Apple Seeds Eighth Beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 to Developers and Public Beta Testers

[MacRumors]

Apple today seeded the eighth beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.4 update to developers and public beta testers, four days after seeding the seventh macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta and two months after releasing macOS Sierra 10.12.3.

The eighth 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 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.

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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.

Few outward-facing changes have been discovered in macOS Sierra 10.12.4 outside of the first beta, as Apple has been working on bug fixes and improvements ahead of a public release. With the eighth beta out and the short interval since the last seed, we are getting closer to the end of the beta testing period and are likely to see a public release soon.

Article Link: Apple Seeds Eighth Beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 to Developers and Public Beta Testers

 

[jbachandouris]

My life is so lame, that this is the most exciting thing to happen to me all day.

 

[GubbyMan]

Eight betas! Can I trust them and download the stable version as soon as it is released or should I wait and see if there are any major bugs that could brick my MacBook?

 

[theitsage]

Hoping for new Macs tomorrow. There are changes to drivers and kext files for Polaris GPUs.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Eight betas! Can I trust them and download the stable version as soon as it is released or should I wait and see if there are any major bugs that could brick my MacBook?

You might want to hold off until stable version 6.0 before installing.

 

[jameskachan]

I've been having issues with AirDrop, hopefully thats fixed in this issue.

 

[thadoggfather]

How much polish does the f.lux knockoff, I mean macOS Night Shift feature need?

 

[now i see it]

My life is so lame, that this is the most exciting thing to happen to me all day.

Not to worry. There'll be an endless stream of betas until you reach old age

 

[lostczech]

They're a ways off from releasing a Mac with a Polaris GPU, regardless it won't be tomorrow.

The recent 15" MacBook Pro uses Polaris

 

[lunarworks]

Hoping for new Macs tomorrow. There are changes to drivers and kext files for Polaris GPUs.

Online store's going down "for maintenance" tomorrow morning. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something, even if minor.

 

[brianvictor7]

That is a LOT of betas! When I was in the beta tester program for 2014-2016, I don't remember seeing more than 5 versions of an update before the official roll-out.

 

[Crazy Badger]

Only updated to 7 this morning

Mail and Calendar apps have been pretty unstable throughout for this dot release.

 

[crescentmoon]

My life is so lame, that this is the most exciting thing to happen to me all day.

You must be living near Rottenchester....

 

[Apple_Robert]

Build 16E192b

 

[MacFever]

Nightshift is all good... but when will we get a full dark theme option through out the MacOS.

for example :

 

[macintoshmac]

Nightshift is all good... but when will we get a full dark theme option through out the MacOS.

for example :

View attachment 692890

Reminds me of Ubuntu.

 

[dyrer]

That's a record

 

[nortonandreev]

Even the major updates don't have so many betas...

 

[dannys1]

Nightshift is all good... but when will we get a full dark theme option through out the MacOS.

for example :

View attachment 692890

Urghh

 

[aeshaettr_]

Nightshift is all good... but when will we get a full dark theme option through out the MacOS.

for example :

View attachment 692890

I wish....

 

[Aldaris]

** interesting considering the timing. I wonder if they purposefully left out any identifiers for new hardware until they are to be released... I guess we'll know in 24 hours.

 

[zantafio]

I don't have storage space to install the beta, can someone check if they finally fixed Mail refusing the delete or move mailboxes via AppleScript?

This worked fine in El Capitan and broke with MacOS:


tell application "Mail"

set x to make new mailbox with properties {name:"test"}

delete x

end tell

 

[6836838]

That is a LOT of betas! When I was in the beta tester program for 2014-2016, I don't remember seeing more than 5 versions of an update before the official roll-out.

You're forgetting iOS7. Not that unusual. How many would you expect for an OS with a completely new file system?

 

[csurfr]

Did I miss the inclusion of the file system in 10.12.4?

When I was running the PB, I didn't notice it...

 

[imran5720]

Another beta ugh