I think I may be the only guy in Lithgow who is excited about macOS Ventura! I even got up at 3 AM to watch the WWDC. Some people say I’m crazy to get up that early to watch an Apple product announcement. I say… do you really want someone to repair your iMac if they did not get up at 3 AM to watch it? Really? Did not think so.
That said I think that the new version of the OS is going to be a welcome addition to my iMac. It looks like it has a lot of features that will make using the Mac easier. I am planning on downloading an early copy to check under the hood! But for those people who are not so excited about the nuts and bolts of a computer operating system let me give you a quick rundown of the features Apple announced on Tuesday 3 AM.
Apple Mail improvements
I use Apple mail exclusively for my business. While some people think Outlook is the way to go I just do not feel I need to pay to use a mail app. Mail has always worked for me. Not to mention when it breaks I’m one of the few people in the area who has ever been trained by Apple to troubleshoot the software.
Better Search in mail
This is going to be a welcome change. Because of my ADHD, I do not file things in the way you would think. So I spend a lot of time performing searches in my mail app to find the past email I’m looking for.
Currently, I have to try to remember how to spell the sender’s name and hope I get it right. While the current version of the search is Ummm OK. I do have to make a few attempts to get the search results correct. So a better search for the mail app is something I’m looking forward to.
Unsend Schedule and Reminders in mail
Yes I know this is not anything new in some of the other Mail apps however I am very happy to have them in Apple Mail.
Unsend Mail
This is something that I do not think I will ever use. I kind of figure that if you are going to be sending an email you should be sure what you are sending. And as I am writing this I’m second-guessing if I attached an invoice to the last email I sent. (My ADHD makes me second guess things a lot)
Reminders
With my ADHD I am extremely forgetful. It is just the way my brain works. So sometimes when I check my mail I will have to set something as “Unread” so I will come back to it later. However, even that is not enough sometimes. Having mail set a reminder to come back and read the email will save me a lot of time searching for emails hoping I did not forget something.
Send at a later time
I have used this on other applications and it has more power than you think. Imagine that you have a client who gets a ton of emails. IF you are writing an email late at night there is a chance that your email may be buried under all the other emails and your client does not see the email.. By sending at a later time you can choose to write the email now but send it at a later time that will increase the chances your client will see it.
Spot that you are missing an attachment.
This feature has me curious. From what I can tell it can see that you used the phrase “See attachment” then notice you did not have one attached and ask “Are you sure you want to send an email without an attachment. Remember that unsend feature above… Yeah if this is the case I will never use that feature.
Spotlight Search improvements
Spotlight was one of the features that made me excited about Apple way back in OS Tiger (Yes I am that old get off my lawn). macOS Ventura spotlight is like a search engine on your Mac has always been an impressive feature. The problem is that many of the previous upgrades I really have not considered an improvement.
Search your images
This version of spotlight looks like it will be amazing. The idea that it can search images for text will mean that those receipts that you take photos of will be searchable. Imagine how much time that will save you.
While the search of images that contain “Horses’ looks like it will be a great feature I’m a bit sceptical. However, if anyone can pull this off it is Apple … we will see.
Using search to start actions
I’m going to use this a lot. As someone who uses the terminal for much of my computer use. Typing a command is something I do naturally. You have always been able to launch and app using spotlight. So this is going to be a very powerful feature that nobody will ever use.
Passkey
The concept of moving away from Passwords is appealing to many people. But because of the complexity of this concept, I’m going to have to wait until after I get a chance to use to really comment on this feature.
Messages
I did not think that I would use this feature much on my mac. But honestly, I do every day. Though I do not think I am ever going to mark a message as unread or unsent a message. Though I could see this being important when you are talking to a friend about a surprise birthday party and send the invite to the guest of honour by mistake..
I think this may be one of those features that you will never need until you need it and then you REALLY NEED IT!
Shared Photo Album
I am going to watch this feature like a hawk. This used to be my old department back in California. While the current photos app is rather bullet proof it will be interesting when you start sharing albums. I do like the idea that when you make an edit everyone who has that same photo will also get the edit.
While this does sound like something that will be interesting I do think that finding out how Apple makes this feature useable will even more so. I expect I will be spending a lot of time working with this feature and teaching my students how to use it.
Stage Manager
Apple is always working on new ways to work on your Mac with more than one window open. While am currently happy with mission control but macOS Ventura brings a new way of dealing with the fact I have ten programs open at a time.
Facetime handover
This feature made me smile. The concept of this feature is that if you got a facetime call on your iMac but you need to go to a different room for whatever reason you could pass the call to your iPhone and continue the call without having to call them back.
This is feature I think I will use often. In fact, this is a feature that will make me want to use facetime even more.
Games
I’m not a big gamer but that might change. Who knows. With the power of the M1 and M2 chips I can see Apple getting more into the gaming space. Though I do not think that any of my Gamer buddies are going to give up their LED PC towers anytime soon.
Part Two of macOS Ventura coming soon
While I have not got my hands on macOS Ventura I will download it as soon as I can. From there I am going to get a more accurate idea of how the apps actually work.
While I am excited about the new Mac Operating system I will warn people not to download the latest version on business-critical machines. While this sort of thing most of the time works smoothly you do not want to be that one customer who had everything grind to a halt because you upgraded to macOS Ventura too soon