Apple changed the name of its desktop software to MacOS Sierra - and in the process unleased a host of new features for the new OS. Auto Unlock for your machine when you wear an authenticated Apple Watch, for example. Or accessing the new redesigned Apple Music service through iTunes.
Apple Pay is coming to the desktop too, although that service is not yet available in Ireland, and there is no indication yet when it will arrive.
However, here are some of the best changes made to the software formerly known as OS X.
Siri comes to the desktop
It may not have been the biggest surprise when Craig Federighi announced that Siri would be coming to the Mac - or rather, he let Siri announce itself. The idea of Siri on the Mac is one that has been rumoured for a while, so it was really just the official rubber stamp at WWDC.
So what will Siri do? Anything from send messages, perform searches for you, and hunt down files. You can be specific, asking the digital assistant to find files from a certain date, or something you had been working on last night. It will even adjust system preferences for you, and you can search through your Photos library.
It makes sense to bring Siri to Mac. It’s the only platform that Apple has without it, and with Windows 10 bringing Cortana to the desktop in some regions, Apple needed to up its game.
iCloud integration
Maybe you already use your iCloud as a way to keep all your documents to hand when you are moving between devices, but Sierra will make it even easier to stay on top of it. The update means you can save your files to the desktop or documents folder as usual, and you will be able to access everything from the iCloud Drive app, or on a second Mac. The files are already there.
If you’ve ever left an important file on your laptop and found you needed it while elsewhere, this spells and end to that inconvenience. However, if you don’t already pay for extra iCloud storage, you might want to get your head around it quickly; the free allowance on iCloud isn’t much. The 5GB you get will be enough to store several thousaand text documents, but images, video and music files will all eat into that. And don’t forget that Apple wants you to back up your iPhone to iCloud too. even the smallest capacity iPhone requires more space than the free iCloud storage has to give.
Optimised storage, meanwhile, will send your least used files to iCloud, keeping the precious hard drive space free for important things.
Universal Clipboard
See something on the iPhone, copy it and you can access it across any of your Apple devices. Or look something up on the Mac and copy it to make it available to your mobile devices. Universal Clipboard is looking more and more useful all the time.
Tabs, tabs and more tabs
Tabs make it easy to multitask. Web browsers have long since cottoned on to this. If you have tabs, you can switch between pages within an app with relatively little fuss. MacOS Sierra takes that function and brings it to any of its native apps that will support multiple tabs, such as the Apple’s productivity apps Keynote, Numbers and Pages. along with Maps and third-party apps.
Photos
The new Photos app hit Mac desktops a while ago, but the updated version that will be included with MacOS Sierra will bring deep learning to the party. It will, for example, be able to recognise face and places, grouping your pictures accordingly. The facial scanning is on the device, before the privacy concerns crank up a notch. If you don’t mind including the location data on your images, the Photos app will display them on a map of the world, although that brings another set of privacy fears to the table. It will also make adjustments with the new Brilliance tool, enhancing details by tweaking your photo’s contrast settings or adjusts the highlights.
