MacOS Sequoia Announced with iPhone Mirroring, AI, Passwords App, & More
Apple has announced MacOS Sequoia, the next major version of the Mac operating system. Versioned as macOS Sequoia 15, the future software update includes some intriguing new features, including iPhone Mirroring, a host of new AI features called Apple Intelligence, the inclusion of a Passwords app, new features to tile windows easier, new summary and highlights features in Safari, and more.
MacOS Sequoia was announced at WWDC 2024 alongside iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, and watchOS 11.
iPhone Mirroring on the Mac
MacOS Sequoia includes an all new iPhone Mirroring feature as part of the Continuity feature set. With iPhone Mirroring, you can wirelessly mirror your iPhone right on your Mac display and interact with it using your Mac cursor and keyboard.
This provides full access and usage of the iPhone from the Mac, meaning you can launch and use apps on iPhone from the Mac.
You can even get iPhone notifications directly on the Mac through Notification Center with this feature.
If you’ve ever used the QuickTime feature to record an iPhone screen on your Mac, this feature is kind of visually similar to that, except that you can interact with the iPhone using the Mac cursor/mouse/trackpad, and keyboard.
Apple Intelligence / AI
Apple has introduced a bunch of AI features into macOS Sequoia, which they call Apple Intelligence. A tentpole feature of Apple Intelligence are new writing tools, which offer capabilities that allow you to rewrite text, summarize, proofread, and more, from basically anywhere on the Mac, including in major apps like Safari, Notes, Pages, Mail, and anywhere else you’d enter text.
You can also summarize articles so you can get a gist of them without having to actually read the article, this is a dream tool for every opinionated internet commenter, pundit, and social media user who never reads the articles they comment on anyway.
These features should already be familiar to users who have spent time with ChatGPT and related LLM tools, and they let you do things like change the tone of an email to friendly, or make a letter sound more professional.
Additionally, there are new image generation capabilities thanks to a feature called Image Playground, which is kind of like DALL-E image generators available through ChatGPT, Bing, Microsoft Edge, and Google’s Gemini. You can type a description of an image or graphic and Image Playground will generate it.
Siri Gets ChatGPT
Siri is now integrated with ChatGPT (and ChatGPT is available through the Apple Intelligence tools), allowing for Siri to finally be able to answer basic questions without sending you to web searches. Siri with ChatGPT will instead generate a response to a query or question.
If you’re already familiar with ChatGPT and with Siri, then you likely know exactly what to expect from this change.
Window Tiling Gets Easier
MacOS Sequoia has introduced an even easier way to tile windows on the Mac.
Now, windows will automatically snap into position on the screen, detecting when you’re attempting to make a window grid, and making it easier than ever.
Passwords App
Passwords is a new app from Apple that breaks the Keychain and iCloud Keychain feature out of the Passwords preference panel and into an individual app, making it much easier to manage and access your saved login credentials, accounts, and passwords.
Passwords comes to MacOS Sequoia, but is also available for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and iCloud for Windows.
More Sequoia Features
MacOS Sequoia also includes enhancements to gaming and Game Mode on Mac, a Presenter Preview feature for seeing whats on your screen before you start screen sharing, new inclusions to Messages app like the ability to tapback any Emoji to a message and new messaging effects, Apple Maps gains a bunch of curated hikes in national parks to help send a bunch of non-outdoorsy people into the wilderness, the Photos app can now automatically organize photo albums into themes, the Notes app gains transcription features for audio notes and access to the AI Apple Intelligence features, and much more.
When will MacOS Sequoia be available? When can I download MacOS Sequoia?
MacOS Sequoia is available as a developer beta now for registered developers to download.
Public beta versions of MacOS Seqouia will be available in July, this is when macOS Sequoia will be available to download by anyone participating in the beta programs.
The final version of MacOS Sequoia will be released this fall, according to Apple. This is the final release version that will be available to all users.
How do you Pronounce MacOS Sequoia?
MacOS Sequoia is the new name for the next version of MacOS, and while many Californians and Americans may know how to pronounce Sequoia, it’s also a peculiar looking word that some users may need help pronouncing if they’re unfamiliar with the word, the national park, or the tree species.
Sequoia is pronounced suh-koi-uh.
MacOS Sequoia is named after the largest tree species in the world that reside in California. There’s also a popular Toyota SUV named the Sequoia, but Apple is not naming their Mac operating system after that, they’re naming it after the natural features and Sequoia region of California, as is the common theme of modern MacOS versions.
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Are you excited about these new features in MacOS Sequoia? What do you think? Share your opinions in the comments.
Never have used Siri on any of my Apple devices. I guess Apple is balancing privacy with AI by trying to use less cloud access. I have not liked macOS for some time, Apple just basically trying to still convince Mac users that using a iPad Pro is better. Password manager improvements look nice but hardly any revolutionary advancement. In many ways Apple just phoning in MacOS upgrades anymore. If I wasn’t so tied to the Apple ecosystem, I would just abandon all Apple products and switch to Linux and Android.
The only important thing really is a reliable and solid OS. Mac OS 14 on my M1 and 2014 Mac mini are very good on 14.3.1. Why upgrade, especially if its for stupid rubbish for kids. I could not switch to Android, I have to use that for clients sometimes and it is awful, not to mention the fact is listens into everything you do. With the Apple devices I have PIHOLE for blocking all the apple stuff. Linux is good for things like OpenVPN and PIHOLE, but as a daily driver no thanks. And Windows lol, now and again i have to use that and its always a reminder of how bad it is
Its all stupid, childish, dumb! No “Cloud”, so Siri, none of this completely over hyped “AI” and just turn the System Prefs back to the same as OS 12 and before is about the only positive thing about all this
You said “Sequoia is pronounced suh-koi-uh.”
Dictionary.com says: “[ si-kwoi-uh ]”, which is the way I pronounced it before I looked it up.
AND this is were I am finished.
I turned off Siri, iCloud storage and other unstable quirks the January simply because they did not work which I’m relieved I did. I control what get saved were and when.
and that system is 100% accurate.
Sonoma and Ventura were not designed for computers but more iPad oriented as one need terminal to perform tasks we executed easily in Monterey. Elon Musk even stated this is a mistake today.
I could be overacting over the A-I title Sequoia and satellites reading my texts, but being a kid in the 1970’s this AI is not a good road to take with many risks of a logic board controlling our daily tasks.
Hopefully I can still use Monterey on my M1 MacBook Air and Mac mini and no upgrades for the iPad and i might ditch the iPhone as well since i never use that anymore, and I am not in the medical profession.
I’m worried over taking control over how we use OUR equipment since Mavericks and can’t risk their incompetence design software.
Be careful everyone be very carefulll!
You are not over reacting, you are using your brain which sadly in this world today not many people do
Seriously wondering, why you are not concerned with Google & Android spying on you when they have a terrible track record, ESPECIALLY with security leaks & now AI?
And… if you refuse to use Apple and Android/Google, then what kind of phone will you use?
good ?…
recently, I went from 2005 to mid 2022 with out a celllphone and returned several that were given to me in the un-opened box.
those years I wrote a lot of material, lived in 3 states USA and was at peace.
I never bring my phone (iPhone 12 mini) out anymore, mostly an older iPod touch of some iPods when I go cycling about.
and
Thank you Lee!
Hmm.
Welp, I do need my iPhone SE for various things. I don’t use Siri at all on my laptop or iPad or really, iPhone *except* when I’m driving & using CarPlay. In this instance it’s very useful.
I’ve played around with AI image-making & while sort of fun at first, and surprising, it can be frustrating & iterations seemed to get creepier & creepier.
So thanks, but I’m turning off AI where ever I can.
There is no alternative that is private, how convenient.
Google/Android is worse than Apple, but how different are they really? Now they both connect to AI, they upload to the cloud, they are always being hacked by corporations and states and governments and nefarious actors, no tech is truly private or secure and has not been for a long time. A determined entity has your data already.
Uploading stuff to “the cloud”, which is a server farm somewhere else, lets anyone with access to those server farms spy on anything uploaded.
AI/ChatGPT/etc all use “the cloud”, so you can surmise what that means too.
I wouldn’t sweat it too much. The whole of western ‘civilisation’ is going down the tubes already. Our great-great grandchildren will be too busy figuring out how to trap rats to be bothered with AI, which won’t exist any more by then anyway.
What is not mentioned that I have seen on other sites is that many of the features in Sequoia may only be available to Macs with Apple Silicon processors, leaving machines such as the expensive desktop machines with Intel processors, such as the MacPro 7.1 machines ($5000 base price) in the dust when it comes to features. While some of the new features are nice, those I have seen mentioned seem not to be tremendously innovative or critical. For instance, Apple has not developed its own AI but purchased it from another company. That likely would have never happened under the visionary leadership of Steve Jobs. Frankly this decision not to include any Intel machines with many of the advanced features of Sequoia strikes me as just another marketing attempt to coerce Apple users to purchase overpriced new machines.
Fair points! My read is this. The AI features aka Apple Intelligence are just front-ends to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT is compatible with literally any device that can use the web. Why the strict system requirements then? I assume Apple making it Apple Silicon only is Apple being friendly to Apple Shareholders, trying to force people to upgrade hardware that is otherwise perfectly performant. That’s bad for the consumer, but good for shareholders.
I find it depressing that Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world and they have who knows how many tens of thousands of employees doing who knows what, but they obviously can’t do AI on their own. Siri has been a failure since the beginning, and they still don’t know how to fix it so they just plugged it into ChatGPT? What the heck is going on Apple, what do they spend all their resources on? New Emojis and ESG?
The good news is Apple’s gazillions on R&D spending is coming up with great innovations elsewhere for the consumer, like removing a charger from the iPhone box. And coincidentally that R&D breakthrough is also good for shareholders and bad for the consumer, now you get to pay another $40 to charge your iPhone, because that’s somehow good for the environment on the ESG scorecard!
With all of Apple’s resources, how could they not build their own version of an LLM like ChatGPT? What does that tell you about the long term health of Apple as a company? Yikes!
If the system requirements listed, Sequoia should still run on Intel processors (as of now, The mac pro’s from 2019 are Supported and they all use Intel. I think this will be the last version though.
Very curious to see Passwords in action. Like many others, we’ve become frustrated with 1Password, not only for its new subscription-only pricing model. So if there are comparable features and an import-export migration path, there will be a lot of macOS users making the switch, hard!
Welp, primarily features I plan to turn off as soon as they hit, assuming I can. :-|
The national park hiking trails in Maps and audio note transcription in Notes sound exciting, though. :-)