What has Apple added in advance of macOS 16?
Apple pre-releases some of the components for the next major version of macOS in the previous version. For example, when macOS Monterey 12.3 was released on 14 March 2022, a new XProtect.app bundle appeared in /Library/Apple/System/Library/CoreServices, and passed almost unnoticed until it was updated to version 2 in macOS 12.4 on 16 May 2022. By June that was being updated frequently, and is now a significant part of macOS protection against malware.
This article looks back at versions of Sequoia that have brought new components to identify those we might see more of next month, when the first betas of macOS 16 reach developers.
Officially announced
One new feature that Apple has already made available in macOS 15.4 and later is privacy control of access to the pasteboard, described here. It’s likely that a new Pasteboard item will be added to Privacy & Security settings in macOS 16, allowing you a choice between:
automatically allowing all pasteboard access without notifying the user (as previously);
always denying all pasteboard access, unless the user explicitly chooses to access the pasteboard for pasting;
asking the user for permission to grant pasteboard access, although that will automatically be granted when the user explicitly chooses to access the pasteboard for pasting;
the default, to ask the user for permission when an app rather than the user seeks access to the General pasteboard; all other pasteboards would always allow access.
This appears complicated, and I expect may need simplification during beta-testing, or users could be baffled. Apple’s note details a default setting you can use to preview this behaviour in macOS 15.5 for individual apps in testing.
To celebrate the 40th birthday of its accessibility support, Apple has announced some new features we can expect in macOS 16. Among them is a Magnifier app that will use an iPhone running iOS 19 through Continuity Camera as a live video magnifier. Others include:
Vehicle Motion Cues, already available in iOS and iPadOS;
Braille Access, a full-featured braille note-taker;
Accessibility Reader, to make text easier to read across a wide range of disabilities.
New apps
macOS 15.5 introduces a new app in CoreServices named Apple Diagnostics. This is currently non-functional, but appears to give access to some form of online diagnostic service in the future.
New kernel extensions
Three kernel extensions to watch for in macOS 16 are:
AppleDisplayManager, introduced in 15.2, and still at version 1.0
AppleAOP2, introduced in 15.4, and still at version 1.0; AOP is the Always On Processor in Apple silicon Macs;
AppleProcessorTrace, introduced in 15.4, and still at version 1.0.0.
New public frameworks
Two were added to 15.4, and remain at version 1.0, for CLLogEntry which appears to be part of Core Location, and SecurityUI which hasn’t yet been mentioned anywhere.
New private frameworks
Many new private frameworks have been added by updates to Sequoia. Although most of these remain at their initial build of 1.0, some have seen surprising increases, including:
AppSystemSettings, introduced in 15.2, now at build 3.3.5
CryptexKit and CryptexServer, introduced in 15.4, now at build 493.120.7
DeepVideoProcessingCore, introduced in 15.4, now at build 1.17
various GameServices, introduced in 15.4, and already at build 819.4.46
OSEligibility, introduced in 15.2, now at build 181.120.32.
Among the new private frameworks with intriguing names that remain at their initial version are: Bosporus, Morpheus and MorpheusExtensions, an OnDeviceStorage group, and most recently CodableSwiftUI.
Your guess is no doubt better than mine as to what these all do, but I expect some of them will appear in macOS 16, in one guise or another.
