(Credit: Apple)
Before WWDC 2024, our macOS expert Ed Mendelson and I put together a macOS 15 wish list. With the announcement of macOS Sequoia, Apple's new desktop OS gives us a few things we wanted and throws in a welcome surprise feature, but it leaves us wanting more in one area.
Wish Fulfilled: iPhone Notifications on MacOS
(Credit: Apple)PC users have long envied Apple’s Continuity feature between iPhones and Macs, but the Mac doesn't currently display all iPhone notifications. That's set to change with macOS Sequoia, which will allow users to review and respond to iPhone app notifications directly from their Mac. I just hope this doesn’t result in notification overload.
A Welcome Surprise: iPhone Mirroring
(Credit: Apple)You have been able to run Android apps on Windows 11 for nearly five years, but as is often the case, Apple is doing it better. (And Android support on Windows ends in 2025.) With iPhone mirroring in macOS Sequoia, your phone stays locked as you navigate it on the Mac. That alone is a big plus: With Windows Phone Link, you have to unlock the phone to use any apps on a PC.
I expect Apple to make navigating apps with the trackpad and keyboard smoother than the way it’s done in Phone Link, which can be awkward at times. Both systems share some useful features: You see mobile app icons alongside local computer apps in the Taskbar/Dock, and clicking on an app notification opens the linked mobile app that produced it.
Another Win: Window Snapping
(Credit: Apple)For many years, Microsoft Windows has let you easily resize any window by dragging it to the screen's edge; place two windows side-by-side or have them take up only a quarter of the screen. In previous macOS updates, Apple made the side-by-side half-screen option possible via a menu command or shortcut. But that's not as convenient as Windows' method. With macOS Sequoia, we finally get the same convenience in Apple’s OS.
In fact, the shadow target area for the resized window in macOS Sequoia bears a striking resemblance to what you get with Windows Snap Layouts. One Apple upgrade here is that it will let you fill half the screen horizontally, not just vertically, a missing feature in the Windows system that’s always puzzled me.
What's Still Missing: Clipboard History
I use clipboard history on Windows every day, and it greatly impacts my productivity and efficiency. Maybe I have some text, a title, and a quote from an article that I want to paste into a document alongside its URL. Or perhaps a few images need to be pasted somewhere all at once. Without clipboard history, this requires going back and forth between documents, images, or websites. With it, you copy from the source once and paste everything from the clipboard history.
On macOS, you need a third-party utility to get clipboard history. And since Apple already has Universal Clipboard, which lets you copy and paste between multiple Apple devices, it’s a head-scratcher that there’s no clipboard history. Let's hope it makes an appearance at WWDC 2025.