Ever since I bought my first Mac last year, I had been excited to see how the macOS feature update installation differed from Windows. But that wasn't the sole purpose of installing Sonoma on the day it arrived. The other reason is the update promised many new features that I always felt would make macOS much more functional.
Not only did macOS Sonoma bring many of the new features I wanted, but it also introduced additional capabilities I never thought would be that helpful in what I do. While there are plenty of handy features in Sonoma, my love lies with a select five.
1 Pinning widgets to the desktop
Widgets are useful because they give you easy access to updated information without opening apps, thus saving time and boosting your overall productivity. That said, I never liked the additional step of launching the sidebar to access widgets, be it on Mac models or on my Windows laptop.
The ability to pin widgets to the desktop is what I wanted Apple to add in future macOS updates. And now that it’s here on macOS Sonoma, one of the first things I did after installing the update was pinning the Clock, Weather, and Calendar widgets to the desktop.
In all honesty, I don’t like anything appearing on my Mac home screen, as a clean desktop experience is visually appealing to me. However, given how useful these Widgets are in my use case, I compromised on my aim to keep the home screen clean. Although the option is there, I never made them disappear from my desktop, and I never will.
2 Showing and hiding items on the desktop with a click
Although I’m not the one who does it, I fully understand why many people like to keep app shortcuts and files on the desktop. In my case, I keep items on my desktop only when there is a strong need to access them quickly. Luckily, I never encountered any such situations because I go with alternatives like pinning what I use frequently to the Dock. But when push comes to shove, I'm now more open to keeping items on the macOS desktop than ever after installing Sonoma.
That’s because macOS Sonoma gives me the option to easily hide the desktop items from Settings when I don’t want them to appear on my desktop. Effectively, they are there but not visible. I can have them back exactly as they were when I made them disappear from the Settings.
3 Slow-motion screensavers
Of all the features I love in Sonoma release, the dynamic, slow-motion screensavers are perhaps the least useful in my case. But I still like them because of their aesthetic appeal. I could use screensavers on macOS Ventura, but they’re a lot different from what the latest macOS offers.
Screensavers have changed in a lot of ways in Sonoma. You can now choose from a plethora of slow-motion videos based on different themes like Landscapes, Cityscapes, Underwater, and Earth. What’s unique about them is that when you unlock your Mac, the slow-motion screensaver video won’t stop immediately. Instead, it gradually comes to a stop in a couple of seconds and then becomes your wallpaper.
When I first heard about them and watched people using them in YouTube videos, I never thought I'd like them this much. Those slow-motion video screensavers got to me so well that I find myself using them whenever I'm bored. They are even more beautiful when you have a bigger display.
4 Progressive web apps
I use Microsoft Edge on my Surface Laptop 2, and it was also my default web browser on my Mac. There are two main reasons why I recently switched to Safari after installing Sonoma. One is the support for progressive web apps. I was eagerly waiting for it to arrive in the hope that web apps on Safari will work better than they do on Microsoft Edge on a Mac.
My hope has been realized. Web apps installed via Safari behave like all other desktop apps, so much so that you won’t be able to spot the difference that easily. For web apps installed via Microsoft Edge on Mac, I experience this weird issue where opening the web app also opens the Edge browser. Worse, closing Edge will automatically close the web app. Thankfully, I no longer have to face any of those issues.
5 Profiles in Safari
The ability to switch between different profiles is not new. In fact, web browsers like Chrome and Edge have had it for quite some time now. But unlike Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, Safari can sync the profile data via iCloud by default. I don’t need to link my Apple ID to each profile for syncing, whereas in Chrome and Edge, linking accounts is required if I have to save my profile data.
The Profiles feature in Safari is better than the Chrome or Edge equivalents, not just because it allows syncing without linking the Apple ID. You can give every Profile in Safari a unique identity by choosing different icons and color options.
What else do I like about macOS Sonoma?
From enjoying slow-motion video screensavers to using Profiles in Safari, there is so much to like in Sonoma. Beyond what I love the most in Sonoma, a few other capabilities caught my attention.
The addition of the Form filling toolbar in the Preview app is pretty useful for filling in PDF forms quickly. It highlights all the fields in the PDF that need to be filled, ensuring you don’t overlook a blank space.
Although I don’t use my Mac for video calling, the new Presenter Overlay feature on macOS is tempting. The ability to pin iPhone widgets to Mac, select multiple tabs in Safari, and switch different System Settings right from the Spotlight have all contributed to making macOS Sonoma the most polished Mac experience yet.