macOS Mojave: The DEEP DIVE!

macOS Mojave has just gone into public beta. This is my preview, where I go over all the new features, how they're holding up, and how they fit into the bigger picture.

There's a new Dark Mode, new dynamic desktop and stacks to keep it neat and tidy, a new Gallery Mode in finder with actions built into it and Quick View. FaceTime Group calls. There's a new Mac App Store and one of the biggest developments in the history of the Mac: UIKit (iOS Apps) on Mac. Yeah. All that and more!

It's all part of a multi-year project intent on taking the decades-old UNIX and NextStep foundations and making them new and relevant again for modern, increasingly mobile and mainstream customers, while not leaving the creatives and pros behind.

So, how well does Mojave do?

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I love these DEEP DIVES Rene. Everybody just repeats what Apple says in their Keynote, hardly anyone really thinks about smaller and bigger things at once and explains where we are headed.

[MaskeJ]

At first when you switched from Light to Dark mode the desktop image changes accordingly. However when I changed the desktop background to the dynamic version, if I try to change it back to still versions they don't change anymore if I switch modes. Does someone know how to revert this back?

[safesolvent]

Love the new tighter framing and lens choice, also really digging the mic included in the frame. So many nice subtle evolving touches since the first upload. Great episode too!

[UntitledGaming]

Is it possible to have the mac swap slowly to dark mode? like 8am i'll have full bright mode and then at 8pm ill have dark mode in its glory

[wykananda]

An original mac fan, I've owned macs since the first. However, I haven't been able to buy a new MB Pro since 2011. I really want to - but every time I go try and pull the trigger I'm shocked by the lack of PRO in the macbook pro line - and even more so at the ridiculous price they ask for that lack. I've never associated the word "Pro" with anorexic but Apple seems to consider them synonymous. I associate "pro" with powerful, upgrade-able, versatile, reliable, quiet and well-built inside and out. Instead, they've become cosmetic. Expensive and pretty on the outside but brittle on the inside. Pretty throw-away toys for people with more money than brains. They don't have the proper thermal treatment to utilize the "pro" chips inside, for example the super-expensive i9 runs worse than the i7 chip. It's throttle city and yet they still run too hot. That means that will very likely die an early death and very likely take all your data down with it. These are laptops with "repair-ability" score of 1 out of 10!! What could possible be called "Pro" about that?! Designed in California maybe but "Made In China" in the worst sense of the phrase. Not to mention DONGLE CITY - including the external drive you'll need once you run out of internal space in a few years. What's the point of "thin and light" if you have to cart around a bag full of pricey adapters with you every where in a vain attempt to try and extract that "Pro" promise out of them. The only awesome feature is the trackpad - they have a "Pro" trackpad. Only problem is, the vast majority of pros use a mouse the vast majority of the time - so it doesn't mean much. OS X is still pretty darn good - though I'm hearing about kernel panics more and more these days with folks having to reboot a few times a week or worse. That may be the hardware too. Either way, I used to recommend Macs to everyone - even though they were expensive at first, I knew they'd run trouble free and for twice the life of any Windows laptop. I can not in good conscience recommend them any more. I'd gladly take an extra 5mm in depth and an extra pound for a laptop that can be fixed at a reasonable price - that can take a bigger drive a few years later when you'll need one - that can actually run the hardware inside it properly without throttling and overheating - that adds a couple of compatible ports and a card reader so I don't have to schlep around a tangled pile of pricey dongle crap. That can take some extra ram later when needed. That has a keyboard that doesn't fail in a year and doesn't feel like crap. Who's battery can be easily replaced when it dies after a few years (as they all do). That has a magnetic power connector so I don't accidentally trash my $5000 laptop. That doesn't suck up power and jack up the price with a pretty LED strip that "Pro" users don't want, don't use, and don't need. Sorry Apple, but these are not the Macs pros are looking for. Great software but stupid hardware. Your not fooling the pros and it's the pros that people go to for recommendations. If you'd like to know why sales are dropping in this segment for you, here are some of the reasons. Sheesh.

[michaeljemery]

I don't know how you keep turning out such comprehensive and insightful content, so regularly, and with such attention holding style. These Deep Dives make traditional podcasts look so time consuming and stale in comparison, that I fear you are setting the bar too high for everyone else. Thank you!

[askhowiknow]

The macos app store still looks vomitrocious, I’m glad they’re addressing it but they also need to kick a lot of garbage apps off of there

[Pontavignon]

This one is paced just a little slower than your iOS deep dive, but what a wonderful difference it makes to to listenability and ease of comprehension. Wonderful content AND pace. Terrific.

[jwoolson]

Rene is one badass journalist. Just finished watching him on Mac Break Weekly. My Super Mac News Dream Team is Rene Richie, Jeff Benjamin at 9-to-5 Mac, Max Yuryev coverage of video tools, and Quinn Nelson at Snazzy Labs. If only there was still some kind of strong economic incentive to join forces into some kind of professional journalism endeavor... like a "magazine" or some sort of grouping of professional journalists.
Full Disclosure: I am a former employee of Macworld Magazine from 1998-2000, and I am equal parts delighted and dismayed that professional journalism is still being disrupted. I deeply appreciate professionals working in the field.

[kaysha]

A lot of thought and love have been put in this Mojave. My favorite part is the injection of the Marzipan virus. I'm sure it is a slow 5 years replacement of AppKit, wait and see.
Loving the deep dives.

[CmThayer]

my imac hasnt locked up or hung in the 2 yrs ive had it, today after downloading mohave, my system preferences locked up n needed to be hard restarted, then it happened again n again. Love the dark mode but rather have my old OS back that doesnt lock up but i dont wanna go thru the aggravation of downgrading.

[JLegend]

I’m having problems installing Mac OS mojave smh. It’s getting stuck on 3mins left and it keeps saying redownload the installer. Doing that doesn’t help the problem smh.

[SevenDeMagnus]

Hi. How do you know rotate the whole screen to 90, 180 degree? Thank you. God bless, Proverbs 31

[dulanjala]

what do think about the new butterfly keyboard?

[darrene.mathews]

I appreciate the comprehensiveness of these presentations, Rene. You remind me of my C++ computer science professor, who explained abstruse concepts with great clarity and precision.

[gina-mariehammer]

New to the Mac. Just got a Mac mini for Christmas and love it. Having some trouble understanding the differences between Windows, Linux and the Mac (tend to float among all three now). They all look pretty similar, but function very differently under the hood. Your in-depth look was entertaining and informative. I didn't really know much about the Mac OS except that it was far more stable than Windows, and had a proven track record and better security. You've given me a terrific overview of the features I didn't even know existed - thanks!

[lahmyaj]

Mate, this deep dive is like if Ars Technica made video reviews for their deep dives lol - LOVING IT!!!

[PudgeFree]

The only thing I’m worried about with Mojave is that my dedicated graphics card on my 2011 mbp died and I had to make a bunch of system level tweaks to run only on integrated graphics and those will be lost by an os update most likely and who knows if I could figure out how to fix it again. So I can’t risk running the beta and it’s gonna be a chore to update to Mojave when the full release comes out.

[denvernaicker]

the irony is that adobe flash did this 20 years ago and they were shunned because of not using a secure sandbox layer to deter attackers from accessing os files but as we have seen there are tons of exploits on mac os, linux and windows

apple is creating the same layers adobe did using actionscript 3 and flex

[TheJohnMak]

Excellent voice sound. What microphone are you using?