MacOS Sequoia copies some of ChromeOS’ best tricks

Yesterday, Apple’s WWDC 2024 kicked off with the customary keynote, and as I watched some reaction videos this morning, I was a bit struck by some of the features added to MacOS for this fall’s release of Sequoia. If you are a Chromebook user, you’ll likely share the same reaction I had upon seeing these “new” features for Macbooks coming later this year since they are direct riffs on stuff we’ve had in ChromeOS for quite some time.

Window Snapping

This first one feels borderline silly, but MacOS still doesn’t have proper window snapping after all these years. Windows, ChromeOS and Linux all have this very handy feature, but for some reason Apple has elected to not include it in MacOS up to this point. But now it is nearly here, and while I’m sure it will work well, I can’t help but be happy that ChromeOS had it first.

Phone mirroring on screen

Another feature Chromebook (and Windows) feature MacOS is finally getting is the ability to mirror your phone on your Macbook. While this has also been done by Google with Chromebooks and select Android phones (still waiting on Samsung to get added to that list, by the way), Apple hasn’t allowed this with iPhone before the Sequoia update, even though their Macbooks have been running similar ARM-based silicon now for years.

The demos look promising, however, and it seems that MacOS will soon let users drag and drop items to and from their iPhone as well as hear audio, see apps running, and more without waking their device. It’s similar to what we get on ChromeOS, though I still simply prefer having things like quick access to my phone’s latest photos, recent tabs, and notifications all via the excellent ChromeOS Phone Hub without having to navigate the phone itself on the desktop.

On-device video backgrounds

Again, in a move to replicate what we already have on Chromebooks, Apple is adding the ability for the OS to handle video backgrounds at a system level so your look and feel carry between any video app you choose to use.

Unlike ChromeOS, however, Apple is not leveraging AI in this portion of the OS for now. You are limited to built-in backgrounds, wallpapers, and your own photos. Though I don’t completely love the new Chromebook Plus AI Wallpapers feature, I have enjoyed the video backgrounds quite a bit. I’m sure Apple’s cringe-worthy “Apple Intelligence” will provide this sort of feature down the road, though, and they’ll surely parade the feature to users as if they came up with it.

AI is “Apple Intelligence”?

Finally, AI. But not Artificial Intelligence. No, that won’t do. How about “Apple Intelligence”? Is that cringe enough for you? Nevermind the fact that the company is outsourcing their AI duties to OpenAI, Apple’s renaming of a core technology in an attempt to brand it is unfortunately par for the course at this point.

Regardless of the ridiculous naming, AI is coming to Apple products across the board, and that means the same sorts of tricks we now have with Gemini on Chromebook Plus will be on the way for MacOS Sequoia in the fall. And I’d wager it will work similarly to what we see with Google’s offering, though Google won’t have to farm out anything to a 3rd-party to get it done.

And I suppose that’s the fun of all of this: seeing ChromeOS already have many of the features Apple is just now adding to MacOS feels validating as a Chromebook user. For years at this point, I’ve used these devices and spent a vast majority of my time trying to convince others that they are not just affordable, but fantastic to use. Seeing Apple begin to copy features found on Chromebooks only makes my point for me that the ChromeOS team has been building greatness all along, and I look forward to whatever they are working on for the next great addition for our favorite desktop OS.