macOS 10.13 Wishlist: Features MacRumors Readers Hope to See in the Next Version of macOS

[Populus]

I'm pretty much convinced at this point that there will never be a macOS 11

They'll put of the desktop OS business before they make a macOS 11.

Well, I think it is possible indeed. Actually, this is the moment, with the implementation of APFS, and other unknown changes, to step up to macOS 11, along with iOS 11.

And I'm not so sure about Apple ditching macOS. Keep in mind that it is important for Apple to have a complete ecosystem, including desktop.

 

[groove-agent]

Thinking none of these additions are really a game changer - they wouldn't be on my list.

I'd like to see MacOS boot faster. My Windows 10 partition boots in 4 seconds with an SSD drive. Mac? 12 seconds. It got super slow with Mavericks I think.

Being able to run your favourite iOS apps on your mac would be great.

I hope they don't get rid of Dashboard. It's logically more efficient than the notifications area. I use Dashboard all the time, but the writing seems to be on the wall with each release.

I've always wanted to be able to customize the "Appearance " colour so that highlighted menu items can be colours other than blue and graphite - or maybe have it automatically select the colour from the desktop background. Perhaps have desktop backgrounds automatically download based on your preferences very similar to the lock screen of Windows 10. However these are fairly superficial things.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

He's a good macrons posts but they should be released as ideas to apple months before so they could implement them.

iCloud backup for your Mac files? yes please.

Agreed, but iCloud would have to align pricing with other cloud drive providers (e.g. DropBox) to be competitive. Alternatively - and this would NEVER happen - how about letting us assign backups to any device address so we **could** use DropBox, Box, etc. ???

 

[pika2000]

My quick wish list:
- Feature parity for iMessage with iOS version. Sure, it sounds silly, but if I want an seamless experience, then I want it to be semaless, how silly it may be to see the effects and animation. Considering macOS is running on a device with a lot more resources than a phone, the lack of feature parity is baffling.
- Ability to dislodge side-by-side app into their own full-screen mode. Right now, you can join two full-screen apps to side-by-side, but you cannot go the other way. You have to cancel them into windowed mode first.
- 3 to 4 apps "side-by-side" ala Windows. This should have been a no-brainer to begin with.
- Ability to turn on Night shift forever.
- Smarter power management when there are active downloads and/or file copying. Sometimes macOS is too aggressive in power management, even though there's an active file transfer going on, resulting in corrupt files. Seems stupid.
- Facetime handoff. I know this is probably super tricky to code, but it would've been awesome to continue a Facetime conversation from an iPhone right to the Mac, and maybe vice versa.
- Airdrop over the internet. Would be awesome to directly fileshare with another Mac over the internet (without having to deal with sharing configurations or 3rd party services).

 

[Mizhou]

You know how the green button used to behave? It would "maximize" the window sort of like Windows (it wouldn't fill the screen like Windows, but it would still enlarge the window vertically as far as possible). Now it obviously is used as a full screen toggle. You can actually still get the old "maximize" functionality that the green button used to provide double clicking the unused gray space at the top of the window.

You can also accomplish this by holding down the option/alt key and click the green button.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

How about an email client with decent Activesync implementation and that can handle IMAP folders without spazzing out all the ****ing time?
It would be nice to ditch the type lag and constant downloading errors as well.

 

[briloronmacrumo]

Would be interested in what the next macOS omits. Apple doesn't mention omissions and users are left to find out the hard way. This happened in Sierra ( see TidBits article here )

Beyond that would like a nice clean APFS implementation.

 

[Mizhou]

Agreed, but iCloud would have to align pricing with other cloud drive providers (e.g. DropBox) to be competitive. Alternatively - and this would NEVER happen - how about letting us assign backups to any device address so we **could** use DropBox, Box, etc. ???

That wouldn't work, since the filesystem on the backup volume has to have support for hard links for folders, which essentially no file system have, except for TimeMachine formatted volumes. It's basically the same format as HFS+ with the addition of hard links for folders.

 

[Swift]

I hope the APFS is as trouble-free as it was on iOS. And otherwise, many of the suggestions in here are very good.

 

[Mizhou]

I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet: first party support for (Open) ZFS please, Apple! I don't trust my data to any other file system.

Apples new APFS is sort of ZFS light. It has some of the same features as ZFS, but not all, and in it's first incarnation it only supports single volume file system, not spanning over multipletiple disks (aka ZFS pool).

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Among the other suggestions listed here...

I recently wound up inheriting an old iMac that came To me with El Cap installed. Ran like a dog. An old dog. With three legs. But it had snow leopard discs in the box. Out of curiosity, I blew the machine away, installed a fresh image of snow leopard. Amazing. The machine is fast, stable, beautiful, and all the graphics are colorful, deep, gleaming, and rich. You've gotta try it and see how nice OS X can be. It's fantastic.

iTunes fires right up in under a second, doesn't beachball, is organized in an immediately comprehendable intuitive design laid out sensibly in a straightforward and consistent design language. It plays instantly, plays several kinds of videos just fine, and it hasn't crashed once. The miniplayer works and isn't broken three different ways. There aren't four kinds of UI controls operating in tandem like an MC Escher puzzle. And it has Front Row and a remote that can be operated in the dark by feel and never needs connecting or syncing or special network access bs.

I wouldn't have bought one of these before today, but I am definitely keeping this, if for nothing else than a better Apple TV. This machine has been running nonstop for over a month and hasn't slowed down or skipped a beat. Everything on it indeed just works. It's shocking how nice this old system is. And sad at how far OS X's UI has been allowed to slide.

Rebuild iTunes so it does what you want it to, and the Ui resembles iTunes a decade ago.
Add a Front Row widget because it's great.
But mostly bring the quality up to where it was a decade ago.
And quit trying to tur it into an iPhone accessory.

Also, try using your OS without an internet connection before publishing it, to see what hell your rural customers are going to be stuck in when whole parts of the system don't function and crash.

 

[SeaFox]

Shouldn't the wish list include fixing the long term bugs?? Or MR only cares about cosmetic features...

Isn't Apple's whole M.O. now "style over substance". Those sneaky bastards. Instead of having to give customers what they want they have finally manages to convince them of what they want.

 

[Swift]

tweaking current osX is not the point.
developing and releasing an iOS for a combined tablet/PC is what is needed.
i am spending more and more time on my iPhone these days as the preferred device.
but input method prevents doing more on it.

What apps do you do this work in? There are a lot of apps that share across the divide in iCloud-- as in, for instance, Word, Excel, etc. If you have Office already, the iOS Windows apps are free. The Apple apps are free on both sides: Pages, Numbers, etc. Pages can open Word docs and export them. Put the files in Cloud and you can have access to them on any device. Even Windows. Alternately, use Google, Windows, dropbox, etc. Or get an iPad Pro and a keyboard?

You won't get a unified OS between desktop and mobile. Apple shares files, not OSes. I doubt very much they will try for a unified OS. Maybe a way for macOS to also play sandboxed copies of iOS in a virtual space? Doesn't sound like what they'd do. That's what Microsoft has done. I haven't used their tablets. I've always thought that the difference in interface, security, battery management, were too different to be made one. But of course, I could, and Apple could, have been wrong. Try it out?

 

[mithion]

A couple of feature I'd like to see.

Support for latest OpenGL and support for vulkan
A powerful signature editor for Mail
Time machine in iCloud
Support for auto detection and mounting of file shares that are mapped by GPOs
In fact a better interface to give access to network shares in general would be awesome

 

[Swift]

Among the other suggestions listed here...

I recently wound up inheriting an old iMac that came To me with El Cap installed. Ran like a dog. An old dog. With three legs. But it had snow leopard discs in the box. Out of curiosity, I blew the machine away, installed a fresh image of snow leopard. Amazing. The machine is fast, stable, beautiful, and all the graphics are colorful, deep, gleaming, and rich. iTunes fires right up in under a second, doesn't beachball, is organized in an immediately comprehendable intuitive design laid out sensibly in a straightforward and consistent design language. It plays instantly, plays several kinds of videos just fine, and it hasn't crashed once. And it has Front Row and a remote that can be operated in the dark by feel and never needs connecting or syncing or special network access bs.

I wouldn't have bought one of these before today, but I am definitely keeping this, if for nothing else than a better Apple TV. This machine has been running nonstop for over a month and hasn't slowed down or skipped a beat. Everything on it indeed just works. It's shocking how nice this old system is. And sad at how far OS X's UI has been allowed to slide.

Recreate iTunes so it resembles iTunes a decade ago.
Add a Front Row widget because it's great.
But mostly bring the quality up to where it was a decade ago.
And quit trying to turn it into an iPhone accessory.

You are working with an old machine that can't run El Cap well, then. I had an old, 2008 iMac at work for a couple of specific functions, and thought that Snow Leopard 10.6.8 was the end. Then they announced that El Cap ran on it, and it was quite right. Everything was faster. Some of the old apps broke, but not many. Things written in Carbon, not so good. An old copy of Photoshop 3 still worked, but the old graphics of the app didn't work. For us, it was a good upgrade. It improved a lot of functions. I hope you don't have that iMac on a network, getting the Internet, because there's a limit to what can be fixed on it when a new threat arises.

On the next desk, there's a 2012 (5 year old) iMac, 27", the last one before the Retina Display 5K. It is 64 bit all the way, and it has a quad-core i7 chip and a terabyte drive. What were you saying? Oh, MacOS Sierra screams-- relatively speaking-- on that. We had some problems with the new SMB, but I switched the networking over to the old apple one, and it's very quick on the network, too.

So, it's just a matter of perspective. We had a 9-year old Mac and a 5-year old Mac, and the 5-year-old one is better. But that 2008 one gave us a lot of service. And by the way, about two weeks ago, I came in to work and the power supply is shot now. Don't know whether it was a voltage surge or just old age. We'll fix it up and keep getting more work out of it. At home, I have the newest 27" Retina. Man, that thing screams, and it's beautiful. Prettiest thing I've ever owned.

My perspective, they're all great. It depends on the machine. If yours was made before our old one, which is a "late 2008," the El Cap was put on there when it shouldn't have been. Or maybe it wasn't maintained, and it would have worked if you backed up, wiped it and restored. Old is great, the Mac is the oldest machine we have, and we find that anything in Windows older than 5 years basically stinks. Things are broke. The Macs keep chugging.

 

[Speechless]

1. Redesigned Apple/iTunes in separate programs. Unfortunately never going to happen - I can't see them separating their "simplicity" - even though it's a disaster.

2. Homekit. That is insane that it is even in it..

3. Expanded Dark Mode. Definitely a requirement - would be incredible. Not even counting on it though.

4. Multiple Docks. I would love this!

5. iPad/TV Second Screen. Indifferent to this.

6. Siri. Her ass needs to be upgraded in every way, shape, and form. It is on requirement level now.

7. Better full screen. YES!

8. Window Management. YES!! YES!!

9. FaceTime PiP. Don't use FT on my Mac, but whatever.

10. Messages. PLEASE! It feels like a different product on the Mac than on the iPhone for some reason. Update it please.

11. Apple News. Whatever.

 

[canesalato]

iCloud Backup for Mac.. (the same way our iPhones and iPads backup) duh... that dinosaur Time Machine app will finally get dragged to the cemetery.

i hope not

 

[cult hero]

MacOS 10.12 has this option in Finder preferences.



Agree 100%

Is that when they added it? I noticed that option a few months ago and was like, "Huh. Pretty sure this wasn't there before." Of course the last time I think I adjusted my Finder settings was either Mavericks or Yosemite.

 

[canesalato]

Currently Apple is not able to manage the updates of all its platforms while keeping the quality up to standard.

Therefore, as much as I love Mac OS and some of the features discussed in this topic, I really think apple should focus on more important things, as the mac is mostly a mature platform.
APFS is the most important feature and the only one really needed as soon as possible.
Photo and iWork tragically need a good update, if they still care, but, given their talent retention problem and resource constrain, this year they need to take care of the iPad and bring it to a level closer to the Mac.

iOS on the iPad should be closer to Mac OS than to iOS, it needs an input from the Mac team, if there is still one. The Mac needs better hardware, stability and a decent app store. The iPad needs so much and, if they keep going on with this "big iPhone" model, the iPad as a platform is going to sink. It's already sinking.
It's a matter of priorities. =)

That's my opinion.

 

[flat five]

Can we wait more than a year between releases?

why? it's better now.

i mean sure, you only get half the enhancements as we'd see in the past but, they're coming out twice as fast..
though this isn't the point...

the reason it's better now is because there are beta testers.. previously, everyone was a beta tester when the OS updated.. many people (or me at least), would wait until .3 or .4 to upgrade because often times, apps would break and the OS itself tended to be iffy at .0

nowadays though, i update the OS early.. like in a matter of days.. and they're stable and my apps works since volunteers and developers have had access to it for the past 6 months or so.
[doublepost=1495853010][/doublepost]the two feature requests i've submitted to apple lately are:

-- with Sierra's desktop syncing, there's not a good indicator when uploading/downloading is happening.. (you do get visible feedback if you open a finder window that has an iCloud folder in the sidebar).
so, if your file is largish and may take some time to upload, you don't really know if/when it's safe to close the laptop..
i've requested they implement some sort of visual cue in regards to this.. maybe a miniature timer/progress bar attached to the icon on the desktop? idk, whatever they think best.


-- tagging (or something? notes?) of versions within a file.. if i have an ongoing project where i'm working with a file for a few months, the versions add up and it makes it difficult to pinpoint which one you want to revert to or copy from.. so, when saving a version, i'd like to be able to add a note so when i go looking for that point in history, i can locate it more readily.
[doublepost=1495853567][/doublepost]

Fix the green button bug; windows should be expanded to the maximum size possible without hiding NECESSARY access to the file menu and dock. For some reason the green button hides them. Pretty boneheaded by Apple.

if you like the file menu so much, go Window->Zoom

or let me guess, that's not an option for you.. only the green button, and not option-click green button, will work for you
[doublepost=1495854035][/doublepost]

I'd also like to see Finder windows adjust the icon/thumbnail layout when the Finder window is resized.

if they're not adjusting, you have no arrangement rules in place.

open a folder in finder then View->Arrange By... choose, say, 'Name'..

the files should now stay organized/visible when resizing the window.

 

[Mizhou]

if i have an ongoing project where i'm working with a file for a few months, the versions add up and it makes it difficult to pinpoint which one you want to revert to or copy from.. so, when saving a version, i'd like to be able to add a note so when i go looking for that point in history, i can locate it more readily.

There is a command line utility called git, with which you can check in files to a repository, and then you have a history of all check-ins, and you can write a note for every check-in. Unfortunately Apple doesn't provide a GUI for git, but there are third-party apps for that. I recommend SourceTree https://www.sourcetreeapp.com
but there are also a couple of git GUI applications on Mac AppStore.

 

[ksnell]

How about real SMB support with stable drive mapping like Windows? Unbelievable how bad this still is on macOS.

 

[flat five]

I'd like osx to remember where all my apps sit on my multiple monitors instead of the morning arrangement party before I work

are you clicking this upon shutting down?

if so and the windows still aren't showing up in their proper location/display, this is a problem with your application.. (for example, apple apps will remember where they were)...

ask the application developers to fix it.. (if it's even possible to 'fix'.. it may be that the software wants to check licensing and whatnot upon a reboot.. so by design, the application will relaunch in a fresh state and you'll just have to keep attending the arrangement party every morning for the foreseeable future )

 

[cult hero]

In general, I'm pretty happy with macOS. In the improvements departments:

1. APFS standard. This is easily my main hope for 10.13.

2. A commitment to eGPUs. It's my hope this coincides with whatever new Mac Pro they're working on. They currently work in macOS, but it takes some hackery. That hackery is there to get around some really lame arbitrary blocks by Apple.

3. Proper MST support so when I hook up to a USB-C dock I can use multiple video outs. (Some monitors even allow MST daisy chaining, but not on Macs!)

4. As many others have said, better window snapping. It's one of the few things I've been really liked from Windows since like... Win 7.

5. Tweaks to full screen apps. It'd be nice to go full screen vertically (Console on the bottom, text editor on the top.) 3 - 4 apps in full screen could be handy under certain circumstances.

6. Can importing on mail not suck? Getting my email transferred between fresh installs is always a pain. Always. This includes importing from Apple Mail, not some other program. (I wish Mail on iOS wasn't terrible because it would be quite nice to be able to use handoff.)

7. iTunes. It's like the 800lbs. gorilla that no one seems to know what to do with. Is it a media player? Is it a device manager? Is it a digital content manager? And with Apple Music here it's just a bigger, fatter monster. I'd like to see functionality broken up into multiple apps. (Mainly so I never have to open any of them except for the rare syncing and backup of my phone.)

8. Better iPad integration. The iPhone gets most of the love, but I am really enjoying the iPad Pro + Pencil. Using it as a general sketch pad on the laptop would be nice, even if I was just marking up screenshots (something I do a lot).

9. Some easy access to "open containing folder" from the initial Spotlight search. I regularly search for a file I know I have but am like, "WHERE did I store it?"

10. Group FaceTime would be really nice.

11. Messages parity with iOS. I really need to send a poop emoji with the slam effect from my laptop. This is absolutely essential to my workflow. (Maybe open up Messages?)

This OS has served me well since Tiger. Snow Leopard and El Capitan really stand out, but honestly, Lion was about the only release that was particularly problematic for me. I generally upgrade within the first week of a release (and same day in some cases).

 

[flat five]

There is a command line utility called git, with which you can check in files to a repository, and then you have a history of all check-ins, and you can write a note for every check-in. Unfortunately Apple doesn't provide a GUI for git, but there are third-party apps for that. I recommend SourceTree https://www.sourcetreeapp.com
but there are also a couple of git GUI applications on Mac AppStore.

hmm.. i'm interested.

however, when you say files (with an 's' at the end), do you mean having a different file for each desired version?
because if so, that's definitely not the sweet solution..
(like, with multiple files as the versions, i could just use the doc name as the descriptor.. just like i did for the decade prior to osx versioning )

or, does this suggestion work in conjunction with Versions?

(but, without the GUI, it's probably a no-go for me.. with versions UI, you can go back in time, copy an object, come back to the present, and paste that object.. all without leaving the current document or going to a file structure or opening another doc.. etc)