In the slew of announcements at today’s Apple Event, one big one that wasn’t mentioned on stage was the release date for the next version of the operating system on Mac computers.
As shown on their website, macOS Sierra comes out September 20th. With it comes several new features for Mac users—including Universal Clipboard, the ability to unlock your Mac from your Apple Watch, a better way to manage your storage (or lack thereof), Apple Pay, and much more. But the biggest new feature is Siri: Apple’s smart assistant baked into iOS devices.
With macOS Sierra, Apple also finally shifts away from the long-time naming convention of OS X—which it’s been using for 15 years now (16 if you count OS 9). This falls more inline with how operating systems on all other devices are named—tvOS for Apple TV; iOS for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch; and watchOS for Apple Watch. So there’s a bit more consistency across the operating systems.
macOS Sierra is a free upgrade and works with all the following Mac computers:
• MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
• Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
• iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)
However, there are certain features—such has Handoff, Universal Clipboard, Apple Pay, Auto Unlock, and more—that have their own set of requirements. Check the Upgrade to macOS Sierra page on Apple’s site to see if your Mac will work with all the new features.
To upgrade, open the Mac App Store app on your Mac by typing “App Store” in Spotlight—or find it in your Applications folder in the Finder window. Click download, and follow all onscreen instructions. And, make sure you have a stable Internet connection. If you don’t have broadband access, Apple suggests going to any Apple Store to download it there…but you probably don’t want to do that.