macOS Sierra & iOS 10
On 13th June Apple announced it’s next update to the MacOS called Sierra at the WWDC 2016 event in San Francisco.
OS X is no more: Apple announced that the operating system for the Mac is now known as macOS to keep it in line with its other OS names (tvOS, iOS,watchOS 3). This years update is known as macOS Sierra and is officially being released this autumn.
macOS Sierra UK release date: When is macOS Sierra coming out?
macOS Sierra will be available in the autumn for the general public, so around September, but the public beta will be available from this summer, in July.
However, the developer preview is available right now. This follows Apple’s usual pattern of introducing macOS updates.
WWDC 2016: Podcast – WWDC report
The UK Tech Weekly Podcast dissects the announcements of WWDC, including macOS Sierra, in its 19th episode. We’ve embedded the audio below in case you’d like to hear what the team have to say. The WWDC section starts at the 26:30 point.
macOS: Sierra Features
The main new feature in macOS Sierra is Siri integration, bringing Apple’s personal assistant to the Mac for the first time. Siri offers many of the same capabilities available on iOS, along with Mac-specific functionality like the ability to search through documents to quickly find files.
Siri makes its debut on Mac, with new capabilities designed just for the desktop. And that’s not the only way your Mac is smarter. macOS Sierra helps you rediscover your best photos, shop more securely online, and work more seamlessly between devices. It can also help free up valuable storage space. Now your Mac does even more for you, so you can do more with your Mac. – Apple
The new deep learning algorithms means macOS Sierra can recognise people, places, and things in images using facial, object, and scene recognition, which it uses to group the information together into intelligent collections. A new “Memories” tab creates curated collections of past photos to resurface old memories, and there’s a new “Places” album for displaying all photos on a world map.
Messages now include rich links which allow previewing of web content and watching video clips directly in the OS without having to open the browser.
Security features also continue to expand with the new Auto Unlock feature. When an authenticated Apple Watch is in close proximity the OS will auto unlock without the need to enter a password.
Deeper iCloud integration makes all of the files stored on the desktop or the documents folder of a Mac available on all of a user’s devices, including other Macs, the iPhone and the iPad through the iCloud Drive app, and the web through iCloud.com.
Multiple tabs are now available as standard in all mac apps in Sierra. So apps like pages now work with multiple tabs instead of multiple windows.
Apple is introducing a new Apple File System (APFS) built around SSDs with native encryption as a primary feature. It’s optimised storage feature will also free up disk space when storage is running low.
Along with iOS 10, macOS Sierra supports Apple Pay in the web browser, letting users pay for purchases made on the web with Apple Pay. Payments are authenticated through a connected iPhone using Touch ID or an unlocked Apple Watch.