Apple, it seems, doesn’t have a lot of ideas for the Mac. Sure, they changed the operating system’s name from OS X to MacOS, and Siri is setting up shop on the menubar. But Mac users hoping for big revelations at WWDC were likely disappointed. Apple spent more time talking about stickers for iMessages than the Mac.
Hands on: iOS integration and a sleepy Siri aren’t enough to perk up MacOS
Here are a few things we think Apple should bring to the Mac. None of it would be magical or revolutionary; it’s more like low-hanging fruit. But we think Mac users would be happy to see any of these things happen.
One of the nice things about MacOS is the wide variety of clean applications that serve a single defined function. Calander, Notes, Reminders, and other applications all do one function very well, without getting in the user’s way.
And then there’s iTunes. In ancient times (2003) iTunes was a music player and little else. But these days iTunes is a bloated mess of an application, because it does way too many things.
This is hardly an original complaint. It’s a decade old at this point. But it’s still amazing how many things iTunes does, and how often Apple adds new features. As of now, iTunes.app is all this and more.
We could go on. If you were building MacOS from scratch, right now, there is no way you would bundle this particular combination of features inside a single application.
Users have wanted a leaner, faster iTunes for a long time, and the only way that happens is if some of these things get dedicated applications. It’s low hanging fruit, so far as MacOS improvements go, and would make iTunes more like other Mac applications. That is to say, a program that does one thing very well.
There was a time when the Dock felt revolutionary, but it’s felt like a relic for a long time now. Part of this is just the passage of time, but Windows has also come a long way when it comes to application management. For one thing, on Windows systems, hovering your mouse over an icon shows you a thumbnail of every window open in that applications.
MacOS does nothing like this. Adding features like this to the dock wouldn’t be complicated, but could make life better for Apple users.
Speaking of features Windows already has, let’s talk window management. On Windows systems, dragging an application to the left or the right of the screen automatically resizes it to take up half the screen. With Windows 10, you can drag a window to a corner, splitting the screen into quarters. On a Mac, doing this does nothing.
We know that Apple could easily add this feature, because the BetterTouchTool can add them to MacOS right now. But it’s absurd that Mac users need a third party program to get features Windows offered a half decade ago.
Yes, Apple offers a split screen view for two apps in fullscreen mode. Some users might prefer that. But why not offer both?
On Windows, if you build up a surplus of system tray icons, the operating system hides anything you don’t use regularly. On a Mac, icons just keep adding up on the menubar. Applications like Dropbox don’t offer any way to hide themselves, and Apple themselves also keep adding icons that can’t be removed. Want to hide Spotlight, or the Notification Center icon? You can’t.
That should change. Apple should build in some kind of way to hide icons that the user isn’t currently using. Third party software is pointing the way here. Bartender is a popular $15 application that lets users hide menubar icons. Great as this software is, it’s crazy that users have to pay for a feature that by all rights should be part of MacOS.
AFP, or Apple File Protocol, was long the default protocol for sharing files between Mac computers on the same network. That’s no longer the case, and hasn’t been for a few years now. Since 10.9 Mavericks, in 2013, SMB2 is the default tool for file sharing on all Macs. This means that Mac files sharing is, by default, compatible with Windows and Linux computers.
Despite SMB2 now being the official default way for Macs to share files for three years, Apple’s default back-up solution won’t work with it. For network shares Time Machine is only compatible with AFP, the protocol Apple is slowly backing away from.
It’s possible this is on purpose. If users can’t use Windows machines or Linux servers to back up their Macs, they’re more likely to buy the overpriced and under-powered Time Capsule. But if SMB2 is the preferred way to share files on a Mac, shouldn’t Time Machines work with that standard?
If you plug a third-party mouse into your Mac, you can tap the scroll wheel to perform a middle click. This amazingly useful gesture does things like open links in a new background tab, or close the current tab.
Anyone used to this would expect to be able to do these same thing on a Mac touchpad – and is going to be disappointed, unless they install a third party program like MiddleClick. Add a middle click gesture, Apple! People will like it.
We’ve talked all about how Siri will work on MacOS Sierra, but there’s one feature that’s missing: the ability to talk with Siri using only text. Siri offers all sorts of great features, but you can’t really use them in a public place without looking like a crazy person who talks to his computer. Letting users talk to Siri with keystrokes could be useful in many situations.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.