Apple has announced the next version of MacOS. It's called MacOS 10.15 Catalina, after the island that's off the coast of southern California.

Apple officially unveiled the new update while onstage at its Worldwide Developers Conference, where it also introduced new Mac apps for Apple Music, Podcasts, and Apple TV apps. These replace the old, wildly outdated iTunes app. Besides these new apps, which work much like you expect, the biggest new feature for MacOS 10.15 is the addition of iPad app support via a project called Catalyst (previously codenamed Marzipan).

It makes it easier for developers to port their iPad apps over to the Mac. Twitter is already planning to bring its iOS Twitter app to the Mac.

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Apple Shows Off Macos 1015 Catalina And New Music Podcasts And Apple Tv Apps

Other Catalina features include: Sidebar, which will let you use your iPad as a second display for Mac (we've already had this ability, thanks to third-party apps like Luna or Duet Display, but Apple is now offering it natively); A way to control your Mac using your just voice (this will be added as a new accessibility feature); And the merging of Find My Friends and Find My iPhone apps.

These will now be part of a single “Find My” app on iOS and MacOS. Apple said an activation lock is also coming to Macs, so if your laptop is stolen, you can lock it down. There are several other sporadic updates across Apple's new desktop operating system, such as Photos getting updated with a new browsing view, and Notes getting a new gallery view, and Reminders getting some design tweaks.

These are just a few of the highlights Apple previewed while talking about MacOS. We're at the event and hope to bring you a closer look soon.

MacOS 10.15 Catalina will follow MacOS 10.14 Mojave, which brought a Dark mode, Apple News, and a redesigned App Store. The developer preview is now available to Apple Developer Program members, while a public beta program will be available later this month. It will fully launch this autumn as a free software update for Macs introduced from mid-2012 and later. 


Apple's WWDC 2019 conference takes places in San Jose, California from Monday 3 June to Friday 7 June at the McEnery Convention Center with the Apple keynote starting on Monday 10am PT (on 3 June). It usually lasts between 1- 2 hours with the company covering a lot of ground.

To watch it for yourself, check out Pocket-lint's guide on Apple WWDC 2019: How to watch and what to expect.