Frequently Asked Questions About macOS Catalina

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here's some frequently asked questions about Catalina.

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So what is Catalina? Catalina is the name for the next version of MacOS. Apple comes out with a new version every year and this one will be macOS 10.15. So why Catalina? Well, Apple recently named all its new operating systems after cats. So you had things like cheetah, jaguar, lion, etc. But they knew they were going to run out of cat names pretty quickly so they switched it to name them after California landmarks. So Catalina is named after Catalina island.

So what are the major new features? Well, there are going to be updates to a lot of the apps. So Photos, Notes, Reminders, Mail, Safari are all going to get updates with new features. We're going to see a new app in Find My which is going to be like Find My Friends and Find My iPhone, iPad, Mac which you can use in iCloud or on an iOS app before. We're finally going to have a native app for that on the Mac. There's also going to be a new feature called Sidecar which will allow newer Macs to be able to use newer iPads as a second monitor, either wirelessly or connected. Screen Time is going to come to the Mac and this is a feature on iOS that allows you to track your usage and also has more parental controls.

They'll be voice control which will enhance accessibility where you'll be able to control just about anything on your Mac using your voice. Project Catalyst is a new feature for developers. It'll make it easier for them to develop an app and create versions both for iOS and for Mac. The biggest and most visible change will be that the iTunes app will be broken up into three separate apps. Instead of iTunes you're going to have Music, Podcasts, and TV.

So if the iTunes app is gone what's going to happen to your iTunes music? Well, nothing is going to happen to it. It will just be in the Music app. As a matter of fact if you only use iTunes for music then you could look at this as just a name change. The app is no longer called iTunes it's now called Music. You'll still be able to access all of your music there. Yes, you'll still be able to buy music. Some people ask well does this mean I have to subscribe to Apple Music now. No, not at all. Apple Music is still an option but so is buying from the iTunes Music Store.

So what about other ways of getting music? Yes, you'll still be able to rip music from CDs. You'll still be able to download music files directly from bands and other websites and add them to your iTunes, or Music app, collection. Now a lot of people worry that they should be doing something before Catalina comes out. Archiving or changing their iTunes library. You don't need to do anything. When you update your iTunes library is still going to be there. It will just be a different app that accesses it.

So what about if you've built up a library of purchased movies and TV shows. You'll still be able to access those. Just in the TV app rather than in iTunes. 

What about syncing? That was something that iTunes did. You could plug in your iPhone or iPad and then you could manually sync or manage the items on your device. Well, you can still do that. But it's not going to happen in any of those new apps. It's going to happen in the Finder. That device will appear in the Finder sidebar just like, say, an external hard drive would. Then you select it and you get the same screens you had seen before in iTunes where you can choose what photos to sync, what music to sync, contacts, all sorts of different things depending upon how you want to  have it setup. Of course if you've already moved on from that, like I have, and you're syncing everything from iCloud then you don't have to worry about it. But all the functionality is still there if you still want to sync that way.

So you may have heard that the Dashboard is going away. It's true. That feature is being removed. It's already been depreciated by being off by default for a few versions of macOS so this is no big surprise. There's really nothing in Dashboard that you can't do some other way. The Notification Center already allows you to have widgets. Many of those widgets are pretty much the same things that were in the Dashboard. A lot of functionality like Dictionary and Weather can be accessed other ways. There's the Dictionary app. There are tons of ways to access weather through Siri, Spotlight, and a Notification Center widget or just by searching the web.

Now a lot of people think that Project Catalyst means you'll just be able to use their iOS apps on their Mac. That's not true. There's still going to be separate apps for the different platforms. There are separate app stores. So just because you, say, own an app on your iPhone doesn't mean you'll suddenly be able to use it on your Mac. The developer will have to make a Mac version of that app just like before. It's just going to be a lot easier for them. So you're going to start to see a lot more of those iOS apps appearing as Mac app as well.

Now if you've got some old apps and you're using Mojave you're already seeing warnings saying that this app may not work in a future version of macOS. Well, Catalina is that future version. Old 32 bit apps will not work in Catalina. So you've got several options. I have a whole video on this. But basically you need to either update those apps or find replacements.

So all Apple is saying is that Catalina will be out in the Fall. Typically Apple comes out with new versions of macOS about the same time as they do the new version of iOS. So it's the end of September or the beginning of October. Now you're probably seeing a lot of information about Catalina now, even as screenshots, because there's a beta version both for developers and another one for the public. So anybody can sign up for it. But, of course, you shouldn't install a beta version unless you're doing it because you intend to test out Catalina and give feedback to Apple. Otherwise wait until the final version comes out in the Fall.

For decades Apple has made all these major OS updates for free and Catalina will be no exception. Now the big question is will your Mac be able to run Catalina? It doesn't matter the memory, the processor, any of that stuff. It's just which Mac you have. So here's a list of which Mac's can run Catalina. Now note that this is the year number for the model. So to find that go to the Apple menu About This Mac. You could buy, say, a Mac Mini in 2013. It's still the 2012 model of that Mac Mini. So it's the model year. Not the year you've purchased it.

Getting Catalina to work is the same way that all recent versions of macOS have worked. You just get it from the Mac App Store. It'll be featured there, no doubt, for months when it comes out. Simply download it for free and then run it as an installer and go through the steps. If you want to read about some of the new features and see some screenshots Apple has a page where they list all this stuff. Go ahead. Take a look and get ready for what's coming this Fall.