macOS Sonoma includes a number of new features and improvements, mainly focused on productivity and creativity:[8][9][10][11][12]
Widgets have been revamped. They are no longer constrained to theNotification Center—instead they can be placed anywhere on the desktop, and the widget picker has been redesigned to resemble theiOS andiPadOS versions of it.
The lock screen has been redesigned to include a date and time similar to iOS and iPadOS. The power buttons have become a context menu.
Browsing profiles enable separate sets ofbookmarks,extensions, andcookies, which can be used to separate, for example, a personal setup from a work one.
Password sharing lets multiple people have access to the same collection of website passwords, and update them as needed, with changes syncing across all enrolled devices.
Safari web apps let the user add any website to theDock and open it in a simplified Safari interface, in a way that is similar to both web apps introduced in iPhone OS 1.1.3 and Google Chrome. This feature is slightly different fromprogressive web apps since it does not require additional work from website developers.
Game mode optimizes gaming performance by prioritizing gaming tasks and allocating moreGPU andCPU capacity to the game. It provides smoother frame rates for game play and reduced latency forBluetooth peripherals, such as wireless game controllers andAirPods.
New slow-motionscreensavers of different locations worldwide. When logged in, they gradually slow down and become the desktop wallpaper.
Smoother animations for several areas such as the notification panel, the lock screen, and the show desktop gesture. The notifications now slide in with an ease-out motion, the lock screen now zooms in and out when unlocking and locking, the show desktop gesture has a new spring back animation.
Users can react with their hands and animations will pop up based on thehand gesture.
AV1 hardware decoding has been introduced on devices with AV1 hardware decoding support, such as Macs with SoCs from theApple M3 family.[13][14]
Print Center, a utility application returning fromMac OS X Tiger, was reintroduced for managing print jobs, viewing different printer queues, and pausing or deleting print jobs.
The text cursor now looks more like its iOS counterpart. It is bolder, has a smooth blinking motion, and its color follows the current app's accent color. It also briefly displays an indicator that shows the current input language when the user switches keyboard languages. This indicator can also signal helpful input details like when Caps Lock is on.
Videos now encode faster inFinal Cut Pro, Compressor, and third-party video applications on Mac computers using M1 Ultra or M2 Ultra.
The startup screen is now slightly different, with the loading bar at the bottom being lowered to the bottom of the screen instead of immediately under the Apple logo.
Alongside macOS Sonoma, Apple announced developer tools for portingWindows games to macOS. The Game Porting Toolkit (GPTK), derived fromWine andCrossover and released in beta, translates Windowsapplication programming interface (API) calls to equivalent macOS APIs, allowing developers to run unmodified versions of theirx86 WindowsDirectX games on macOS. Mac users have been able to use the Game Porting Toolkit to run a number ofDirectX 12 games; tech news outlets have compared the tool toValve Corporation'sProtoncompatibility layer forLinux. Apple also released a Metal Shader Converter that converts shaders to Apple'sMetal graphicsAPI.[15][16]
A DigitalFoundry review of the first beta of Game Porting Toolkit found it "impressive", with few graphical glitches and full support for console controllers instead of the keyboard, though they found that frame rates were around half of what they would be on Windows, and that many games were not supported.[17] During the Sonoma beta, updates to the Game Porting Toolkit brought support for32-bit games and around 20% better performance.[18]
Writing for AppleInsider and iMore, reporter Peter Cohen said that Game Mode and the Game Porting Toolkit are improvements but do not indicate the kind of "sea change" in Apple's priorities and culture that are needed to build a true Mac gaming ecosystem. Cohen says that the problem with Mac gaming is not in the ability to port games, but in a lack of a "business case" for game publishers to do so, due to the Mac's lowmarket share, the cost of supporting a port, and uncertain demand for Mac games when many Mac users also own consoles or gaming PCs.[19][20]YouTuber Snazzy Labs issued similar criticisms,[21] which journalist John Siracusa agreed with.[22]
Support for legacyMail plug-ins has been removed.[23]
System API support for convertingPostScript andEncapsulated PostScript files to PDF format has been removed, following previous changes in macOS Ventura that removed support for viewing and converting PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript files withinPreview.[24]
macOS Sonoma supports Macs withApple silicon and Intel'sXeon-W and 8th-generationCoffee Lake/Amber Lake chips or later,[25] and drops support for various models released in 2017, officially marking the end of support for Macs without Retina display and the 12-inch MacBook. The 2019 iMac is the only Sonoma-supportedIntel Mac that lacks aT2 chip.
Mac models that support macOS Sonoma are as follows.[26]
By using patch tools such asOpenCore Legacy Patcher, macOS Sonoma can be unofficially installed on earlier models that are officially unsupported. Such models date back to the 2008 MacBook Pro and 2007 iMac.[27]
According to anArs Technica analysis, 2016 and 2017 Macs received on average six years of updates, lower than the seven to eight years of updates received by Intel Macs released from 2009 to 2015.[28][26]
The first developer beta of macOS Sonoma was released on Monday, June 5, 2023.[29] The Sonoma developer beta was the first to be available to anyone with a free Apple Developer account, without needing a developer subscription.[30][31] The full release was released on September 26, 2023.
