macOS Mojave ( ; version 10.14) is the fifteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 4, 2018, and was released to the public on September 24, 2018. The operating system's name refers to the Mojave Desert, and is part of a series of California-themed names that began with OS X Mavericks. It succeeded macOS High Sierra and was followed by macOS Catalina. macOS Mojave is the last version of macOS that features the iTunes and Dashboard apps.
macOS Mojave brings several iOS apps to the desktop operating system, including Apple News, Voice Memos, and Home. It also includes a more comprehensive "dark mode", is the final version of macOS to support 32-bit application software, is the last version of the macOS capable of being booted from an HFS+ partition without third-party patching, and is also the last version of macOS to support the iPhoto app, which had already been superseded in OS X Yosemite (10.10) by the newer Photos app.
Mojave was well received and was supplemented by point releases after launch.
Overview
macOS Mojave was announced on June 4, 2018, at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California. Apple pitched Mojave, named after the California desert, as adding "pro" features that would benefit all users. The developer preview of the operating system was released for developers the same day, followed by a public beta on June 26. The retail version of 10.14 was released on September 24, 2018.
System requirements
Mojave requires a GPU that supports Metal, and the list of compatible systems is more restrictive than the previous version, macOS High Sierra. Mojave drops support for various Macs released from late 2009 to 2011. Compatible models are the following Macintosh computers running OS X Mountain Lion or later:
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 (2013, 2010–2012 supported with a Metal-capable graphics card)
macOS Mojave requires at least 2GB of RAM as well as 12.5GB of available disk space to upgrade from OS X El Capitan, macOS Sierra, or macOS High Sierra, or 18.5GB of disk space to upgrade from OS X Yosemite and earlier releases. Some features are not available on all compatible models. Mojave installations convert the installation volume to Apple File System (APFS), if the volume had not previously been converted from HFS+.
It is possible to install Mojave on many older Macintosh computers that are not officially supported by Apple. This requires using a patch to modify the install image.
Changes
System updates
macOS Mojave deprecates support for several legacy features of the OS. The graphics frameworks OpenGL and OpenCL are still supported by the operating system, but will no longer be maintained; developers are encouraged to use Apple's Metal library instead.
OpenGL is a cross-platform graphics framework designed to support a wide range of processors. Apple chose OpenGL in the late 1990s to build support for software graphics rendering into the Mac, after abandoning QuickDraw 3D. At the time, moving to OpenGL allowed Apple to take advantage of existing libraries that enabled hardware acceleration on a variety of different GPUs. As time went on, Apple has shifted its efforts towards building its hardware platforms for mobile and desktop use. Metal makes use of the homogenized hardware by abandoning the abstraction layer and running on the "bare metal". Metal reduces CPU load, shifting more tasks to the GPU. It reduces driver overhead and improves multithreading, allowing every CPU thread to send commands to the GPU.
macOS does not natively support Vulkan, the Khronos group's official successor to OpenGL. The MoltenVK library can be used as a bridge, translating most of the Vulkan 1.0 API into the Metal API.
Continuing the process started in macOS High Sierra (10.13), which issued warnings about compatibility with 32-bit applications, Mojave issues warnings when opening 32-bit apps that they will not be supported in future updates. In macOS Mojave 10.14, this alert appears once every 30 days when launching the app, as macOS 10.15 will not support 32-bit applications.
When Mojave is installed, it will convert solid-state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), and Fusion Drives, from HFS Plus to APFS. On Fusion Drives using APFS, files will be moved to the SSD based on the file's frequency of use and its SSD performance profile. APFS will also store all metadata for a Fusion Drive's file system on the SSD.