What is the point of Sierra?

[Freida]

Hello guys,

I think I'm missing something here because I don't see Sierra as a next version of OS. Can someone tell me what do we really get?
So far its

1. Siri
2. Cleaning disk tool
3. Opening the system with iWatch
4. Apple Pay in Safari

Am I missing something? Because this sounds to me like few little tweaks and bonuses but nothing that would indicate new OS. I used to try BETAs before but now I have no desire to even try the whole thing until its at least 10.12.3 or so.

I don't really use Siri on my iPhone & iPad so whats really left for me to know that I'm running the next OS?

Or is this what we will be getting from now on? Few tiny things and thats about it?

What do I not see here?

 

[ac2334]

Hello guys,

I think I'm missing something here because I don't see Sierra as a next version of OS. Can someone tell me what do we really get?
So far its

1. Siri
2. Cleaning disk tool
3. Opening the system with iWatch
4. Apple Pay in Safari

Am I missing something? Because this sounds to me like few little tweaks and bonuses but nothing that would indicate new OS. I used to try BETAs before but now I have no desire to even try the whole thing until its at least 10.12.3 or so.

I don't really use Siri on my iPhone & iPad so whats really left for me to know that I'm running the next OS?

Or is this what we will be getting from now on? Few tiny things and thats about it?

What do I not see here?

The upcoming Apple File System really is a game changer

 

[Freida]

The upcoming Apple File System really is a game changer

Can you explain why, please?

 

[Mollan]

It is exactly the same feeling I had yesterday.
Seems like to coolest feature is the new wallpaper.

Siri is as dumb as always. 12 different requests before let it understand that I wanted to know the score from Germany - France. And still, the answer was wrong, since it checked an old calendar.

1 single request with Google Now.

And please, create a night mode as soon as the white theme is finalised. Having a white Notification Center with black bar and dock is terrible.

 

[maflynn]

1. Siri
2. Cleaning disk tool
3. Opening the system with iWatch
4. Apple Pay in Safari

Yep, its a minor update, but then we saw that last year as well. Apple is building upon the Yosemite base, which it improved it in El Cap and we see a small number of enhancements in Sierra. I'm not really worked up over Sierra, ever since they moved to an annual update, I've been somewhat underwhelmed

The upcoming Apple File System really is a game changer

How, like all successful file systems, it should not affect the users at all, i.e., its one of those under the hood things. Plus its not slated to be part of Sierra but rolled out in 2017, so that means it will be in macOS 10.13

 

[Crazy Badger]

I much prefer thes minor updates that hold back on new functionality and focus on improving the core OS.

What exactly is it that people want? I just want a rock solid OS that I can run whatever apps I want. I've given up on Apple providing the best of these.

New file system is a pretty big thing, but as it's only a preview in this release nothing to worry about.

 

[MacGizmo]

Apple & MS can't win with an OS release anymore.

Some people claim they want lots of new hero features. Apple/MS give it to them and the same people complain that the features are useless and they should have just focused on bug fixes and other under-the-hood stability things.

Other people claim to only want speed and stability enhancements with no major additions or changes. When they get it, they complain about the lack of features to compel them to upgrade.

I prefer upgrades that are packed with lots of very minor changes. The chance that I'll use any particular feature are slim to begin with, so the more little doo-dads there are, the happier I am. The addition of the "New Folder with Selection" and File Rename contextual menu items are very small additions to the last OS, but for me those two little features made the entire OS worth upgrading to because I use them a ton.

They can't please everyone...

 

[leman]

macOS Sierra is an incremental upgrade to OS X El Capitan, which fixes some bugs and brings some further improvements. Thats the entire point. If you are disappointed by it, then its very likely that your understanding of OS X release cycle is flawed. A new OS X release is simply a bundle of changes/improvements to an OS package. Its not a 'new' OS and it doesn't have to bring anything completely game-changing. Even with that, Sierra has a lot of important changes and improvements under the hood.

For the last few iterations, OS X was in a state of flux, because Apple were looking for a new visual style for their OS family. They were experimenting with different designs. On the Mac side, we saw it between Mountain Lion and El Capitan. With 10.11/iOS 9, Apple has finally found that style, so there won't be that much visual variation for the next few OS iterations.

 

[msh]

Can you explain why, please?

It will provide more protection and efficiencies in handling your data. But it is no game changer since it doesn't do check summing and data redundancy. A real game changer would be offering something like the core features of ZFS and implementing ECC ram on all their machines.

 

[MistrSynistr]

It is exactly the same feeling I had yesterday.
Seems like to coolest feature is the new wallpaper.

Siri is as dumb as always. 12 different requests before let it understand that I wanted to know the score from Germany - France. And still, the answer was wrong, since it checked an old calendar.

1 single request with Google Now.

And please, create a night mode as soon as the white theme is finalised. Having a white Notification Center with black bar and dock is terrible.

I did see this white notification center with the black theme and was perplexed by it. Why would they not have that programmed to match that theme? lol

 

[Freida]

macOS Sierra is an incremental upgrade to OS X El Capitan, which fixes some bugs and brings some further improvements. Thats the entire point. If you are disappointed by it, then its very likely that your understanding of OS X release cycle is flawed. A new OS X release is simply a bundle of changes/improvements to an OS package. Its not a 'new' OS and it doesn't have to bring anything completely game-changing. Even with that, Sierra has a lot of important changes and improvements under the hood.

For the last few iterations, OS X was in a state of flux, because Apple were looking for a new visual style for their OS family. They were experimenting with different designs. On the Mac side, we saw it between Mountain Lion and El Capitan. With 10.11/iOS 9, Apple has finally found that style, so there won't be that much visual variation for the next few OS iterations.

NO no no, I think i get that. Usually one release is feature focused and the next year is improvements. But I think this year they didn't talk about improvements. I remember in Maverick (if im correct) they introduced this cool CPU bundling that would make the CPU more efficient with tasks and same went for the Memory. This release there was no such mention so thats why I came here to ask what I have missed. Can we expect any speed improvement? Better memory management? or anything like that? Because if there is something cool then Apple usually shows it at the keynote.

Regardless, I guess I'm just not as excited as I used to be. I'm not too obsessed for new features and big ones all the time but something that would warrant a new OS version would be desired. Maybe I don't know enough details but right now the Sierra update feels a bit like a major .1 update rather than new OS.
Maybe the marketing changed it and we will see these things from now on. Who knows

 

[bunnspecial]

For the last few iterations, OS X was in a state of flux, because Apple were looking for a new visual style for their OS family. They were experimenting with different designs. On the Mac side, we saw it between Mountain Lion and El Capitan. With 10.11/iOS 9, Apple has finally found that style, so there won't be that much visual variation for the next few OS iterations.

I think there's a lot of truth to that with the overall UI appearance.

Effectively, we're on the 3rd major "style" change of OS X, or at least of general public releases(the early DPs along with OS X server used Platinum from OS 8/9). First we had Aqua with its overabundance of pin stripes that gradually got toned down until 10.4(Tiger). 10.5(Leopard) was in many ways a clean break with the 3d dock and translucent menu bar. The major element retained from Aqua was the "gel" traffic light buttons on windows. Aside from that, the overall look was fairly stable through 10.9 with the notable exceptions coming to mind being the small size "traffic lights" and the changes to tags/labels on folders and files(specifically going from highlighting the whole name to using a colored dot).

Yosemite was in a lot of ways a clean break that killed the last remnants of Aqua although it returned to the pre-10.5 flat dock and of course flattened everything else out. There was also the Finder icon redesign-I think the old Finder icon dates back to the "Welcome to Mac OS" splash screen of OS 7.6(replacing the Picasso "Welcome to Macintosh" of 7.5 and earlier). We've seen a few appearance tweaks with 10.11 and 10.12, but from history I think it's mostly stable at least for a couple more releases.

 

[DaveOP]

NO no no, I think i get that. Usually one release is feature focused and the next year is improvements. But I think this year they didn't talk about improvements. I remember in Maverick (if im correct) they introduced this cool CPU bundling that would make the CPU more efficient with tasks and same went for the Memory. This release there was no such mention so thats why I came here to ask what I have missed. Can we expect any speed improvement? Better memory management? or anything like that? Because if there is something cool then Apple usually shows it at the keynote.

Regardless, I guess I'm just not as excited as I used to be. I'm not too obsessed for new features and big ones all the time but something that would warrant a new OS version would be desired. Maybe I don't know enough details but right now the Sierra update feels a bit like a major .1 update rather than new OS.
Maybe the marketing changed it and we will see these things from now on. Who knows

Remember, they will recap this in September and potentially show hidden new features that coincide with hardware releases. You never have a full picture until it's released to the public.

 

[leman]

Usually one release is feature focused and the next year is improvements.

I am not sure that this is still the case. Its more like Apple reevaluates what they want to focus on every year. They never really committed to a 'feature release, maintenance release' cycle, even though this cycle was kind of implied.

But I think this year they didn't talk about improvements. I remember in Maverick (if im correct) they introduced this cool CPU bundling that would make the CPU more efficient with tasks and same went for the Memory.

The way I understood it, the 'customer' side of Sierra is focusing on the cloud side + AI assistance. You get better cloud integration, automatic data backup/synching etc., which is quite nice. The automatic photo categorisation in Photos is absolutely amazing and should be a no-brainer reason to upgrade to 10.12. Other than that, its polish (I like the new Mail and Messages quite a lot for instance).

However, there is a lot of stuff on the developer side of things. Some new APIs were introduced, the entire system became more efficient (Metal everywhere+improved layout machinery), Swift 3 etc. I'd certainly expect efficiency increases from the OS.

right now the Sierra update feels a bit like a major .1 update rather than new OS.
Maybe the marketing changed it and we will see these things from now on. Who knows

Exactly Personally, I think this is a good strategy, and a lot of people were also saying that they'd prefer fixes over new questionable features. Sierra kind of delivers both and while its certainly not super exiting, its a solid upgrade in my book.

 

[MirekEl]

One of the features that I like, albeit not revolutionary, is deeper integration with mobile devices. Copy and paste, device unlocking...

 

[dogslobber]

Or is this what we will be getting from now on? Few tiny things and thats about it?

What do I not see here?

All the under the hood enhancements that will improve your quality of life. Sierra is the benchmark by which 10.13 will be judged. Also, Finder now allows Folder On Top, just like using Windows! This last one is a game changer for and sure to attract new Windows users to Mac.

 

[psik]

All the under the hood enhancements that will improve your quality of life. Sierra is the benchmark by which 10.13 will be judged. Also, Finder now allows Folder On Top, just like using Windows! This last one is a game changer for and sure to attract new Windows users to Mac.

At the end of the day though, unless these under hood improvements improve battery life and performance which also is limited by hardware of course, i dont get the point of upgrading. I only upgraded to el capitan cause it was better by a weak OS Yosemite that was sluggish and unstable - but if Sierra is only as stable as El Capitan and not more stable, why upgrade, given that features like Siri are not useful for me.

 

[dogslobber]

At the end of the day though, unless these under hood improvements improve battery life and performance which also is limited by hardware of course, i dont get the point of upgrading. I only upgraded to el capitan cause it was better by a weak OS Yosemite that was sluggish and unstable - but if Sierra is only as stable as El Capitan and not more stable, why upgrade, given that features like Siri are not useful for me.

It sounds like you've identified what it will take for you to upgrade. That's fine. The original poster is in the same boat trying to grasp why they would want to upgrade. It's a personal choice until it isn't.

 

[psik]

It sounds like you've identified what it will take for you to upgrade. That's fine. The original poster is in the same boat trying to grasp why they would want to upgrade. It's a personal choice until it isn't.

Yes I guess what i would add is if new applications would not support el capitan any longer, but this wont likely be the case for a while...

 

[chabig]

...but if Sierra is only as stable as El Capitan and not more stable, why upgrade, given that features like Siri are not useful for me.

Not all improvements are user facing. A lot of work is done on the underpinnings to make a system faster, more stable, and more secure. You should always upgrade to take advantage of those things even if you don't see them.

 

[dogslobber]

Not all improvements are user facing. A lot of work is done on the underpinnings to make a system faster, more stable, and more secure. You should always upgrade to take advantage of those things even if you don't see them.

I agree. It seems like Yosemite-El Cap-Sierra is an evolutionary development and I'd clump them altogether. Perhaps Sierra will be optimized for more minimal hardware such that memory requirements for the various components will be reduced.

 

[chabig]

I agree. It seems like Yosemite-El Cap-Sierra is an evolutionary development and I'd clump them altogether. Perhaps Sierra will be optimized for more minimal hardware such that memory requirements for the various components will be reduced.

Yes, perhaps. It seems to me that computers are very mature. I don't think we are going to see amazing advancements in function for the foreseeable future. I expect incremental updates and nothing more. Look at other areas of modern life--cars, blenders, dishwasher, etc. They all do what they do very well and we don't expect to be wowed all of the time. Computers have reached the same point in their development.

 

[psik]

Not all improvements are user facing. A lot of work is done on the underpinnings to make a system faster, more stable, and more secure. You should always upgrade to take advantage of those things even if you don't see them.

But I am not sure if anything is actually be done to make Sierra any faster than El Capitan. And I know security patches will contineu to be relased for El Capitan but if you mean a different security system in Sierra then you have a point, or if as dogslobber says if Sierra will be optimized for more minimal hardware, that should lead to a faster system, but only if it is.

 

[chabig]

But I am not sure if anything is actually be done to make Sierra any faster than El Capitan. And I know security patches will contineu to be relased for El Capitan but if you mean a different security system in Sierra then you have a point, or if as dogslobber says if Sierra will be optimized for more minimal hardware, that should lead to a faster system, but only if it is.

I was probably wrong to say faster. I doubt that there are many inefficiencies remaining to be optimized.

 

[dogslobber]

I was probably wrong to say faster. I doubt that there are many inefficiencies remaining to be optimized.

Isn't this the problem Metal is meant to solve? Too many library stacks between the core OS functionality and the hardware. I'd assume optimizing the OS for Metal would make it more responsive on simpler hardware and reduce the OS memory requirements. E.g. if you only need to call 2 functions instead of 10 to get to the hardware then there is time and memory savings. I'm optimistic about this providing Metal is enhanced for Sierra.