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Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.4 update to developers, one week after seeding the fourth macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta and over a month after releasing macOS Sierra 10.12.3.

The fifth macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta is available for download through the Apple Developer Center or the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store for those who have previously installed a beta.

macOS-10.12.4-beta-800x500.jpg

macOS Sierra 10.12.4 brings iOS's Night Shift mode to the Mac for the first time. First introduced on iOS devices with iOS 9.3, Night Shift is designed to gradually shift the display of a device from blue to yellow, cutting down on exposure to blue light. Blue light is said to disrupt the circadian rhythm and is believed to interrupt sleeping patterns.

Night Shift can be activated through the Displays section of System Preferences, where a setting to have it come on at sunset and turn off at sunrise is available. Night Shift can also be toggled on manually through the Notification Center or via Siri.


The 10.12.4 update focuses mainly on Night Shift, but also includes dictation support for Shanghainese, cricket scores for Siri, improved PDFKit APIs, and iCloud Analytics options.

Update: The fifth macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta is now available for public beta testers.

Article Link: Apple Seeds Fifth Beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available Too]
 
I am guessing next Tue or Thur they will drop the final release.
 
Night Shift, Shanghainese and cricket scores? This is about the least exciting macOS update I can remember.

"cricket scores" - They need to appeal to India as they are doing for China, revenue, revenue, revenue. That is all that matters now. A profitable company at the cost of image.
 
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I really wish they'd save the front page posting of this news until they have some substance regarding what's changed in the release. If we never get substance, then it never goes on front page.

It's just that a version bump in itself isn't really news, it's a change of a digit.
 
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"cricket scores" - They need to appeal to India as they are doing for China, revenue, revenue, revenue. That is all that matters now. A profitable company at the cost of image.
I mean, to be fair, the only reason they were ever focused on image was because they were trying to be profitable.
 
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ITT: People expecting new and exciting features in the 4th point release? Really it's surprising that it's anything more than bug fixes at this stage.
 
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I really wish that Sierra could be as much efficient and stable as El Capitan was.

El Cap was much better on ram managing
I get lots fewer beach balls on Sierra when compared to El Capitan but I have noticed Sierra does not play with VMWare Fusion as well and it takes far longer to boot. A full system restart (OS X and 2 VM's: 1 for XP and one for Win10) with opening Word/Excel/XCode/Mail/Word(Win10)/preview/Safari can take me 15-20 minutes while El Capitan took about 5-10 minutes.

Old 2009 iMac with 1TB mechanical HD and 16GB RAM. Looking forward to new iMac options....
 
IMO ... nightshift is not such an important feature.... particularly for a non-mobile operating system.
The vast majority of workforce don't look at their computer screens at night so this doesn't benefit them.

Apple should spend their effort improving other areas of OSX.
 
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ITT: People expecting new and exciting features in the 4th point release? Really it's surprising that it's anything more than bug fixes at this stage.

Anyone notice any battery life improvements on the new MacBook Pro's, surely Apple would be optimizing more and more.
 
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