Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra update to developers, just a day after releasing the new operating system to the public.
macOS Sierra Beta 10.12.1 is available for download through the Apple Developer Center and through the Software update mechanism in the Mac App Store.
It is not clear what improvements the first update to macOS Sierra will bring, but it's likely to include bug fixes and performance improvements for issues that have been encountered between the time between the beta testing period and release.
We'll update this post with any new features that are found in macOS Sierra 10.12.1.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
Siri is non-functional on my 2014 5k iMac. (It can't find the iMac's internal microphone.) So I hope Apple gets that straightened out. After all, it's Sierra's most-touted feature.
First the headphone jack on the iPhone, now the microphone on iMacs ..... Apple are in a courage overdrive.
I am running the official retail version of Sierra (I was part of the developer beta programme). I since changed my SYSTEM PREFERENCES -> APP STORE -> and changed "your system is set to receive pre-release..." to NO.
Since then that option no longer appears in the APP store.
However, in my updates the BETA for 10.12.1 is showing which is exactly what I do NOT want.
How can I disable this given I've already done the above.
For some reason disabling the "pre-release updates" setting in the App Store system preference isn't working. You can solve this by opening terminal and entering: sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL Enter your password when prompted. This will set Software Update back to using the standard non-beta catalog.
Interesting, only a day after release, curious to see what this will bring to the table...
They will have been working on 10.12.1 for at least a month, probably much longer, so it is not that surprising. There comes a time when it become too risky to add certain fixes to the 10.12.0 build and you're better off saving them for the first major update.
I'd love it if my watch would actually open my iMac as promised (yes it's a late 2015 and I have all the latest devices with the latest software updates).
