Apple's macOS Sequoia: A Tale of Two Halves
Apple's macOS Sequoia is chiefly a tale of two halves, with all of the better improvements coming later. But what's here now is good, sometimes even very good, but it definitely doesn't feel like the full picture.
Every year Apple brings out a new macOS and it tends to follow a similar pattern. At first you notice some visual differences and some small improvements, but in those first hours of use you're not sure it was worth the upgrade for anything other than security reasons.
Shortly after those few hours, though, there is a cumulative effect where all of the little changes and benefits become at least subconsciously apparent. It's subconscious because you only truly notice when you try to go back to last year's macOS.
Then, every time, last year's version seems peculiarly old and even out of date. Sometimes you even wonder how you managed to get any work done with it.
That is the case with macOS Sequoia and after no more than a day with it, you won't want to go back to macOS Sonoma. Unless, that is, your apps don't work with the new OS.
Whether you're tempted to upgrade or not, before you even consider what's worth moving to macOS Sequoia for, check your apps. There will be apps, even major ones, that are not yet updated for macOS Sequoia and in that case it is never worth the upgrade.
There are exceptions to this annual subtle update, of course, with the major one being the move to macOS Big Sur in 2020. That was a gigantic change and while you still had to check your apps, it was an obvious upgrade.
It was an obvious upgrade that, like every release before or since up to now, was followed by a whole series of point updates, taking it from macOS 11 to 11.1 and so on. Every macOS goes through these and usually you don't even need to know what the differences are, what the improvements are.
This year, though, you already know. This year, the macOS point updates are going to bring Apple Intelligence, and do so in stages.
Apple has not fully committed to the stages yet, and deadlines for them all may slip. But at present, it's believed that the significant updates will be in October 2024 and early 2025.
- iOS 18.1 in October 2024
- Writing Tools
- Clean Up tool in Photos
- Audio recording and transcription in Notes and Phone
- Summarized notifications
- Smart Reply in Mail
- Priority Messages in Mail
It's possible that Image Playground — Apple's generative AI image creator — may be included in the October release. But it hasn't been in the beta releases for iOS 18.1, so it's likely that it will come later.
The October release is also specifically for US English. Further stages, starting in December 2024, will see the above coming to English-speaking countries including Australia, Canada, and the UK.
macOS Sequoia Review — Not Finished Yet
By the time next year's macOS is released, Apple Intelligence will presumably be fully here and the difference between macOS Sequoia and macOS Sonoma may even appear huge in retrospect. But until then, it's confusing to know what Apple Intelligence features are coming when, so it's confusing to know what you have or haven't got yet.
The confusion isn't helped by how Apple Intelligence will not be some specific feature that you turn on, or that you launch like an app. Instead, Apple Intelligence will seep into everything.
Which for the future will surely be good, but for right now with the first release of macOS Sequoia, it makes for a rather hollow update.
Apple has been quite clear about when it plans to roll out some parts of Apple Intelligence, but the waters are also sometimes muddied. That's most apparent on the iPhone where Siri has yet to receive its promised Apple Intelligence major update, but it does have the revamped "glowtime" animation that makes it look new.
The Mac has no such visual changes. There is nothing in macOS Sequoia that reveals how there is much more to come.
So this is the first macOS review where there really has to be a sequel. If a review is to encompass what is really new and improved, if it's to be a record of how the Mac is progressing, then it's going to have to be updated toward the end of macOS Sequoia's life.
That previous version — which is still available when you click on the green traffic light icon at the top left of any window — is a pain. It fills the screen, to the extent that it even hides the menubar, and that's great for concentration, but ridiculously fiddly for when you want to change apps.
Or even to just open a new document, since all of the menu controls are hidden.
macOS Sequoia Review — Window Tiling
One of the few visual changes to the Mac is one that you might not even seen — because it's visual only when you've turned it on in Settings. It's called Window Tiling and the short version is that Apple has been out copying.
It's definitely been inspired by Windows, which has had a similar tiling feature for perhaps decades. In Apple's implementation, as you drag a window to the top or sides of the screen, it can then snap to fill precisely half of your display.
The window can be automatically expanded to fill the left or right half of the screen, it can be expanded to fill the top or the bottom. And it can go full screen without actually going into what Apple previously called full screen. Those options are also available when you just drag an image to the side of the display. Once your cursor reaches the side of the screen, macOS Sequoia shows a pale white window that represents just where your actual window will move to if you let go.
If Windows has had this forever, though, so has the Mac — through third-party apps. This is either a case of Apple Sherlocking a whole fleet of apps, or it's a case of Apple spotlighting this class of functionality.
There will be users who have never looked to find apps like Moom. There will be users who have never thought about where windows and documents go, they just know that they go where the user puts them.
Once a user has seen tiling, though, and knows it's possible, perhaps third-party alternatives will benefit. There's no question that Apple's implementation in macOS Sequoia is good enough that most people will be satisfied with it.
But the odds are that those people are ones who would never have conceived that there could be a better way of handling multiple windows. The odds are that these are people who would not search for a third-party app because there's no reason for them to think of it.
There is plenty of frustration over window management, though. Users who have found third-party apps for this are unlikely to switch back.
And Apple really doesn't help itself here. Window Tiling genuinely helps with managing a lot of documents on screen at once, but on past record, Apple is likely to forget this feature even exists.
Arguably it's forgotten Stage Manager, at least on the Mac, which was the previous attempt to solve window management problems. It's definitely forgotten Spaces, which was the solution before.
But wherever it was copied from and however much third-party alternatives will offer more features, Window Tiling is a new option in macOS Sequoia. It's also fully and entirely a Mac feature — unlike most of the rest of the update.
Very nicely, if you move the window and it snaps to, say, full screen, you can drag it away again and it will revert to its previous size. That's especially useful when you're working with, say, Safari and are breaking out tabs into separate windows.
The action of clicking and dragging a tab out to a new window takes you perilously close to the point where the Mac assumes you want to tile the windows. So being able to pull it back with a click and a grumble is good.
macOS Sequoia Review — Compatibility
The official Apple list of what Macs will run the new macOS Sequoia is:
- iMac 2019 and later
- iMac Pro 2017 and later
- Mac Studio 2022 and later
- Mac mini 2018 and later
- Mac Pro 2019 and later
- MacBook Air 2020 and later
- MacBook Pro 2018 and later
However, it's unclear yet just how well some of these will run it. There are Intel Macs in that list and it is certain that they will not support anything that requires Apple Intelligence.
So it could be that some of these Macs will just support what we have now, in this initial release of macOS Sequoia. But it may also be that elements such as the window tiling won't be supported.
It seems unlikely that the iPhone Mirroring feature will be supported on every one of these Macs, either.
If that seems like Apple pushing users to upgrade, then perhaps it is. But in this case, there are technical reasons why the Intel Macs can't support some of this, even down to them simply not being fast enough.
Maybe you could wait until Apple Intelligence is here before you upgrade to macOS Sequoia. But if you are still on an Intel Mac, the move to Apple Silicon will shock you with how much better and faster it is.
By this time next year, we may also be seeing macOS Sequoia as an extremely significant upgrade. But for now, it's like it's a little hollow, yet those improvements we can see are worth updating for.
