macOS Catalina Beta 4 Comes With Several Significant Changes

macOS Catalina has been getting quite the attention from Apple, and now macOS Catalina Beta 4 is out for devs. No API changes can be seen in this update, but it is not recommended for installation at the moment due to the fact it is an early release. It is not intended for mass consumers, especially not on a primary Apple device.

macOS Catalina Beta 4 Comes With Several Significant Changes

iTunes separation

The iTunes app is finally seeing the end of its days. In its current form at least. The plan for the 4th update for macOS Catalina being to divide iTunes into different apps. As it contains loads of content, including music, podcasts, and Apple TV.

Seeing that these are separate forms of media entertainment, users will probably appreciate the separation as not many tend to follow all of the content listed above. The whole store, coupled with all your music-related purchases, will be transferred to the Apple Music app. With podcasts getting their separate app.

New feature: Sidebar

Apple users will be delighted to find out that a new purpose has been created for their iPads. Allowing them to act as a secondary display for the Macbook. Users can exchange files between devices easily by dragging and dropping.

Furthermore, the advanced communication and integration of Apple tech will allow users to use the Apple Pencil as an alternative to a mouse. This device mixing and matching are called Sidebar, and it also included a Touchbar on the iPad that perform in the same ways as those found on the Macbook Pro models.

Small changes in macOS Catalina Beta 4

• AVAudio Environment Node get new rendering mode for better audio processing
• AVFoundation supports encoding video using HEVC, useful for Safari browsing

Update macOS Catalina Beta 4 has brought some exciting changes, but a lot has been announced at WWDC 2019. We’re waiting to see if the end of the development and beta testing phases will satisfy the promises Apple has made.