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

[Alphonso1]

I’d like to see:

iTunes / music handoff: start a song or playlist on one device, pause and pick up on another device. Or maybe something like iCloud tabs for playlists on multiple devices, to resume a playlist started from any device.

Disk Utility linear partition editor view like it was a few years back. Seriously, a pie chart makes no sense and makes it hard to select the size of partition I want.

AirPlay from iOS to macOS.

Control my Mac’s volume from my iPhone.

Remotely set my Mac to the login/lock screen from my iPhone. The Find My iPhone app can lock it with a passcode but I’d like to just display the regular log in screen as it does after waking from sleep.

Manage the volume of multiple audio streams playing and select different output devices for each source. I think windows has something like this.

As someone before mentioned, system-wide version control with easy view of the changes between versions would be cool. Although there is versioning in some apps, it can be very hard to tell the difference between two Pages documents at glance, for example.

Notifications for apps that aren’t open, like on iOS. Tired of having Mail open constantly in order to be notified of a new email. This works for Messages already.

A feature I use in Ubuntu all the time: right-click in a folder and select "Open Terminal Here" would be nice to have. Currently from Finder I have to back out of the folder, right-click the folder, and select Services -> New Terminal at Folder (this method is too obscure so I use a keyboard shortcut but would still rather be able to invoke a terminal window in the folder I’m in rather than having to select it).

Better remembering of which spaces go on which displays: I use two external monitors with my MacBook Pro and after I unplug it from the monitors and come back and connect, the spaces are all jumbled like they don’t remember which screen they’re supposed to be on. This wouldn’t be so bad if I could move a space to another screen. Why isn’t that possible?

The ability to name a desktop Space, instead of just Desktop 1, Desktop 2, Desktop 3, etc. Call them Personal, Work, School, etc.

Option to turn on Night Shift for TVs. My main display while docked is a 21" HDTV and Night Shift works on all but that screen, causing it to stand out and be unnecessarily bright relative to the others, defeating the purpose of Night Shift. Why they made that decision, I have no idea.

 

[Mizhou]

(i'm adhd.. so sue me )..

I'm ADD, Asperger and Tourette. Wonderful personality traits, if you ask me, but they do have some cons too.

i can't imagine it working like apple's versions though.. that being- say i have a 20MB file.. i draw a line then save a version.. will i now have 40MB worth of data being stored..
because with Versions, only the changes are being saved.. my 20MB file is now 20MB plus a few KBs for the newly drawn line..
and i work from multiple locations/computers so keeping these file sizes low and all within the single working file is advantageous for keeping everything synced regardless of where i may be working that day.

git saves diffs too, not files in their full. It works better for text files than binary files though.

Maybe you should just wait until Apple releases the new macOS in October or so, with the new APFS file system. It has many quite nice features, though I don't know if they're the best for your use case.

If you want to know more about APFS, then you can watch this presentation from last years WWDC: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/701/
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Disk Utility linear partition editor view like it was a few years back. Seriously, a pie chart makes no sense and makes it hard to select the size of partition I want.

I think you're going to like the new file system APFS: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/701/

AirPlay from iOS to macOS.

While you can not AirPlay from iOS to macOS, you can open QuickTime Player on the Mac, and choose to record a new video. Right beside the record button in the window that comes up, you can select the video source, and if you connect your iOS device to the Mac with the lightning cable, then you can select the iOS device as video source. Just put your window in full screen and be sure to hold the iPhone in landscape position, unless you have a vertical video of course.

Control my Mac’s volume from my iPhone.

Have you tried the iTunes remote on App Store? But maybe you want to control other applications on the Mac than iTunes.

Notifications for apps that aren’t open, like on iOS. Tired of having Mail open constantly in order to be notified of a new email. This works for Messages already.

That would only work if the mail server is sending push notifications, which most mail servers don't.

A feature I use in Ubuntu all the time: right-click in a folder and select "Open Terminal Here" would be nice to have. Currently from Finder I have to back out of the folder, right-click the folder, and select Services -> New Terminal at Folder (this method is too obscure so I use a keyboard shortcut but would still rather be able to invoke a terminal window in the folder I’m in rather than having to select it).

There are third party Finder extensions that can do this. At least could. The one I have installed now, doesn't work under Sierra. You can also click in the folder icon in the title bar of the Finder window, and drag it to the Terminal icon in the dock. That will open a new window with your desired path. A bit less convenient than what you want, but it works. In this video he drags a folder to the Terminal, but you can also drag the icon for your current folder, from the top of the window.

The ability to name a desktop Space, instead of just Desktop 1, Desktop 2, Desktop 3, etc. Call them Personal, Work, School, etc.

I don't know any way to rename them, but if you create all the virtual desktops you want, and put them in a specific order, like Work = Desktop 1, Personal = Desktop 2, Home = Desktop 3 etc, then you can quickly jump to a specific desktop with ctrl-1, ctrl-2, ctrl-3.

 

[StevieD100]

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.

When 'uptimes' for OSX/MacOS are often in months does a few seconds really matter? It is not like Windows where every update and application install seems to need a reboot you know.
This would be about 9,999 out of 10,000 on my priority list.

 

[RednBlue]

Make iTunes great again! Or at least debloat it and upgrade it to even mediocre. Seriously, few things on a computer (Mac or PC) frustrate me more than accidentally launching iTunes or, even worse, trying to use it.

This. The only thing I would change...just get all the bugs out of the current OS and leave it alone for a while.

 

[zombierunner]

Matte Black iMacs & MBPs please.

 

[asiga]

- Three finger drag gesture moved back to the Trackpad options panel, and away from Accessibility, where it clearly doesn't belong. What kind of handicap would be eased with three finger dragging? It's not for the handicapped!! It's an Apple standard gesture, and so important and useful that it should be pushed far more than the USB-C ports, and enabled by default!!

- Enhanced support for windows with "deep color" (deeper than 8 bit per component, and available in all systems --emulated with dithering in systems that don't support it, but available in all systems).

- And very important: please Apple renew your commitment to standards: Once upon a time you were the king here. So, renew your support to OpenCL, start supporting Vulkan, and provide us with good low level debuggers for OpenCL, like other OSs have.

 

[digitaloutback]

Personally, I'd like to see a better Finder for accessing files/folders. Maybe I'm corrupted from years of Windows use, but I got hooked on an alphabetical folder view that listed folders at the top, followed by files. I'd also like to see Finder windows adjust the icon/thumbnail layout when the Finder window is resized.

This was added some time back - Finder > Preferences > Keep folders on top when sorting by name

 

[HiRez]

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.

It may be dated and slow, but it's saved my ass a number of times. The "hyperspace" look and animations seem silly now but the concept is good, I really like being able to scroll back through time on a single folder and restore only what I need from any snapshot. And it's still backing up 3 Macs to the same 2 TB Time Capsule I bought like 4 years ago.

 

[diipii]

I can't imagine any serious user of computers over the age of 12 making any of those suggestions.

 

[ikir]

eGPU official support

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I don't know if anyone else already mentioned it (no time to read the whole thread right now), but AFAIK you can already use an AppleTV as a second monitor (at least with Gen2 and Gen3; I don't have a Gen4 to test but I don't know why it would be any different). I've done it with Gen2 and Gen3 many times (Airplay to AppleTV in video preferences; you can either clone or use it as another screen or iTunes can send it to directly). I've even played some Steam games in the living room with an AppleTV using a Bluetooth controller (e.g. The Cave). That works fine as long as it's not too speed/frame intensive (i.e. Borderlands Telltale Game would miss/drop some frames sometimes, but The Cave was fine).

 

[antonis]

A GUI utility that allows users to enable and disable the running/starting services.
A redesign of apps installation mechanism so it allows a consistent unified way to safely uninstall them.

 

[rocketz]

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

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?"

You can do this already. If you hold the command key the path is shown and if you double click on your item while holding command it will open a Finder window. Well hidden feature though..

 

[Mizhou]

A GUI utility that allows users to enable and disable the running/starting services.

There is a GUI for that, and it's called macOS Server on the Mac AppStore: https://itunes.apple.com/app/macos-server/id883878097?mt=12

 

[Tech198]

Yes to expanded Dark Mode: Oh no! my Mac's turned to the Dark Side.

 

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

Considering that the current Mac Pro is a BUST, I'd like to see better support for older Mac Pros that cost people $4000-$6000 and are now obsoleted before inferior Mac Minis! That's INSANE, but not Insanely Great!
You cannot FORCE Pro users to give up their machines when you have nothing to offer in response that meets the need.

 

[palmerc]

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

Name the long-term bug you'd like to see fixed. How about screen caps (Cmd-Shirt-4) when using zoom? I've been filing bugs and this seems to be the one that never gets resolved, but is clearly on their radar because it was marked duplicate.
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APFS!!!!!!!!!! /thread

Potentially a huge performance improvement. Death to the beachball!
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Blu-ray playback support, even if I have to pay for it with an Apple App

I think you know the answer to that.

 

[jonnysods]

are you clicking this upon shutting down?

View attachment 701147


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 )

I think the problem is me. I have 3 monitors, 2 running by USB and it causes conflicts with the OS. I guess I should use a dvi to usbc adapter, that would fix it.

 

[Paul A Jackson]

1. APFS, if it would speed things up on most SSD-based Macs as claimed.
2. Fix Time Machine backup reliability, especially to NAS. I see some others prefer iCloud backup, but I don't like paying any third party to backup my confidential data. I don't know how much additional work is required for Time Machine to be able to back up APFS, and maybe a completely newly architected backup solution would be better for the long term.

 

[Ishayu]

1) APFS
2) Fix your ****ing graphics subsystem, seriously. Vulkan, faster performance
3) Fix _A LOT_ of bugs in WebKit. Please.
4) Fix IOKit. We STILL can't run HDMI 2.0 even on hardware that would support it, like the new MacBook Pro. Come on now.

And yeah some of the above are really nice ideas.

Although splitting Apple Music from my music library would upset me pretty badly. For me, it's the killer app of Apple Music. You take that away, I'm straight back to Spotify. That said, iTunes could definitely use some feature consolidation. Like, instead of going to the store or Apple Music separately, maybe it would be a good idea to merge the two into one feature, so you just add songs instead of buying them when they're available on Apple Music.

The rest of my wishlist is just hardware. Stop making slow pro products.

 

[juminoz]

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.

Just hold down option before clicking the green button. This is a feature and not a bug. There are many other features as well that changes when you hold down option button.

 

[Mac4Brains]

The key thing that I always wanted to see improved upon is in both in the Aps store and iTunes store, is a way to drill down to what you want with a sub menu like in some web sites. For an example, when I am in the mood for a new game but I don’t truly know what I am looking for, click games, strategy, Turn-based, top rated, free or pay, Ect. Right now finding a item your intentionally looking for is fairly easy but random exploration can be rather difficult.

 

[jlc1978]

One Bug fix I'd like to see: Fix the not remounting USB and SD cards after sleep.

Glad to see that our dear Juli Clover read our posts in the forum

Now, let me ask something to the macrumors community: What if Apple makes mandatory, with this iteration, for the apps to be purchased in the App Store? I mean: do you think it would be a good idea, this time and for the following iterations of macOS, to only allow apps installed from the Mac App Store? No more dmg installers.

Obviously some heavy companies in the software industry, like Microsoft with its Office, and Adobe with its Creative Suite, should start selling its products through the Mac App Store.

Bad idea, For several reasons:

1. Smaller developers who would see a 30% cut in revenue for the possibility of higher sales making up for it.
2. Apple's requirements for being on the App Store limit the functionality a developer can include due to sandboxing and other rules. You'd likely see ripping software go away or be crippled, software that adds functionality but requires bypassing security features would no longer exist, etc. You'd lose ways to make your Mac better for no real gain.
3. Some big companies may just decide the Mac isn't worth it especially if tehy all of a sudden are giving Apple 30% of their sales.

I prefer options to having to do it one way.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I keep my fingers crossed for having all my apps still work flawlessly and that includes Aperture.

 

[alexgowers]

A way better finder that can do basic stuff like 'cut' files, has GIT/SVN build in, etc.etc.etc.? Really? No one?

Even with default folder X, I'm so sorry to say Windows Explorer is still better. That should change for the better.

agree, cut and paste requires excessively long shortcuts and there is no option to do it with context menus!

There are plenty of ugly things that need to go in favour of universal design language across all apple products. MacOS people hate that idea but I love it and manually change all icons to be identical to iOS, this saves time and brain power on both as there is no second guessing app functions.

I personally really want time machine to work on a per partition basis and support bootcamp/windows. Having to backup both with different systems of backup is both annoying and pointless and a restore without imaging drives is impossible.

I also used to have an app bootchamp that is blocked by SIP and want an easier way to switch to a bootcamp OS and back without needing to hold ALT etc.

I also want to see better networking. Currently finder is a real weak point requiring reloading of all folders and files everytime it looks at a network folder! This is borderline idiotic and a huge waste of time.

Jesus there are so many things that annoy me that are simple fixes that having nothing to do with this list most of which I consider pointless and of no real benefit to anyone. Things like iCloud backups just won't work and will be WAY TOO slow when Time Machine on a network drive is faster better and would store much more, you can even do remote network drive backups on time machine but it's painfully slow.