Latest macOS Sonoma Beta Adds 100+ New Video Wallpapers and Screensavers

[MacRumors]

With macOS Sonoma, Apple is introducing aerial wallpapers and screensavers that are similar to the aerial screensavers available on the Apple TV. In the latest macOS Sonoma beta that came out today, there are more than 100 new options to choose from.

Many of the videos are taken directly from tvOS, and they are organized into categories that include Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater, and Earth. Prior to today, there were a handful of options in each category, but now there are dozens. Apple offers 47 landscape videos, including some that feature the Sonoma region of California that macOS Sonoma is named after, and 30 cityscapes.

There are 21 underwater videos and 22 earth videos, along with options to shuffle through all the aerial videos or to select shuffle from the specific categories. Apple also has range of animated "Picture" videos that have more abstract art and that were not sourced from the Apple TV aerial videos, but these are not new to this beta.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1696948355262185484

Scenes feature locations all across the globe, captured with drones, underwater cameras, and from the International Space Station. If you've seen the aerial videos on the Apple TV, you will already be familiar with many of the options on macOS Sonoma.

In macOS Sonoma, the video screensavers work like they do on the Apple TV, but when a Mac is woken from sleep, the screensaver slows down and seamlessly becomes a still image on the desktop when you log in. The login screen also animates with one of these options selected.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1696692670138036293

Article Link: Latest macOS Sonoma Beta Adds 100+ New Video Wallpapers and Screensavers

 

[zach-coleman]

Damn, I was not expecting more than about 10. 100 is wild.

 

[midkay]

Incredible feature, just so well executed.

 

[jz0309]

I love those on ATV ...

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Woo hoo! That’s awesome. Much needed. They truly do look amazing. Your team at Apple killed it Craig!

 

[gleepskip]

Keep a close eye on memory usage. VTDecoderXPCService appears to be used to support playback of these videos in Sonoma. If you are running a system that frequently short on memory, you might want to reconsider using this full time.

My awareness of SSD wear has gone way up recently. Doing things on your machine that lead to memory paging is going to lead to inevitable SSD failure on a faster timeline.

 

[fenderbass146]

Wish it could actually move the entire time.

 

[StrangeNoises]

the trick, which wasn't immediately obvious, is that for each section, like "Landscape" there's only one video wallpaper for each subject, so Sonoma Horizon, Grand Canyon River Valley, Iceland Glacier, etc.

But click on Show More... and there's like four for each subject. Sonoma Horizon, Sonoma Evening, Sonoma Clouds, Sonoma from Above, Sonoma River; Grand Canyon River Valley, Grand Canyon Evening, Grand Canyon Sunset, Grand Canyon Sediment, Grand Canyon from Above; Iceland Glacier, Iceland Snow Caps, Iceland Fjord from Above, Iceland Fjord, Iceland Coast, Iceland Lake, Iceland Riverbed... And it goes on Tons of the buggers.

Some are obviously more time-of-day relevant, and it would be nice if it would switch to the best time-of-day fit in the subject for the actual time of day, but the UI doesn't indicate it's doing that.

 

[coffeemilktea]

I guess now that "widgets on your desktop" is one of the biggest features of Sonoma, Apple has decided to make desktops look nice with good wallpapers again? 🤔

...seriously, the built-in wallpapers in the last few major version of Mac OS have been, uh... forgettable, to put it nicely. I'm glad Apple is trying to change that.

 

[patearrings]

Incredible feature, just so well executed.

I'm afraid i have to completely disagree. When they come to a stop, they are blurred (on a 4k monitor at least).

Worse than that, they take up an inordinate amount of space, before todays additions, if you wanted all of them enabled, you would already have been using 11gb of space, so who knows what they take up now, probably north of 20gb.

Most people using apple silicon have only 256gb ssds, and even at 512gb, who is realistically going to use 5% of their ssd space for some screensavers. Granted, you could just use one but that gets dull pretty fast.

On top of that, these are not easy to disable. Even if you do just select one, your mac will download more/all in the background whilst you are using the machine. I have disabled it now, but it took a bit of trickery using little snitch.

 

[eilavid]

Glad to see actual photos are back as wallpaper. This was very much missed in Monterey and Ventura

 

[Unity451]

Here's hoping for a return of After Dark's Flying Toasters!!!

 

[scrapesleon]

what's the purpose for this to take up more space

 

[spaxxedout]

It’s a great update. Wondering if they will transition to VisionOS’s frosted glass design language for windows.

 

[jonnysods]

I'd like there to be an option to pick a lockscreen wallpaper, then a general one. Reason being I'd love dynamic wallpapers on my lockscreen, but static images of my own choosing for the desktop....

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Check out all the wallpapers in macOS Sonoma Beta 7 💫

 

[hch720]

So many to choose from. Every Monday, ill change to a new one to keep my Macbook feeling fresh

 

[ignatius345]

Goodbye hard drive space

Just as a reminder, this is a really cool way to get aerial screensavers right now.

Aerial - A free and open-source Mac Screen Saver

 

[Eric_WVGG]

All this crap to delete to recover space. So cool. Much wow.

 

[Morod]

Great for some, but I'll just keep using my own stuff from Photos.

 

[midkay]

I'm afraid i have to completely disagree. When they come to a stop, they are blurred (on a 4k monitor at least).

That's a shame, hopefully one day they can be re-shot or upscaled to look crisp even on the 5K and 6K screens Apple sells. Default storage capacities will definitely need a bump by that point though!

Is it possible that some look better than others? I've noticed while using these on Apple TV 4K that more recent videos shot in bright light look really good while some older ones, and especially ones shot in low light, at times look noticeably grainy.

 

[midkay]

All this crap to delete to recover space. So cool. Much wow.

I mean, you seem to have to intentionally download them, so I don't think you need to delete anything if you don't want them. They aren't all included in the default OS install or anything.

 

[tomtad]

Check out all the wallpapers in macOS Sonoma Beta 7 💫

View attachment 2252802

My mind is blown

 

[patearrings]

That's a shame, hopefully one day they can be re-shot or upscaled to look crisp even on the 5K and 6K screens Apple sells. Default storage capacities will definitely need a bump by that point though!

Is it possible that some look better than others? I've noticed while using these on Apple TV 4K that more recent videos shot in bright light look really good while some older ones, and especially ones shot in low light, at times look noticeably grainy.

Unfortunately not. I have tested ALL of them (i think). They all look great as screensavers, but once they come to a stop, they are all slightly blurred to the point that i have now disabled the entire feature and use my own static wallpapers that are higher res.

As i mentioned, the problem is, macos keeps downloading them in the background anyway, whether you use them or not and thrashes your ssd.

For anyone interested, the process you need to stop to prevent the constant re-downloads is called "idleassetd".

 

[Keymaster]

Wait, does this mean I might finally find a screen saver to replace Flurry? Seriously, I've been using Flurry since it showed up in OS X two decades ago (when it was absolutely amazing compared to other screen savers)...I like these new ones on AppleTV, but I may just stick to Flurry on my Macs. And I use random sci-fi photos for my desktop backgrounds, much more lightweight than anything else.