Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge Sierra (MacOS 12) and iOS 10 first impressions

THE THRILL RIDE OF BETA TESTING

I was on the road when the beta 4 versions of MacOS 12 and iOS 10 were released so I have only been able to install iOS 10. The next day I got an email from SoftRAID advising users know to be beta testing MacOS 12 not to install beta 4. The "fix" Apple had made kin beta 2 to correct the immediate system crash when a SoftRAID volume is present had managed to disappear in beta 4. 😱

Glad I was on the same road. Besides that it is a LOT cooler hear at 8,200 feet than it is at home right now and not only would I have been hot from the heat, I would have been hot under the collar. 👺

As you can see iOS 10 beta 4 is working well.

Somewhere between Sierra Beta one and Sierra Beta eight Apple slipped and dictation a big dose of steroids. I started playing around with it the other day out of curiosity and discovered the built in features have dramatically expanded. The line between Siri and dictation is fuzzy Think of Siri in sierra as being the handy dandy look anything up on the Internet tool that it is on IOS. Dictation and dictation commands look and feel very much the same way as Siri does but those are limited to commanding actions on the Mac. There are too many dictation commands to count, but you can switch to, hide, close, any application in the systems application folder, scroll left right up down, and the list of internal commands for an application is context-sensitive, in other words want application has one set of commands another application has a different set that is appropriate to that application. I am guessing that is tied do the AppleScript dictionary for the application. You can also create custom dictstion commands using WorkFlows, AppleScript, etc.

There are two or three different options for triggering command recognition.

• Using a keyword to trigger commands recognition, the default is computer but I ended up changing it to Siri
• You can simply have the computer listen to what you were saying and recognize commands out of the conversation screen without a keyword
• You can trigger dictation commands with a keystroke pattern such as command space

Interpretation accuracy using the microphone in my display is good. Using a semipro USB microphone on the desktop yield an outstanding interpretation accuracy. My major complaint at this point is when I call for a period punctuation mark it comes out a comma. I have submitted a trouble report and hopefully that will be corrected in the final release.

Anyone who has ever used speech recognition will tell you you need to learn to pronounce your words carefully or they may not come out quite what you expect. But I have noticed the contextual artificial intelligence and interpretation in sierra is amazing. The initial interpretation is sometimes wrong but as the sentence is completed the incorrect word will change to the correct word. Unless you're watching closely you might miss it entirely.

Would this work in a noisy office environment probably not unless you were using a very good highly directional headphone mike. Is it useful? IMO Siri, dictation, and dictation commands just may be Sierra's killer app once we learn to really use it and to dictate correctly.

It's official: Apple Announces Sept. 20 Release for macOS Sierra. I'm wondering why I would want Sierra. I don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. I definitely don't want anything to do with the Cloud. Siri might be OK if it works, but I don't have any great compulsion to use it. Are there any things about Sierra that would be an improvement over El Cap? I certainly won't upgrade until at least 10.12.2, as is my custom.

There is lots of stuff going on under the hood in Sierra particularly as relates to security and of course there is the foundation for the new file system, but that will not be fully implemented this year (but maybe in a MacOS 12 update) and as far as most routine stuff goes the first thing you are likely to notice is that Sierra is even more persnickety about installing apps from non-registered developers. Annoying at first, but IMO the additional protection is worth the minor annoyance.

I have encountered two or three absolute incompatibility issues in beta testing but those have all been fixed. Diskwarrior, TechTool Pro, Drive Genius, Cocktail, OnyX, TinkerTool, TinkerTool System, MacPilot, etc still do not want to run but that is wisdom on the developer's part. Apple's recent announcement about cleaning the App Store inventory of apps that are no longer supported is a tacit admission there are apps need to be or should have been updated for full MacOS 12 compatibility, but the same can be said of virtually every OS upgrade on the Mac, PC, or Unix platforms. Even non-registered developers could have had access to MacOS 12 for some months now so there is little reason for apps to go out of date unless they are either marginally supported or no longer supported at all. Personally I am allergic to non-supported apps anyway.

Probably the most significant features in MacOS 12, Siri and even tighter iCloud integration, can or will be initially overlooked or ignored by many users. I have been running the beta since its first release and only began to recognize the true utility of Siri and her sibling Dictation a bit over two weeks ago. I didn't think I needed it, and truthfully I can live without their help, but I have reached the point, I no longer want to. They make my workflow go faster and easier to manage than I could have imagined. (Admittedly it is noisier with all my talking to Siri — just ask my wife.) The problem now is learning and remembering all the proper voice commands. It took a few weeks until a Trackpad became natural and automatic for me and I suspect Siri will be the same.

Thanks for that, Joe. I'll have to look at app compatibility with Sierra but it's too early to tell. I have consulted http://roaringapps.com but there isn't much info yet. My main concern is that MS Office 2008 works with Sierra. I can probably live without Word (although it suits my needs) because there are good substitutes, namely Nisus Writer Pro and Libre Office, but I like Entourage, probably because I'm used to it. I could get used to Mail but my wife is another story... As far as I'm concerned, Pages is unacceptable.

If Photoshop CS5 doesn't work with Sierra, I can always go to Photoshop CC. The monthly fee is annoying but I can afford it.

At any rate, I'll wait and see.

Can't help you with Office 2008, I haven't had anything from Microsoft for several years now. I can verify that LibreOffice, NeoOffice, Nisus Writer Pro, Mellel, and Scriviner all work flawlessly. (OpenOffice works too but that project is shutting down. 😥) While I don't find Pages totally unacceptable I never use it so I guess that tells the tale.

If you don't care for Mail and are looking for a change from Entourage, you might take a look at AirMail 3 from the App Store. It doesn't have Rules like Mail, but it is highly configurable and quite fast. I like it but no longer use it because the interface was different between OS X, iOS on the iPhone, and it did not play as nice with iOS on the 12" iPad Pro but it is under constant development and that may have changed by now. It is worth a look.

Jon, your questions often encourage me to revisit ideas, apps, etc. and your comment about Mail was no exception. I noticed in the App Store the current version of Airmail is now Airmail 3. Since I had liked it before I decided to take another look and now I have to correct men previous observations. I start by saying all of my previous reservations have been taken care of.

• The MacOS and iOS versions are as far as I can tell absolutely identical
• through the magic of iCloud what you set up on one platform will be completely reflected on the other platforms including Rules
• Speaking of Rules…
  • ...work in either the InBox or Sent mail box
  • ...can either be universal or restricted to a specific email account
  • …offer more options and functions than Mail
• Offers six diffferent looks and in general is more colorful than Mail without being obnoxious or glaring.
• offers a variety of options to tailor it to your specific needs/wants/desires
• …links with a number of third party apps including Dropbox and Evernote
• ...has a variety of keystroke actions and optionally supports Google Mail shortcuts
• handles left to right or right to left writing

Can you tell I like Airmail 3?

Airmail certainly sounds good. I could deal with the change from Entourage (and I could deal with Mail also) but my wife, on the other hand... Domestic harmony always trumps (no pun intended) practicality.

Having been married 57 years I certainly understand.