Lineal Reviews: macOS Sierra – should I upgrade?

Sierra

Should I be upgrading to macOS Sierra?

With Apple’s latest OS, Sierra, now available for download and already receiving it’s first update (10.12.1) what do our team think of the latest version – and what are our favourite additions? If El-Capitan’s endless prompt messages haven’t already tempted you, we review some of the best below.


Siri

Siri

Siri makes her (or his? Different voices are available in your mac’s system preferences case this is the kind of thing that bothers you…) debut on Apple’s machines, with all the normal features available on iOS iPhones and iPads: web searches, booking diary appointments, starting calls, messages and more, all by asking Siri.

It’s surprisingly innovative too. We can launch our SQLWorks software by instructing Siri to do so, although it requires us to enunciate S-Q-L Works quite carefully.


Tabs

Many applications can now be run in a tabbed view much like a web browser. This is very useful if you need multiple documents, maps, virtual machines or remote access windows running at once, without constantly moving things around to free up screen space.

Sierra


Universal Clipboard

Copy from your Mac, paste on your iPhone or vice versa. If you own multiple Apple devices signed in to your iCloud account, this can be really useful. This feature is overdue on Apple devices, so it’s good to see it introduced in Sierra.


Archiving

iCloud will now look through your files to check for files that are used very infrequently and will archive them automatically to prevent them taking up space. If you use iCloud a lot, this will help do some essential housekeeping for you.

Much like with universal clipboard and the ability to unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch, it feels like Apple are now designing with the assumption that it’s fans will own multiple Apple devices.


Despite all these features, the usual warnings apply of course: no one can guarantee that older versions of software will be compatible on Sierra (indeed Microsoft Exchange bugs involving non-syncing email were hurredly fixed in Sierra’s first update)  so it’s best to let someone else take the risk first, and wait a little while for any bugs to be fixed – before updating from El Capitan to the best MacOS yet.

For Apple help and support – click here.


MacOS Sierra will bring Siri to your Mac

Sierra

Apple’s voice activated assistant Siri will be available on macOS Sierra from this Autumn it was revealed, following an announcement at the Worldwide Developers Conference this week.

MacOS Sierra, the upcoming and re-branded version of Apple’s trademark desktop operating system, also looks set to introduce Apple Watch assisted login, intelligent storage-optimisation tools and cross-device copy & pasting.

Longstanding Apple fans will note that the re-branded name, ‘macOS’ returns Apple’s OS X operating system to it’s original desktop computing name.

One major shift will be the release of the new ‘Apple File System’, which Apple have advertised through developer preview will permit multiple file systems to share a storage block, and includes a cloning system which writes changes to file copies to limit demanding data synchronisation.

Evidence has also surfaced that iOS will soon include a ‘dark mode’ optimised for night-time use – a feature so far restricted to Apple Maps used when driving – but potentially extended to overall iPhone/iPad use.

As always, Lineal advises Apple users to wait for early operating system issues to be ironed out this Autumn, before making the jump to macOS Sierra themselves.

For Apple expertise and IT support: please contact Lineal today – [email protected] or 01271 375999