Tuesday, July 16, 2024

macOS 15 Sequoia Public Beta

Apple today released the first beta of an upcoming macOS Sequoia update to its public beta testing group, giving the general public a chance to try out the new operating system's features ahead of its fall launch. The first public beta includes the same content as the third developer beta.

[…]

All of the Apple Intelligence features coming to iOS 18 will also be available in macOS Sequoia , but Apple does not plan to add these until later in the beta testing process. Apple Intelligence includes Writing Tools for editing, proofreading, and summarizing text in apps, and an Image Playground allows for AI images to be created from prompts.

Here are the release notes. Curiously, there was just a second developer beta 3 update. It’s really frustrating that they’re calling this a beta, and presumably not moving the release date back, even though it’s far from feature complete.

Jason Snell:

Every so often, Apple comes out with a new operating system feature that takes me completely by surprise. So it is with iPhone Mirroring, a new app that lets you view and operate your iPhone from the comfort of your Mac.

[…]

The screen appears flawless, operating at high frame rates and even transmitting audio back to the Mac. I was able to click around and play games as if I were running the apps right on my Mac.

That said, I did encounter some issues. Apple says that the screen will automatically rotate into horizontal orientation when an app requires it, which I found to be true, but there seems to be no way to force a rotation when you’d prefer to use an app horizontally that also works vertically. I also couldn’t seem to bring up Control Center, enter “jiggle mode” to move or remove apps or widgets. And when I was in horizontal orientation, I kind of wished I could make the window bigger—even if all it did was blow up the content from the iPhone.

[…]

Depending on how you feel about the new Photos app interface—and it’s definitely got some issues—it might be a blessing that Apple has passed over the Mac. But I don’t love the idea that at last, Apple’s building a proper tool for removing background clutter for images… and apparently the Mac’s not going to get that feature this year?

John Voorhees:

iPhone Mirroring isn’t a feature I’ve found myself using daily, but it can come in handy. For instance, the app that controls my Roomba isn’t available on the Mac. When the vacuum is on another floor of my house, I like to check in on it to see if it’s gotten stuck or needs emptying. In the past, that has meant checking the app on my iPhone from time to time as the Roomba does its thing. With iPhone Mirroring, I can simply open that app in a window on my Mac and flip over to it for a quick status check now and then. It’s still an interruption of what I’m doing, but it’s less so than grabbing my iPhone.

As much as I’ve enjoyed iPhone Mirroring, it has been buggy. In fact, for most of the past week, it didn’t work at all. […] Nothing I tried would fix the problem until, on a whim, I opened the microphone access section of my Mac’s System Settings and toggled microphone access off and then on again for one random app I haven’t used in months, which fixed it.

[…]

Why it took macOS until 2024 to include basic window tiling is beyond me, but it will finally arrive with Sequoia, and it is nicely done. There are too many third-party apps that have filled this gap in macOS to list, but as well as window tiling is implemented in Sequoia, I don’t think the best third-party apps have anything to worry about.

Previously:

Update (2024-07-25): Norbert Doerner:

The ugly “System Settings.app” claims that the Mac is not connected to the Internet, which is utter crap, as it is.
And then it claims my Apple ID is not enrolled in the dev programme, which of course it is.
[…]
Two hours and another FIVE reboots later, macOS 15 was finally able to download something[…] But after ANOTHER two hours, it was still stuck there, nothing moving.

Update (2024-07-30): Ilja A. Iwas:

Seems there’s a change in macOS Sequoia’s KVO mechanism, which causes crashes in GarageSale. Our custom ORM layer uses proxy objects, which queue KVO observations until their actual target object is loaded. The OS doesn’t seem to like that anymore. 😢

Update (2024-07-31): Stephen Hackett:

I filed this as Feedback FB14077154, and I have some good news! In our continued tradition, the Reminders team at Apple have heard our collective cry and have taken action, adding a new control to the Inspector in Reminders on the Mac.

But you still can’t move tasks with drag and drop. The similar looking Passwords app has the same problem. Is this hard to do with SwiftUI?

Previously:

Apple Passwords App in Sequoia and iOS 18

Update (2024-08-08): Juli Clover (9to5Mac):

Apple today released the third beta of an upcoming macOS Sequoia update to its public beta testing group, giving the general public a chance to try out the new operating system's features ahead of its fall launch.

Previously: