The next version of macOS is macOS Mojave

Apple isn’t done with macOS just yet. The company presented the next version of macOS at the WWDC developer conference. With macOS Mojave, Apple is leaving the mountain metaphors behind.

“Today we’re excited to take Mac a huge leap forward,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi started with dark mode. With a single setting, you can invert the colors of everything. Even the background of the Finder, Calendar or Photos is black, not just the Dock or menubar. Apple had to redo all the buttons and color schemed across the operating system. If you find white documents too aggressive, dark mode is for you.

With the next version of macOS, the wallpaper and desktop will adapt depending on the time of they day, from morning to afternoon and night. On the desktop, macOS can automatically stack all your documents in the Desktop folder by format.

In the Finder, there’s a new Gallery view. It works a bit like the old Cover Flow feature, but with a flat design and metadata. It can be quite useful for a folder of photos for instance. In the metadata column, there are customizable actions using Automator. You can create a PDF, add a watermark, etc.

Quick Look is also getting an upgrade with iOS-like markup. You can draw on a photo, trim a video and more from a Quick Look window. In the Screenshot tool, you can now record quick videos.

Apple is expanding continuity between your Mac and iPhone. For instance, in Keynote, you can right click and add a photo using your iPhone. It’ll launch the camera app on your iPhone.

Apple News is coming to macOS. In case a web browser is not enough, you’ll now have a dedicated app with your selections, your sites and your recommendations. The Stocks app is also coming to the Mac. Voice Memos is coming to the Mac for quick audio recording as well.

And finally, Home will be available on the Mac to command your home with your voice, control your security cameras, trigger your connected lights and more.

Apple is adding new privacy protections. In addition to location data and address book access, the company is adding camera, microphone, message history, backups and Safari data privacy popups. In Safari, the browser is going to block Facebook like buttons and prevent those widgets from loading third-party Javascripts. You’ll need to grant explicit access. Safari will also try to prevent fingerprinting by making you look like a Mac with the default plugins, the default fonts, the default everything.

As expected, the Mac App Store is getting an update. It’s true that iOS got all the love on this front. Last year, Apple redesigned the App Store on iOS, but the Mac App Store stood still. It’s been completely redesigned with a left sidebar, a user interface that looks more like the iOS App Store. There will be editorialized content, video previews and new categories.

Apple is working on a new tool for data scientists. With Create ML, you can train a model without being a machine learning expert. It lets you manage a test set and use your local machine for small projects.

“We would like to give you a sneak peek of a multi-year projet,” Federighi said. Apple is basically going to let you port iOS apps that use UIKit on the Mac. This way, iOS developers will be able to port their apps much more quickly. It doesn’t mean that it’ll look like an iOS app. The new Apple News, Stocks, Home and Voice Memos use this macOS version of UIKit. Big buttons have been replaced with macOS-like menus with very little code changes.

Developers won’t be able to use UIKit for macOS apps just yet, but it’s clear that it could revive the app ecosystem over the coming years.