How to Use Siri in macOS

[boogiedout]

I've just installed sierra on my mac mini. Siri is working but cant send messages or FaceTime contacts?? its telling me i have no apps installed for this?? what the ****??

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

"Why would you want to use Yosemite when it's god-awful SLOW compared to El Capitan in terms of GUI performance"

I preferred not use El Capitan chiefly because it crippled the Disk Utility which I liked to use to manually optimize my several external disks

I simply put a Mavericks install partition (along with El Capitan) on a USB stick in two partitions. If I need to use the Mavericks Disk Utility, I can boot off the stick and use the one that's included in the "Live boot" mode. This eliminated any issues with RAID, etc.

; eliminated “root” access with it’s SIP restrictions

Enable Root User using included "Directory Utility":
https://discussions.apple.com/message/29484998#29484998

SIP is also easily disabled from the aforementioned El Capitan "Install" USB stick I made even though I have a RAID partition (no emergency boot partition; the USB stick works instead). Once disabled, I could get XtraFinder working again and some other things like a certain NFS mode (most of which still work if it's re-enabled afterwards).

eliminated support for a few of my third party utilities that helped monitor disk performance; and eliminated the Apple menu access to Location and Network prefs.

Obviously, I can't speak to that without knowing what they are. The initial release of El Capitan didn't work with an older version of iZotope RX here, but they fixed it in the next update. Nothing else I've run wouldn't work (including Photoshop CS3, which works fine).

With regards to streaming video, our site (ruthenians.net) features almost 200 MP4/M4V video streams with max resolutions of 720p or lower, none of which will work if re-rendered in 4K or even 1080p (depending on file size) given today’s bandwidth restrictions - zero. We’ve tried.

So your files use more than 80Mbps streaming rates for 1080p? That's higher than Bluray which is far less compressed than any normal online site and it only 36Mbps.

In house, our 3rd Gen Apple TV (1080p max) gags when streaming content at 10/100 BASE T speeds. We have to wait 30 minutes or more for the download to progress before we can begin watching content especially for movies -- the Comcast Blast download speeds being choked off by built-in device bandwidth restrictions.

How very odd. I had to wait less than 5 minutes with 720p clear back in 2008 when using Apple rentals when I had only 5Mbps Internet bandwidth (this dropped to under 1 minute when I got bumped to 15Mbps and now starts almost instantly with 50Mbps despite the fact my WiFi connection there often drops into the 20-something Mbps range (opposite side of the house). Local files start instantly (compressed M4V at 1080p using recommended Handbrake settings for ATV) with Kodi. I've had no trouble using AC Outlet Ethernet connections (which are typically slower than real 10/100 connections, also typically in the 20/30 ranges depending on the outlet used) either with said files. Those don't remotely saturate the 100Mbps connection. Are you using CAT6 cables? Have you tried something like an FTP test over a Macbook Pro? Those should definitely push over 70Mbps on a good connection.

 

[The Templar]

I played around with Siri last night. For some reason I cannot get her to launch applications. I have tried saying both "open" and "launch" with the name of the application, but every time she says "cannot find an application with that name, do you wish to search for it in the app store?" this is true for all apps, Apple's and third party apps. Has anyone else experienced this?

Article Link: How to Use Siri in macOS Sierra

[/QUOTE]
I have the same problem, she tells me I don't have the app of that name and I should search the App Store! Other than set appointments and uselessly read out the Nikkei performance she seems incapable of anything useful. She won't search anything, can't find a file and is basically useless - she cannot interpret as well as the iPhone and won't place a FaceTime call, because I don't have the app according to her! Flawed is an understatement - useless is more like it.

 

[kingdomkids]

Why is it that Siri cannot set a simple timer on the mac. Come on. A simple 5 min timer. I use it a ton on my phone.

With macOS Sierra, Apple has finally brought its well-known personal assistant, Siri, to the Mac. Siri for Mac differs from iOS' version of Siri in several ways, taking advantage of the larger real estate of a Mac's display and the Finder file system. Users can also easily transfer or pin Siri's search results to the Notification Center or documents they're working on. To help you get started with Siri for Mac, we've put together a guide outlining what it's capable of.

Activating Siri

There are three ways to activate Siri in Sierra. Two of the methods are visually obvious while the third is not.

[*]The Dock icon sitting in between the Finder and Launchpad logos.
[*]The Menu Bar toggle in between the Spotlight search and Notification Center icons.
[*]The keyboard command. Hold the Command and Space buttons for approximately two seconds.

Siri can be enabled two ways. While you're installing macOS Sierra, there'll be a prompt asking you whether you'd like to enable Siri. Additionally, Siri can be enabled and disabled in the Siri section of System Preferences. There are several other options for Siri in System Preferences, including language, voice, voice feedback, mic input and customized keyboard shortcuts.


Click here to read more...

Article Link: How to Use Siri in macOS Sierra

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Why is it Siri wasn't in Yosemite? Then it might be halfway useful by now. Apple spends all their time on their damn iOS and Phone and everything else sits and becomes outdated (they're really standing behind their "Mac Pro" as you can tell by zero updates since the trash can model came out but still the same insanely high price even though it's now hopelessly outdated). Where's the new Thunderbolt III/USB-C powered Macs? Nowhere. Just another phone whose greatest new feature is ditching the most used jack on the phone outside of charging (i.e. the headphone jack). GREAT new features Apple! Remove the useful crap and call it "new". I'm thinking it's time to consider Linux or even (god forbid) Windows 10. I kind of hate the data theft/mining/send-to-NSA spying crap on it, though. Really, it's a sad day for desktop systems anymore. All people care about is retarded phones and Facebook. We are being taken over by a nation of phone zombies. It's awful. I blame Steve Jobs for this crap. Now all we need are self-driving cars so people can spend MORE time on their fracking phones. God help us.

 

[CaptainPrice01]

I tried using Siri to ask for Safari results and cannot pin them to the Notification bar as there is no plus symbol. Is there something that needs to be enabled?

 

[tywebb13]

We are being taken over by a nation of phone zombies.

Phone zombiism is a really bad phenomenon.

I hate watching people walking down the street with their phone in their face not looking where they are going, not paying attention to their surroundings, not being self-aware, bumping into other people (even other phone zombies), sometimes causing traffic chaos etc. Some even get run over as a result. I'm not exaggerating. (eg. http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/smartphones-silent-killers-demand-respect-dont/ )

I'm not criticising the phones. It's the people who use them that are the problem. It's smartphones for stupid people!

I once saw one of them get onto as escalator going in the wrong direction. She fell backwards and hit her head on the floor. She could have died. Hopefully that taught her a lesson. But I doubt it.

 

[shplock]

I don't understand why we can't just speak to the Mac for Siri to be activated. We can do this with Windows 10 by saying "Hey Cortanta" and not pressing any buttons or clicking anything.

Erm firstly this is the first time that Siri has come to the Mac so that feature could come to the Mac in the future. Secondly there is a way to make that happen. I posted an article about it on Apple's communities website.
Though there are a few articles on various sites also detailing the same trick