MacOS Catalina

All standard configuration Macs that supported macOS Mojave support macOS Catalina. 2010 to 2012 Mac Pros, which could run Mojave only with a GPU upgrade, are not supported. • iMac (Late 2012 or later) • iMac Pro (2017) • MacBook (Early 2015 or later) • MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or later) • MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or later) • Mac Mini (Late 2012 or later) • Mac Pro (Late 2013 or later) It is unofficially possible to install macOS Catalina on many older Macintosh computers that are not officially supported by Apple. This requires using a patch to modify the install image. == Changes ==

System Catalyst Catalyst is a software-development tool that allows developers to write apps that can run on macOS, iOS and iPadOS. Apple demonstrated several ported apps, including Jira and Twitter (after the latter discontinued its macOS app in February 2018). System extensions An upgrade from Kexts. System extensions avoid the problems of Kexts. There are 3 kinds of System extensions: Network Extensions, Endpoint Security Extensions, and Driver Extensions. System extensions run in userspace, outside of the kernel. Catalina will be the last version of macOS to support legacy system extensions. DriverKit A replacement for IOKit device drivers, driver extensions are built using DriverKit. DriverKit is a new SDK with all-new frameworks based on IOKit, but updated and modernized. It is designed for building device drivers in userspace, outside of the kernel. Activation Lock Activation Lock prevents the unauthorized use and drive erasure of devices with an Apple T2 security chip (2018, 2019, and 2020 MacBook Pro; 2020 5K iMac; 2018 MacBook Air, iMac Pro; 2018 Mac Mini; 2019 Mac Pro). Dedicated system volume The system runs on its own read-only volume, separate from all other data on the Mac. On-device machine processing is used to offer better navigation. Sidecar requires a Mac with Intel Skylake CPUs and newer (such as the fourth-generation MacBook Pro), and an iPad that supports Apple Pencil. Support for wireless game controllers The Game Controller framework adds support for two major console game controllers: the PlayStation 4's DualShock 4 and the Xbox One controller. Time Machine A number of under-the-hood changes were made to Time Machine, macOS's backup software. One change was the manner in which backup data is stored on network-attached devices was changed, and this change is not backwards-compatible with earlier versions of macOS. Apple declined to document these changes, but some of them have been noted. Applications iTunes iTunes is replaced by separate Music, Podcasts, TV and Books apps, in line with iOS. iOS device management is now conducted via Finder. The TV app on Mac supports Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, and HDR10 on MacBooks released in 2018 or later, while 4K HDR playback is supported on Macs released in 2018 or later when connected to a compatible display. • Z shell (executable "zsh") is the default login shell and interactive shell in macOS Catalina, replacing Bash, the default shell since Mac OS X Panther in 2003. Bash continues to be available in macOS Catalina, along with other shells such as csh/tcsh and ksh. • Dashboard has been removed. • The ability to add backgrounds in Photo Booth has been removed. • The command-line interface GNU Emacs application has been removed. • Built-in support for Perl, Python 2.7 and Ruby are included in macOS for compatibility with legacy software. Future versions of macOS will not include scripting language runtimes by default, possibly requiring users to install additional packages. • AirDrop only supports the redesigned protocol introduced with OS X Yosemite for Macs released in 2012 or later, and no longer functions with the legacy AirDrop on Macs running Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks, or models released before 2012. • Support for legacy Safari extensions such as uBlock Origin, and WebSQL has been removed in Safari 13. • Circular app icons now have outlines matching their main color. • Read access for the HFS file system is no longer supported. == Security ==

Ars Technica reported that macOS Catalina contained a critical privilege escalation vulnerability, which resulted in a backdoor being installed if users visited a Hong Kong pro-democracy website. The vulnerability was reported to Apple in August 2021 and patched in a Catalina update in September, but it had already been patched by Apple in macOS Big Sur 11.2, released 234 days earlier on February 1. Security experts have criticized Apple for not patching critical known vulnerabilities in older versions and for not being transparent about older versions only receiving some, but not all, security patches. The latest major release of Apple's operating systems (macOS, iOS, and others) receive all security updates. ==Reception==

Catalina received favorable reviews on release for some of its features. However, some critics found the OS version distinctly less reliable than earlier versions. The broad addition of user-facing security measures (somewhat analogous to the addition of User Account Control dialog boxes with Windows Vista a decade earlier) was criticized as intrusive and annoying. ==Release history==