Apple debuted macOS (yes, macOS) Sierra during their WWDC 2016 Keynote Address on Monday, premiering a new name, Siri on the Mac, Hands-free Apple Watch login, copy & paste between the Mac and iOS devices, and much more.
Siri Comes to the Mac
Siri, Apple’s virtual personal assistant on iOS, makes her move to the Mac. The familiar features of Siri are now available with just a click of the mouse or a hotkey combination. The assistant is available from the Dock, Menu Bar, or the Mac keyboard.
Users will be able to use voice commands to search for information, find files and send messages. Siri will be able to find a specific document you worked on last night, add a meeting to your calendar, play music, start a FaceTime call, and much more.
Users can also drag-and-drop items from Siri search results directly into documents or emails. Siri results can be pinned in Notification Center, handy for sports scores and stock prices, and Siri can even adjust system preferences, set reminders, and search your Photos library.
Your Desktop & Documents on All Your Devices
macOS Sierra allows users to have all the files on their desktop and in their Documents folder available on any Mac, iOS device, or PC. Users simply save their files in their Documents folder, or on their Desktop, and the files will follow them across devices.
Copy & Paste Between Devices
Continuity on the Mac gets a boost, with copy & paste between devices. Universal Clipboard will allow copy & pasting the contents of your clipboard across all your Apple devices, via iCloud. Copy & paste information between your iOS devices and Mac.
Picture-in-a-Picture
Users will be able to float video from Safari or iTunes in a window on top of their desktop as they work. The video window can be resized, pinned, dragged to another corner, and even stays put when you switch spaces.
Apple Pay
Mac users will be able to use Apple Pay to pay when shopping on participating websites. Just click the Apple Pay button on the website when you checkout, then authorize payment for the purchase via the Touch ID sensor on your iPhone, or by using your Apple Watch.
Photos
The new Memories feature in Photos helps you rediscover favorite and forgotten moments deep in your Photos library by automatically creating curated collections of occasions like a first birthday party, wedding or family vacation. Photos now understands the people, places and things inside your images using on-device facial, object and scene recognition and location information to group images into albums.
Places will now display photos on a world maps so users can see where they were taken. A new Brilliance tool pulls in highlights and adds contrast to enhance details throughout your images.
Additional macOS Features
- Auto Unlock lets you simply walk up to your Mac while wearing your authenticated Apple Watch and be automatically logged into your desktop.
- Optimized Storage frees up space when your Mac starts getting full by storing infrequently used items in iCloud and reminding you to delete used app installers, and even clearing out duplicate downloads, caches, logs and more.
- Messages makes conversations more interesting, now allowing you to preview web links and watch video clips within the app, post reactions like a heart, thumbs up and more directly onto a message bubble with Tapback, and use bigger emoji for more message impact.
- Apple Music in iTunes makes it even easier to discover new music and browse exclusives and new releases.
The developer preview of macOS Sierra is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today. Mac users can sign up for the macOS Sierra Beta Program today and download the software starting in July at beta.apple.com. The final version will be available for free from the Mac App Store this fall. For more information, visit apple.com/macos/sierra-preview.
