macOS 14 Sonoma is the latest version of macOS. The release date was on September 26, 2023. Sonoma is a smaller update, with few major new features, focusing instead on small tweaks and improvements.
Read about more macOS Sonoma features.
macOS Sonoma 14.1 released October 25, 2023 with mostly bug fixes and a couple new features.
macOS Sonoma 14.2 released December 11, 2023. It comes with many features that were previously announced in June but were missing from the initial release:
macOS Sonoma 14.3 released on January 22, 2024. The major new feature is collaborative playlists in Apple Music. You can invite another Apple Music subscriber to add songs with you, so you can get help making a roadtrip or party playlist before the event.
macOS Sonoma 14.4 released on March 7, 2024. It’s mostly a bug fix update, with a few small features:
The macOS Sonoma wallpaper is a colorful abstract array of green, blue and red swirling colors. Named after the real-life county of Sonoma, California, the green ripples hint towards the area’s famous wineries.
The wallpaper is square, intended to look great whether it’s being used in portrait or landscape on a high-resolution 6K Retina display.
To set the wallpaper on macOS Sonoma, open System Settings > Wallpaper. It’s the first option in the top-left, under the Dynamic Wallpapers collection. You can scroll through the selection to pick wallpapers from older versions of macOS and various other abstract works of art. Solar Gradients, my personal favorite, changes throughout the day to mimic the color of a clear sky.
You can click here to download the light version of the wallpaper (pictured above) or click here for the dark version. This way, you can use the image for your iPhone, iPad or PC.
To install macOS 14 Sonoma, you need a Mac of the following model year (or later):
From macOS 13 Ventura, open System Settings > General > Software Update. Give it a moment to check and click Update Now to start the update.
From an older version of macOS, you can find this in System Preferences > Software Update.
If you don’t see the update here, you can also download a dedicated installer from the Mac App Store.
Mac users should install macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, a patch to remove a bug that affected USB hubs (and made headlines). The update, released Monday, also takes care of a couple of other problems.
Currently, it’s the only OS update coming out of Cupertino on Monday, meaning Apple Watch and tvOS users are still waiting.
Mac users can now install macOS Sonoma 14.3 and start using collaborative music playlists along with a few other tweaks.
Apple also introduced iOS 17.3, iPadOS 17.3, watchOS 10.3 and tvOS 17.3 on Monday.
iPhone users can now install iOS 17.2.1. And macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 is out as well. These are minor bug fix updates, though. The changes are so small Apple didn’t bother to describe them.
These are the only updates introduced Tuesday. There’s no iPadOS version, nor one for Apple Watch. And no new betas, either.
If you own an Apple computer of any shape or size, odds are it just got an operating system upgrade. Monday brought the public launch of macOS Sonoma 14.2, iPadOS 17.2, iOS 17.2, watchOS 10.2 and tvOS 17.2.
And these aren’t simple bug fixes. There’s new features.
Apple seeded the release candidate for iOS 17.2 to developers Tuesday, signaling that beta testing for the upcoming operating system is almost over. The highlight of the update will be the new Journal app that Apple announced last summer.
The release candidates for macOS Sonoma 14.2, iPadOS 17.2, watchOS 10.2 and tvOS 17.2 were also seeded to devs Tuesday. The final versions are all expected to be publicly available to install on December 12.
The new Personal Voice feature in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma can restore a person’s voice even after they lose it for any reason.
Apple demonstrated that quite well Thursday in an article and video featuring a disability advocate suffering facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).
Some lucky first-day owners of the new M3 MacBook Pro unboxed their machines Tuesday to discover a reversal of fortune: Their new Macs arrived with a broken version of macOS that can’t install software updates.
Some MacBook Pros shipped to customers with an unreleased (well, more like unintentionally released) build of macOS Ventura 13.5. This version can’t be updated to macOS Sonoma through the standard Software Update feature in System Preferences.
Here’s how to fix the admittedly rare problem.
How do you turn off the webcam video reactions on your Mac in macOS Sonoma? This feature, which puts full-screen animated effects on your video calls, made a good demo when it was introduced, but has since confused many people who trigger it accidentally in serious situations.
The Off button isn’t where you would expect — it’s not hiding in Skype, Google Hangouts or Zoom at all — it’s in the Mac’s menu bar.
Let me show you what’s going on and how you can turn it off.
Apple introduced macOS Sonoma 14.1 on Wednesday, so it’s out of beta testing and ready for Macs going back about five years. The update includes a few modest enhancements and bug fixes.
Here’s what’s new.
Apple gave developers access to the release candidates of iOS 17.1 and macOS 14.1 on Tuesday. This is the last round of testing before introducing them to the public.
Release candidates for iPadOS 17.1, watchOS 10.1 and tvOS 17.1 also went out.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The latest MacBook rumor sounds enticing, but will it come true? It’s time to speculate. Meanwhile, the real fire talk is all about that big, toasty iPhone 15 Pro Max. Apple’s iOS 17 update fixes the overheating problem. (Frankly, “Thermalgate” seems about as overblown as “Printgate.”)
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Upgraded to macOS Sonoma? You probably noticed by now that clicking on your Mac’s desktop automatically hides all open windows, with the focus moving to your widgets and desktop shortcuts.
This is the new “Click wallpaper to reveal desktop” feature in the new Mac operating system. If you find this functionality annoying, here’s how to turn it off. That way, you can safely click your Mac’s desktop again.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After nearly a week with Apple’s new hardware, we’re serving up our first hands-on impressions. Is the iPhone 15 Pro Max too big — and/or too hot — to handle? Is Apple Watch Ultra 2 worth the upgrade? What about Apple Watch Series 9?
And seriously, Apple … you call that pink?
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
The next major macOS release is here. Dubbed macOS Sonoma, the update packs several usability changes that will help further boost your productivity.
“macOS Sonoma is now available as a free software update, bringing a rich set of new features to the Mac that make work and play even more powerful,” Apple said in a press release Tuesday. “With macOS Sonoma, desktop widgets unlock a new way to personalize the Mac and get more done, while stunning new screen savers, big updates to video conferencing and Safari, along with optimized gaming make the Mac experience better than ever.”
Apple typically drops major new macOS builds in October. But this time, it is releasing macOS Sonoma in September, possibly because it is a relatively minor update.
macOS Sonoma is ready for its public release. The new Mac operating system will drop on Tuesday, just over a week after iOS 17, watchOS 10 and iPadOS 17 launched.
If you can’t wait to try out the next major macOS build, you might want to know its exact release time on September 26 so you can update your Mac as soon as possible. If that’s the case, find the exact macOS Sonoma release time in your area below.
macOS Sonoma may not have the same buzz as iOS, but there are loads of new features this year to try out on your Mac. You can get beautiful Apple TV-style aerial screensavers, widgets on your desktop, powerful enhancements to Safari and more.
macOS Sonoma will be released at about 10 AM Pacific on Tuesday, September 26. Here are the 36 best features you can look for after you update.
iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10 and macOS Sonoma finally have a release date. The OSes have been in beta testing since WWDC23 this year.
Apple announced the official release dates of the next major iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and macOS releases at its ‘Wonderlust’ event.
There are a bunch of not-great apps like Spotify and Slack that suck battery life, because they basically run a full copy of Google Chrome inside each window. Chrome is a notorious energy hog, and running multiple copies of its Blink engine inside four different apps can take unnecessary memory and resources.
But you can create your own, much better versions using web apps in the upcoming release of macOS Sonoma.
Web apps in Sonoma are easily made directly in Safari and live in your Mac’s Dock. For apps that you use every day, like Spotify, Discord and Slack, it’s easier to launch them from the Dock and move them around separately from your browser tabs.
Safari web apps won’t drain your battery and they’re incredibly easy to use. Although they can be launched and quit independently from Safari, they share the same system resources, so they barely make a splash on performance.
Let me show you how they work.
iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma are not big upgrades. However, they will bring plenty of little improvements that add up to a better experience on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Despite that, Apple dropped support for some older iPhones, iPads and Macs with its upcoming OS releases.
That’s only part of the disappointment equation, though. Several new features won’t work on older Apple gear, even though the devices can run the new operating systems.
Many of the new features in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 that won’t make it to older iPhones and iPads will go missing primarily because they are very resource-hungry. As for Macs, several macOS Sonoma features won’t come to Intel-based machines. This is sort of a given, since Apple switched to in-house chips that deliver better performance while maintaining ruthless power efficiency. The list of features not available on Intel Macs will only expand over time until Apple eventually drops support for them altogether.
Now that you the reasons for the omissions, here’s a rundown of new features in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma that won’t work on older devices.
A stealth announcement at WWDC23 is that Apple has significantly lowered the barrier of entry to port PC games to the Mac. A new Game Porting Toolkit “provides an emulation environment to run your existing, unmodified Windows game,” says Aiswariya Sreenivassan — a GPU, graphics and displays software engineer at Apple.
It’s a big gap to clear, which is why the Mac has been left behind in recent years. PC games are compiled for the Intel x86 architecture that the Mac just finished moving away from. The unified Apple silicon architecture bears little resemblance to the standard gaming PC with discrete graphics cards and memory. Apple’s Metal 3 library is very different from DirectX, Unity, Unreal and Vulkan — the usual suspects across the computing pond.
Apple’s new tools could open the floodgates for Mac ports of popular PC games. According to a game engine programmer I spoke with, the Game Porting Toolkit demo is “really impressive.” If the tools work as well in practice as in Apple’s demo, they “would be incredibly useful,” said the developer, who works for a major game developer and asked to remain anonymous.
How can you install the macOS 14 Sonoma Developer Beta? While the release is months away, you might want to take it for a test drive or see how your apps work in the new release. Right now, you need to make sure you’re signed into your developer Apple ID and that you have developer betas turned on in the Settings app.
These days, the process is far easier. You no longer need to install a beta profile and reboot your Mac a bunch of times to get it working.
Along with macOS Sonoma and its new features will come Safari 17, the new iteration of Apple’s web browser. It brings an enhanced browsing experience with an even greater emphasis than before on privacy, and most changes will probably apply to iOS and iPadOS, as well.
The changes aren’t terribly glamorous, but beefed-up Private Browsing protects against prying eyes online and off, in addition to some other security enhancements.
And in terms of organization, the new Profiles feature helps you keep separate parts of your life separate and website apps keep your favorite sites at your fingertips.
At today’s Platforms State of the Union, Apple went into more depth on the updates coming to their software: interactive widgets for iOS, iPadOS and now on the macOS desktop; big updates to watchOS; and the introduction of visionOS, the operating system that runs on Apple’s new Vision Pro.
There are loads of new features that developers will be able to take advantage of that Apple didn’t highlight in the main Keynote. Thus far, they’ve covered improvements to the in-app camera, a standard tips balloon, and an easier way to make animations in SwiftUI.
Apple unveiled macOS 14 — aka macOS Sonoma — at WWDC23 Monday. It brings new gaming functionality, desktop widgets, video screensavers and Safari browser upgrades. That’s in addition to cross-device compatibility reflecting some of the new iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 features.
“Introducing macOS Sonoma a big new release that will make your Mac more delightful and even more productive,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.
“First, many of the features we talked about earlier on iOS and iPad OS are going to be great on the Mac. And macOS Sanoma brings a rich set of features that elevate the experience of macOS,” he added.
