MacRumors

Starting with macOS Sierra, Apple introduced an "Auto Unlock" feature that makes it easier for Apple Watch owners to unlock their Macs, with the Apple Watch being used for authentication purposes instead of a traditional password.

It's a feature that's limited to more recent Macs so it's not going to work on some older machines, but when it is available, Auto Unlock is a super useful option that genuinely saves a bit of time. It isn't always enabled by default, so there are a few steps to go through to turn Auto Unlock on. Here's how to use it.

1. Navigate to the Apple logo on the upper left hand of the screen and select "System Preferences."
2. Click on "Security & Privacy" from the first row of apps.
3. Auto Unlock is an option under the "General" section. Click the check box to turn it on.

   

4. Enter your password.

   

Once enabled, Auto Unlock works automatically whenever your authenticated Apple Watch is near your Mac (as in within a few feet). When waking a Mac from sleep and the password entry screen pops up, it will say "Unlocking with Apple Watch..." instead of bringing up the password text box.

A few seconds later, the Mac will unlock and you will receive a notification on your Apple Watch letting you know the unlocking was successful. If Auto Unlock fails to authenticate for some reason, the password entry option will pop up after approximately 10 seconds and you will be required to enter your password to log in.

Auto Unlock is a Continuity feature, so it is limited to some of Apple's more recent machines. It is supported by all Mac models introduced in mid-2013 or later, and it requires an Apple Watch running watchOS 3 or later paired with an iPhone 5 or later. Handoff must be turned on in System Preferences (General --> Allow Handoff) and your iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac must be signed into the same iCloud account.

To enable Auto Unlock, you will also need to turn on Two-Factor Authentication if it isn't on already.

For those of you using the original Two-Step Verification instead of the Two-Factor Authentication feature introduced with iOS 10, you will need to disable Two-Step Verification on the Apple ID management site and then enable Two-Factor Authentication on an iOS device. A passcode also needs to be established on the Apple Watch.

Apple doesn't offer troubleshooting tips if Auto Unlock isn't working, but signing out of iCloud and back in again and restarting your devices may help solve any issues.

There are still instances where you will need to log in with a password, like after rebooting your machine, but for the most part, Auto Unlock successfully replaces password entry on the Mac.

With macOS Sierra, users can can float a video window from Safari or iTunes over the desktop or an app thanks to a new picture-in-picture mode. The feature enables Mac users to play a video in any one of the four corners of the desktop and resize it to see more or less of the window behind it.

The video remains pinned above the desktop and apps, including in full-screen mode and split view, so long as the Safari tab or iTunes window where the video originates remains open. The picture-in-picture window has buttons to close or unpin the video, and play and pause controls, but no rewind, fast forward, or scrubbing options.

In Safari, picture-in-picture mode currently only works on certain websites, such as YouTube, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal, but the feature should become more widely available as other websites implement it. In the meantime, it does not work on websites like Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, AMC, or The New York Times.

Even on YouTube, enabling picture-in-picture mode currently requires somewhat of a workaround. Since there is no picture-in-picture mode button in the video player itself, like in the CNN screenshot above, enabling the feature on YouTube requires right-clicking the video player twice until a contextual menu pops up with the option.

macOS Sierra was released today as a free download on the Mac App Store.

One of the simpler updates arriving in macOS Sierra is an overhauled experience for both Photos and Messages, bringing each app closer to their newly-updated iOS 10 counterparts. For Messages, that means users will now be able to use the Mac version of the app to send and receive rich links and Tapback messages, along with larger emoji characters when three or fewer are sent in a message.

Otherwise, Messages for Mac doesn't have the other additions introduced in iOS 10, including Digital Touch messages and the Messages App Store with sticker functionality. Users will still have to open their iPhones to send these types of messages, although macOS Sierra will better accommodate the visual placement of stickers and Tapback notifications than previous versions of Apple's desktop software.

On the Photos side of things, the Mac version of the app will now have the "Memories" tab that was introduced in iOS 10. The feature intelligently curates photo collections based on location, date, and even the people within each image, and puts them all into new short videos for you to view. Although the feature is streamlined, users can choose to customize each Memory to their liking, similar to the Memories editing process in iOS 10.

Some of the memory categories Photos surfaces includes Recent events, Last Week, Last Weekend, Year summary, Trips, Birthdays, and more. Users who have already set up their People album in iOS 10 will have to re-scan their image library in Sierra since facial recognition settings don't carry over between devices. There will also be an new "Places" album to see the location of every image you've taken on a world map.

Other tidbit updates in Photos include a new "Brilliance" tool to improve photo detail through adding contrast and highlights, and Live Photo editing with filters and various other adjustment instruments. Third-party developers are also now able to use a Live Photo Editing API to create tools for editing Live Photos in Sierra.

macOS Sierra is available as a free download on the Mac App Store starting today. Check out the MacRumors Sierra roundup for more information on the new operating system, and keep a lookout for the rest of our macOS coverage.

New in macOS Sierra and iOS 10 is a Universal Clipboard feature that makes it much easier to transfer links, text, photos, and more between different devices. With Universal Clipboard, you can copy something on your Mac and paste it on your iPhone, or vice versa.

It's already been possible to open up web pages across multiple devices, but now that functionality has been extended further. With macOS Sierra and iOS 10, when you copy a link on one device, it's uploaded to iCloud and available on all other devices where you're signed in with your Apple ID. You can do things like look up a recipe on your Mac, copy the text, and paste it on your iPhone, or copy a photo from an iPhone to an iPad.

Using the feature is as simple as copying something on one device, switching over to another device, and hitting "Paste." It can sometime takes a second or two for the copy to register, but it works seamlessly. There are no visual indicators for Universal Clipboard -- it's all behind the scenes.

Apple has implemented an expiration for Universal Clipboard, so you only have a few minutes to paste something to another device once it's been copied. After that expiration time, which appears to be about two minutes, cross-device paste stops working and will need to be reactivated with another copy.

There are limitations on what can be copied where. Text can be copied almost anywhere on a Mac or iOS device, but images are somewhat more limited and will need to be copied into an app, like Pages, so it isn't a solid alternative to AirDrop for photo file transfers.

Universal Clipboard is a Continuity feature, so to get it to work, you will need to be signed into the same Apple ID across all devices. Bluetooth will also need to be turned on for the feature to work, and Bluetooth LE is required. The following Macs work with Universal Clipboard:

- MacBook (Early 2015 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (2012 or newer)
- MacBook Air (2012 or newer)
- Mac mini (2012 or newer)
- iMac (2012 or newer)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013)

Continuity features are sometimes unreliable, and there have been reports about spotty performance with Universal Clipboard during the beta testing period. Sometimes it helps to sign in and out of iCloud to restore functionality, and you'll need to make sure Handoff is activated on your iOS device (Settings --> General --> Handoff).

Aside from a Bluetooth connection and the same Apple ID, there are no other requirements. Wi-Fi is not necessary, as Universal Clipboard will work with cellular data.

Previously introduced Continuity features allow users to do things like make and answer phone calls on their Macs, get SMS messages on the Mac, and transfer tasks from one device to another with Handoff. Other new Continuity features in macOS Sierra include Apple Pay on the web and Auto Unlock with Apple Watch.

macOS Sierra is available as of today and can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.

Apple today updated its macOS Server Mac app with a collection of new features in Version 5.2 that bring integration with Apple School Manager, various streamlining updates to the Setup Assistant of some apps, and security restrictions for new macOS features like auto-unlock with Apple Watch.

Specifically, macOS Server users can now choose to skip the new Siri Setup Assistant in Sierra, as well as the setup panes in iOS 10 for iMessage and FaceTime.

Previously dubbed "OS X Server," the app introduces "even more power to your business, home office, or school," by turning any Mac into a powerful server. macOS Server can make it easier to share files, synchronize contacts, host a website, configure iOS devices, remotely access your home network, and more.

What's New in Version 5.2
Profile Manager
• Integration with Apple School Manager to get Managed Apple ID and class information
• Skip the iMessage & FaceTime Setup Assistant pane in iOS 10
• Skip the Siri Setup Assistant pane in macOS Sierra version 10.12
• Choose default app for audio calls for Contacts, Exchange, and Google accounts
• Set Bluetooth Modification restriction on supervised devices
• Set Apple Music; iCloud Keychain Sync; and Sharing to Notes, Reminders, or LinkedIn restrictions for macOS Sierra version 10.12
• Set new IKEv2 authentication method option or specify IPSec disconnect on idle timeout for VPN
• Restrict Cisco fast lane Quality of Service marking or disable captive network detection for Wi-Fi networks
• Restrict unlocking a Mac using Apple Watch
• Configure IP firewall

Caching Server
• Enhanced control over peer replication

SMB
• To improve security, SMB connections now require signing by default.

NFS
• AES is now a supported encryption type for Kerberized NFS

Xsan 5
• macOS Sierra and Server 5.2 include support for the Xsan 5 file system. Xsan 5 is compatible with the Quantum StorNext 5.3 file system.
• See Xsan Compatibility information before upgrading to Xsan 5.

Anyone interested can download macOS Server from the Mac App Store for $19.99. [Direct Link]

Apple released macOS Sierra today with Safari 10 preinstalled, but Mac users still running the latest versions of OS X El Capitan or OS X Yosemite can now download the all-new version of the web browser too from the Mac App Store.

Safari 10 for OS X Yosemite and OS X El Capitan does not include all of the new features available in macOS Sierra, like Apple Pay on the web and picture-in-picture support for videos, but the update includes the following new functions:

• Safari Extensions such as 1Password, Save to Pocket, and DuckDuckGo
• New Bookmarks sidebar, including double-click to focus in on a folder
• Redesigned Bookmarks and History views
• Site-specific zoom: Safari remembers and re-applies your zoom level to websites
• Improved AutoFill from Contacts card
• Reader improvements, including in-line sub-headlines, bylines, and publish dates
• Legacy plug-ins are turned off by default in favor of HTML5 versions of websites
• Allow reopening of recently closed tabs through the History menu, holding the "+" button in the tab bar, and using Shift-Command-T
• When a link opens in a new tab, it is now possible to hit the back button or swipe to close it and go back to the original tab
• Improved ranking of Frequently Visited Sites
• Web Inspector Timelines Tab
• Debugging using Web Inspector

Safari 10 also includes a number of security updates, including fixes for six WebKit vulnerabilities and issues related to Reader and Tabs.

macOS Sierra, available today, includes a built-in storage optimization feature that's designed to free up storage space on a Mac by storing rarely used files in iCloud, regularly emptying the trash, removing unnecessary files, and more.

It's a handy feature that can give you a good amount of additional storage space with a set of tools that you normally had to download a third-party storage optimization app to use. Here's how to take advantage of Sierra's Optimize Storage feature:

1. Click on the Apple logo at the top of the menubar and select "About This Mac" from the list of options.
2. Choose the "Storage" tab at the top to see an overview of how much storage you're using on your Mac.

   

3. Click on "Manage" to open up the optimization options.

When you open up Optimize Storage, there's a breakdown of where your files are stored and a list of recommended actions you can take to free up space, all of which is new.

➜ Click here to read rest of article...

With the release of macOS Sierra today, Apple also updated its line of iWork apps, including Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. The new update for each app introduces the same real-time collaboration feature, in beta form, brought to the iOS versions of each app last week.

Using real-time collaboration, users are able to edit one document in any iWork app simultaneously, no matter if they're using a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iCloud.com. Within Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, live updates of each user's cursor and a list of document editors keep everyone up-to-date on the progress of any document, spreadsheet, or presentation.

What's New in Version 6.0
- Real-time collaboration (feature in beta)
- Edit a document with others at the same time in Pages on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iCloud.com
- Share your document publicly or with specific people
- See who else is in a document
- See participants' cursors as they're editing

- Open and edit Pages '05 documents
- Use tabs to work with multiple documents in one window
- Wide color gamut image support

In Keynote, there's a new "Keynote Live" feature that lets users present a slideshow that anyone can follow from a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iCloud.com. Pages and Keynote also both feature support for opening and editing Pages and Keynote '05 documents.

Apple's line of iWork apps are free to users who have recently purchased a new Mac or iOS device. Otherwise, each iWork app for Mac is available for $19.99 while each iWork app for iOS is available for $9.99.

Pages for macOS [Direct Link]
Keynote for macOS [Direct Link]
Numbers for macOS [Direct Link]

macOS Sierra and iOS 10 both include a new Continuity feature that allows Apple Pay to be used to make purchases on the web using Safari, giving Apple users an alternative to other web-based payment services like PayPal.

On Macs, Apple Pay for the web requires an iPhone with Touch ID and Apple Pay support or an Apple Watch, as payments are authenticated through the phone or watch. Apple Pay on the web requires merchants to adopt Apple Pay, so it isn't yet available everywhere, but support has started rolling out.

Sites like Time Inc., Wayfair, and Apple's own online Apple Store have started accepting Apple Pay, and payment processors like Stripe, Big Commerce, Shopify, and Squarespace all offer support, so it may be almost everywhere in just a couple of months.

Here's how it works:

1. Visit a website that supports Apple Pay on the web, like Apple.com. I'll be using Apple's online store as an example.

   

2. Choose a product you want to purchase and click "Add to Bag."
3. On Apple's site, you're automatically taken to the cart, where "Check out with Apple Pay" is an option. Choose it.
4. At the next checkout screen, choose delivery options and then click on the Apple Pay button.
5. If you're wearing an authenticated Apple Watch, you'll be asked to verify the payment with the watch. Double tap on the side button (watchOS 3) to confirm and make the purchase.

   

6. With no Apple Watch, a confirmation screen will pop up on a connected iPhone, locked or unlocked. It requires a fingerprint to be placed on the Touch ID home button to confirm the payment.

   

7. Once the payment is confirmed on the Apple Watch or the iPhone, that's it. The purchase is made and on its way.

When checking out on the web, all payment and shipping information is entered automatically, so you don't need to do anything but tap the confirm button to pay. It's quick, simple, fast, and safe. There is, however, a popup that will let you select the card you want to use, choose the shipping address, and more, if you need to make alterations.

Apple Pay on the web is a Continuity feature so it requires a Mac with Bluetooth 4.0 support. It is compatible with the following machines running macOS Sierra:

- MacBook (Early 2015 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (2012 or newer)
- MacBook Air (2012 or newer)
- Mac mini (2012 or newer)
- iMac (2012 or newer)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013)

Apple Pay also requires an iPhone 6 or later running iOS 10 or an Apple Watch with watchOS 3, and it only works with the Safari browser. Apple Pay on the web is also available on iOS devices and will be available as long as one card has been added to the Wallet app on the iPhone.

Following the release of macOS Sierra moments ago, Tweetbot for Mac has been updated with support for the latest operating system. The update also includes support for extended tweets, uploading videos up to 140 seconds long to Twitter, and better media previews for search results.

In terms of extended tweets, Twitter no longer counts photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and quote tweets towards its 140-character limit. Previously, media content took up approximately 24 of the 140 available characters, and older versions of Tweetbot still enforce the 140 character limit accordingly.

Tweetbot for Mac version 2.4.2 is available now as a free update [Direct Link] for existing users on the Mac App Store. The app initially costs $9.99.

Apple has announced its all-new store in Birmingham, England, located at 128 New Street, opens on Saturday, September 24 at 9:00 a.m. local time. Apple's nearby Bullring Shopping Centre store will permanently close on Friday, just one week after customers lined up for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Apple has taken over a six-story building recently vacated by British bookstore Waterstones, and originally built in 1879 for Midland Bank.

Major planning documents for the inside of the 20,000-square-foot former banking hall were submitted to the Birmingham City Council last year, and renovations have been in progress for the past several months. Apple's logo and the grand opening date were added to a construction barrier outside of the building last week.

Apple Bullring opened in April 2005, and like many of its earlier locations, it is now too small and narrow to accommodate for increased foot traffic. Apple is in the process of relocating several of its retail stores to larger spaces, based on the company's next-generation retail design language inspired by Jony Ive.