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OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

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Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#262
Auto unlock would be a lot more interesting to me if I hadn't already been using Windows Hello on the Surface Book.

I'm honestly more comfortable with that than proximity locking; I can foresee situations like stepping into a coworkers' office next to mine or to the restroom across the hall where I don't want the device to autounlock without me sitting directly in front of it.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, now you can take sides between "macahss" and "mac-oh-ess". And, we could use some more window dressing! The Mac's weird window management now feels extremely dated compared to Win10 and KDE/Gnome.

And, we could use some more window dressing! Okay, I could get on board with that. Though I'm not one of those loading every window manager out there in search of perfection, Mac OS is looking a bit dated. I'm not even sure what I'm looking for (well, except I've figure out that I'm not a tiling WM kind of guy), but some sprucing up would be appreciated.

> I'm not even sure what I'm looking for

I'm after Windows that remember how I set my defaults and keeps them.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#264
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoiler alert for anybody without access to a mac right now: $ say "OS X" pronounces it as "OS Ten".

Mine says "os ex". (10.11.5)

There has to be a space between the OS and X for it to work for me.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a little unfair. They did a bit of this in the last couple of rounds - introducing Metal, for example, or all the energy work they did a couple of releases ago. Baby steps :)

Metal is basically their proprietary version of Vulkan isn't it?

It's conceptually similar, but is probably more properly related to Mantle (the AMD API later donated to Khronos, which they developed into Vulkan) and its initial release predates that of Vulkan by ~18 months (Metal was announced in September 2014 for iOS, the OSX port was released in June 2015, the initial release of Vulkan was in February 2016).

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Hand-off mechanism works without iCloud involvement or even using your active internet connection. I just tried by disabling Wifi on my Mac and opening up message to continue on a semi written message from my iPhone. Now, there could always be a iCloud fallback that says if there is internet, just use it. Perks of using non-free software is that it will almost always non-verifiable.

> I just tried by disabling Wifi on my Mac and opening up message to continue on a semi written message from my iPhone. How is this possible? Bluetooth? USB? Or are we talking about a previously synced draft that's still there when you turn your internet off? Sounds like a basic iCloud cache to me.

Continuity/Handoff works over Bluetooth 4/LE.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#268
post #97

Seriously, did Apple fire their OSX / macOS team? Pretty much all new features are spinoffs of their iOS infrastructure (Siri, handover, etc.) and the main OS development and innovation seems to have stalled. Not even a feature like telling software that you're on a metered connection and it shouldn't run backups! Is there anyone at Apple still working on innovating / improving OS X? Like people that tried to bring i…

They typically leave the keynote to high level features, or really big developer-focused features. However, you're in luck; looks like Apple is introducing a new file system: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/701

This is huge! I can understand that they wouldn't want to devote a lot of time to it, but I can't believe this wasn't even mentioned in the keynote. It is a developer conference after all.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Hand-off mechanism works without iCloud involvement or even using your active internet connection. I just tried by disabling Wifi on my Mac and opening up message to continue on a semi written message from my iPhone. Now, there could always be a iCloud fallback that says if there is internet, just use it. Perks of using non-free software is that it will almost always non-verifiable.

> I just tried by disabling Wifi on my Mac and opening up message to continue on a semi written message from my iPhone. How is this possible? Bluetooth? USB? Or are we talking about a previously synced draft that's still there when you turn your internet off? Sounds like a basic iCloud cache to me.

The original Continuity used bluetooth, p2p wifi (which is also what AirDrop uses), regular wifi and iCloud, some features would depend on a specific substrate but for others it could use several at the same time or switch between them.

Re: OS X is now macOS and gets support for Siri, auto unlock

#270
post #97

Seriously, did Apple fire their OSX / macOS team? Pretty much all new features are spinoffs of their iOS infrastructure (Siri, handover, etc.) and the main OS development and innovation seems to have stalled. Not even a feature like telling software that you're on a metered connection and it shouldn't run backups! Is there anyone at Apple still working on innovating / improving OS X? Like people that tried to bring i…

They typically leave the keynote to high level features, or really big developer-focused features. However, you're in luck; looks like Apple is introducing a new file system: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/schedule/#/details/701

The Apple File System will be a preview in Sierra, it will be introduced in 2017.
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