macOS Sonoma adds Game Mode, a new design for desktop widgets, and more

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple has unveiled the next major release of macOS, dubbed macOS Sonoma. It adds many of the features from iOS 17, plus a handful of Mac-specific enhancements over macOS Ventura.

For anyone who mourned the loss of the old Dashboard feature a few releases ago, Sonoma brings back a redesigned widgets experience that lets you drag widgets out of the Notification Center and onto your desktop. When you have another app open, these widgets will fade into the background to get out of your way. iPhone widgets can also be displayed on your Mac, as long as your iPhone is within close range of your Mac or on the same Wi-Fi network.

Apple is also continuing its quest to make gaming on macOS happen with a new "Game Mode" that gives games CPU and GPU priority while they're running, not unlike the identically named feature in Windows. Like the Windows version, Game Mode isn't going to make your CPU or GPU hardware more powerful than it is, but it should help improve the smoothness and consistency of game frame rates by keeping other running apps from spiking in usage while you're trying to play something.

Game Mode will also double the Bluetooth sampling rate, lowering audio latency when using AirPods and input latency when using wireless Xbox and PlayStation gamepads with your Mac. This will likely increase power use, but we'll need to test it to know for sure.

Apple demonstrated a new video calling feature called the "presenter overlay," which can overlay a person on top of content like slide decks or shared desktops during video calls. This mode will work with FaceTime calls as well as compatible third-party apps like Zoom; Apple didn't talk about hardware requirements, but the feature will likely be restricted to Apple Silicon Macs, which have dedicated machine-learning processing hardware that can separate video foregrounds and backgrounds without spiking CPU or GPU usage.

Finally, the macOS version of Safari is picking up several improvements. The most significant is the introduction of different profiles, so you can have different open tabs, favorites, cookies, and other browser settings when you're at work and when you're at home (or when you're doing other kinds of context-switching). Passwords and passkeys stored in iCloud can now be shared with other people (fully end-to-end encrypted, promises Apple), and the browser is also picking up unspecified "advancements for typography."

People who use lots of web apps can also use Safari to add these apps to the dock so they can be opened and used like regular apps, sort of like the longstanding iOS feature that allows you to do the same thing on your home screen.

Apple hasn't yet announced a specific release date for macOS Sonoma, but the last few releases arrived in October. We'll be investigating device compatibility and other features as Apple shares more information.