“Apple’s big iPhone reveal is approaching and Mac users like you and I are hoping we will soon be able to use the final version of the big macOS update, Sierra,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “When we get to do this (and it may not be for a few more weeks yet), here are a few things we can look forward to doing in the new OS.”
“You’ll definitely want to enable and use Siri, and you’ll be pleased to have done so – it’s incredibly useful on a Mac. What’s the first thing you should ask?” Evans writes. “I suggest asking Siri, ‘What can you do?’ You will see a huge collection of commands gathered according to app.”
“Sometimes when you ask Siri a question you’ll find you can save the answer to Notification Center. Sometimes you can save those answers as a widget, you’ll be able to see that if a plus icon appears to the top right of Siri’s responses,” Evans writes. “This is quite useful for sports scores, for example. It’s also a great way to avoid running searches more than once.”
More macOS Sierra features you’ll use in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you haven’t been running the macOS Sierra betas these past few months, you’ll be very happy when it’s released to the public and you boot up and start using your “new” macOS Sierra Mac(s)!
We’ll see… I tried but never saw the point of handoff (which never worked reliably).
I wish they would update Mail…
Such a small thing, so ripe for significant improvement, revolution even, and it is all but ignored. I agree.
I still hate iTunes. I heard there was a show on television called “Ride With Norman Reedus.” It’s an AMC show. So I found I couldn’t stream it for free anywhere, so I looked on iTunes.
It was nowhere to be found. I kept searching for RIDE and I searched for “Ride With Norman” and found all kinds of books, and podcast and music and crap I didn’t want, even though I’m set to TV Shows.
Go I go back to Siri and say, “Is Ride with Norman” on iTunes, and Siri finds it using Google. Google knew where to go within iTunes to find the show, but I couldn’t do it directly through iTunes.
Awww, you sure do have it tough.
Siri, configure my Mac to do a recursive DNS forward.
Bet she cannot do that.
Well hell, can you?
Of course.
I like the new Sierra, and the version that just came out is much more ‘snappy’. But one thing I had REALLY noticed for the last few betas (maybe even in OSX in general), Safari suddenly doesn’t suck up memory. I use MemoryMonitor, and up until this last beta, just having Safari open, not even going to any pages, used up absurd amounts of memory. More than Photoshop or Final Cut Pro. The other day, my memory was down to 1%, I closed Safari… and it went to 75% free! Chroma was also open, and only took a tiny amount of memory
Safari in Sierra is sucking up all my memory just by itself, down to 5% or below. I have to restart to get my soldered RAM back.
Let me just pare it down to three huge misses that need correction in MacOS as soon as possible:
1) Stop the iOSification. The Mac needs to be able to do and display more than iOS does, so stop hiding things. Show full toolbars. Make dialog windows big enough to actually show all the info one wants to see. Fix the built-in apps and basic (formerly iLife/iWork) so they are rock solid, no beach balls. Make it so both advanced and beginners can use and customize the controls, no swiping required. You shouldn’t have to have three-key control commands and you shouldn’t need a touchpad in order to operate a Mac (if you do, then include a 3-button trackball in the box!!!). Make it so a person can immediately in the Preferences pane with one click permanently opt out of iCloud and its associated features like Handoff, because many Mac users cannot or will not use the services Apple keeps trying to push on them. Bottom line: the Mac should not look or feel just like iOS, it should be better and much more capable.
2) get the new Apple file system out and working as well as the competition. This is one of the big reasons Apple lost the server market. Way too far behind on this!!!
3) make the GUI lickable again. the flat grey and white translucent meme was ugly when it started and hasn’t become more acceptable with time.
I totally agree with #3. At the very least, make it an option.
As for #2, they are working on it. Just don’t release that till it is ready.
AMEN!
Let’s hope it works
I’m enjoying Siri on sierra. Much in the same way that WatchOS people describe not having to get their phones out, I am experiencing convenience of just being able to say “Siri, what’s the traffic like between here and home” without having to pull out the phone. Search using Siri on the Mac is great. I’m not sure at the moment if Siri is using Google or Bing, but I just say, “Search for Harley-Davidson V-RODS for Sale in Los Angeles,” and she does it.
I like having my desktop in iCloud Storage. If I think of something I needed (like a spreadsheet I left on my desktop this morning) I just open my iOS device and look in iCloud Drive and find it. It’s making me keep my desktop cleaner also.
The Beta has been extremely stable. I can’t wait for other people to have compatible messages.
Yes, but I won’t truly consider Siri to be awesome until I can teach it to respond to something other than “Siri.” For example…”Computer.”
You know the future has arrived when you can say, “Computer, what’s the traffic like between here and home?” Now THAT is what I’m waiting for! 😉
Mail could use some improvements:
1. Reliability
2. Font size on an iMac is so small you have to write in 18 pt.
3. Need to set default text zoom. Show text in 125%.
4. Pop accounts are always asking for the password.
OSX has one feature that continues to frustrate:
How about a real window Maximize function?
Here is how I would do it:
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/number-one-request.1987152/#post-23221411