Apple Releases Third macOS Sierra 10.12.1 Beta for Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.1 update to public beta testers, one week after seeding the second public beta and one day after seeding the third beta to developers. It's been two weeks since Apple released macOS Sierra to the public.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the 10.12.1 macOS Sierra beta through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

Those who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and macOS Sierra betas. Betas should not be installed on a primary machine due to the potential for instability.

macossierra
macOS Sierra 10.12.1 appears to focus mainly on bug fixes and performance improvements to address issues that have surfaced up since macOS Sierra was first released. It also includes album support in Photos for the new Portrait feature in iOS 10 on the iPhone 7 Plus.

macOS Sierra is a major operating system update that introduces features like Siri support, cross device copy paste, improved iCloud functionality, the ability to unlock a Mac with the Apple Watch, an Optimize Storage option, and more.

Related Forum: macOS Sierra

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Top Rated Comments

rGiskard Avatar
122 months ago
Tried Siri on Mac in Swedish. She can't even play Phil Collins on Apple Music, even if she gets the sentence right. She asks if I want to Google it.
That's because Siri doesn't support torture.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
122 months ago
Apple's software team must be working around the clock. Say what you want about the hardware, but they've been pushing out some rock-solid operating systems recently. Certainly they hold themselves to a higher standard than I can ever remember.

Good on them.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
meaning-matters Avatar
122 months ago
Looking forward running this beauty on my 2016 MacBook Pro.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kgtenacious Avatar
122 months ago
What's wrong with this picture?



Attachment Image
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
smithrh Avatar
122 months ago
Apple's software team must be working around the clock. Say what you want about the hardware, but they've been pushing out some rock-solid operating systems recently. Certainly they hold themselves to a higher standard than I can ever remember.

Good on them.
Likely a good side-effect of having releases without all that many features and upgrades.

I for one would not consider the fact that Preview choked on some PDF files for an entire release a higher standard. Same goes for the software RAID tool being absent for an entire release.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MistrSynistr Avatar
122 months ago
Apple's software team must be working around the clock. Say what you want about the hardware, but they've been pushing out some rock-solid operating systems recently. Certainly they hold themselves to a higher standard than I can ever remember.

Good on them.
Fret not, there's still that one jabroni who refuses to upgrade from Mavericks because of flat icons.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)