A First Look At Apple's macOS Sierra
by Brandon Chester on July 13, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- Operating Systems
- macOS
Final Words
By this point I've covered many of the tentpole features of macOS Sierra. Right now it's a bit difficult to test some of the other features announced at WWDC that relate to continuity between macOS, iOS, and watchOS due to the fact that all these platforms are in beta and, in the case of watchOS, a beta that you can't return from. Unfortunately, I feel that those features end up being the most interesting ones, because they're only made possible by Apple controlling the software and hardware stack across all their devices.
macOS Sierra has several tentpole features, with some being more subtle than others. Siri is the big feature for this release, but in my experience so far it certainly hasn't been the best. As the beta cycle moves onward it will be interesting to see how Siri improves. The improvements to Photos and iMessage are also significant, and for Photos it brings the service closer to parity with Google Photos. I think Apple could have tried harder with Messages, as you basically can't use any of the new features and just have support for receiving them.
The features that I actually found most useful in Sierra are the subtle ones that improve existing functionality or add new features that work on their own in the background. Leveraging iCloud to provide local desktop and document syncing is exactly the kind of feature Apple should be building now that they have a usable cloud service and millions of users using millions of devices. Providing a way to have the system handle the transfer of older and lesser used files to iCloud will do a lot to alleviate storage pressure on Macs with 128GB and 256GB SSDs as well, which I would wager makes up a significant portion of Macs out there given what the starting storage tiers are.
I think Apple choosing the name Sierra says a lot about this release. While OS X has been rebranded as macOS, Sierra is still an evolution of El Capitan, which was an evolution of the much larger overhaul that came with OS X Yosemite. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do wonder why certain parts of macOS like Finder and iTunes remain mostly unchanged with each release. It's possible that Apple doesn't feel there's anything that needs to be fixed there, and it's also possible that it's simply a large undertaking that just isn't ready. In any case, the trend is clearly toward making refinements to the existing system through new features like tab support in all multi-window apps, along with continuity features like Apple Pay and Auto Unlock on macOS that leverage the ability of Apple's many products to work together.
In the end, macOS Sierra seems to be a good improvement on OS X El Capitan. Users will feel right at home after they upgrade, and they'll be greeted with new features and small tweaks throughout the system that help make the experience better. If you've bought into Apple's device ecosystem you also get some features that don't really have any equivalent within Microsoft's or Google's device ecosystem, but that also means if you aren't fully within Apple's ecosystem you're missing out on a good chunk of Sierra's features. Sierra itself is fairly rough around the edges at this point, but it's available now as an open beta for users who want to want to install it and check out the new features for themselves.
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WaitingForNehalem - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
It would have been nice to cover improvements to the kernel and the new file system...you know the important parts of an operating system.Brandon Chester - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
APFS isnt even shipping until 2017, it's not a Sierra feature.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Whatever you do Apple... DO NOT give this update away for free as the entire internet, or a selection of loud mouthed people, will slam it and refuse to update. /s (Windows 10 anyone?)theduckofdeath - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
Yup, with a rate outpacing the previous fastest ever adopted operating system-release by around 145% is a massive failure, amirite?!...I know a small but loud group wanted to create the impression that no one updated to Windows 10, but that attempt failed miserably, like most internet trolling attempts tends to do.
Ascaris - Sunday, July 17, 2016 - link
145% for one month, when no other version of Windows has been a free upgrade before, so all of the early adopters that might have had to wait to afford it don't have to wait-- yeah, that's quite an accomplishment. What about the heaps of people who resent MS for what they've done, and are more likely than ever before to jump ship to Apple or Linux? I remember the browser wars, the introduction of WGA, Windows Vista, Windows 8... but I don't remember there ever being this level of contempt for MS and the product in question than there is now. Is alienating all of their customers part of some kind of grand plan? If I were a MS competitor secretly plotting to destroy them, I don't think I would do anything different than MS has.But yeah, plenty of people upgraded to Windows 10-- though their target of a billion devices by ($date) won't happen, as they've admitted, but there have been a bunch. Many of them are people who were not tech-savvy enough to know how to block 10, and they're not happy about it. So much for people using Windows because they want to and not because they have to!
There's a difference between giving something away and essentially forcing people to take it even as they tell you they don't want it. I've never liked Apple, but they've never stooped to using malware techniques and dark pattern trickery to get people to upgrade to something free. They stick to that old-fashioned method of trying to produce products people want so that they'll buy them. Microsoft has a different idea-- make something no one wants, then force them to upgrade with dirty tricks.
Oh, and the growth rate of Linux last month (as reported by Netmarketshare.com) was 30% higher than that of Windows 10. Another Microsoft achievement!
Commodus - Tuesday, July 19, 2016 - link
You're being a bit hyperbolic. It's not that no one wanted to upgrade to Windows 10, it's that there's a significant minority that doesn't... and isn't happy that Microsoft used underhanded tactics to upgrade some people without their explicit consent.There are very real stories of people who didn't realize that Windows was set to auto-upgrade and came back to see their PC running Windows 10. I'm sorry, but that's just not cool -- even Apple with its relatively aggressive upgrade strategy won't automatically install the latest version of macOS.
It's a classic example of letting business goals override what the user wants.
ex2bot - Friday, July 15, 2016 - link
Mac OS updates have been free for years now. And there is a vocal minority who refuses to update past 10.6.Hyper72 - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
Not that it have much relevance; but the app store always suggests me to install latest free version of OS X. It's too bad it immediately fails as my 2006 MacBook Pro C2D doesn't run anything more recent than Lion. That means I can't run latest X Code, so only way I can try out Swift is in a Linux VM which doesn't target iOS or macOS - sigh.Meteor2 - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
It might be time to replace your ten year old computer.wsjudd - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
For anyone curious what the YouTube link spotted in the Messages screenshot was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETfiUYij5UE