The Cellphone app in macOS 26 is one other child step in direction of a mobile Mac

Whereas it nonetheless stays extra of a dream than an apparent cease on Apple’s product roadmap, the corporate’s updates in macOS Tahoe 26 supply new proof that Apple may in the future promote Macs with mobile connectivity. Certain, the most important takeaway from WWDC 2025 will in all probability be the brand new Liquid Glass design language the corporate is sprinkling over all of its working techniques, however based mostly on the addition of a Cellphone app to macOS, Apple’s laptops and telephones are converging in additional methods than one.

The brand new Cellphone app, which mixes latest telephone calls, favourite contacts and voicemails multi function interface, will supply the identical options in each iOS and macOS. That’s a primary for Apple’s desktop working system, which has a FaceTime app, however in any other case primarily interacts with telephone calls by way of Continuity options. At the moment, iPhone calls will be relayed and answered on a Mac, and you’ll place calls from the FaceTime app, but it surely’s removed from intuitive. That ought to change in macOS 26. The Cellphone app allows you to make calls, hearken to voicemails and even use new options like Maintain Help as simply as you’ll on an iPhone.

Yearly Apple nudges its platforms collectively, like letting you entry your iPhone out of your desktop with iPhone Mirroring or use your iPhone as a webcam with Continuity Digital camera. However porting apps straight from the iPhone seems like a extra important step. On iPad, which is bought in Wi-Fi and Mobile configurations, including the Cellphone app (as Apple is with iPadOS 26) is sensible. The iPhone and iPad share lots of similarities from each a software program and {hardware} perspective. The Mac doesn’t — at the least, not but.

In December 2024, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple was “investigating the thought of bringing mobile connectivity to the Mac.” Apple has been attempting to maneuver away from counting on Qualcomm’s mobile modems for years. The corporate purchased Intel’s smartphone modem crew in pursuit of that concept in 2019, and debuted the iPhone 16e, its first machine with a customized Apple C1 modem, earlier this 12 months. A mobile Mac looks like an ideal alternative to place future variations of that modem, say a C2 or C3, to the check.

Even with higher multitasking, there’s nonetheless loads of duties which are simpler on a Mac than on an iPad. A mobile Mac may allow you to add a professionally edited video out within the subject, or talk along with your crew with out having to be tethered to a Wi-Fi hotspot. Each are attainable on an iPad, however would really feel extra pure on a Mac.

Gurman suggests the corporate wouldn’t attempt to convey its customized modem to units apart from the iPhone till 2026 on the earliest, however Apple might be laying the groundwork from a software program perspective proper now. Macs already use Apple’s customized chips, they usually’ll quickly function software program that’s more and more much like the iPhone. All that is lacking is a modem that may hook up with mobile networks.

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