Apple Seeds Sixth macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Beta to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.2 update to developers and public beta testers, a few days after releasing the fifth 10.12.2 beta and over a month after the public release of macOS 10.12.1.

macOS Sierra 10.12.2 beta 6 is available for download through the Apple Developer Center or through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

macos-10-12-2-beta
macOS Sierra 10.12.2 includes new emoji, introducing Unicode 9 characters like clown face, selfie, face palm, fox face, owl, shark, butterfly, avocado, bacon, and more, plus many profession emoji are available in both male and female genders.

Apple has also updated the artwork on many existing emoji characters, adding detail to make them look less cartoonish and more realistic. New wallpapers are also included in macOS Sierra 10.12.2, introducing the color explosion options that were previously used in iPhone marketing materials.

There are few other outward-facing changes aside from the addition of new emoji and wallpapers, but the 10.12.2 update also includes some important bug fixes. A serious graphics issue that has been affecting some new MacBook Pro owners has been solved, and a Time Machine crashing issue, also impacting the new MacBook Pro, has been fixed.

Available since September, macOS Sierra is the latest Mac operating system. It includes Siri support, Apple Pay for the web, Universal Clipboard, Apple Watch auto unlocking, improved iCloud Drive integration, Picture-in-Picture multitasking, and dozens of smaller features that can be found in our macOS Sierra roundup.

Related Forum: macOS Sierra

Top Rated Comments

anzio Avatar
96 months ago
Wait for the recently toxic community to find a way to spin updates into a doom story.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Precision Gem Avatar
96 months ago
Thank god there are more emojis, I was running out of them to use today.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jclo Avatar
96 months ago
These articles are more or less copy and paste, seems to me MR repeats this over and over.
When it gets this late in the beta cycle, there's little new to say aside from announcing that a beta is available. So yeah, the articles do end up sounding a lot like each other, but we like to highlight the betas right away so you guys know they're available for download.

Definitely more noticeable when we're getting multiple betas a week, but since we're expecting a launch next week, this is hopefully the last beta post you'll see.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jclo Avatar
96 months ago
I'm usually not one to complain about the content of stories on this site, but can we please get a dedicated section for all of these stories about new betas? There's a story every time they update the iOS beta, the watch OS beta, the tvOS beta, and the macOS beta. They're posted even if nothing at all changes! Then a day or two later there's a story about how all these different betas are now available to public beta testers. Then there are separate stories about new features found in the betas, other stories about bugs fixed in the betas, etc. And those are fine I guess, but combined with the others it's too much beta! I have to sift through all this beta news just to find the latest news that's worth reading.
We were putting all of the beta release posts aside from the iOS betas (because this is where we see the most change) on the Mac/iOS blog, but some people weren't happy with the lack of attention the Mac was getting. So now we generally feature Mac and iOS betas on the front page, while watchOS and tvOS go on the iOS blog. It's hard to please everyone, but in general, it seems people like to hear that the betas are available and what's new in them (these usually get separate posts because of our videos).

It's a lot more noticeable right now because beta testing is ramping up ahead of release and it's becoming more clear what's in the macOS Sierra beta, but it should calm down next week when these updates become available to the public.

We only do public beta posts when there's a separate public beta, which only happens early in the beta testing process. I appreciate the feedback -- we're always re-evaluating things based on your feedback, so we may change things up at some point.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
OG_Macintosh Avatar
96 months ago
Thank god there are more emojis, I was running out of them to use today.
Stale, overused complaint. Try to be more innovative with your comments than Apple has been with their hardware lately...
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
96 months ago
I'm usually not one to complain about the content of stories on this site, but can we please get a dedicated section for all of these stories about new betas? There's a story every time they update the iOS beta, the watch OS beta, the tvOS beta, and the macOS beta. They're posted even if nothing at all changes! Then a day or two later there's a story about how all these different betas are now available to public beta testers. Then there are separate stories about new features found in the betas, other stories about bugs fixed in the betas, etc. And those are fine I guess, but combined with the others it's too much beta! I have to sift through all this beta news just to find the latest news that's worth reading. Love the site, but this is getting to be annoying. Even if I "just don't read them" they still get in the way everywhere and I have to check every single one to see if there is anything new, even though they usually write up what's new separately.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iPhone 15 Pro FineWoven

Apple Reportedly Stops Production of FineWoven Accessories

Sunday April 21, 2024 6:03 am PDT by
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...