Apple today seeded the eighth beta of macOS 10.15 Catalina to developers, two weeks after seeding the seventh macOS Catalina beta and over two months after the new Mac operating system update was first unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
The new macOS Catalina beta can be downloaded using the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after installing the proper software from the Developer Center.
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macOS Catalina eliminates the iTunes app, splitting it into Music, Podcasts, and TV apps. The three new apps offer similar functionality to iTunes, but are split up by feature. iOS device management is still available on the Mac, but it's now done through the Finder rather than iTunes.
With a new Sidecar feature, you can turn your iPad into a second display for your Mac with just the click of a button. The Apple Pencil works with Sidecar, so you can turn your iPad into a drawing tablet in apps like Photoshop and Illustrator.
Your Apple Watch can be used to approve security prompts for passwords and other info in macOS Catalina, and Macs with a T2 chip now support Activation Lock, making them more secure. There's a new Find My that brings the Find My Mac app to the Mac for the first time and even lets you track your devices when they're offline, or, in the case of notebooks, closed.
Screen Time is available on the Mac as well as iOS devices, and Project Catalyst, a new Apple initiative, will let developers easily port their iPad apps over to the Mac to increase the number of Mac apps available.
There's a new Photos interface that surfaces your best photos organized by day, month, or year, there's a new start page in Safari, Mail has new tools for muting email threads and blocking senders, and the Reminders app has been overhauled.
32-bit apps no longer work in macOS Catalina, which is something to be aware of before installing the beta.
For more details on macOS Catalina, make sure to check out our macOS Catalina roundup. Apple will release macOS Catalina sometime in October.
Top Rated Comments
During the course of this beta I've read some of the wildest stories imaginable - just like you read every single Summer beta cycle. The first and second betas had issues with the 2018/19 hardware, that was about it. I have a 13" 2017 MBP, no taskbar. My installs went without a hitch. I had issues with overheating and fan speeds, iCloud was a mess (still is, was, and probably always will be because Consumer-grade cloud services are crap by their very nature) and I'd even go so far as to say that the Mojave beta cycle was probably a lot cleaner.
It's a BETA - what do people not understand about this idea? Catalina is shaping up to be a great iteration of MacOS - what do people want? I know exactly what's going to happen. By about 15.5 or 6 Catalina will be humming right along and I'll be stupid enough to participate in the next beta cycle knowing exactly what I'm getting myself into...
MAYBE Apple is thinking, "Mojave just got pretty stable (14.5, 14.6)." There's no rush -- let's push the release of 15.x Catalina until the October event, where they release the new MacBooks (like 16" MacBook) and the finally-released Mac Pro, and whatever their Tile-competitor tracking tag is. That way, they have a whole event that doesn't compete with all the stuff they announced today, and Catalina gets and additional 3 - 5 weeks of road testing.
Anyone else think that's what's going to happen?