How To Find Out What's New After a macOS Or App Update

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to find out what's new after you've updated macOS or an app. 

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Now automatic after you've recently updated your system or maybe one of the apps that you use you may be curious to find out what's new. Often this is shown to you right after the update but we don't always have time to review that right there and then. So it is useful to be able to go back later and see what's new in the latest version. Maybe even a few versions back. 

For instance, for macOS if you go to the Apple Menu at About This Mac you'll get the version over here of macOS that you're using. But it won't show you what's new. Even clicking more info won't show you. That's just takes you to System Preferences and then General and then About. Then here you'll see the version that you're on but nothing here gives you an indication of what has changed. 

When we are about to do an update you can get information about what's going to change but we don't always have time to look at that. For instance, here's an older Mac I've got and I'm about to update the version of macOS on that. I can get info on that update. Once I've updated and moved on you can't really get back to this very easily. But it does have this information online as you would expect. For instance for versions of macOS Sonoma you can go to this webpage and then you can see what the latest version is and what has changed. Plus, you can go back to earlier versions as well. You can go all the way back to the original release of macOS Sonoma and see a full list of what's updated since the last version of macOS. 

To find these pages you can basically search for What's New in the updates for macOS and then the name of the operating system. So let's go and try Monterey instead and we'll see that the first result there takes us to the same page but a different URL and this time it is all the updates for Monterey. 

I actually have a webpage at MacMost.com that lists all of the recent macOS systems and there is a link, Features & Versions, for each one that takes you to these individual pages. So if you want to find the page for Ventura you can go here and click on Features & Versions for it and there are all the updates for Ventura. When you update to the current new full version of macOS by going from Ventura to Sonoma, or Sonoma to Sequoia Apple always has this page at their site to show you all the new features. For instance, here's the one for Sonoma and you can bet there will be a similar one for Sequoia when that is released in the Fall. The current page for the current version of macOS when you're seeing this video is usually easy to find from the front page of Apple.com. This page is usually a lot more colorful with an overview like this with lots of graphics and a PDF that goes into detail about a lot of the new features. 

Now another place you can go to see this information is The App Store. If you go to The App Store and you search for the version of macOS, so for instance Sonoma, it will come up here. If you go to the page for that download you can go to Version History and then it is the same information here. Most of these updates here you can click More and then get a list of what has changed. 

Another good source is always Wikipedia. If you go there and search for macOS and then the name of the operating system, like Sonoma here, it will take you to the main page for that. Here you'll get a list of new features. This really works well for the entire operating systems. So, for instance, going from Ventura to Sonoma. It doesn't necessarily break it out nicely for each subversion here. But you can get more details and links to specific features sometimes. Also in the Sidebar here you've got a list of versions. You can show this and you can see all the macOS versions and jump to any of those pages. It is really helpful when you forget the name of one or the order of which they appear. 

How about for individual apps? Like what was new in the last version of Pages. Well, in the Mac App Store you can search for an app, now basically this is only for apps in the Mac App Store, and you get the same version history link here. So you can see what's new in all the different versions of Pages. This works for Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie, anything in The App Store. This, of course, includes third party apps. So if I search for Pixelmator Pro, for instance, and I go to that page there is Version History there and I can see the developer's information for each new version.

Now you can also often see this information in the Help Menu for the app. So here I am in Pages. When I go to Help there's a What's New entry there and this will take me to a summary of What's New and usually there is a link here to go to a complete feature list which will take me to a webpage, the same webpage I was looking at before. 

Now for most apps you should find this in the Help Menu. But some apps like to do their own thing. So, for instance, here's Goggle Chrome and instead they want you to click the three dots over here. Go to Help and then under Help there is What's New. Then you can see What's New in the current version and go back to previous ones as well. 

For third party apps it is sometimes best to go directly to the developer's site, especially of course if they are not in The Mac App Store. So you can't look there. So, for instance, for Pixelmator you've got this page here which provides all the different updates and what's new in each one. Here is the equivalent page for Notion for Mac. So you can see all of the different new features in each version. Here's the page Adobe has for PhotoShop showing you what's new in each release. 

Sometimes it is hard to figure out where this information is in third party apps. Sometimes it is in the About Menu items. Sometimes it's in the Help Menu. Sometimes it is on their website. But it can be in different places. Like, for instance, they may have a special place on their site to show you What's New or it just maybe part of their support or help pages. It is always a good idea, if you want to get the most from your Mac, to review What's New in each update. But I know we don't always have the time right there and then to do it. So it is good to be able to find that information later and review it. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.