With the annual World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) ’25 less than a month away, we anticipate the release of multiple new versions of existing Apple OSes including the successor to Sequoia, macOS 16.

While much is still under wraps, there are some known additions coming to this new macOS which are noteworthy in and of themselves.

As the Apple Silicon era draws upon its 5th year, Intel Macs are still on a current operating system.. It isn’t unreasonable to assume macOS 16.0 will drop all Intel Macs altogether, however, speculation and a pinch of hope remains for the 2025 macOS release to retain support.

At the time of writing this article, we’re 1,794 days into the Apple silicon transition which was announced on June 22nd 2020. When PowerPC Macs were 1,794 days into the Intel transition, however, it was already May 5th 2010 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard had already been out for Intel Macs only.

Dropping support for the oldest Intel Macs while simultaneously pushing out one last Intel OS would continue the trend of every Mac getting 5 years of OS support, as to be expected.

Intel Macs supported by Sequoia:

• Mac mini: 2018
• iMac: 2019 4K, 2019 5K, 2020 5K
• iMac Pro
• MacBook Air: 2020
• MacBook Pro: 2018 13″, 2018 15″. 2019 13″, 2019 15″, 2019 16″, 2020 13″
• Mac Pro: 2019
  .

.

A complete design overhaul

Briefly mentioned in last week’s article – rumors speculate the existing visionOS is to influence macOS, iOS, and iPadOSs design in a few ways: increased transparency, a focus more on content, button/tab rounding, pop out menus, and an overall new design language.

• See: Apple readies dramatic software update overhaul for iPhone, iPad and Mac (Bloomberg)

The last major design overhaul was macOS Big Sur, in line with the debut of the first Apple Silicon Macs on the market. Overall, it seems as though macOS will have a more glass-like UI. Details are sparse for the time being, and the style will translate to what would make more sense rendered on a computer screen rather than in an open space like how visionOS is.
.

.

Vehicle Motion Cues

Ever use a laptop while in a car and get motion sickness? Motion Sickness can be common amongst people when using a laptop in a car – your eyes see a fixed screen while your ears sense the car’s motion so your brain gets conflicting messages.

iOS and iPadOS 18 introduced a new feature called Vehicle Motion Cues, where the device follows the movement of the vehicle and adds animated dots to the screen, thereby being able to reduce motion sickness.

• See: Use iPhone more comfortably while riding in a vehicle
  .

More Apple Intelligence-powered enhancements

It is rumored Apple Intelligence will be leveraged to increase battery life, and this is likely not the only area of improvement the OS will see powered by AI.
.

Captive Wifi Syncing

Often in public spaces there are public wifi hotspots available – this new feature will automatically sync public wifi networks across your Apple devices.
.

New Accessibility Features
.

.

According to AppleInsider.com: “Apple has made it a habit to announce accessibility features for upcoming operating systems ahead of WWDC.”

• See: Apple unveils powerful accessibility features coming later this year

• App Store Accessibility Nutrition Labels
  .
• A New Magnifier for Mac
  .
• Braille Access (turns iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro into a braille note taker)
  .
• Accessibility Reader (System-wide text reading mode)
  .
• Updates to Voice Control for Xcode
  .
• Other accessibility features announced for iOS and iPadOS
  .

Beta Testing

Like every new OS release, many of the new OS features are available for testing well before the Golden Master version is sent out to the Mac App Store – be sure to backup your data and don’t run it on a machine you deem important even if you think you may get a performance benefit out of it.

• See: How to become an Apple beta tester and test the new software coming at WWDC (Macworld)
  .

When will it drop on the App Store?

According to Macworld, it will coincide with the release of iOS 19 which is a few days after the September 2025 iPhone event. Sonoma and Sequoia both released to the Mac App Store in the second half of September, Monterey/Ventura/Catalina in Late October, and Big Sur coinciding with the release of the first Apple Silicon Macs.
.

When PowerPC Macs were also 1,794 days into the Intel transition

At the time, web browser support was still there and websites were quite navigable on a Power Mac G4. Even though you weren’t able to run the latest OS, new apps were still being made for PowerPC and still were but it was tapering down (although there were quite a few PowerPC Leopard goodies at the time too). Intel Macs were on Mac OS X 10.6.3 and we were a few weeks away from the 10.6.4 update on 6/10/09.

What do you think?

Let us know in the comments below.