Unfortunately it's difficult to test these features during Apple's beta period, but that just gives Apple's users things to look forward to later in the year.

Having cloud sync across devices is one thing, but building and properly executing Apple's continuity features really requires control over the hardware and software stacks across all devices. With the bulk of Apple's device sales being mobile devices, there have been a number of features in recent versions of macOS that work to leverage how devices running macOS, iOS, and watchOS can work together. Like all updates to macOS, Sierra comes with a number of new features. It will be interesting to see if the next truly large update to macOS brings it to major version eleven, and it could be that Apple plans to keep it in sync with iOS with a new major version number each year, but only time will tell. This kind of versioning is somewhat awkward, and will be more so when it gets to the point where the OS is version 10.20. This makes sense when you consider the progression from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, which then treated each release as a point update on top of ten and only dropped the Mac in the name in 2012.

While macOS adopts a new name, it retains the existing versioning system, with macOS Sierra being version 10.12. The 2016 version of Apple's operating system for Macs is named macOS Sierra. This year's release comes with a new name in the typical manner that OS X releases each had a specific name, but also a new name for the operating system itself.

Given that Apple's other operating systems are named iOS, watchOS, and tvOS, the name OS X has become a bit of an outlier. It's hard to believe that iOS is now on its tenth major version, which put Apple in an interesting position since their desktop operating system has been called OS X for many years now. As with past years, Apple's WWDC 2016 keynote showcased the upcoming updates to Apple's operating systems and developer tools.

Mac osx 2010 el capitan vs sierra