Apple unveiled macOS 13 during its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote on Monday, dubbing the new release “Ventura.”
“macOS Ventura includes powerful features and new innovations that help make the Mac experience even better. New tools like Stage Manager make focusing on tasks and moving between apps and windows easier and faster than ever, and Continuity Camera brings new videoconferencing features to any Mac, including Desk View, Studio Light, and more,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.
“With helpful new features in Messages, state-of-the-art search technologies in Mail, and an updated design for Spotlight, Ventura has so much to offer and enriches many of the ways customers use their Macs.”
Stage Manager facilitates unprecedented multitasking on the Mac, organizing open apps and windows so users can have what they’re working on front and center, and all of the other windows neatly tucked away on the left-hand side.
Mac users can group together windows they’re working on concurrently, and Stage Manager will remember their layout and positioning no matter how many times you send them away to the background and recall them. macOS Ventura will also let users get to their desktop with a single click.
Stage Manager will be coming to iPads powered by Apple’s M1 chip as well.
Spotlight gets a new design with macOS 13, making navigation easier and adding new features. The new Spotlight brings a more consistent experience across Apple devices, and Quick Look for quickly previewing files.
Users will now be able to take actions like starting a timer or running a shortcut directly from Spotlight. In addition, users can search for images in their photo library, across the system, and on the web and even sift through their photos by location, people, scenes, or objects.
The new Continuity Camera gives users the ability to use their iPhone as a webcam, unlocking features like Center Stage, Portrait mode, and the new Studio Light — an effect that beautifully illuminates a user’s face while dimming the background.
With macOS Ventura, your Mac will be able to automatically recognize and use the camera on your iPhone when it is nearby. What’s more, your iPhone can even connect to your Mac wirelessly.
With Handoff now coming to FaceTime, users will also be able to seamlessly transfer FaceTime calls between Macs and other nearby Apple devices.
macOS Ventura focuses on improving collaboration and consistency across Macs. Safari makes it possible for users to browse together with shared Tab Groups — a feature that lets friends, family, and colleagues share their favourite sites in Safari and see what tabs others are looking at in real-time. Safari also gets improved security with encrypted passkeys.
Messages on macOS Ventura echoes the new features Apple announced alongside iOS 16, which include the ability to edit or retract a recently sent message, mark a message as unread, or even recover accidentally deleted messages.
The Messages app will bring improved file sharing features and the ability to collaborate on files with other participants in a thread. Users will also be able to join SharePlay sessions from their Mac right in Messages.
Apple also revealed updates for gaming on Mac. Metal 3, the latest iteration of the graphics engine for games on Apple’s platforms, brings new features to unlock the full potential of Apple silicon.
In addition, No Man’s Sky from Hello Games will make its way to both Mac and iPad later this year.
macOS 13 will also bring several other new features to the Mac, including:
- Live Text uses on-device intelligence to recognize text in images across the system, and now adds support for paused video frames, as well as Japanese and Korean text. Users can also now lift the subject away from an image and drop it into another app. And Visual Look Up expands its recognition capabilities to now include animals, birds, insects, statues, and even more landmarks.
- The Weather and Clock apps, with all the features users know and love from iPhone, have been optimized for Mac.
- New accessibility tools include Live Captions for all audio content, Type to Speak on calls, Text Checker to support proofreading for VoiceOver users, and more.7
- System Settings is the new name for System Preferences, and comes with a refreshed and streamlined design that is easier to navigate and instantly familiar to iPhone and iPad users.
- macOS security gets even stronger with new tools that make the Mac more resistant to attack, including Rapid Security Response that works in between normal updates to easily keep security up to date without a reboot.
The developer beta for macOS Ventura becomes available today, with a public beta coming next month. macOS 13 will start rolling out to all supported Macs “this fall,” said Apple.
