Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is just weeks away, with the week-long event’s keynote on June 6. Although it is a developer event, WWDC is the day that Mac enthusiasts look forward to as Apple takes the opportunity to showcase the next versions of its macOS operating system. While we haven’t heard much about macOS 13 from the rumor mill yet, we have some thoughts on what we’d like to see in the next major macOS overhaul.

Fixes, optimizations and stability

If Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, walked up on stage and said, “macOS [insert name-of-idyllic-California-location-that-fits-the-macOS-nomenclature here] will ONLY feature optimizations and updates to make it the most stable operating system on the planet,” dropped the mic and left the stage, I would be very satisfied. Many Mac users would be happy too, because that’s all many of us really want: fixes for lingering issues, optimizations to make it work as efficiently as possible, and stabilizations so we can stop to worry about in certain situations.

Apple’s Mac operating system has long had persistent issues that not everyone experiences, but many users are affected. For example, memory leaks are still problematic for a large number of Mac users. You can find plenty of suggestions for fixes from other users online, but the problem doesn’t seem to have a simple fix.

But alas, this approach comes with a marketing risk, and Apple takes marketing seriously. iOS and iPadOS are constantly evolving and adding new features, and Apple’s rebirth of Mac hardware makes it nearly impossible for the company to take such a simplistic approach to macOS 13. New features are what Apple uses to show the new operating system, but let’s hope they come with macOS maintenance needs.

Time Machine iCloud Backups

It was on our wish list last year and it didn’t happen, so it’s back this year. Having an offsite backup is good practice in case the worst happens, and Time Machine could be upgraded to support both local and online backup.

Apple already allows iPhone and iPad backups to iCloud, and macOS has already implemented many of the features found in iOS and iPadOS, so it’s time for Time Machine to join the fray. If online store capacity is an issue, Apple sells 200GB of iCloud+ storage for $2.99 ​​per month or 2TB for $9.99 per month. For Mac backups, Apple might sell an intermediate plan for $5 a month that gives 1TB, which should be enough for most machines.

Control Center Improvements

Apple introduced Control Center in macOS 11 Big Sur, and without it my menu bar would look even more ridiculous than it already is. Control Center helps clean up a lot of the menu bar clutter, but it has very few customization options. Some of the buttons are permanent, so even if you want, for example, the Wi-Fi status to appear in the menu bar, it will also remain in the control center. And there are only three other optional modules you can add.

The control center should look more like iOS: it has more controls, the ability to remove modules, and support for home automation controls. On Mac, it can even go a step further with cleaning up the menu bar by supporting third-party apps. With the notch on the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, Control Center can be used to shrink menu bar icons and give it’s cleaner look.

Foundry

Application Library

App Library on iPhone automatically organizes apps by category, a useful feature that would also be great on Mac. App Library could replace the relatively useless Launchpad, and it could also bring in the updates we’d like to see in App Library for iOS.

In the grand scheme of the Mac, however, the App Library, Launchpad, and other app organization tools are low-priority Mac features, because Mac apps exist differently than they do on iOS or iPadOS. Of the latter two, applications exist on the surface of the user interface, so organization is a major concern. On the Mac, you launch macOS on a desktop – you don’t even see your app icons if you don’t want to. Also, the Mac experience tends to be more file-centric. users often open files by double-clicking them, which launches the application.

But the synergy is always good. As someone who uses and tries a wide variety of apps, sometimes I have an app that performs a function I need right now, but I don’t use it very often, and I’ve forgotten about it. . The App Library would really help me rediscover software already on my Mac.

Apple/IDG

password manager

Apple does a pretty good job of storing passwords for you through iCloud Keychain, but it’s a bit of a hassle to manage them. Logins for websites are managed in Safari’s preferences, while you can use the Keychain Access app (located in Applications > Utilities) to manage all your passwords. But Keychain Access is far from a user-friendly application.

Having a single password manager app with a friendly user interface would make it easier to manage all the passwords you use. And it doesn’t have to replace Keychain Access, which may still be available for certificate management, which many consumers don’t care about.

Apple might also offer an option to universally disable the built-in password manager. Many users have invested in third-party password managers like 1Password or Dashlane because they want cross-platform compatibility. Currently, if you don’t want to store a password in Apple’s system, you have to do so on a case-by-case basis – and if you happen to store a password in both Apple and a third-party manager , you may run into an annoying overlap of context menus.

Foundry

Make Photo Booth Look More Like Clips

I bet you forgot Photo Booth. It comes on all Macs and it is an application that works with the webcam so you can record videos of yourself. It has a small set of effects that distort your face, such as Nose Twirl, Sepia, Fish Eye, and Thermal Camera.

I bet you also didn’t know that for the iPhone, Apple offers a free app called Clips. It’s basically Apple’s attempt to get in on the action of social networks like TikTok and Instagram. You can create fun videos in clips that you can share or use for a longer video. What’s great about Clips is its robust set of effects. You can show yourself as a Memoji, use filters, add text, place stickers or include emoji. You can even add background music. You can import photos and videos that you have already taken with the standard iPhone camera and “clip” them.

So why not update Photo Booth to look more like Clips? The Mac’s cameras can be a problem though, as they’re nothing like the 12MP TrueDepth cameras with Face ID on the iPhone, so features like Memoji might not be feasible. But it could still offer live titles, scenes, text and other clip features.

Apple’s M1 Macs can run iPhone and iPad apps, but clips cannot be downloaded to the Mac. Apple could just port the Clips app to macOS 13, but that would mean it can’t run on Intel Macs, which Apple said it will continue to support for a few more years. Updating Photo Booth would fix this issue.

Foundry

Rename System Preferences to Settings

MacOS has System Preferences. iOS and iPadOS have settings. They’re basically the same thing (they even have the same icon), the place where you adjust various system and app settings for each device. It’s time to rename System Preferences to Settings – we prefer the shorter name. I’m sure Apple’s documentation editors might shudder at the thought, because that means they’d have to update a ton of support documents, manuals, etc. But the more uniformity between operating systems, if any, the better, even in small details like naming.

Some people might go so far as to prefer a redesign of macOS’s System Preferences to be more like iOS’s settings, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go there. They are both designed for their respective screens, and macOS should be allowed to take advantage of its screen.

Everything that was on our macOS 12 wishlist

Much of our macOS 12 wishlist didn’t come true, and a few (Time Machine Cloud, Control Center backups) are reiterated in this list. But there are a few more on this macOS 12 list that we still want to see, like a Apple Wallet application, desktop widgetsand Apple+ Health and Fitness. If Apple got all our wishes from this list and last year’s list, macOS 13 could really be a gigantic release.