14 DAY TRIAL // Today, June 13, 2016, Apple kicked off its annual WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) event with a keynote address to share with us the future of the iOS, OS X, tvOS, and watchOS operating systems.
There were some big announcements this morning at WWDC 2016, so please check out our live blog in case you missed the entire event or part of it. Also, we've already told you everything there is to know about the upcoming iOS 10 mobile operating system for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices, and now we'll share with you what we've found out about OS X.
First and foremost, as we predicted, Apple put an end to the Mac OS X saga with the 10.11 El Capitan release cycle. It thus decided that it was time to change the version number in the name of the OS that powers today's MacBooks and iMac computers, as well as to rename it to something new, something that the world had already known for some time now. Therefore, today Apple announced the upcoming availability of macOS 10.12 "Sierra."
Meet macOS Sierra
Yes, you're reading it right, macOS is the new name of Apple's computer operating system. No more OS X or Mac OS X, and the next major version was dubbed Sierra, as in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the Western United States, located between the Central Valley of California and the Basin and Range Province. macOS Sierra will be available for public beta testing in July, so you can sign up right now to receive a notification when it is live for you to install it on your Mac.
And it looks like macOS Sierra will boast a great number of new features, starting with Siri for Mac as your personal digital assistant on the desktop, end-to-end encryption to protect your data and privacy, and Picture in Picture (PIP) support. Then, there are a Universal Clipboard that lets users copy and paste content (text, images, photos and video) between devices, tabs support across Mac applications that support multiple windows, and support for sharing your desktop and documents on all tour devices.
"macOS Sierra is a major update that makes your Mac smarter and more helpful than ever with improvements to the apps you know and love and great new features throughout,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering. "With macOS Sierra, you can get information, find files and multitask using Siri, access your Desktop and Documents from anywhere, copy and paste between Macs and iOS devices, and rediscover precious memories in Photos."
Of course, there will be a lot more other exciting new features coming to the macOS Sierra operating system later this fall, such as an updated Photos app that gets the same Memories feature and mapping of photos like on iOS 10. We'll also benefit from storage optimization that will move older files to the cloud to keep your Mac lighter, enhancements to the Apple Music in iTunes and the Messages app, and Apple Watch authentication. Developers enrolled in the Apple Developer program can get the Beta right now.
