macOS Sierra offers tighter links with iOS


Some noteworthy things seems to illustrate both Apple's tightening integration between devices and converging of features between platforms. First, however, we've got the marketing name of the next Mac operating system, plus new branding for the Mac in macOS. What is old is new again, apparently, although tweaked a bit.

Coming to macOS is Apple Pay and Siri. Apple Pay will be interesting to streamline web commerce similarly to the promise of retail. One issue with retail, i'd guess, is compatible readers at the point of sale. That shouldn't be an issue on the web, so it will be interesting to see how well its adopted. You can use your Apple Watch or TouchID on iOS to authenticate a purchase. And as rumored Siri will appear on macOS.

Continuity feature will allow users to unlock their device with their Apple Watch. This could be pretty slick. It's been rumored that you may be able to unlock your Mac with iOS, and although that doesn't seem clearly on the slate, using a wearable seems more effortless and natural. More links with iOS and macOS will allow sharing a clipboard through Universal Clipboard. This means it will be easier to cut/paste between devices, which sounds great. Before you had to get your content into a supported application to swap between devices, or before that, simply email/IM it to yourself.

Speaking of moving between devices, iCloud should help shuttle files between Macs or Mac to iOS device. Another interesting feature called Optimized Storage offers to offload old files to iCloud and free up space. The idea is on-board SSD storage is a premium compared to iCloud, which by the way you pay a monthly fee to maintain.

Overall Sierra appears to tighten the integration of the Apple universe while maximizing development efforts across all platforms. Sierra is expected to ship later this fall and will have a public beta in July