Apple’s macOS Sequoia 15.2 update brings new features and tweaks to your Mac, including the weather forecast in the menu bar (finally), fresh new Safari wallpapers, and AirPlay tweaks. Here’s all the new things your Mac can do.
AI Image Generation With Image Playground
Mac models powered by Apple silicon chips (from the M1 up) have gained new Apple Intelligence capabilities with macOS Sequoia 15.2, including AI image generation via a new app, called Image Playground. With it, Mac owners can easily generate images in multiple styles using on-device AI processing, based on short descriptions.
Image Playground is both a standalone app and a system service available from within Apple apps like Messages and Freeform, as well as third-party apps.
ChatGPT is now integrated into Siri and Writing Tools. If a request is too complex to resolve on-device, Siri offers to offload it to OpenAI’s models in the cloud. No identifiable information is sent, and OpenAI is not permitted to use your ChatGPT interactions for model training. You can also sign in with your OpenAI account to access premium ChatGPT features (but you’ll lose anonymity that way).
In Writing Tools, the ChatGPT engine allows you to create writing from scratch, based on a prompt, or rewrite something in a specific style (like a poem, for example).
However, Genmoji is currently unavailable on Mac computers even though the feature has arrived for iPhone and iPad with iOS and iPadOS 18.2. Genmoji enables you to create a custom emoji character with a prompt like “smiley relaxing wearing cucumbers,” (yes, really).
According to Apple, Genmoji will be available on the Mac “in the coming months.” In addition, other Apple Intelligence features—priority notifications and a new sketch style in Image Playground—have been delayed across iPhone, iPad, and Mac until early 2025.
If you don’t care about Apple Intelligence, that’s fine because macOS Sequoia 15.2 brings several noteworthy under-the-hood changes you may like better than generative AI.
Weather in the Status Bar
Sequoia’s Weather app can put weather forecasts for your saved locations in the status bar, and you can click through for detailed information. To turn it on, go to System Settings > Control Center, scroll down, click the menu next to “Weather,” and choose “Show in Menu Bar.”
AirPlay to a Single Window or App
AirPlay, Apple’s device-to-device media sharing technology, can now show only a single window or an app. This increases privacy when publicly presenting, as your audience only sees what you want instead of mirroring the whole Mac display.
Just initiate AirPlay or connect an external display to your Mac to see a new presenter preview window, where you can choose whether to share an app or window or your whole screen.
Natural Language Search in Music and TV Apps
Natural language search is available in the Music and TV apps. Instead of typing keywords, natural language search allows you to describe when you want the same way you’d say it to a friend using any combination of categories like genres, moods, actors, decades, etc.
Some examples include “artists similar to Weeknd,” “songs about food,” “sad movies,” “movies about alien invasions.” Give it a try and see what you can come up with!
New Safari Wallpapers and Other Tweaks
Safari includes new background images for your Start page. To check them out, create a new tab and click the Edit button in the bottom-right corner. In a privacy boost, the browser will try to upgrade web addresses to the secure HTTPS protocol whenever possible.
Apple has also updated import and export for your Safari history, bookmarks, and passwords to be easier to use. To try this out, click “Import Browsing Data from File or Folder” or “Export Browsing Data to File” from Safari’s File menu.
Sharing AirTag Locations via Links
The Find My app on macOS Sequoia 15.2 supports sharing locations of your AirTags or compatible third-party trackers via links. This is useful if you’d like a friend to assist you with finding your lost keys or similar. Anyone with a link can see the location of your item on a map.
The location stops sharing as soon as you’ve found the item or after a week. Apple has even partnered with dozens of global airlines on this capability, so you’ll soon be able to share the location of mishandled luggage with your airline.
Tidbits: Changes in Photos, Podcasts, and More
You’ll also appreciate these under-the-good tweaks and quality-of-life improvements.
- In the Photos app, the built-in Favorites album now shows up in the Utilities collection in addition to the Pinned Collections one.
- For a bit more privacy, you can now clear your Recently Viewed and Recently Shared album history in the Photos app.
- The built-in Podcasts app has a new Favorite Categories section where you can tell it which shows you prefer to receive better personalized recommendations.
- A new Personalized Search page in the Podcasts app “highlights the most relevant categories and editorially curated collections tailored to you.”
- Apple News+ subscribers can play daily Sudoku puzzles in the News app in three difficulty levels.
Install macOS Sequoia 15.2 Now
If you haven’t already installed the update, head over to System Settings > General > Software Update and click the “Update Now” button. Depending on your Mac, the update could take around 20 minutes to complete (after the download). macOS 15.2 is compatible with the same Mac models that macOS Sequoia launched on.
It’s always a good idea to perform a Time Machine backup before installing major software updates like this, just in case something goes wrong (no, an iCloud backup isn’t the same thing).
Even though macOS Sequoia 15.2 isn’t as feature-packed as iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2, it’s the little tweaks like the weather forecast in the status bar that made a difference to me.
Apple is already testing macOS Sequoia 15.3, so there will be more goodies coming before the next major beta cycle restarts with macOS 16, iOS 19, and more in the summer of 2025.
