This fall, Mac fans will receive their annual gift from
Apple: a new version of the Mac operating system and its apps. And it will have
a new name: macOS (instead of the now-retired OS X). Apple figured it was time
to make the Mac’s software naming consistent with watchOS, tvOS, and iOS.
Under Tim Cook, Apple is no longer as secretive as it once
was. It used to be, a new OS version would appear, fully formed, having been
prepared entirely in private. Nowadays, there’s a public beta-testing process (which
starts next month), and developers and certain lucky tech reviewers can get
their hands on the software even before that. Like, now.
Therefore, I’m pleased to present the following hands-on
first look at this very early developer’s version of macOS Sierra!
Siri on the Mac
Sierra doesn’t look any different from the previous version
of the Mac OS —there’s been no redesign this time. But there are plenty of
changes. And the 800-pound rumor that came true is this: After years of
enjoying the Siri voice-controlled assistant on the iPhone and iPad, Apple fans
now have it right on the Mac. (Windows 10 has Cortana, so Apple’s not the first.
But Siri is far more complete, powerful, and mature, as you can read here.)
You can make Siri listen in any of three ways: by clicking a
new icon in the Dock, by clicking a tiny icon on the menu bar, or by pressing
Fn+Space on the keyboard. (That keystroke may change, and you can change it too, but it’s a convenient
parallel to the Command-space keystroke for Spotlight searches.)
At that point, Siri is listening. And she behaves almost exactly
as she does on iOS. Here are some of the commands that already work:
Change settings. “Turn on Bluetooth,”
“Turn off Wi‑Fi,” “Make the screen
brighter.” “Dim the screen,” “Open Wi‑Fi settings,” “Open Sounds settings,” and
so on.
Post to Twitter or Facebook. “Tweet, ‘I just saw a three-headed dog catch a Frisbee in midair. Unreal.’ ” “Tweet with my location, ‘My car just broke down somewhere in Detroit. Help?’” “Post to Facebook, ‘The guy next to me kept his cellphone on for the whole plane ride,’ ” or “Write on my timeline, ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.’ ”
Search Twitter. “What are people saying?” “What’s going on?” “What’s happening on Twitter?” “What are people saying about the Chicago Bears?” “What does Ashton Kutcher say?” “Search Twitter for the hashtag ‘FirstWorldProblems.’ ”
Round up files. “Find the documents I worked on last week.” (Siri remembers context, too, so you can then add, “Just the presentations that Bill sent me.”) “Show me the videos from Halloween last year.” “Get me the videos from Utah.”
Alarms and clock. “Wake me up at 7:35.”
“Set the timer for 20 minutes.” “What time is it?” “What time is it in San
Francisco?” “What’s today’s date?” “What’s the date a week from Friday?” Or
just “Time.”
Contacts. “What’s Gary’s work number?”
“Give me Sheila Jenkins’ office phone.” “Show Tia’s home email address.”
“What’s my boss’s home address?” “When is my husband’s birthday?” “Show Larry
Murgatroid.” “Find everybody named Smith.”
Text messages. “Send a text to Alex
Rybeck.” “Send a message to Peter saying, ‘I no longer require your
services.’ ” “Tell Cindy I’m running late.” “Send a message to Janet’s
mobile asking her to pick me up at the train.” “Send a text message to
212-561-2282.” (And also: “FaceTime Nicki.”)
Email. “Read my latest email.” “Read my
new email.” “Email Mom about the reunion.” “Email my boyfriend about the dance
on Friday.” “New email to Freddie Gershon.” “Mail Mom about Saturday’s flight.” “Email my
assistant and say, ‘Thanks for arranging the taxi!’ ”
Consult your
calendar. “What’s on my calendar today?” “What’s on my calendar for
September 23?” “When’s my next appointment?” “When is my meeting with
Charlize?” “Where is my next meeting?”
Make appointments. “Make an appointment
with Patrick for Thursday at 3 p.m.” “Set up a haircut at 9.” “Set up a meeting
with Charlize this Friday at noon.” “Meet Danny Cooper at 6.”
Reschedule
appointments. “Move my 2 meeting to 2:30.” “Reschedule my meeting with
Charlize to a week from Monday at noon.” “Add Frank to my meeting with Harry.”
“Cancel the conference call on Sunday.”
Maps. “How do I get to the airport?”
“Show me 1500 Broadway, New York City.” “Directions to my assistant’s house.” (Siri
on the Mac doesn’t give driving directions; that’s one of the few differences
from iOS.)
Reminders. “Remind me to file my IRS
tax extension.” “Remind me
to take my antibiotic tomorrow at 7 a.m.” Siri can also understand the
word “this” when you’re looking at an email message, a web page, or a Note.
So, you can say, “Remind me about this at 7 p.m.” Sure enough: Siri will flag you with a reminder Notification
at the appropriate time — and add an entry, with a link to the original message,
web page, or Note, to the Reminders app.
Notes. You create a new note (in the
Notes app) by saying things like, “Make a note that my shirt size is 15 and a
half” or “Note: Dad will not be coming to the reunion after all.” You can even
name the note in your request: “Create a ‘Movies to Rent’ note.” You can also
call up a certain note to the screen: “Find my frequent-flyer note.”
Restaurants. “Good Italian restaurants
around here,” “Find a good pizza joint in Cleveland,” “Show me the reviews for
Olive Garden in Youngstown.” “Table for two in Belmont tonight.” “Make a
reservation at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant Saturday night at 7.”
Businesses. “Find coffee near me.”
“Where’s the closest Walmart?” “Find some pizza places in Cincinnati.” “Search
for gas stations.” “French restaurants nearby.” “I’m in the mood for Chinese
food.” “Find me a hospital.” “I want to buy a book.”
Play music. “Play
some Beatles.” “Play ‘I’m a Barbie Girl.’ ” “Play some jazz.” “Play my
jogging playlist.” “Shuffle my ‘Dave’s Faves’ playlist.”
“Play.” “Pause.” “Resume.” “Skip.” “Play Dolly Parton Radio.” “Play iTunes
Radio.” “Play some country music.”
Apple Music. If
you subscribe to Apple’s $10-a-month Apple Music service, Siri offers a huge
range of even more useful voice controls. For example, you can call for any
music in Apple’s 30 million-song catalog by song name, album, or performer:
“Play ‘Mr. Blue Sky.’ ” “Show me some Elton John albums.” “Play
‘Yesterday’ next” (or “…after this song”). Or ask to have a singer or album
played in random order: “Shuffle Taylor Swift.” Or start one of your playlists
by name (“Play ‘Jogging’ ”). Or re-listen to a song: “Play previous.” Or
ask for one of Apple Music’s radio stations: “Play Beats 1” or “Play Charting
Now.”
Weather. “What’s the weather going to
be today?” “What’s the forecast for tomorrow?” “Show me the weather this week.”
“Will it snow in Dallas this weekend?” “Check the forecast for Memphis on
Friday.” “What’s the forecast for tonight?” “Tell me the windchill in Chicago.” “What’s the humidity right
now?” “How’s the weather in Paris right now?”
“What’s the high for Washington on Friday?” “When’s the moonrise?” “What’s the temperature outside?” “Is it windy
out there?” “When does the sun rise in London?” “When will the sun set today?”
“Should I wear a jacket?”
Stocks. “What’s Google’s stock price?”
“What did Ford close at today?” “How’s the Dow doing?” “What’s Microsoft’s P/E
ratio?” “What’s Amazon’s average volume?” “How are the markets doing?”
Find My Friends. These queries refer to
the Mac’s Find My Friends app. “Where’s Fred?” “Is my dad home?” “Where are my
friends?” “Who’s here?” “Who is nearby?” “Is my mom at work?”
Search the web. “Search the web for a
2016 Ford Mustang.” “Search for healthy smoothie recipes.” “Search Wikipedia
for the Thunderbirds.” “Search for news about the Netflix-Amazon merger.” “Google
Benjamin Franklin.” “Yahoo low-cal dessert recipes.”
Wikipedia.
“Search Wikipedia for Harold Edgerton.” “Look up Mariah Carey on Wikipedia.”
Sports scores. “How did the Indians do
last night?” “What was the score of the last Yankees game?” “When’s the next
Cowboys game?” “What baseball games are on today?” “Who has the best batting
average?” “Who has scored the most runs against the Red Sox?” “Who has scored the
most goals in British soccer?” “Which quarterback had the most sacks last
year?” “Show me the roster for the Giants,” “Who is pitching for Tampa this
season?” and “Is anyone on the Marlins injured right now?”
Movies. Siri is also the virtual
equivalent of an insufferable film buff. She knows everything. “Who was
the star of ‘Groundhog Day?’” “Who directed ‘Chinatown’?” “What is ‘Waterworld’
rated?” “What movie won Best Picture in 1952?” “What movies are opening this
week?” “What’s playing at the Watton Cineplex?” “Give me the reviews for ‘Titanic
2: The Return.’” “What are today’s showtimes for ‘Finding Dory?’”
Facts and figures. “How many days until
Valentine’s Day?” “When was Abraham Lincoln born?” “How many teaspoons are in a
gallon?” “What’s the exchange rate between dollars and euros?” “What’s the
capital of Belgium?” “How many calories are in a Hershey bar?” “What’s a 17% tip on $62 for three people?” “When is the next solar eclipse?” “Show me the Big Dipper.”
“What’s the tallest mountain in the world?” “What’s the price of gold right
now?” “What’s the definition of ‘schadenfreude’?” “How much is 23 dollars in
pesos?” “Generate a random number.” “Graph x equals 3y plus 12.” “What flights
are overhead?”
Personality. And
then there are all those funny and smart-alecky responses, which have now
become standard among voice assistants. You know: “What is the meaning of
life?” “Who’s your daddy?” “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” “Knock knock.” “What
are you wearing?” “Who’s the boss?” “Beam me up, Siri!” “Talk dirty to me.” “Do
you have a religion?” “I love you, Siri.” Will you marry me?” “Can you sing?” “Why
are we here?” “You’re cute.” “What do you want?” “Tell me a joke.” “Tell me a
story.” “Sing for me.” “I’m cold.” “Do you love me?” “Why are we here?” “Do you
like Android phones?” “What’s the best cellphone?” “What’s the best computer?”
“How much do you cost?” “What are you doing later?” “Make me a sandwich.” “Do
you believe in Santa Claus?” “Should I give you a female or male voice?” “ “Are
you serious?” “Are you kidding me?” “Do you want to go on a date?” “Blah blah
blah.” “LOL.” “What are the three laws of robotics?” “Let’s play a game. “ “Read
me a haiku.” “Take me to your leader.” “Can I borrow some money?“ And so on.
On the Mac, Siri has some additional handiness. For example,
you can drag search results (or copy/paste them) into another document. Say,
“Find the nearest drugstore,” and drag the results into a Notes page. Say,
“When was Abraham Lincoln born?”, and drag the answer into an email. Say, “Find
a picture of a ring-tailed booby,” and drag the result into your the school paper
you’re writing.
Often, you see a “+” symbol in the upper-right corner of the Siri
search results (shown below at left). That’s your indication that these results are pinnable—by clicking that “+” button, you
add them to your Notification Center (right), so that you can refer to them later:
If it’s a result that changes
over time, like the scores for a sports game in progress, they update in
real time.
Assessment: Siri on the desktop is huge. After
only an hour of using her, I missed having her on my main machine. Considering
how complex and deeply nested our computers are today, having instant voice
access to any file or info-bit is an enormous time- and headache-saver.
Auto-Unlock with the Apple Watch
In theory, you don’t need a password to unlock your Mac
anymore — if you’re wearing an Apple Watch. It acts as a wireless master key.
(For security, it has a very short range—about 10 feet.)
Assessment:
I couldn’t try this, because it requires watchOS 3, which doesn’t come out
until the fall. But it’ll be great, if you have an Apple Watch.
Copy/Paste Between Devices
Here’s a feature nobody’s ever seen before: If you copy
something on your iPhone and then switch to your Mac, the Paste command pastes
whatever you just copied on the phone! There’s no learning involved, no special
command; it’s automatic. (And if you don’t
paste within two minutes of copying, then macOS restores whatever was
already on the Mac’s clipboard, so you don’t get confused later.)
Similarly, you can copy from the Mac and paste on the phone,
or copy/paste from one Mac to another, or indeed any combination of iPad,
iPhone, iPod Touch, or Mac.
To avoid driving you crazy, this feature works only when
both devices are logged into the same iCloud account, on the same WiFi network,
and nearby.
Assessment:
Not sure how often you’ll use this Universal Clipboard feature, but it sure
is clever.
Apple Pay on the Web
You’re shopping online, and at the checkout screen, you see
an Apple Pay button. Click it to open a box showing the info you have on your iPhone or Apple Watch, including your shipping info, already filled out. Click the
credit card you want to pay with, and — here’s the ingenious part — you
authenticate with your phone, using
its fingerprint reader. (Or double-press the Apple Watch’s side button.) You’ve
eliminated all the data entry.
This process is entirely secure; neither the merchant nor
Apple ever sees your credit-card number. (Instead, a special, one-time code is
sent directly to your bank, which does the payment.)
Assessment: Apple Pay on the web goes live in the fall, when macOS
Sierra comes out, so nobody can test it yet. It’ll be awesome, if web merchants decide to add it to
their pages.
Desktop and Documents Folders on iCloud
Sierra will introduce a new, optional feature of iCloud
Drive (which is Apple’s version of Dropbox): Everything on your desktop and in
your Documents folder will be accessible everywhere — on every Mac you own, every
iOS device, every Windows PC, and even online, at iCloud.com. That makes it
very likely that when you need a file you don’t have with you, you’ll be able
to grab it wherever you are.
If you have, for example, two Macs, you’ll see the stuff
from Mac #1’s desktop in a folder on Mac #2’s desktop; the Mac doesn’t commingle
the icons from the two desktops (unless you want it to).
Assessment: Super
great to have, since the desktop and Documents folders are where most people
store all their stuff. Of course, you get only 5 gigabytes of iCloud Drive
storage, which is shared by all of iCloud’s features—so to use this feature,
you’ll almost certainly have to pay for additional storage. That’s (for
example) $12 a year for 50 gigabytes, which isn’t outrageous.
Optimized Storage
Today’s Mac laptops don’t have a ton of storage; their
non-hard disks aren’t as big as actual hard drives.
This new feature should solve that problem rather neatly.
The idea: As your Mac begins to run out of space, your oldest files are quietly
and automatically stored online, leaving Download icons in their places on your
Mac, so that you can retrieve them if you need them. (A new graph in the Disk
Utility program shows how much space you stand to retrieve this way, marked
Purgeable.)
If you open the Apple menu, choose About This Mac, click
Storage, and click Manage, you get this box:
The Store in iCloud button turns on the oldest-files feature
described above. The Optimize button deletes iTunes movies and TV shows you’ve
already watched. (You’re always free to re-download them at no charge.) Erase
Trash Automatically deletes items that have been sitting there for at least 30 days. And Reduce Clutter looks over your
downloads, cache files, mail attachments that you can always re-download from
your IMAP mail account, and other junk the Mac doesn’t need anymore, and offers
to delete them. This feature can reclaim a lot
of space.
Assessment: Wicked
useful for MacBook Air owners who aren’t tech experts.
Window tabs
Any document-based app that can have multiple windows can
now have tabs, just like Safari (or the Finder) — no new version necessary.
(Apps like Photoshop that use nonstandard windows don’t gain
this feature.)
Assessment: Mmmmmm,
OK.
Picture-in-picture
When you’re in the Safari browser, and you’re watching a
video, you can click a PIP icon to detach it into a small, floating, resizable window, which you can drag to any corner. The idea is that you can keep watching as you do other work or even
switch Spaces (virtual desktops).
This feature works in Safari now, and will work in iTunes
too — but only on videos that use HTML5, like those on Vimeo and ESPN. Alas, it
doesn’t seem to work on YouTube videos.
Assessment: Neat,
when it works. Might be confusing that the PIP icon sometimes appears and
sometimes doesn’t.
iTunes
A new tab called For You recommends new music based on your
listening habits, and there’s a new tab for Apple Radio.
Assessment: Isn’t “For
You” the same idea as Genius Playlists, which iTunes has had forever? Not sure
what the big deal is.
Messages
Apple’s Messages app gains a few new features when you’re
texting with another Apple fan (that is, someone with an iCloud account) — although
not nearly as many as iOS 10 will offer this fall.
If you paste in a link you’re sending to someone, you get a
thumbnail of that web page; if you paste a video, it plays right in the
Messages window. If you insert an emoji symbol as the sole entry in a text, it
appears at 3X normal size. (If it accompanies typed text, the emoji still
appears at normal size.)
Messages on the Mac can also receive some of the new features of Messages on iOS, like
handwritten scribbles and “invisible ink” (which reveals what’s been typed only
when you drag your mouse across it).
Assessment: Fun!
But it’d be better if Macs got all of
the new iMessages features.
Photos
Just as in iOS 10, Photos on the Mac gains face and object
recognition, so it can group your shots by person, group of people, place, time
period, or thing. It auto-generates albums; each includes a map, representative
photos (eliminating very similar shots), headshots of the people in the
pictures, and even a music-backed slideshow movie.
The new People feature replaces what used to be called
Faces, but works much the same way, and Apple says it’s much more accurate.
There are “related memories,” too. If you’re looking at an
album called Vermont in Summer, you might see one called Vermont in Winter, or
an album containing photos of the same people, or a different trip there.
There are minor tweaks, too: In Albums view, you can now scrub
across an album’s thumbnail image to see thumbnails of the other pictures, as
you could in iPhoto. In Edit mode, there’s a new Brilliance feature that
balances very bright and very dark areas by region — great when the subject is
too dark and the background’s too bright.
Assessment: I’ve
never really bothered with Apple’s auto-grouping features; I generally want to
find one particular album or photo when I need it for a certain purpose. But a
more accurate Faces feature is very welcome.
High Sierra
Nothing Apple is bringing to the Mac will take away anything. Most of the changes are
“Hm—OK, cool!” sort of features.
But Siri on the Mac — that is really big. Siri is far more
complete and powerful than Cortana is on Windows, and having voice control of
your computer is a game-changer. Of course, there will be situations where it’s
not possible to speak aloud while you’re working. But when there is, it’s a
certainty that Siri will help you get your work done with less time,
complexity, and fussing. Assessment: Sweet.
David Pogue is the founder of Yahoo Tech; here’s how to get his columns by email. On the Web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. He welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below.