Apple’s latest macOS is packed with all kinds of features great and small, but many of them aren’t documented, are hard to remember, or are so new you might not have come across them just yet. From things that save you time, effort and maybe even money, to those that cause you to smile and let out a ‘Eureka!’ shriek when you discover them, these are the secrets of Sonoma.
Did you know, when you place widgets on your macOS 14 desktop, you can have them sit there in full colour instead of reverting to monochrome when they’re not in use? Or that you can bring exciting effects to a video chat using hand gestures? Or that also in video chat, you can decide where to appear when using Centre Stage; it no longer has to be the middle of the screen? Or that when writing a note in the Notes app, you can switch it to the Pages app and carry on? Or that you can use your Sonoma-based Mac with devices for the hard of hearing that are made for the iPhone? It’s all in macOS Sonoma.
Over the next few pages, we take a look at the secrets of Sonoma. Features and facets of the new Apple Mac operating system of which you might not be aware, but are sitting there, just waiting to be discovered. So what are you waiting for? Let’s delve into Sonoma’s darkest corners, and get even more from our Mac’s latest operating system.
All about the screen savers
How do you make the most of the new slowmo screen savers?
Sonoma takes a new look at screen savers. The old ones are still there, but they’ve now been joined by some awesome slow-motion video screen savers featuring areas of great beauty from all over the world.
Each of these screen savers has a companion wallpaper too, so you can have a slow-motion view of a beautiful scene while you’re not using your Mac, which steadies into a static desktop when you return to it. They’re easy to use too.
1 Screen saver settings
First of all, click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings. In the window that opens, click the Screen Saver option in the left-hand sidebar. The Screen Saver settings are now shown.
2 Screen saver categories
As you can see, you’re offered new screen savers in four categories; Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater and Earth. Below this are options to shuffle new screen savers, that is, pick one at random from one or all of these categories, and ‘Other’, which is the older screen savers if you prefer to stick with what you know.
3 Show all
To the right of each of these categories is a link marked ‘Show All’. Click one of these to be shown every screen saver in that particular category. The number in brackets after ‘Show All’ is the number of screen savers from which you can choose.
4 Choose a screen savera
Choose a screen saver from those on offer. Unless you’ve used it before, it needs to download to your Mac before you can set it as your screen saver. A progress circle is shown at the top of the screen.
5 Setting as a wallpaper
When your chosen screen saver has downloaded to your Mac (it shouldn’t take too long), choose how you want to use it. Toggle the ‘Show as wallpaper’ switch off if you don’t want to use it on your desktop; it’s then only used as a screen saver. If you do this, you can then click on the Wallpaper category in the left-hand sidebar of System Settings and choose a different wallpaper.
6 Show on all spaces
Look for the switch labelled ‘Show On All
