Apple Seeds First Beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.5 to Developers

Tuesday March 28, 2017 11:10 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.5 update to developers, one day after releasing macOS Sierra 10.12.4, which introduced Night Shift for the Mac.

macOS Sierra 10.12.5 can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center or through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

Apple's release notes don't often provide much insight into what's included in new beta software, so we don't yet know what features it might offer. As the update follows the release of 10.12.4, which was a major update, this one may focus primarily on bug fixes and other small improvements.

The release notes accompanying the beta release say only that the "update improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac." Should any new features be found in macOS Sierra 10.12.5, we'll update this post.

Top Rated Comments

jayducharme

52 months ago

the "update improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac."

I find that statement amusing. How do they know about any of that only a day after the release of the last update? Did they already know there were problems with "stability, compatibility and security" in 10.12.4 and yet they simply released it anyway?

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

benface

52 months ago

I find that statement amusing. How do they know about any of that only a day after the release of the last update? Did they already know there were problems with "stability, compatibility and security" in 10.12.4 and yet they simply released it anyway?

Of course. If they waited until all known issues were fixed before releasing something, they'd never release it. Any software will have bugs and areas to improve.

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jefe2000

52 months ago

I find that statement amusing. How do they know about any of that only a day after the release of the last update? Did they already know there were problems with "stability, compatibility and security" in 10.12.4 and yet they simply released it anyway?

Releasing software updates with known issues is super-common. Bugs are often discovered far too late in a release cycle to include fixes in that release. So, fixes are deferred to the next release (in this case, deferred to 10.12.5).

Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

chucker23n1

52 months ago

You can sniff around APFS for some time in macOS Sierra:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/Introduction/Introduction.html

Sure, but that's not bootable yet.

VMWare Fusion is borked on 10.12.4, where most of the VMs start/resume with a blank screen. Hopefully that issue is fixed.

Seems fine here.

I find that statement amusing. How do they know about any of that only a day after the release of the last update? Did they already know there were problems with "stability, compatibility and security" in 10.12.4 and yet they simply released it anyway?

Yes. That's how any product development works. You don't wait until it's perfect; you release when you're satisfied you've made the right compromises.

Real artists ship.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

xgman

52 months ago

10.13...wow.. here we go again.. back to the beginning of an unstable platform...just because they can.. and then once it becomes stable, rinse and repeat.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Nunyabinez

52 months ago

"As the update follows the release of 10.12.4, which was a major update" Did I miss some new functionality? If adding Night Mode is a major update, then we have wrung all the innovation out of OSes.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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