You’ve heard about the new features in MacOS Sierra, Apple’s forthcoming operating system set to debut this fall. You’re looking forward to trying out Siri, and somewhat interested in picture-in-picture, but wondering if that’s really all there is. As it turns out, there are some new features for MacOS that Apple didn’t announce. Here’s a quick overview of these hidden features, and what they’ll mean for your Mac.
Apple added Notification Center to OS X back in 2012, and, in time, it replaced third-party tools like Growl entirely. In 2014, the Today screen made its first appearance on the Mac, offering a few built-in widgets alongside the notifications. App developers could also add their own widgets, and a few did, but overall, there’s not a lot of great content out there for the Today page.
MacOS Sierra could change that by adding a seemingly endless source of widgets. Anything Siri can search for can be pinned to the Notification Center, meaning everything from sports scores to stock prices can be added with just a voice search and a click.
Apple showed off Siri at the WWDC keynote, but a few details were left out. Can the virtual assistant be disabled? What’s the keyboard shortcut for launching her? Is the voice customizable? When we fired up MacOS Sierra, we found a System Preferences pane that answers all of these questions.
Users can disable Siri entirely by unchecking the “Enable Siri” option, which sits directly below the logo on the left-hand side of the window. Anyone wishing to change the voice can do so, too, and anyone who doesn’t want Siri to talk back to them can disable Voice Feedback. Users can also configure which microphone to use, and set a custom keyboard shortcut for launching the assistant.
Users can also remove Siri from the menubar, which is great if you’re the kind of users who likes to keep things tidy up there. If only there was some way to remove the Spotlight icon as well!
Last year’s El Capitan annoyed more than a few power users. The problem? The new Disk Utility removed the ability to set up RAIDs from Disk Utility. The feature, which allows multiple hard drives to act as one for the sake of file redundancy, is back with MacOS Sierra. This probably shouldn’t have gone away in the first place, but it’s nice to see it return regardless.
Apple has been locking down which applications run by default for a while now, and it seems like MacOS Sierra takes things a step further. It’s no longer possible for users to make running any and all software, regardless of its origin, the default behavior. For years, the Mac has kept applications from unidentified developers from running by default, but users had the option to allow any application to run in the System Preferences pane. For MacOS Sierra, that third option has been removed entirely.
This doesn’t mean software from unidentified developers can’t be run, however. Users can hold the Control key, click an application, and then click Open. But anyone who doesn’t know this trick won’t be able to launch unidentified software. From a security standpoint, this is probably for the best, but it also nudges users not-so-gently towards the Mac App Store, and not everyone will appreciate that.
Safari started offering extensions back in 2010, but they were something users had to seek out. If you installed OneNote, for example, you’d have to also install the OneNote extension for Safari to clip articles from the web. That changes with MacOS Sierra, as Safari extensions can now be bundled with applications in the Mac App Store.
In fact, if you click Safari in the menubar and then click Safari Extensions, you will be taken to a section of the Mac App Store with apps that offer extensions. This is similar to the way Notification Center widgets are distributed, and potentially gives Mac users a reason to occasionally open the Mac App Store.
Apple has used some variation of the Hierarchical File System (HFS) since 1985. That’s changing in 2017, with the release of Apple File System, or APFS, which is built from the ground up with solid state drives and flash memory in mind. This new filing system provides all kinds of new features, from built-in encryption, to timestamps that are accurate to the millisecond. It can even dynamically resize partitions when extra storage is needed.
APFS will be supported on all Apple devices, from the Mac and Apple Watch to the iPhone. It will not, however, be ready in time for MacOS Sierra’s release. Apple expects to launch the filesystem in 2017. Presumably, it will then be patched into MacOS Sierra, though the company may wait and add it in the next yearly MacOS update.
There are a few more things we could mention here. Some code in the OS suggests that the rumored OLED bar above the keyboard could be coming, and Safari will begin disabling extensions like Flash by default. That said, we’ll be watching closely as MacOS Sierra develops in the coming months.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.