MacOS Mojave beta: Hands-on with Dark Mode, Continuity Camera, Gallery View and more

The public beta has arrived for MacOS Mojave, the latest update of the Apple desktop operating system, aka 10.14. Do you want to install it? Let's talk about that.

Most updates are cosmetic or simply rework existing features to make them faster and easier to use. That's not to say that they're not important – turning something that is a real pain to do into a slightly lesser pain is always welcome. There are also completely new features, but the best ones, like Continuity Camera and FaceTime Group, require an iPhone running. iOS 12, also in beta.

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We went around the public beta of MacOS Mojave and here …

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Before you install

If you decide to install the beta version or possibly upgrade, make sure your system is compatible. In addition, if you are using custom applications that are still 32-bit workstation or OpenGL applications, you may want to consider upgrading, especially if you have never migrated to High Sierra.

Apple depreciates 32-bit applications and OpenGL and Open CL – this means that they are still supported now, but will not be in a future undetermined version. This is a smart change from the point of view of the OS, but it could mean that an application you use could at some point become unusable. Not all applications are created by active development teams who will spend time updating their applications, though in some cases they only need a simple recompile.

Not surprisingly, I have encountered a handful of bugs. This includes selecting a group of contiguous files in the new gallery view with Shift-Click and Undo bugs in markup, as well as incomplete implementations of new applications such as voice memos ( brought from iOS with the help of new UIKit, which is in the early stages) and continuity camera. Voice Memos works almost exactly like his fellow iOS, but I could not sync it via iCloud as promised. I did not test the Home implementation of the smart home control enforcement, I did not go through The new Safari tracking protections or the new ability to create Automator actions for the Finder.

One of the features reintroduced in Mojave is the support of APFS (its new file system) with Fusion players. When High Sierra officially launched last year, Apple had removed the Fusion support that was in the beta, allowing you only to use APFS on the SSDs. The benefits of APFS include its ability to dynamically resize partitions and greater stability.

Apple has tightened its privacy controls and password management. The first has expanded the restrictions on files and devices that an application can access, adding the microphone and camera, application data and more to the list of things for which you must give explicit permission. I do not know if it's a bug or a design, but Apple's own apps, like FaceTime, have never asked me for permission.

There are a few small changes that are worth noting, such as removing updates from the App Store's operating system in their own system preference, favicons website in Safari tabs and a Recent view in the Finder that shows you the files you just touched.

The dark side

Apple has made a big deal with the new dark theme, and it's certainly welcome. But at least in the beta, it is limited to only Apple software, which means that applications that do not support it can be a little discordant. You can disable it in Mail, but other than that, it's everywhere or nowhere for Apple applications.

In addition to dark backgrounds on apps, it modifies the window items controlled by the OS, so, for example, you'll see a dark title bar in Chrome, but the rest of the window will have the # Bright air.

The menu bar and title bar of the window are not completely dark – they are translucent and optimized for the dark background of Mojave. If you change the screen background, the menu bar selects the background color and hues of the window's title bar. Most people do not care, but if you do critical color work, do not rely on gray neutrality for all elements of your workspace.

Fiddle with the Finder

The Finder has received many system updates, and one of the most notable is Gallery View, which is similar to the filmstrip view in photo apps. Gallery is a kind of inverted Cover Flow, which it replaces. It basically does the same thing, which allows you to scroll through the files (thumbnails) and view great snapshots of each. But I find the biggest thumbnails too small.

And the metadata! Throughout the Finder, you can see the selected metadata for your files. It's too late. PDF creation in one click? Super – although, as far as I know, it only works with pictures at the moment.

Apple has integrated existing tools scattered around the operating system into a tagging window. It includes cutting and cropping video and basic photo, which is really convenient, as well as drawing tools for annotation. It's easy to access any file by clicking on the Quick Look bar and then selecting Markup. But without the touch screen or pen capacity, the annotation is clumsy. And this can be confusing – you might think that clicking "Done" would close the markup window, but it is not.

You have probably already heard of Desktop Stacks for automatic organization of chaotic workstations. After conditioning people for more than three decades to leave their files and folders everywhere, Apple finally took pity on them and created a variation of its fan display for the downloaded files and applied it to grouping files on the desktop. By default, it stores them by file type, but you can change it for any file organization option – by date, size, and so on – that is traditionally available in the Finder.

If you uncheck the "Use Desktop Batteries" checkbox, all the icons in your files and folders are in their place. It is quite easy to go back and forth between Stacks and no Stacks. And if you often have people watching your screen, Stacks makes it easy to quickly clean up your desk to make it feel like you are more organized than you are.

You can also browse the stacks, but as with the gallery view, the thumbnails are really too small to identify a particular file quickly. You can, however, develop any stack to browse them more precisely.

Screen capture improves, for some

Apple has updated its tool to handle a great one: capture and annotate a screen, and then send it, usually to a developer who needs to fix the bug that he illustrates. (This is definitely one of the things we do at CNET.)

A new shortcut shift-cmd-5 displays a small display with your screen capture options. There are no new ones, but the screen capture and screen recording are all in one place and you do not have to remember all the different shortcuts. They still work, however, and are even faster. After the capture, a thumbnail appears in the lower corner of your screen. Right click on it and you can go directly into the Markup view above, from which you can send it without ever saving it. Or you can choose to save it in Desktop or Documents folders.

Unfortunately, it does not treat the other great use, which is able to take a large sequence of screen shots and save them in the folder of your choice. You know, the kind of thing you need to do when you write a story about an operating system. (Ahem.) You must always use Terminal to change the default folder, which is ridiculous. The Terminal method still works in Mojave, so there is that.

Attach your iPhone

Continuity The camera promises to save a lot of time for people who often need to embed photos or scans into documents on their laptops or desktops, take photographs of expense reports, and so on. Once configured, simply click in a document or Finder window and select Insert Photo or Scan. It triggers the application of the camera on the iPhone so that you can take pictures and automatically insert or save the photo.

However, things have not always worked out well with the beta, and there are some limitations that I hope will disappear. At the present time, it only works with Apple applications, and the option to use it was often unavailable while it should have been – in the case of a direct backup in the Finder, for example. In addition, he refused to launch the camera application, and only worked when I opened the application in advance.

Unsurprisingly, it only works with iOS 12, and as it connects via Bluetooth and transfers over Wi-Fi, your phone must be close to your system and both must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

At beta or not at beta

The beta version is pretty stable, although it's a little weird right now. I think it is worthwhile to deal with the usual beta issues if you do a lot of screenshots and send or annotate images. The new workflow is really a big time saver that is worth supporting some bugs. And if you have an iPhone that you plan to install the beta version of iOS 12 On, you might want to keep your desktop operating system in parallel to avoid those "Damn, I forgot that I could not do it on my desk yet!" moments (unless it is still missing from the iOS iOS 12). Otherwise, you might want to wait until two months after its release. It's always a good policy to wait until everyone has found the problems before an update, which is equally true with the iOS 12 betaAlthough you can roll back if necessary.

Of course, if you have a second machine, and you just want to see what's new for you, go ahead and install it.

iOS 12: Everything you need to know, from release date to new features.

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