Overview
- The macOS 27.3 developer beta, released Wednesday, adds native Live Activities that appear as small oval items in the menu bar next to status icons.
- Built-in Apple apps such as Apple Music, Clock and Voice Memos plus system functions like screen recording already show Live Activities in the beta.
- The beta includes APIs that let third-party Mac developers implement Live Activities in their apps so external software can surface live, interactive status updates.
- Apple’s new PROLED MacBook Pro has a hardware Dynamic Island that hosts Live Activities on that model but the Live Activities feature itself will be available to all Macs that can run macOS 27.3.
- A public release of macOS 27.3 is expected in December, which will let regular users receive quick, interactive updates in the menu bar and could change how people handle timers, media controls and requests on the Mac.