macOS Mojave | What's new?

What's up guys, Stephen Culls of Mack here

Firstly, apologies for the lack of videos. I've not been too well over the past two weeks

but I am back bringing you a hands-on look at everything that's new in MacOS Mojave

So let's not waste any more time and get straight into it. Let's kick things off with the feature most people will be excited about

which of course is Dark Mode. While we have had the option to turn the menu bar and the dock down to a nice dark hue

now in Mac OS Mojave, Dark Mode turns the lights out on almost everything

While it does look cool, it actually does come in handy. Apple pictures it as a dramatic new look that helps you focus on your world, making it a distraction-free environment

While that is true, I don't find that the toolbars and menus stop me from what I was doing previously

Personally, I find it more useful as just being able to bring the overall brightness of the screen down when I'm working late into the night

Being able to have my videos at full brightness and have everything else nice and dark is a relief on the eyes

Once you've enabled dark mode under the general tab and system preferences, all of the built-in apps adjust to the dark

Dark theme. Looking at Finder, Safari or iTunes in Dark mode, with white text on a black background, can

take a minute or two to adjust to. But it's really nice to have a visual change

There's currently no third-party apps that I know of that support the slick dark theme just yet, but developers can add this in

Whilst we're talking about the toolbars and dock, you may be wondering why these three icons are separated at the bottom

Well, just like in iOS 11 on the iPad, it shows the three most recently used apps that aren't

kept in your dock. While a lot of people will find this handy, if you're particular about what apps are visible

you're able to turn this off within the system preferences. Going hand in hand with Dark Mode, Mojave also adds a time-shifting desktop wallpaper that

acts almost like a time-lapse, changing to your current time of day

It's a really interesting feature that makes the Mac feel more dynamic and can help you wind down with the day

By the way, if you're wanting to get all of these dynamic wallpapers or find out how you

can automate a similar effect on any Mac, I'll leave links in the description below, where

you can find download links and a full time. tutorial on cult of mac.com

Now this next one is one of my favorite features and I feel a lot of people are going to appreciate it

Usually I end up placing all of my files in a tidy folder as you can see here, but now

you can stack all of those loose files on your desktop into tidy piles which expand

when you click on them. They're organized into groups by their format by default, but you can arrange them by

date added, created or modified. On top of that, you can sort them by adding tags or with other metadata such as their date

or size. You can also scrub through the stack to see all of the different thumbnails by placing

two fingers on your mouse or trackpad the same way you scroll a web page As with most new builds of MacOS Apple has added more features to Finder to help you manage and well find your files

We're all used to the icon, list and column views in Finder, but now there's a new gallery

view which gives you a huge preview of your files. Not only does it make it easier to visually distinguish your files quickly, but it gives

you a whole ton of information with the metadata on the right hand side

Here you can see any other information stored within that file, and you can customize

what metadata you see by right-clicking and choosing show preview options. Just below the metadata, there's new quick action editing options right within Finder

So if it's a photo you can mark up, rotate, password protect it, convert it to a PDF, or

if it's a video, not only can you watch it right within the Finder window, but you can also

trim and rotate it. So now you've got no excuse for not rotating your upside-down iPhone videos

One of my favorite things about Finder is Quick Look, which allows me to get a bigger glimpse

of a file just by hitting the space bar. Well now in Mojave, you can edit and mark up right within QuickLuck

I can crop photos, add text, draw on them, or even trim or rotate videos or music

If you're constantly taking screenshots on your Mac, then you'll be happy to see that Apple has added some new tools and react a lot more like iOS

So if I take a screenshot here, you can see it shows up in the bottom right hand corner

If I leave it, it will go ahead and save to my chosen destination, or if I click on it, it then brings up this new

where I can easily annotate drawings, circle anything I want to draw attention to, arrows

I can easily add a signature, which if you have a track pad you can now use to write it out

which is pretty darn cool, or you can use your webcam to scan one in as before

I can rotate the image, crop it, or just like an iOS, delete it straight away, or go ahead

and share it without saving a copy. Also, if you use previews to take your screenshots, there's a new toolbar where you can

choose to screenshot part or all of your screen, but now you can even record your screen, but now you can even record your screen

screen from here rather than using QuickTime. At the end of the bar you can see there's a list of options so you can change the default

location of where screenshots and recordings save, whether you have a timer, and add the ability

to show the mouse cursor when taking a screenshot. Continuity, which is added all the way back in MacOSC era, has had a few updates too, where

you can use your iPhone to take a picture or scan a document and have it automatically send to the app you're working on on your Mac

For example, here are notes, I can click on the photos button, and I've got two new options

to take a photo or scan a document. As soon as I choose one, it opens up the camera app on my iPhone

I can snap a pick decide if I happy with it and it goes straight to the Notes app As well as notes this also works in pages mail keynotes and numbers I been using Mojave for two weeks now and is surprising how useful this feature is

FaceTime is finally becoming a true Skype replacement with MacOS Mojave, as you can now jump on a FaceTime call with up to 32 people

You can invite anyone to join a call at any time, and the same call can include both audio and video callers

There are four new native apps in Mojave, again bridging the gap between MacOS and iOS

In fact, these apps have actually been ported from iOS thanks to a new UI kit

So expect to be seeing third-party iOS apps making their way to the Mac next year when

the kit is offered to developers. But the first of the new Apple apps is the News app

It syncs with all of your selections and sources from the news app on your iPhone and iPad

Here on the left-hand side you've got all of your channels and suggestions, just like the iPad version of the app

You can pull up your favourite sites and read all of the latest articles in one beautifully designed app

Then there's the stocks app, not one I'll personally use, but I know it's something that a lot of people follow

So all of the stocks are on the left-hand side, and just like the new iOS 12 redesign, it pulls

news from the Apple news app relevant to each stock. So if we click on Apple, you can see the breakdown over time, and then new selections underneath

which you can read without leaving the app. Next up is the voice memos app, again just like iOS

You can record notes or a lecture, or even a voiceover if you wanted, and of course, like

all of these apps, it will sync with your MacOS and your iOS and your voice-emOS and you'll MacOS and iOS devices

The one setting I've not been able to find in here that I thought would be an obvious one is an input selection

So if you plug in an external USB mic, you can choose which one you wanted

I did plug mine in to test it out, and it automatically chose to record from the external

mic and switch it back to the microphone in my cinema display when I unplug it

Last, but by no means least, is the home app. So you can now control any of your HomeKit-enabled devices right from your iMac or MacBook

or Mac Pro, which is super convenient. for me as I no longer need to pick up my iPhone to make changes and end up getting distracted

by Instagram or another app. It works exactly the same again like the iOS app, but I am more than glad to see it here

on the Mac. As well as new apps, the Mac App Store has been completely redesigned using what Apple has learned

from the improved App Store from iOS 11. It's got a much cleaner look compared to High Sierra, making it much more pleasant to navigate

It follows the same design as the News and Stocks app, with having all of the categories on the left-hand

inside, as well as the Discover tab for editorials on apps that I find myself reading fairly often

There also created collections from Apple although not too many at the moment as it still in beta but I think Apple has done enough here to get people using the App Store again as for a lot of people it just sits there for updates Apple has always been at the forefront when it comes to protecting your privacy and security and Mojave is no different

Firstly, in privacy settings within system preferences, there are more options available to control what apps have access to on your Mac

You can choose which apps have approval to access your camera or microphone, or even things like your mail database or messages history

If you've been feeling creeped out recently after finding out just how much companies like Facebook have been watching you, even when you've left their sites

then the new enhanced tracking prevention features in Mojave will help you sleep better at night

Normally when you browse the web, the characteristics of your device can be used by advertisers to create a digital fingerprint to track you

Safari now eliminates this by only sharing a simplified system profile, so advertisers and their trackbots can't tell two MacBooks apart

And now improved intelligent tracking prevention keeps social media like, buttons, share buttons or comment widgets from tracking you without your permission

Mojave now automatically creates, autophills and stores strong passwords for you within Safari

So next time you sign up for a service, it'll suggest something better than your usual birthday password and add that to IClark keychain to keep all of your devices up to date

It also flags existing passwords that have been reused in Safari preferences so you can easily

update them. Whilst I've covered all of the big new updates in the Mac OS Mojave developer beta, there are still a lot

little tweaks and updates are want to quickly run through. Such as Safari now supports favocons in tabs so you can easily identify open websites with a glance

You can now add emoji in mail and when you select a message in your inbox it can now suggest

the right mailbox to file it in. Siri on the Mac now controls HomeKit enabled devices so I can say turn off the office

lights right from my Mac. Mojave adds new UK English, Australian English, Canadian French and traditional Chinese

for Hong Kong language options. as well as improved maps for China. There are a few redesigns within Mojave

such as the larger profile picture and removal of the background blur in the lock screen

a new ICloud Drive panel in Finder, the ability to keep folders on top on your desktop

and support for the HTC V-Vive Pro VR headset. Well, that is it for this video

but let me know your thoughts on MacaWest Mojave in the comment section down below. It's the dark mode in MacOS for making you crave for it more in iOS 11

I know it is for me. If you enjoyed this video though, go ahead and hit that like button

It really helps me out. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, and I'll catch you in the next one