macOS Sonoma: All the little things!

[Brad7]

Man, these “video” wallpapers are really mesmerizing. Why can’t they bring these to iOS and tvOS, too!

I’ve chosen Shuffle All and set to rotate every 12 hours lol.

 

[anshuvorty]

I have the issue where whenever my computer is locked, the screen immediately turns off after a few seconds, and I can't experience the video wallpapers in all its glory!

Any tips on how to fix that?

I am on a 14-inch MacBook Pro connected to a Belkin dock connected to an external monitor.

 

[LockOn2B]

There’s an animated Lock Screen —> desktop transition now and vice versa.

 

[Brad7]

I have the issue where whenever my computer is locked, the screen immediately turns off after a few seconds, and I can't experience the video wallpapers in all its glory!

Any tips on how to fix that?

I am on a 14-inch MacBook Pro connected to a Belkin dock connected to an external monitor.

I have that issue, too. I usually never lock my screen so thought that was expected behavior till you mentioned it. I looked around in Settings and couldn’t find anything so could be a bug.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

My observations:

• Loving the new login screen upon system restart. Looks better and more compact, IMHO.
• Yes, "The Macintosh Desktop Experience" still lives in About Finder.
• New application tucked away in /System/Library/CoreServices: Batteries. Looks to be an empty application that simply says "Hello World". See screenshot below.
• System Settings, FWIW, seems a bit faster.
• The OS, on first glance, appears to be much more optimized than Ventura. Boot is pretty insanely fast.
• Widgets are interesting. Kind of impressed/surprised Apple allowed us Intel users to have access to that feature. Kind of feels like a modern, mid-2020s throwback to Tiger's Dashboard from 2005. You even press the same key (option) to show the close/hide button as in Tiger.

This was all on my 2020 Intel MBP.

 

[Numa_Numa_eh]

To answer myself, the screen sharing app appears to have had quite an update. It supports audio, high frame rates and two virtual displays was well as colour accurate work.

Information taken from here

macos-sonoma-brings-new-capabilities-for-elevating-productivity-and-creativity

 

[galad]

Carbon? Is this for real? I thought Carbon was already long ago discontinued and extinguished from macOS, starting around Mountain Lion?

Just because it's not available in the public SDK it doesn't mean it's still not lurking somewhere in the system. Carbon UI was ported to 64bit, and then just removed from the public SDK. Most of it was removed in later versions, but some part are still being used.

 

[Nermal]

Safari now supports the JPEG XL format.

 

[avro707]

I have that issue, too. I usually never lock my screen so thought that was expected behavior till you mentioned it. I looked around in Settings and couldn’t find anything so could be a bug.

Also same for me.

 

[AgentMcGeek]

Not such a small thing but I can confirm that you can run DX12 titles through the provided translator. In some titles like DRG this is night and day vs a DX11-only VM.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Just because it's not available in the public SDK it doesn't mean it's still not lurking somewhere in the system. Carbon UI was ported to 64bit, and then just removed from the public SDK. Most of it was removed in later versions, but some part are still being used.

Fascinating! I had no idea. What other aspects of the OS still uses Carbon? Curious minds want to know!

 

[srbNYC]

Has anyone discovered how to activate Presenter Overlay in video conferencing? I've updated Zoom today just in case—but can't find where the option might be. Thanks!

 

[AgentMcGeek]

Has anyone discovered how to activate Presenter Overlay in video conferencing? I've updated Zoom today just in case—but can't find where the option might be. Thanks!

Have you tried control center?

 

[Mr. Awesome]

Has anyone discovered how to activate Presenter Overlay in video conferencing? I've updated Zoom today just in case—but can't find where the option might be. Thanks!

You have to start sharing content via SharePlay, so go to the window of the app you want to share, hover over the green bubble, and hit “share to Zoom”. Then in the Menu Bar there should be an option for Presenters Overlay under the blue SharePlay icon.

 

[Numa_Numa_eh]

Sorry to trouble you @galad would you be able to confirm if the new api you mentioned here would be useful to add mkv decode ability to macOS?

macOS Ventura already ships a software AV1 decoder and AV1 hardware decoder plugin. But the software decoder is not enabled by default, and I don't know if the hardware decoder is already used on some hardware or not to decode AVIF at least. 13.4 creates preview for AV1 .mp4 files in Finder now.
I did not test macOS 14 yet, but there is a new framework to create format readers and video decoders plugins: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mediaextension

Probably won't be needed for AV1, but it can be used for other formats.

 

[nchamow]

Sorry to trouble you @galad would you be able to confirm if the new api you mentioned here would be useful to add mkv decode ability to macOS?

Likely no as MKV is a container format, not a codec.

 

[Numa_Numa_eh]

Likely no as MKV is a container format, not a codec.

Hard to believe they would allow codecs but not containers. We’ll see.

 

[galad]

It's written in the first paragraph of that link, both format (containers) and video extensions.

 

[Numa_Numa_eh]

It's written in the first paragraph of that link, both format (containers) and video extensions.

Thanks for your answer. That’s great.

 

[zakarhino]

To answer myself, the screen sharing app appears to have had quite an update. It supports audio, high frame rates and two virtual displays was well as colour accurate work.

Information taken from here
View attachment 2214216
macos-sonoma-brings-new-capabilities-for-elevating-productivity-and-creativity

Sounds like this development was spurred on by Vision Pro's ability to stream an equivalent 4k screen from a nearby Mac.

My assumption is that this will be further improved down the road to let people use their Mac on Vision Pro even on a completely separate network on the other side of the world. Leave your Mac Studio and 4k displays at home, you can stream all of that to your Vision Pro.

 

[Nermal]

macOS Ventura already ships a software AV1 decoder and AV1 hardware decoder plugin. But the software decoder is not enabled by default, and I don't know if the hardware decoder is already used on some hardware or not to decode AVIF at least. 13.4 creates preview for AV1 .mp4 files in Finder now.
I did not test macOS 14 yet, but there is a new framework to create format readers and video decoders plugins: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mediaextension

Probably won't be needed for AV1, but it can be used for other formats.

Neat. Who remembers Perian?

 

[Numa_Numa_eh]

Sounds like this development was spurred on by Vision Pro's ability to stream an equivalent 4k screen from a nearby Mac.

My assumption is that this will be further improved down the road to let people use their Mac on Vision Pro even on a completely separate network on the other side of the world. Leave your Mac Studio and 4k displays at home, you can stream all of that to your Vision Pro.

Makes sense. Another thought I had was it was a way to sell more Mac Pros and Studios. Buy a couple and have several employees do their editing etc remotely.

 

[UgoDream]

Can someone share the results of this benchmark with the new Safari?

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See how trackers view your browser

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[brevity14]

This mail-tagged feature is very helpful when you want to trace back where you downloaded the file from. No need to manually search anymore.

 

[AgentMcGeek]

Can someone share the results of this benchmark with the new Safari?

Cover Your Tracks

See how trackers view your browser

coveryourtracks.eff.org

From Safari for iPhone on the new Private mode. The non private mode only gives partial protection for the top two.