These Sonoma Options Bridge the Hole Between Your Mac and iPhone

It is protected to say that Apple has had a busy fall. The corporate launched a slew of recent options and merchandise, overlaying all the things from Apple {hardware} and software program upgrades which introduced us brand-new Apple Watches, iPhones and Apple Pencils. Most lately, the tech big unveiled its brand-new M3 chip, the brand new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Professionals and a refreshed model of the iMac at its “Scary Quick” occasion held on the finish of October. 

MacOS Sonoma’s smaller updates did not get the pomp and circumstance from the tech big that different updates and upgrades recieved this yr, however the brand-new Macs hitting the scene this fall will shake issues up. In case you’re planning to improve to a brand new Mac and a brand new iPhone concurrently, you may wish to be sure they work in concord. 

In case you plan on upgrading each your laptop and your cellphone, there’s excellent news. MacOS Sonoma’s replace brings options that iPhone customers have loved for a number of years, and a few brand-new ones that iPhone customers first noticed in iOS 17. 

Take a look at these new Mac options that I feel make my cellphone and laptop work higher collectively. For extra, try the right way to repair essentially the most annoying iOS 17 options and the Mac keyboard shortcuts you could know. 

Widgets come to your desktop

Whereas widgets aren’t an earth-shattering productiveness function, and even new to Apple followers, having them in your desktop is fairly useful. As an illustration, a few of my co-workers work on the West Coast whereas I work on the East Coast, so I’ve a clock widget that shows the present time in Pacific Customary Time, which makes coordinating with my coworkers a bit easier. 

The widgets are additionally tremendous easy to make use of; all you must do is right-click together with your mouse or double-click your trackpad in your desktop and a menu will come out. You may choose Edit Widgets and a widget menu will seem the place you’ll be able to select from small, medium or massive widgets for a wide range of functions. If you wish to take away a widget, you’ll be able to both right-click or use two fingers to click on your trackpad and choose Take away Widget, or you’ll be able to click on the small purple button that seems after deciding on Edit Widget to take away your widget. 

You too can drag and drop widgets out of your Notification Heart to your desktop. If you wish to add widgets to your notification heart, all you could do is scroll to the underside of your notification heart and click on Edit Widgets. You take away widgets out of your notification heart in the identical approach you’d out of your desktop. 

You too can add your iPhone widgets to your Mac’s desktop, even when you do not have the widget’s corresponding app downloaded to your laptop. To allow this, you’ll need to go to System Settings, then scroll right down to Desktop and Dock and from there scroll to the Widgets part. As soon as within the widgets part, merely toggle the Use iPhone Widgets choice on. Your iPhone widgets will likely be obtainable from the widget browser that seems when deciding on Edit Widget in your desktop or notification heart. 

Auto-sorting grocery lists

I am a reasonably organized individual, however to be trustworthy, I’ve by no means turned to Apple’s Reminders app for assist with this. The app did not make a lot sense to me and I historically have opted for third-party group apps. Whereas these new reminder options aren’t sufficient to sway me away from my most well-liked group apps, some additions assist me make higher use of the app. 

The adjustments to reminders are fairly simple to make the most of. Essentially the most main replace is the auto-sorting grocery checklist function. To utilize this function, click on the Add Listing button on the backside of the reminders web page. Give your checklist a reputation (and alter the colour of the checklist and the icon if you would like). Then, underneath the Listing Sort drop-down menu, choose Groceries. 

As soon as within the checklist, create the classes you need on your checklist. For instance, my checklist had three classes: meats, produce and miscellaneous. After you create your classes, you need to be capable to begin placing your checklist collectively, and the objects you add needs to be routinely sorted. Be warned — this function appears to be a bit buggy. My finest recommendation is to maintain making an attempt the function, and you may all the time drag and drop your objects to their right class if nothing else works. 

Messages that mirror your cellphone

One in every of my favourite issues about having an Apple household of merchandise is that I can textual content from my laptop. This sounds small, however this has confirmed super-helpful in my day-to-day life. Once I’m engaged on my laptop, I can put my cellphone utterly away so I can focus, however it’s good to nonetheless be capable to be reached. 

One factor that has all the time annoyed me about iMessage on my laptop is that it feels years behind my cellphone. For the longest time, I could not use tap-back reactions and even reply to messages like I may after I would textual content on my cellphone. Sonoma has modified this for the higher — there may be lastly parity between telephones and computer systems relating to the iMessage expertise. 

The largest function that I had been lacking was the reply operate. Primarily, this operate permits you to swipe throughout a message and reply on to that particular message. I’ve discovered this function notably useful when making difficult plans or in noisy group chats. 

All you must do to make use of the reply operate is swipe two fingers to the appropriate till you’ll be able to reply to the message. In case you do not wish to swipe, you’ll be able to click on the message you want to reply to with two fingers and choose Reply from the drop-down menu. 

For extra, here is one of the best MacBook of 2023.