The 5 best features in macOS Catalina

Over the weekend, Apple released the new macOS Catalina update. I’ve put together the five best features, so you can decide if you want to upgrade.

The new software comes with some nice added features, like the brand-new Apple Sidecar, Apple Arcade, Screen time and a couple other nice improvements.

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1: Apple Sidecar

Perhaps the most useful feature of macOS Catalina for professionals is the new Apple Sidecar. This lets you use your iPad as a second display for your mac, so you can be more efficient while working. IF you’re not ready to upgrade to macOS Catalina yet, there are great third-party apps for achieving very close results like iDisplay.

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If you’re a professional, or want to be more productive, then we recommend upgrading to macOS Catalina asap. Keep in mind to access this feature, you will need a more recent MacBook, so butterfly keyboards only, the recent iMac and iMac Pro, and the new Mac Pro. For the iPad, you’ll need an iPad with a sixth-generation Intel chip or above.

2: Apple Arcade

Apple Arcade is Apple’s new video game subscription service. You get exclusive access to amazing apps created by the world’s most talented game developers, for $4.99 a month, on all your devices.

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Here we can see Frogger: a game that was previewed at the September event, being played on a MacBook Pro. Although we don’t think anyone’s be going to do some serious gaming on their mac, it’s cool to have this option.

3: Screen Time

Some of you may flinch at the thought of Screen Time on your mac but this can actually be a useful feature for gaining insights about how your time is being used.

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You can track Screen Time across all of your devices. Like the iPhone and iPad, you can set limits to certain apps and categories. We think you should at least give it a try.

iTunes is now Music

I think we can all attest that iTunes on your mac is plain garbage. Lucky for you, you won’t have to live another day with it.

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With the new Music app, your mac behaves more like you iPhone, with your Music Library, your playlists and the iTunes store all nice and separated. It’s much less cluttered, and frankly less of a hassle to navigate your way around. For some people, this feature alone suffices for them to upgrade to macOS Catalina. Also important: Music, Podcasts, and TV are three separate apps now.

5: Extra features

Since Apple pays the most attention to detail, they have added some less important but good-to-have features like:

The new wallpapers, which automatically change color depending on the time

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A new Find My app, to help you locate your devices

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Improved Security features, ensuring the safety of your appsmac-os-catalina-security

That’s it for the 5 best features of macOS Catalina. This is definitely a big improvement from Apple, and we can’t wait to see what else gets added.

What do you think about macOS Catalina?

 

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