macOS Catalina Previewed

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Well, it’s not the Catalina Wine Mixer. It’s macOS Catalina! What does Catalina bring to the Mac? A number of the same upgrades we saw to iOS when it comes to Photos and Reminders. Also, Apple introduced new apps for music, podcasts, and video. If you’re thinking those are the features of iTunes, you’re right! iTunes is gone! Good riddance!

There are also new features that make your iPad a vital tool for your Mac, Screen Time, and new security features. macOS is getting features from iOS, and apps from iOS as well. It’s starting to come into its own.

Bye, iTunes! Hello Music, TV, Podcasts, and Finder!

iTunes was once a great thing. It allowed you to rip your CDs, organize your music, and make playlists. But then it started handling your videos. Your ringtones. TV shows. Movies. Apps. Subscriptions. Syncing of devices. Backup of devices. Management of devices. The once great software became huge, bloated, sluggish, and a jumbled mess of a user interface. Plus, it was buggy as all hell. Sometimes I’d accidentally press F5 on my Mac and iTunes would start opening. This would trigger me trying to force close it before it opened. If it did, I’d get popups asking for my iTunes password. Even with the correct password, it would ask 3-5 times.

iTunes was a nightmare.

But macOS Catalina is here to wake us up from that nightmare. It has split out the primary features of iTunes into different apps. There’s one for music, that much is obvious. There’s the Apple TV app, which handles TV shows and videos. Apple added a dedicated podcast app for following your podcasts (if you’re not using a superior third party solution like Overcast on your iOS device yet).

But what about syncing and backup? That sounds like file management to me. Do you know what handles file management on a Mac? That’s right! Finder! Now when you plug in an iOS device to manage or sync it, you’ll see it appear in the sidebar in Finder.

iTunes died a mess. But what we got out of it is exactly what users have wanted for years now.

iOS Apps on macOS

iOS apps are making their way to macOS! Last year, Apple showed off something they were working on, a project codenamed “Marzipan.” This was a project to enable iOS apps on macOS. It was a compile layer, built into Xcode, that would enable iOS apps to compile for macOS. Developers would still have to configure what parts of the app would be separate windows. They’d have to write in a few adapters. But overall, it was a relatively small project to bring an iOS app to the Mac.

Apple gave a few companies access to the technology, and they got to work. By the time Catalina releases this fall, we’ll see a number of apps, from Gameloft’s Asphalt 9: Legends to Atlassian’s Jira Cloud app, which removes the pain of using the Jira website. In a room with developers, the idea of not having to use the Jira website on our computers sent a small cheer out. You’ll also find the DC Universe app, TripIt, and Fender Play. And those are just the pre-launch partners Apple worked with. Right now, all iOS developers have access to this tool. Many will get to work bringing their apps to macOS.When Catalina releases this fall, it may come with a ton of your favorite iOS apps and games.

Sidecar: Your iPad and Mac Working Together

One of the biggest disappointments about macOS is that it doesn’t work with the Apple Pencil. Apple should make a Surface Studio-like iMac, and consider other touch features for portable Macs as well. However, Catalina brings a welcome change that is the middle ground we need. With macOS Catalina and iOS 13, you’ll be able to use your iPad as a secondary screen for your Mac. In the case of the iPad Pro (all models), this means you’ll be able to use your iPad as a graphics tablet for your Mac.

Affinity Photo on the iPad is a usability nightmare. So many features are hidden under menus or esoteric icons. However, Affinity Photo on the Mac is wonderful. It recently received an update, which has made it even better. But I like editing photos and designing graphics with the precision of a pencil. Thanks to Catalina and Sidecar, I’ll be able to use my favorite Mac apps on my iPad.

Sidecar won’t just be useful for artists. The feature will also help anyone who frequently travels. I usually work with at least two monitors. This allows me to reference materials on one display, while focusing on content on the other. When I’m writing, this might mean keeping sources open on one side, and the window I’m writing in on the other side. When working, I might have one screen dedicated to my IDE, while the other is used for Terminal, Safari, Slack, and other apps I need to keep running at work. With Sidecar, I can work like this on the go, using both my Mac’s screen and the iPad. Packing a second screen can be as easy as sliding your iPad into your carry on!

Mark up PDFs, edit 3D models, and more! Sidecar enabled macOS apps will bring the full power of your iPad to macOS.

App Updates

With each OS update, Apple also updates the applications that are bundled with macOS. For Catalina, that includes Photos, Notes, Reminders, Safari, Mail, and small updates to other apps as well. Photos will receive the same updates as the iOS version of Photos. Namely, the new Photos tab that has day, month, and year curation. It’ll also auto-play live photos and videos, highlight photos it believes are important to you, and allow you to create and edit memory movies of your photos.

Notes has a new gallery view, allowing you to display your notes as thumbnails. This is good for people who frequently sketch in their notes. It also features more powerful search and object detection, so you can search by items, such as photos, in the notes. Checklists are better now, and you can re-use them as well. Perfect for your grocery list!

Reminders, like the iOS version, is completely new. Siri can help you make reminders using plain language, and you can easily group reminders together. There are even smart lists, which help organize your reminders so you can always get work done.

Screen Time

Screen Time is a feature that anyone looking to regulate their electronics time will appreciate. Mostly, that will be parents. However, you might want to keep your own electronics use to a minimum. Perhaps you want to spend less time browsing tech news blogs, making me very sad. Or perhaps you just don’t want to spend so much time on Facebook. Screen Time can help you limit your usage of any app, as well as those of your children.

Greater Privacy and Security

File Access

If you’re an iOS user, you’ve become accustomed to permissions. You give an app permission to view your contacts, photos, or your location. macOS Catalina will have this feature as well. However, it’ll go beyond some of your iOS permissions. This makes sense. After all, you have more permissions on your Mac. So, now to gain access to your file systems, an app will have to ask for permissions to do so.

Dedicated System Volume

Catalina will install itself into a read-only system volume. This means applications will not be able to rewrite anything with your operating system. It’ll protect you from malware that could force your OS to give away information you wouldn’t expect.

Unlock with Apple Watch

You’ve been able to unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch for some time now. What’s changed? Now you’ll be able to authenticate anything, just by wearing your Apple Watch. You’ll be able to use it for typing in your Mac password, viewing passwords in Safari, approving app installations, unlocking settings, and more.

Find My and Activation Lock

Apple has combined the Find my Mac and Find my Friends apps into one app. Also, all Macs with the T2 chip (all new Macs, including any Mac with Touch ID) will be able to use Activation Lock. This will prevent anyone from using your Mac if it’s been lost or stolen, even if the drive is completely wiped.

Find My also uses some clever tools to keep your Mac on the grid at all times. Even if your computer is asleep in a thief’s laptop bag, it’ll use Bluetooth to communicate with the devices around it. Without explaining how this stays secure (encrypted traffic and shared rotating public keys), your lost Apple device can piggyback off of other network traffic to beam out its location to your other devices. A thief’s own phone could give them away! The purpose of this is to make Apple devices something thieves won’t want to even attempt to steal. It sounds like Apple’s implementation will do just that.

DriverKit

Previously, drivers for other hardware would have to be installed using kernel extensions. This opened your system up to a vulnerability. A driver could make your system an easy target for hacking. macOS Catalina closes this potential security hole. With it, drivers will have to access your kernel through Apple’s DriverKit, making drivers as secure as any other application on your machine.

Voice Control

macOS and iOS have always been great tools for people with disabilities. Whether that was limited motor control, vision impairments, or hearing impairments, the OS is able to adapt for the user. But Voice Control brings that to a new level. On macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, users with limited mobility will be able to control their devices entirely with their voice. Every part of the user interface will have markers, allowing them to carefully control their devices. They’ll even be able to select, zoom, and drag items. Voice Control builds expensive voice control software right into the core operating system.

And More!

macOS Catalina has even more surprises than I listed here. You can find more features on Apple’s full feature page, as well as in their developer documentation. Apple will release macOS Catalina this fall as a free download.