Apple Seeds First macOS Sierra 10.12.4 Beta With New Night Shift Mode to Developers

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.4 update to developers, more than one month after releasing macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and four months since the debut of the new macOS Sierra operating system. macOS Sierra 10.12.4 one day after Apple released macOS Sierra 10.12.3.

The first macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta is available for download through the Apple Developer Center or the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store. A public beta will likely be available for public beta testers later this week.

macos-10-12-4-beta
We don't yet know exactly what features, bug fixes, or changes will be introduced in the macOS Sierra 10.12.4 beta, but because it accompanies iOS 10.3, it could be a more significant update that focuses on changes beyond bug fixes. According to Apple, the update includes a new Night Shift mode that automatically shifts the display color to the warmer end of the spectrum after night, offering Mac users an alternative to F.lux. Night Shift has been available on iOS devices since iOS 9.3.

macOS Sierra 10.12.4 also includes Shanghainese dictation support for converting text to speech, and Siri will soon gain the ability to display cricket scores.

Related Forum: macOS Sierra

Popular Stories

apple oct 2024 mac tease

Apple Expected to Announce These Two to Three Products 'This Week'

Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip. Gurman...
Apple TV Plus Feature 2 Magenta and Blue

Apple TV+ Being Rebranded as Apple TV

Monday October 13, 2025 8:25 am PDT by
Buried in its announcement about "F1: The Movie" making its streaming debut on December 12, Apple has also announced that Apple TV+ is being rebranded as simply Apple TV. A single line near the end of the press release states "Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity," though Apple's website has yet to be updated with any changes, so we're unsure on the details of the...
M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
iOS 26

Apple Preparing iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones

Saturday October 11, 2025 6:59 pm PDT by
Apple's software engineers are internally testing iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will likely be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released within the next few weeks. Last month, Apple released iOS...
joz macbook tease

Apple Teases Upcoming M5 MacBook Pro Launch: 'Something Powerful is Coming'

Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
iPhone 17 Pro Colors

iPhone 18 Pro Already Rumored to Have These 6 New Features

Saturday October 11, 2025 10:10 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are still nearly a year away, a handful of new features and changes have already been rumored for the devices. Below, we have recapped some of the early iPhone 18 Pro rumors so far. Smaller Dynamic Island The standard iPhone 18, iPhone 18 Pro, and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with a slightly smaller Dynamic Island, but the devices will...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...

Top Rated Comments

mathcolo Avatar
114 months ago
Sad that this kills the need for F.lux for Mac, to a degree (https://justgetflux.com/). They've done a great job on it for so long, and definitely did it first.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
konqerror Avatar
114 months ago
Unless it works better than f.lux, which is doubtful, meh... Wish they would've done this a while ago. F.lux is amazingly helpful at night.
F.lux just changes the OS's built in color management settings. So I can't see how you are assuming f.lux works better.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TigerWoodsIV Avatar
114 months ago
Unless it works better than f.lux, which is doubtful, meh... Wish they would've done this a while ago. F.lux is amazingly helpful at night.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sashimimi Avatar
114 months ago
In my opinion, Apple could have done more than just basically add f.lux to macos : make the OS-wide darkmode so many of us have been looking for for literally YEARS.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lunarworks Avatar
114 months ago
Ugh. I could never use Night Shift. I deeply value my colour accuracy.

But it's a good feature for those who don't.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iHack13 Avatar
114 months ago
I will probably continue using f.lux. They have so much experience on this.
f.lux on my mac is way better than the apple's toggle on my ipad.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)