Preferences from the Apple menu , then click Software Update. Learn more about updating the software on your Mac.
For details about the security content of these updates, see Apple Security Updates.
macOS 10.15
macOS Catalina 10.15.7
macOS Catalina 10.15.7 provides important security updates and bug fixes for your Mac.
Resolves an issue where macOS would not automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks
Fixes an issue that could prevent files syncing through iCloud Drive
Addresses a graphic issue that may occur on iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) with Radeon Pro 5700 XT
Media 100 vs final cut pro. Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. macOS Catalina 10.15.6
macOS Catalina 10.15.6 introduces local news in your Today feed in Apple News and improves the security and reliability of your Mac.
Apple News
Local news in your Today feed provides extensive coverage of San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City
More stories available from local news providers with a subscription to Apple News+
Your daily newsletter from Apple News can now be personalized with stories that reflect your interests What S New In Ios Catalina
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.
Adds a new option to optimize video streaming on HDR-compatible Mac notebooks for improved battery life
Fixes an issue where the computer name may change after installing a software update
Resolves an issue where certain USB mouse and trackpads may lose connection
Enterprise content:
When using the built-in keyboard with a non-U.S. keyboard layout on some Mac models, passwords with certain characters are no longer rejected at the Mac login window
Allows command-line tools that don't use CFNetwork, such as curl(1) , to continue connecting to TLS servers that use certificates issued by the recently expired AddTrust External CA Root
Major new releases of macOS can be hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag, if the Mac is enrolled in Apple School Manager, Apple Business Manager, or a user-approved MDM.
This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-004.
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. macOS Catalina 10.15.5
macOS Catalina 10.15.5 introduces battery health management in the Energy Saver settings for notebooks, a new option to disable automatic prominence in Group FaceTime calls, and controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
Battery Health Management
Battery health management to help maximize battery lifespan for Mac notebooks
Energy Saver preference pane now displays battery condition and recommends if the battery needs to be serviced
Option to disable battery health management
For more information, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT211094
FaceTime Prominence Preference
New option to control automatic prominence on Group FaceTime calls, so video tiles do not change size when a participant speaks
Calibration Fine-Tuning for Pro Display XDR
Controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR by adjusting the white point and luminance for a precise match to
your own display-calibration target
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements:
Fixes an issue that may prevent Reminders from sending notifications for recurring reminders
Addresses an issue that may prevent password entry on the login screen
Fixes an issue where System Preferences would continue to show a notification badge even after installing an update
Resolves an issue where the built-in camera may not be detected when trying to use it after using a video conferencing app
Addresses an issue for Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip where internal speakers may not appear as a sound output device in Sound preferences
Fixes a stability issue with uploading and downloading media files from iCloud Photo Library while your Mac is asleep
Resolves a stability issue when transferring large amounts of data to RAID volumes
Fixes an issue where the Reduced Motion Accessibility preference did not reduce the speed of animations in a Group FaceTime call
Enterprise content:
Improves performance on certain Mac models when enabling hardware acceleration in GPU-intensive apps such as those used for video conferencing
Addresses an issue where Microsoft Exchange accounts were unable to sign in during account setup when using Conditional Access
Apple Push Notification Service traffic now uses a web proxy when specified in a PAC file via the Proxies payload
Resolves an issue that prevented some displays connected to MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) from waking from sleep when the Mac wakes
Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag
This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003. macOS Catalina 10.15.4
macOS Catalina 10.15.4 introduces iCloud Drive folder sharing, Screen Time communication limits, Apple Music time-synced lyrics view, and more. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
Finder
iCloud Drive folder sharing from Finder
Controls to limit access only to people you explicitly invite, or to grant access to anyone with the folder link
Permissions to choose who can make changes and upload files, and who can only view and download files
Screen Time
Communication limits for controlling who your children can communicate with and be contacted by throughout the day and during downtime
Playback control of music videos for your children
Music Macbook page up .
Time-synced lyrics view for Apple Music, including the ability to jump to your favorite part of a song by clicking a line in lyrics view
Safari
Option to import Chrome passwords into your iCloud Keychain for easy AutoFill of your passwords in Safari and across all your devices
Controls for duplicating a tab and for closing all tabs to the right of the current tab
HDR playback support on compatible computers for Netflix content
App Store with Apple Arcade
Universal Purchase support enables the use of a singular purchase of a participating app across iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV
Pro Display XDR
Customized reference modes that you can tailor to specific workflow needs by selecting from several color gamut, white point, luminance, and transfer function options
Accessibility
Head pointer preference for moving a cursor on the screen based on the precise movements of your head
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements:
High Dynamic Range output to HDR10-compatible third-party displays and TVs connected with DisplayPort or HDMI
OAuth authentication support with Outlook.com accounts for improved security
CalDav migration support when upgrading to iCloud reminders on a secondary device
Addresses an issue where text copied between apps may appear invisible when Dark Mode is active
Resolves an issue in Safari where a CAPTCHA tile may display incorrectly
Fixes an issue where you may receive notifications for updated or completed reminders
Fixes an issue with screen brightness for the LG UltraFine 5K display after waking from sleep
Enterprise content:
Apple Push Notification Service traffic now uses a web proxy when specified in a PAC file
Resolves an issue where updating the login keychain password after resetting a user password would cause a new keychain to be created
After enabling Search directory services for certificates in Keychain Access preferences, searching by email address in Keychain Access or Mail now locates a user certificate stored in directory services
When setting the DisableFDEAutoLogin key in com.apple.loginwindow, you can now sync your FileVault password with the Active Directory user password after updating the user password
Reinstates the ability to update or restore iOS, iPadOS, or tvOS devices by dragging .ipsw files to the device in an Apple Configurator 2 window
Addresses an issue where sending the EraseDevice MDM command might not cause the device to be erased
When logging in as an Active Directory user after using deferred FileVault enablement, the user is now prompted for their password to enable FileVault
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. macOS Catalina 10.15.3
The macOS Catalina 10.15.3 update improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac, and is recommended for all users.
Optimizes gamma handling of low gray levels on Pro Display XDR for SDR workflows when using macOS
Improves multi-stream video editing performance for HEVC and H.264-encoded 4K video on the MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) macOS Catalina 10.15.2
The macOS Catalina 10.15.2 update improves the stability, reliability and performance of your Mac and is recommended for all users.
This update adds the following features:
Apple News
New layout for Apple News+ stories from The Wall Street Journal and other leading newspapers
Stocks
Get links to related stories or more stories from the same publication at the end of an article
Breaking and Developing labels for Top Stories
Stories from Apple News are now available in Canada in English and French
This update includes the following bug fixes:
Music
Restores the column browser view for managing the music library
Resolves an issue that may prevent album artwork from appearing
Fixes an issue that may reset music equalizer settings during playback
iTunes Remote
Adds support for using an iPhone or iPad to remotely control the Music and TV apps on a Mac
Photos
Resolves an issue that may cause some AVI and MP4 files to appear as unsupported
Fixes an issue that prevents newly created folders from appearing in Albums view
Addresses an issue where manually sorted images in an album may be printed or exported out of order
Fixes an issue that prevents the zoom-to-crop tool from working in a print preview
Mail
Addresses an issue that may cause Mail preferences to open with a blank window
Resolves an issue that may prevent using undo from retrieving deleted mail
Other
Improves the reliability of syncing books and audiobooks to your iPad or iPhone through the Finder
Fixes an issue where reminders may be out of order in the Today smart list in the Reminders app
Resolves an issue that may cause slow typing performance in the Notes app
Enterprise content
Fixes an issue where the user password might not be accepted at the login window after upgrading a Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip to macOS Catalina
Improves compatibility with video conferencing apps on MacBook Pro models introduced in 2018
Users logged in as a standard user can now install apps from the App Store macOS Catalina 10.15.1
The macOS Catalina 10.15.1 update includes updated and additional emoji, support for AirPods Pro, HomeKit Secure Video, HomeKit-enabled routers, and new Siri privacy settings, as well as bug fixes and improvements.
Emoji
Over 70 new or updated emoji, including animals, food, activities, new accessibility emoji, gender-neutral emoji, and skin tones selection for couple emoji
AirPods support
AirPods Pro support
Home app New In Ios 13 Catalina
HomeKit Secure Video enables you to privately capture, store, and view encrypted video from your security cameras and features people, animal, and vehicle detection
HomeKit enabled routers let you control how your HomeKit accessories communicate over the internet or in your home
Adds support for AirPlay 2-enabled speakers in scenes and automations
Siri
Privacy settings to control whether or not to help improve Siri and Dictation by allowing Apple to store audio of your Siri and Dictation interactions
Option to delete your Siri and Dictation history from Siri Settings
This update also includes the following bug fixes and improvements: Ios Mojave Download
Restores the ability to view file names in the All Photos view in Photos
Restores the ability to filter by favorites, photos, videos, edited, and keywords in Days view in Photos
Fixes an issue where Messages would only send a single notification when the option to repeat alerts was enabled
Resolves an issue that caused Contacts to launch to the previously opened contact instead of the contact list
Adds a two-finger swipe gesture for back navigation in Apple News
Resolves issues that may occur in the Music app when displaying playlists inside folders and newly added songs in the Songs list
Improves reliability of migrating iTunes library databases into the Music, Podcasts, and TV apps
Fixes an issue where downloaded titles were not visible in the Downloads folder in the TV app
Enterprise content
When using the built-in keyboard with a non-U.S. keyboard layout, passwords with certain characters are no longer rejected at the Mac login window
When sign in with Apple ID is not allowed by a configuration profile, the Sign In button in System Preferences is now dimmed macOS Catalina 10.15
New In Ios 13 Catalina
Ios Mojave Download
Sometimes software upgrades just fuzz together, all part of a continuum of changes over time. Others are more momentous, when theres a clean break from what has come before. After a few years of fuzzy updates, macOS Catalina is one of those clean breaks.
Among the reasons are a major redesign to macOS security, the long-promised deprecation of older software, the replacement of a nearly two-decade-old core app, and the introduction of the ability to run software born on iOS on the Mac for the first time.
See what's new with book lending at the Internet Archive. A MacOS Catalina ISO for Virtualbox. Addeddate 2020-05-30 12:11:43 Identifier macOS-Catalina-IOS Scanner.
Oct 11, 2019 Installing Catalina is a sweeping upgrade because the new operating system will no longer support apps designed to run on the 32-bit processors that most computers had in the 1990s and early 2000s.
MacOS Catalina (10.15) is the next major Mac system software release with many new interesting features like SideCar which lets you use an iPad as an external display, ScreenTime for Mac to see what apps are used and set time limits for them, Activation Lock to deter theft, an all new VoiceControl accessibility feature, along with new features.
DriverKit is a new SDK with all-new frameworks based on IOKit, but updated and modernized. It is designed for building device drivers in userspace, outside of the kernel. Mac apps, installer packages, and kernel extensions that are signed with a Developer ID must be notarized by Apple to run on macOS Catalina.
The Mac is entering a new era, but for a while things are going to be bumpy. macOS Catalina creates incompatibilities, alters workflows, and ends what has been a period of relative stability. This is a huge update that shows the direction Apple is taking the Mac and all its platforms. We are headed into a future with more unified apps and interfaces and an increased security focus. But as for the present? This is an update that users should be wary of installing because of all the changes it brings.
But Catalina isnt all about breaking things. There are also major new additions to parental controls and device management, a huge upgrade to accessibility, the ability to use an iPad as an additional display and input device, a new machine-learning-driven facelift for Photos, and big upgrades to many other built-in apps. End of an era
Its been coming for a long timeApple announced it at WWDC in 2017 and started warning users in April 2018but with the release of macOS Catalina, its finally reality: macOS is done with 32-bit apps. This means that a huge number of older apps will not run under macOS Catalina. Utilities, games, older professional tools, even Apple system softwarethe end has come for them all.
If youre using the latest versions of all the apps you use to do your job, this will probably not be an issue. Ive spent the summer using Catalina and most of my key appsBBEdit, Photoshop CC, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Office 365work just fine. But if youre clinging to the final non-subscription version of Adobe Creative Suite, you cant upgrade to Catalina. And if youve got some app thats a key part of your workflow and has been put out to pasture by its developerDragThing is hanging it up after 24 yearsyou will have a choice to make. Either put off upgrading macOS as long as you can and keep using old software, or get ready for change.
If you are someone who relies on old software thats about to diefind out here if you doIve got a few suggestions. Put off upgrading and, while using High Sierra or Mojave, try out new software that will work on Catalina. This will let you fall back to your tried-and-true apps if you need to, while you build a new 64-bit-clean workflow that will survive your eventual transition.
If you need to upgrade but have one key app you just cant live without, consider making a disk image of your existing Mac (even better, make it a fresh install with just your important apps) and using it in an emulator such as VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
If you have more than one Mac in your life, you could also consider holding one back and using it as a compatibility backstop. It doesnt necessarily need to even have a keyboard and monitor attached, since you can remote-control it using screen sharing.
The fact is, Apples taken the Mac through many transitions like this in the past. (I remember when we freaked out about whether apps were 32-bit clean, a lifetime ago.) Theyre necessary for the platform to move forward, and they bestow technical benefits that help Apple advance the operating system and hardware that define the Macbut in the moment, they can be a colossal pain. Apple has done a very good job at giving developers and users fair warning about this one, but here in the moment of truth theres no denying that an awful lot of old software is no longer capable of running on the current version of macOS. Mac Catalyst
One of the biggest changes in Catalina is not a feature that you can use. Its work Apple has done behind the scenes to allow the developers of iPad apps to transform them into Mac apps via a technology Apple is calling Mac Catalyst. Apple tested a version of this technology in Mojave, bringing Stocks, News, Voice Memos, and Home to the Mac from iOS. With Catalina, not only has Apple brought a few more of its own apps over, but every other iOS developer can do so, too.
Im sure Catalina will launch with the Mac App Store populated by a bunch of new Mac Catalyst-created apps, especially from developers that Apple has been spotlighting and presumably aiding with development. Ive seen many of them posting preview screenshots of their apps on Twitter and Im encouraged by how many iOS developers are bringing their productivity-focused apps to the Mac for the first time. This is the promise of Mac Catalyst: That iOS developers who have been more or less locked out of the Mac for the past decade (unless they learn a different set of development frameworks and build alternate versions of their apps) will now finally have access to that platform.
Despite this initial rush of interest, it feels like its going to take months, if not years, for us to see just how Mac Catalyst might change the Mac and the software that we use on them every day. The technology behind Mac Catalyst is very new, and despite the years run-up via those four apps in Mojave, its still quite rudimentary. Developers who spent the summer using it to build apps point out numerous headaches and missing features that make building Mac Catalyst apps a lot more complicated than just checking a box in Xcode and building. (They also complain about a lack of documentation and a lot of bugs.) Some Mac-friendly features and actions actually require undocumented implementation using the Macs native APIs, which will raise the difficulty level for developers not already familiar with the Mac.
Mac Catalyst apps dont feel quite like Mac apps, thanks to a lot of modal windows and an everything-inside-the-window-frame approach to app design thats necessary on iOS but not the Mac. Over time, we might get used to it, or developers will learn how to do the extra work required to add those features, or Apple will expand Mac Catalysts capabilities. Right now its all an open question.
In the long run, developers of apps that are already on both iOS and Mac may choose to simplify development by building a single app using Mac Catalyst, but right now developers Ive talked to suggest that such a move would require some pretty severe feature regressions on the Mac side. I hope those developers decide to resist the temptation to toss their Mac apps aside until they can be proud of what they ship using Mac Catalyst.
Then theres the interesting problem that Mac Catalyst apps are entirely separate from their iOS equivalents when it comes to the App Store. For a lot of developers with existing iOS apps, thats a dealbreaker, since they want the option of letting their existing iOS customers use the Mac version without re-buying. A shared store may be coming, but its going to be a while.
Mac Catalyst is a work in progress, and Apple still has a lot of work to do to make it a better experience for users and developers alike. Given how enthusiastic the company was on stage in June at WWDC about its new SwiftUI technology, and how little it said about Mac Catalyst, I have to admit to being a bit dubious. Is it possible that Mac Catalyst isnt the future of Mac software development, after all?
I hope not, because there are many iOS apps that would be at home on my Mac. But what seemed for more than a year like a forthcoming sea change in how apps work on the Mac now feels more like an experiment in progress. I reserve the right to change my mind if Im blown away by the first Catalyst apps to ship this fall, but its feeling like this issue will probably take a while to resolve itself. Dumbing down iTunes
The writing has been on the wall for the monolithic Mac iTunes app for a few years now: Apples strategy on iOS (where iTuness features have been served by separate Music, Podcasts, and TV/Video apps for years) set the course. Screenium 3 2 8 player games. With macOS Catalina, the separation has arrived. While the broad strokes of the change are pretty much what anyone might have guessed, the details are interesting: the Music and TV apps appear to be built out of the code of iTunes, while Apples pioneering implementation of podcast browsing from 2005 has finally been put out to pasture, replaced by a new Podcasts app sourced from iOS and brought to the Mac via Mac Catalyst.
Despite being sourced largely from iTunes, the Music and TV apps have been given a new coat of paint, with more colorful sidebarsand the Podcasts app has been designed to match, giving the three media apps some visual consistency. This is definitely intended to be Apples new design language across its Mac apps, and perhaps the iPad as well.
Musics design is heavily influenced by Apples decisions on iOS. Up Next and Lyrics panes now slide out over the interface, obscuring whats behind unless the main content area is more than 1,330 pixels wide. Its a decision that makes sense if youve got a single-window interface, but I dont use my Mac in full screen mode and I didnt mind the popover approach that iTunes took with those windows.
The deck chairs have been rearranged on the top-level play barNow Playing content is now aligned left, with controls moved to the center and volume to the right. I dont know why thats better, but perhaps its more consistent with iOS?
As someone who uses iTunes every day to listen to music, Im disappointed to report that some features I use have failed to make the transition to Music. The venerable Column Browser in the Songs view, which was once the primary way users interacted with iTunes, is gone. It was ugly but functional, and let me do things like quickly focus on a specific album or artist, or shuffle through an arbitrary set of albums in a temporary, impromptu playlist. All thats left are prettier and less functional alternatives.
That said, does the Music app benefit from being an app devoted only to music, and not also to podcasts and videos and iOS device syncing? Yes, it does. Its also a bit more Apple Music focused, which makes sensethough you can hide that stuff if youre not into music subscription services. Apple TV on its own
The Apple TV app is a good step forward for video viewing on the Mac, since the video features in iTunes were designed around buying movies on iTunes, while Apple is now offering streaming content from various providers (and will be providing its own content soon, too).
This app can provide video and audio quality (on certain Mac models) beyond anything previously available on the Mac. Apple says that on Macs released in 2018 and later, HDR/Dolby Vision videos and Dolby Atmos surround sound are available. The TV app is also able to stream 4K and HDR video, if youve got a 2018 MacBook Pro or a 2017 and later iMac with the T2 chip. (I believe this is the first time that any major source of movies and TV has allowed iMacs to stream 4K video, and thats awesome, though its sad that the original round of 4K and 5K iMacs have been left out of the 4K party.)
The new Watch Now view is very much like the one youll see on iOS and tvOS, presenting the content youve got available to view based on your activitybut unlike on iOS and Apple TV, it doesnt have any way to understand that youve got content subscriptions on other services outside of Apples own channels content. On my Apple TV and iPad, it knows Ive been watching shows on Hulu, but my Mac doesnt know anything about that. Ill grant you that theres no Hulu app for macOS, but there is a Hulu websiteand Apple could link to it from within the TV app for Macbut that connection is just not there. Mac Podcasts get modern
The Podcasts app, which comes over from iPad via Mac Catalyst, is just fine. iTuness podcast features were once groundbreaking, but have since become horrendously out of date. Its great that the Mac now has a modern podcast player of good quality, with a solid view into the Apple Podcasts directory.
The translation of the app from iOS to Mac is not without quirks. Youre not able to delete episodes via a keyboard shortcut or menu itembut you can swipe from right to left to delete them iOS style. And episode show notes, which can contain very useful information, have been hidden away under a little Info icon next to the Up Next toggle.
In true Apple fashion, the Podcasts app does the job and will work well for most people. At the same time, its lack of features will mean theres a good niche to be had for more feature-rich podcast player apps, as there is on iOS. I assume well be seeing some of those arrive on the Mac eventually, via Mac Catalyst. Find devices in the Finder
Perhaps the best result of Apple turning iTunes into Music is that device management has been removed from iTunes and plopped down in the Finder. Managing iPods inside iTunes made sense once, but controlling iPhones, iPads, and iPods today is more about backup and software updates and file access than it is music.
When you attach a compatible device to a Mac running Catalina, it will appear in the Finders sidebar as an external hard drive would. Click on that item, and after pairing it with your Mac (youll need to enter in the devices passcode), that Finder window will fill with more or less the same stuff you used to see when you clicked on a device in iTunes.
There are still some things here that Apple needs to work on, most notably the disconnect in the Files section of the browser, which should probably display exactly the same contents as the On My iPad/iPhone section in the Files app, but doesnt. Theres also no progress bar when you transfer files to and from the devices, which can be frustrating if youre transferring large files. Find My people and devices
I use Find My Friends all the time to figure out where my various family members are. In Mojave, I spent a lot of time swiping into the Today view in Notification Center and expanding a small widget. In Catalina, Find My Friends finally gets its own appand along the way, picks up the power of Find My iPhone via a new cross-platform (via Mac Catalyst) app called Find My.
Find My definitely shows its iOS heritage. Floating panels look identical to those on iOS, though Apple has added some decent control-click equivalents, populated the View menu, and offers some keyboard shortcuts. Still, this is a major upgrade in terms of Mac access to functionality that has existed on iOS for quite a while. Im glad to have it.
The device-finding functionality is a great bonus, since I can now spot the location of any device associated with my Apple ID (or those of my family members) anywhere. Even better is Apples new approach to finding offline devices in iOS 13 and Catalina. Essentially, offline Apple devices will send out a Bluetooth ping that can be detected by other Apple devices and sent back to Apple, encrypted and anonymized but with a date and location that will appear in your Find My app. This means that if your devices are lost or stolen and are spotted by another Apple device that just happens to be nearby, youll get a location fixeven if that device isnt actually online itself. I havent had a chance to test this feature, but if this all works as its supposed to, it will be an enormous step forward for finding lost and stolen devicesespecially Mac laptops, since none of them have cellular capabilities of their own. A little tablet buddy
Sidecar is a new macOS feature that lets you use a nearby iPad 1 as a Mac display and use the Apple Pencil as a Mac input device. Its a clever idea, because so many of us are carrying around tablets with Retina displays and Apple Pencils these days.
You can initiate Sidecar from the Mac in a whole lot of ways: by clicking on or hovering over the green icon in any window bar, via the Displays pane in System Preferences, via the Window menu in most apps, and via the Displays menu bar item, just to name a few. If you initiate Sidecar from a window, the Mac connects to the iPad as a second display and places that window in it. But otherwise it acts just as if youd plugged in a second display, so you can drag windows to and from Sidecar and even set Sidecar to mirror your Macs desktop.
Once that window appears on your iPad, you can interact with the app interface as you would on the Mac, using the Apple Pencil as a pointing device. (You cant use your finger to interact with the Mac screen.) Sidecar provides a strip of icons that are mapped to modifier keys on the side of the iPad screen, so you can hold down Command or Shift as you click with the Apple Penciluseful since those modifier keys are frequently used to alter what happens when you click. There are also icons to show and hide toolbars, the Dock, and the software keyboard. The Touch Bar, previously only available for users of certain MacBook Pro models, also makes an appearance, docked at the bottom of the Sidecar iPad, and thats a smart use of that feature.
But if Im being honest, Im not sure I really see the point of Sidecar beyond using it as a general-purpose second screen for your Mac. Yes, Mac apps can be updated to support the Apple Pencils pressure and tilt sensitivity, so you can use your iPad to draw in Mac apps. But in most cases wouldnt it be better just to draw in native iOS apps? Also, Mac apps really arent designed with a stylus in mindand using apps designed for a mouse with an Apple Pencil can be weird and awkward. I find Apples Markup extension on the Mac to be pretty unfriendly, but its downright maddening when I try to use it via Sidecar.
Probably the best case scenario for Sidecar is that some very specific graphics apps will be updated with support for Sidecar and Apple Pencil, and users who prefer those apps to using iOS equivalents will be able to use an iPad rather than an expensive tablet from a third-party source. But as someone who loves the Mac and loves my iPad, I found using Sidecar disconcerting. Its not a good Mac experience or a good iPad experience. And its much less useful than other Mac-on-iPad apps like Luna Display and Screens, which let me initiate connections from my iPad (and from way beyond 10 meters) and dont require an Apple Pencil.
In a feature thats not quite Sidecar, but is Sidecar-adjacent, Apple has added a new Continuity feature to iOS 13 and Catalina. You may be familiar with Continuity Camera, introduced last year, which allowed you to click on a document on the Mac and then ask an iOS device to take a picture to be inserted there. Now theres Continuity Sketch, which uses the excellent new Apple Pencil markup mode on iOS to let you make a drawing, which is then inserted on the Mac. Its a feature thats easy to use and eliminates the need to transfer files back and forth for simple sketches. Accessibility: More voice, different colors
macOS Catalina and iOS 13 take a leap forward in terms of accessibility for people who have difficulty using traditional input methods thanks to Voice Control, a new and comprehensive system for driving Apples interfaces solely via voice.
As with most accessibility features, they have broader applications than you might think. If youre someone in a context where you cant use your hands on a keyboardlets say youre cooking something and your hands are covered in foodyou could turn on Voice Control and still move around on your device, going to webpages and advancing them and responding to texts and everything else you would normally do while using your computer, all via your voice.
Or imagine that you were someone who needed to reduce the amount of time they spend using a traditional input device. (Perhaps you have been diagnosed with some sort of repetitive strain injury.) Voice Control could dramatically reduce the amount of mousing you need to do. The dictation system thats a part of Voice Control is a major upgrade from previous versions of macOS, allowing you to make corrections and move around your document with voice commands. For much more about this feature, check out Steven Aquinos piece at MacStories.
Picking up a feature from iOS, macOS now supports color filters. This feature alters the colors that are displayed on the screenwhich can make your interface look a bit weird. But if youre somebody like me who is color blind, these filters can allow you to differentiate colors that you might not otherwise be able to. This can make software that wasnt built with color blind people in mind more usable. (Theres nothing like reading a chart thats got two colors, both of which look exactly the same.) Locking down Mac security
The world is really different than it was when macOS was first created. Modern operating systems like iOS are hardened, paranoid, and locked down. Over the last few years, Apple has been attempting to rejigger Mac security so that it can be made more like iOS while still retaining the trademark openness and flexibility that make the Mac a very different kind of platform for a very different user base.
Catalina adds many new changes that are meant to make the Mac more secure by default, and while thats welcome, it will cause a bunch of side-effects that may frustrate expert Mac users who are used to going beyond the default settings.
The Macs core system files are now stored on a separate volume, set as read-only, to prevent them from being tampered with by malicious software. When youre booted into Catalina, youll only see a single volume, but in reality theres a separate volume lurking in /System/Volumes that contains your system data. You can look but you cant touch.
Gatekeeper, which scans apps the first time theyre launched to verify their identities and that theyre secure, has been expanded to run periodically on existing apps on your system. By default, Gatekeeper will require every app that it launches 2 to pass notarization, a system by which developers submit their apps to an automated scanning and verification system before release. Gatekeepers scope has also expanded, as it now scans all software, regardless of how it was loaded onto the system.
If this sounds like Apple is creeping closer to limiting the Mac to only running software approved by Apple, it isbut Apple would be quick to point out that these are all default settings that can be adjusted by the user. If you want to run random software you picked up off the Internet, youll be able to do it, probably forever. Youll just need to turn off a bunch of Apple security settings to do it. (In the case of non-notarized apps, youll see a scary alert warning of potential malicious activitybut if you control-click on the app and choose open, itll give you the option to launch the app. This is the same approach previous version of macOS have used to bypass Gatekeeper, and Im happy to say that it still works.)
In Catalina, apps will also ask you for permission before accessing more aspects of your Macs system. Get ready for a hail of Notification Center permission requests when you update to Catalina. Apps that monitor keyboard input or screen recording will now need to ask permission before getting access to those portions of the system. Apps that want access to specific folders, including the Desktop, Documents, and Download folders, iCloud Drive, removable disks, and network volumes will need user consent before theyll be able to do so. This feature is designed to stop apps from sneakily accessing your disk without your knowledgeif you open or save a file via a menu or via the Finder, your consent is implicit and you wont be bothered.
The best-case scenario here is that the apps you use every day will have been updated for Catalina and, as a part of that update, will have eliminated any extraneous attempts to access folders that they dont really need access to. But if youre using older software, or software that really does need access to those folders, you may find yourself having to click through a bunch of approvals in order to use your software.
When there are many security prompts, users stop paying attentionMicrosoft learned this the hard way with Windows Vista. Apple is walking a fine line here with all these permissions requests, and to be honest, as a Mac user I sort of expect that my apps have access to certain portions of my Mac, like my Desktop and my Documents folder.
Theres probably more work to be done here to smooth out this process, but theres good evidence that Apple can improve the user experience for security prompts. In Catalina, its much easier to grant special permission to apps. In Mojave, if you denied permission for something like Full Disk Access to an app by mistake, adding that app back required you to dig around and find the app to add it to the Security preference paneand some of those apps were weird helper apps that were very hard to find. In Catalina, if an app asks for permission and you decline, that app will still appear in the Security preference pane (unchecked), making it easy to check the box and go about your business.
Another major security shift in Catalina is DriverKit and user space extensions. Certain peripherals and apps would essentially patch the central code of the OS using kernel extensions, which was a handy way to extend the features of macOS, but one that came with some serious security and stability issues. In Catalina, kernel extensions are basically outlawed, but apps can now come with extensions embedded within them that do more or less the same thingbut securely and, one hopes, with more stability. Even better, when you delete the app thats extending the system, the extension gets automatically uninstalled and removed. (I frequently find Im still running kernel extensions from apps I ditched years before. Its not great.)
This change adds another level of potential user frustration, however. Some of the utilities included with peripheral hardware you bought might require an update (or just be flat-out incompatible). The same goes for apps that patch the file system to add access to cloud storage, and virtualization tools. Most actively developed apps will adopt this new approach and may already have been updated for Catalina, but you should check before updatingespecially if you rely on older external hardware.
If youve got a Mac with a T2 processorthats the iMac Pro, 2018 Mac mini, Retina MacBook Air, and recent MacBook Pro modelsyour Mac is now protected with the same Activation Lock technology thats been built into recent iOS devices. If someone were to steal your computer, it would be unusable by anyone without your Apple ID username and password.
And for users with an Apple Watch but without a Mac with a Touch ID sensor, Apples expanding biometric authentication. A bunch of authorization requests on macOS Catalina will allow you to approve them by tapping the side button on your unlocked Apple Watch, rather than entering in your user name and password. As someone who has an iMac (no Touch ID) and an Apple Watch, Ive been wearing this feature out. Yes, I would rather double-tap my Apple Watch than type my password over and over again. Screen Time comes to the Mac
Though the System Preferences app in Catalina has gotten a redesignlike the Settings app on iOS, your Apple ID and iCloud settings are now at the top, prominently displayed along with the identity of your currently logged-in accountmost of the preference panes are the same as they were in Mojave. The big difference is that the venerable Parental Controls feature is gone, replaced by Screen Time.
Screen Time was introduced in iOS 12 last year, and it brought greater control over how people use their iOS devices. Its not just a feature for parents to monitor their kids and control how they use their devicesthough it is thatbut its also a way for us all to get information about how much were using our devices and perhaps nudge us to use them more wisely.
The problem with Screen Time was that it was only for iOS, and both of my kids also have Macs. I was also unable to manage their device usage from my own Mac, instead needing to get an iPhone or iPad in order to do so. With Screen Time on Catalina, that should all be history. You can manage usage across Macs and iOS devices and see statistics across platforms.
The old Parental Controls was better than nothing, but not great. Using Screen Time for the last year on iOS has just made me want it for the Mac, and Im happy that Apple has unified this feature across its platforms this year. If I have one complaint, its that the System Preferences window is a little too small to fit in all the Screen Time data comfortable. I wish it was resizableor if you could optionally open a separate Screen Time window or app.
Unfortunately, I wasnt able to get reliable device statistics from my Mac or other devices during the beta period, so Im going to have to spend more time with Screen Time once all of my family devices have been updated to the latest operating system. Another shot at Photos
Catalina brings the third big rethink to the Photos app during its relatively short lifetime, as Apple continues to strive to find ways to better expose great old photographs out of gigantic photo libraries using advances in machine-learning technology.
Im impressed with the way individual events are curated by Apples machine-learning magic. Events are intelligently segmented based on time and geography, and then cover photos chosen and cropped via an algorithm thats trying to find good photos and crop them to display the key people or objects in them. (Videos also appear, and autoplay as you scroll past them.) It made my photo library look pretty fabulous, if I say so myself.
The new Years/Months/Days views in Photos are all heavily curated and not all of your images or videos will be displayedApples actually analyzing them behind the scenes and hiding some near-duplicates, screen shots, and other stuff that it things are generally undesirable. You can still click into the All Photos view to see everything, though.
A Photos feature thats been on iOS for years has finally migrated over to the Mac this year: the ability to view and edit Memory Movies, which are little auto-generated video slideshows of individual events. Its a fun little feature that lets you quickly share a bunch of images from a moment in time without building an entire slideshow project yourself, and it was always a shame that the Mac didnt have access to it. Now it does. And dont forget Reminders
As someone who uses Apples Reminders app for basic list management and Todoist for certain timed to-dos, Im optimistic about the new Reminders app in Catalina and iOS 13. This new app should still be able to compile simple lists like the ones I build all the time in the current version, but offers features to make it easier to hang times, dates, locations, attachments, and individual sub-tasks onto itemsso you can make it much more complex if you want.
Theres a new enhanced natural-language scanning system that Apple says will allow Reminders to make some guesses about how you want to tag an itemthough when I tried to get it to set a recurring event for every month on a certain date, or every other week on Wednesday, it couldnt figure me out. Oh well.
Im reminded of the way that Apple upgraded Notes a few years ago, taking it from a very simple app into one that was remarkable full featured. While Im sympathetic to the ecosystem of notes apps (and now reminders apps) that will be challenged by Apple upping its game when it comes to bundled apps, its important to remember that most users never stray beyond the preinstalled apps, and bad preinstalled apps reflect on the quality and usability of Apples platform.
At the same time, Apple never builds these apps to hit all of the edge cases that power users require. Im sure to-do apps will find all sorts of ecological niches that Apple will simply never address, and of course full-fledged organizational apps like OmniFocus should have no fear at all. But for those of us who just need some basic task management, Reminders will be better, and thats good. A grab bag of app improvements (or not)
The app improvements dont stop there! There are a lot, and that is a welcome sight for all the reasons I mentioned aboveimproved bundled apps elevate the platform. Mail has added the ability to mute threads, block senders, and auto-unsubscribe from mailing lists. Safari has tweaked its start page, will warn you when you enter in a weak password, and lets you sent video straight into a picture-in-picture window by clicking and holding on the audio icon in the location bar. Notes now supports shared folders and will automatically use machine learning and text recognition to make your photos and scanned documents searchable.
Even the QuickTime appnow the only one, since QuickTime 7 wont run on Catalinahas gained a few new pro features, including an enhanced movie inspector, the ability to generate a movie from a sequence of still images (thats an ancient QuickTime feature, revived for Catalina), support for time code in video, and support for some videos with alpha channels.
Unfortunately, a few apps havent really improved muchthe four apps sourced from iOS last year as a part of the Mojave update, via what we now call Mac Catalyst. Theyre all still pretty rudimentary, and while its better to have them than not, they could be much better than they are. The Home app has added support for home automation shortcuts (but its so buggy as to be unusable), and setting time-based automations still requires you to spin an iOS-style date picker. That date-picker design should not ever appear on macOS, periodits a touchscreen interface that doesnt work with a mouse or trackpad. I cant believe Apple has left it untouched. A big steptake only when prepared
Catalina takes the Mac in a new direction. Im encouraged by the fact that Apple is cranking up its focus on security and privacy without locking Mac users out from running the software they want, when they want tothough the security notifications are more than is probably necessary. And while pulling the plug on 32-bit apps is something that needed to happen, it also throws up a brick wall for anyone who is still relying on apps that havent been (or wont be) updated with Catalina compatibility.
Mac Catalyst has the potential to improve the Mac by bringing in a lot of new apps, but my enthusiasm for this technology has diminished over time as developers have discovered so many of its limitations. It will take time for us to learn if Mac Catalyst can really make a difference in terms of the health and life of the Mac, or if its more of a curiosity. The ball is in Apples court.
Apple wants everyone to update to the latest version of all their operating systems, of course. But with Catalina, Id advise you not to upgrade immediatelyand tell your friends and family to do the same. This is an upgrade that will, by design, break apps. Be sure that you dont rely on any of those appsand more to the point, be sure youve got a motivation to upgrade to Catalina beyond the good feelings you get from being on the latest and greatest.
Can i use snapchat on a computer . If theres a must-have app that only runs on Catalina, or you want to use Voice Control or Screen Time or Find My or Apple Arcade, and all your go-to software checks out, then by all means, make the jump to Catalina. (Ive been using it for the last month with only a few minor app incompatibilities that I expect to be resolved as updates roll out alongside the new release.) But if you can wait, you should. Let other people discover the early bugs and suffer the app incompatibilities. Catalina will still be there for you when youre ready for it.
Sidecar is a Continuity feature of macOS, meaning that it uses both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to sense the nearby presence of the deviceand setting a fairly strict range. You cant use Sidecar beyond about 10 meters from the host Mac.
Apps built before June 1 of this year wont have to be notarized.
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macOS Catalina updates improve the stability, performance, or compatibility of your Mac and are recommended for all Catalina users. To get these updates, choose System Preferences from the Apple menu , then click Software Update. Learn more about updating the software on your Mac.
For details about the security content of these updates, see Apple Security Updates.
macOS 10.15
macOS Catalina 10.15.7
macOS Catalina 10.15.7 provides important security updates and bug fixes for your Mac.
Resolves an issue where macOS would not automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks
Fixes an issue that could prevent files syncing through iCloud Drive
Addresses a graphic issue that may occur on iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) with Radeon Pro 5700 XT
Media 100 vs final cut pro. Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. macOS Catalina 10.15.6
macOS Catalina 10.15.6 introduces local news in your Today feed in Apple News and improves the security and reliability of your Mac.
Apple News
Local news in your Today feed provides extensive coverage of San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City
More stories available from local news providers with a subscription to Apple News+
Your daily newsletter from Apple News can now be personalized with stories that reflect your interests What S New In Ios Catalina
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.
Adds a new option to optimize video streaming on HDR-compatible Mac notebooks for improved battery life
Fixes an issue where the computer name may change after installing a software update
Resolves an issue where certain USB mouse and trackpads may lose connection
Enterprise content:
When using the built-in keyboard with a non-U.S. keyboard layout on some Mac models, passwords with certain characters are no longer rejected at the Mac login window
Allows command-line tools that don't use CFNetwork, such as curl(1) , to continue connecting to TLS servers that use certificates issued by the recently expired AddTrust External CA Root
Major new releases of macOS can be hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag, if the Mac is enrolled in Apple School Manager, Apple Business Manager, or a user-approved MDM.
This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-004.
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. macOS Catalina 10.15.5
macOS Catalina 10.15.5 introduces battery health management in the Energy Saver settings for notebooks, a new option to disable automatic prominence in Group FaceTime calls, and controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
Battery Health Management
Battery health management to help maximize battery lifespan for Mac notebooks
Energy Saver preference pane now displays battery condition and recommends if the battery needs to be serviced
Option to disable battery health management
For more information, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT211094
FaceTime Prominence Preference
New option to control automatic prominence on Group FaceTime calls, so video tiles do not change size when a participant speaks
Calibration Fine-Tuning for Pro Display XDR
Controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR by adjusting the white point and luminance for a precise match to
your own display-calibration target
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements:
Fixes an issue that may prevent Reminders from sending notifications for recurring reminders
Addresses an issue that may prevent password entry on the login screen
Fixes an issue where System Preferences would continue to show a notification badge even after installing an update
Resolves an issue where the built-in camera may not be detected when trying to use it after using a video conferencing app
Addresses an issue for Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip where internal speakers may not appear as a sound output device in Sound preferences
Fixes a stability issue with uploading and downloading media files from iCloud Photo Library while your Mac is asleep
Resolves a stability issue when transferring large amounts of data to RAID volumes
Fixes an issue where the Reduced Motion Accessibility preference did not reduce the speed of animations in a Group FaceTime call
Enterprise content:
Improves performance on certain Mac models when enabling hardware acceleration in GPU-intensive apps such as those used for video conferencing
Addresses an issue where Microsoft Exchange accounts were unable to sign in during account setup when using Conditional Access
Apple Push Notification Service traffic now uses a web proxy when specified in a PAC file via the Proxies payload
Resolves an issue that prevented some displays connected to MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) from waking from sleep when the Mac wakes
Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag
This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003. macOS Catalina 10.15.4
macOS Catalina 10.15.4 introduces iCloud Drive folder sharing, Screen Time communication limits, Apple Music time-synced lyrics view, and more. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
Finder
iCloud Drive folder sharing from Finder
Controls to limit access only to people you explicitly invite, or to grant access to anyone with the folder link
Permissions to choose who can make changes and upload files, and who can only view and download files
Screen Time
Communication limits for controlling who your children can communicate with and be contacted by throughout the day and during downtime
Playback control of music videos for your children
Music Macbook page up .
Time-synced lyrics view for Apple Music, including the ability to jump to your favorite part of a song by clicking a line in lyrics view
Safari
Option to import Chrome passwords into your iCloud Keychain for easy AutoFill of your passwords in Safari and across all your devices
Controls for duplicating a tab and for closing all tabs to the right of the current tab
HDR playback support on compatible computers for Netflix content
App Store with Apple Arcade
Universal Purchase support enables the use of a singular purchase of a participating app across iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV
Pro Display XDR
Customized reference modes that you can tailor to specific workflow needs by selecting from several color gamut, white point, luminance, and transfer function options
Accessibility
Head pointer preference for moving a cursor on the screen based on the precise movements of your head
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements:
High Dynamic Range output to HDR10-compatible third-party displays and TVs connected with DisplayPort or HDMI
OAuth authentication support with Outlook.com accounts for improved security
CalDav migration support when upgrading to iCloud reminders on a secondary device
Addresses an issue where text copied between apps may appear invisible when Dark Mode is active
Resolves an issue in Safari where a CAPTCHA tile may display incorrectly
Fixes an issue where you may receive notifications for updated or completed reminders
Fixes an issue with screen brightness for the LG UltraFine 5K display after waking from sleep
Enterprise content:
Apple Push Notification Service traffic now uses a web proxy when specified in a PAC file
Resolves an issue where updating the login keychain password after resetting a user password would cause a new keychain to be created
After enabling Search directory services for certificates in Keychain Access preferences, searching by email address in Keychain Access or Mail now locates a user certificate stored in directory services
When setting the DisableFDEAutoLogin key in com.apple.loginwindow, you can now sync your FileVault password with the Active Directory user password after updating the user password
Reinstates the ability to update or restore iOS, iPadOS, or tvOS devices by dragging .ipsw files to the device in an Apple Configurator 2 window
Addresses an issue where sending the EraseDevice MDM command might not cause the device to be erased
When logging in as an Active Directory user after using deferred FileVault enablement, the user is now prompted for their password to enable FileVault
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. macOS Catalina 10.15.3
The macOS Catalina 10.15.3 update improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac, and is recommended for all users.
Optimizes gamma handling of low gray levels on Pro Display XDR for SDR workflows when using macOS
Improves multi-stream video editing performance for HEVC and H.264-encoded 4K video on the MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) macOS Catalina 10.15.2
The macOS Catalina 10.15.2 update improves the stability, reliability and performance of your Mac and is recommended for all users.
This update adds the following features:
Apple News
New layout for Apple News+ stories from The Wall Street Journal and other leading newspapers
Stocks
Get links to related stories or more stories from the same publication at the end of an article
Breaking and Developing labels for Top Stories
Stories from Apple News are now available in Canada in English and French
This update includes the following bug fixes:
Music
Restores the column browser view for managing the music library
Resolves an issue that may prevent album artwork from appearing
Fixes an issue that may reset music equalizer settings during playback
iTunes Remote
Adds support for using an iPhone or iPad to remotely control the Music and TV apps on a Mac
Photos
Resolves an issue that may cause some AVI and MP4 files to appear as unsupported
Fixes an issue that prevents newly created folders from appearing in Albums view
Addresses an issue where manually sorted images in an album may be printed or exported out of order
Fixes an issue that prevents the zoom-to-crop tool from working in a print preview
Addresses an issue that may cause Mail preferences to open with a blank window
Resolves an issue that may prevent using undo from retrieving deleted mail
Other
Improves the reliability of syncing books and audiobooks to your iPad or iPhone through the Finder
Fixes an issue where reminders may be out of order in the Today smart list in the Reminders app
Resolves an issue that may cause slow typing performance in the Notes app
Enterprise content
Fixes an issue where the user password might not be accepted at the login window after upgrading a Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip to macOS Catalina
Improves compatibility with video conferencing apps on MacBook Pro models introduced in 2018
Users logged in as a standard user can now install apps from the App Store macOS Catalina 10.15.1
The macOS Catalina 10.15.1 update includes updated and additional emoji, support for AirPods Pro, HomeKit Secure Video, HomeKit-enabled routers, and new Siri privacy settings, as well as bug fixes and improvements.
Emoji
Over 70 new or updated emoji, including animals, food, activities, new accessibility emoji, gender-neutral emoji, and skin tones selection for couple emoji
AirPods support
AirPods Pro support
Home app New In Ios 13 Catalina
HomeKit Secure Video enables you to privately capture, store, and view encrypted video from your security cameras and features people, animal, and vehicle detection
HomeKit enabled routers let you control how your HomeKit accessories communicate over the internet or in your home
Adds support for AirPlay 2-enabled speakers in scenes and automations
Siri
Privacy settings to control whether or not to help improve Siri and Dictation by allowing Apple to store audio of your Siri and Dictation interactions
Option to delete your Siri and Dictation history from Siri Settings
This update also includes the following bug fixes and improvements: Ios Mojave Download
Restores the ability to view file names in the All Photos view in Photos
Restores the ability to filter by favorites, photos, videos, edited, and keywords in Days view in Photos
Fixes an issue where Messages would only send a single notification when the option to repeat alerts was enabled
Resolves an issue that caused Contacts to launch to the previously opened contact instead of the contact list
Adds a two-finger swipe gesture for back navigation in Apple News
Resolves issues that may occur in the Music app when displaying playlists inside folders and newly added songs in the Songs list
Improves reliability of migrating iTunes library databases into the Music, Podcasts, and TV apps
Fixes an issue where downloaded titles were not visible in the Downloads folder in the TV app
Enterprise content
When using the built-in keyboard with a non-U.S. keyboard layout, passwords with certain characters are no longer rejected at the Mac login window
When sign in with Apple ID is not allowed by a configuration profile, the Sign In button in System Preferences is now dimmed macOS Catalina 10.15
