macOS 10.15 Catalina
Santa Catalina Island (California). © Apple.
The 16th version of the operating system formerly known as OS X has been released! To read up on Catalina, you can turn to the classic “Ars Technica Review” (link hereunder), which examines every last detail of the new system. Among the more interesting novelties are the Catalyst project, which facilitates application porting from the iPad to the Mac, the breakup of iTunes into several, smaller applications, the Sidecar function, which allows you to use an iPad as an external screen, and the locking down of T2 chip-enabled Macs in case they get lost or stolen. But for the average user, the most significant novelty is perhaps the end of support for 32 bit applications. This means that gamers will have to say good-bye to a good many classics, since many Aspyr-published Mac games will not be updated to 64 bits, including the iconic Call of Duty series, Bioshock Infinite, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Civilization IV, Quake 4, the Star Wars series, Tomb Raider 2, etc. The same goes for Feral Interactive, including the Lego series and even BioShock 1 & 2.
To see the full list of apps you’ll have to do without if you switch to Catalina, click “About this Mac” in the Apple menu, then “System Report…”. In the left-hand column, click on “Software/Applications” to see the list of all 32 bit applications on your hard drive.
⇨ Rock Paper Shotgun, Natalie Clayton, “MacOS's 32-bit-breaking Catalina update is live, wreaking havoc on classic game collections.”
⇨ Ars Technica, Andrew Cunningham, “macOS 10.15 Catalina: The Ars Technica review.”
