Apple has today released macOS Sierra 10.12.2 to the public.
According to the release notes via AppleInsider, macOS Sierra 10.12.2 includes the following changes:
- Improves setup and reliability of Auto Unlock
- Allows addition of a Chinese Trackpad Handwriting button to the Touch Bar Control Strip
- Adds support for taking screenshots of the Touch Bar using the Grab app or Cmd-Shift-6 shortcut
- Fixes an issue that caused the Touch Bar emoji picker to appear on the display
- Resolves graphics issues on MacBook Pro (October 2016) computers
- Fixes an issue where System Integrity Protection was disabled on some MacBook Pro (October 2016) computers
- Improves setup and opt-out experience for iCloud Desktop and Documents
- Fixes an issue with the delivery of Optimized Storage alerts
- Improves audio quality when using Siri and FaceTime with Bluetooth headphones
- Improves the stability of Photos when creating and ordering books
- Fixes an issue where incoming Mail messages did not appear when using a Microsoft Exchange account
- Fixes an issue that prevented installation of Safari Extensions downloaded outside the Safari Extensions Gallery
- Adds support for new installations of Windows 8 and Windows 7 using Boot Camp on supported Macs
We have been able to carry out some limited testing of macOS 10.12.2 prior to today’s public release, and our experience suggests that blind and low vision users are likely to find no accessibility-related changes. However, as we always stress, it is impossible for us to test all applications and use cases. So, it is entirely possible that we have overlooked some changes, regressions or improvements. With this in mind, we would greatly appreciate your help in ensuring that the information on this page is as complete and accurate as possible. If you spot any accessibility-related changes in macOS Sierra 10.12.2, please do let us know by adding a comment below.
How to Update
macOS Sierra 10.12.2 is available via the Updates tab in the Mac App Store.
Comments
Disappointing
As usual, Apple seems to be neglecting OS X. There are still bugs when navigating text fields in Safari as well as all the little annoyances from before. Do we really have to wait another year for these bugs to possibly be fixed or just to introduce more? Is the Macintosh really a second class citizen compared to iOS? Also, what's up with the new battery indicator in the status menu? VoiceOver no longer reads the battery level. I really wish the Macintosh was taken more seriously instead of neglected and left to rot. I love the Mac, but this is getting ridiculous!
Release notes
Improves setup and reliability of Auto Unlock;
Allows addition of a Chinese Trackpad Handwriting button to the Touch Bar Control Strip;
Adds support for taking screenshots of the Touch Bar using the Grab app or Cmd-Shift-6 shortcut;
Fixes an issue that caused the Touch Bar emoji picker to appear on the display;
Resolves graphics issues on MacBook Pro (October 2016) computers;
Fixes an issue where System Integrity Protection was disabled on some MacBook Pro (October 2016) computers;
Improves setup and opt-out experience for iCloud Desktop and Documents;
Fixes an issue with the delivery of Optimized Storage alerts;
Improves audio quality when using Siri and FaceTime with Bluetooth headphones;
Improves the stability of Photos when creating and ordering books;
Fixes an issue where incoming Mail messages did not appear when using a Microsoft Exchange account;
Fixes an issue that prevented installation of Safari Extensions downloaded outside the Safari Extensions Gallery;
Adds support for new installations of Windows 8 and Windows 7 using Boot Camp on supported Macs.
Battery percentages not announcing anymore
I'm having the same issue as Chris indicated earlier. No more announcement of battery percentage from Voice over, weather you check or uncheck the status in the battery menu. Is this intentional? Is there an alternative to finding this out that doesn't require Siri? This is unacceptable.
Steps to try
Try:
1. Restart VoiceOver.
2. Restart your Mac.
3. In VoiceOver utility, check to see if the battery percentage check box is still there.
4. If nothing works, send a bug report to Accessibility@apple.com.
Good luck!
Activity Monitor
You can use Activity Monitor. Switch to the energy section and VO right past the process information table. I am in the process of sending a fairly lengthy message to Apple Accessibility about all the problems on the Mac. I'm sad that the experienceh as degraded this far. While I still love my Mac and will continue to use it, I may not be able to if these silly issues continue to build up. If only Apple never came out with iOS and the Mac was still loved. I wish we had Snow Leopard back.
With each release I expect
With each release I expect improvements in accessibility of advanced text formatting. Still nothing improved. Unfortunately it is worse now. When you'r typing in TextEdit, and a word has been misspelt, when coming back to the same line where the word is VO keeps announcing the word, not the whole line, announcing "revert correction". This is when navigating text documents with quick nav off. One thing can be done to stop this, which is stopping on the word, and opening the shortcuts menu, which is really weird. This is all over OS, wherever you type text and you misspell a word. Yet, this is not always the case, sometimes it does not happen.
Battery
Yup, I'm not getting any battery information either.
I believe the time remaining
I believe the time remaining status has been removed entirely from the menu bar. When I navigate to the battery menu, it says the percentage, or in my case, "Charged," but the time remaining is not listed.
Also, this update yet again demonstrates Apple's neglect of Voiceover on macOS. Over the past few years, this has become the norm, only give Voiceover attention once a year with a new release of the operating system and call it a done deal. Apple prides itself as being committed to accessibility, and while they deserve credit for accessibility advancement over the years, they have not shown their, "Enduring commitment to accessibility." Improving accessibility is not an annual affair, it requires constant focus and refinement across all platforms.
There were lots of complains
There were lots of complains about 2016 Mac Books battery life, so Apple decided to remove the time indicator.
emogies with voiceover
hi, how to make voice over to read graphical emogies? for now voice over just saiing "null" in all apps and websites hoo are using emogies, I Messages, facebook.
I think it depends on the
I think it depends on the voice you're using. I'm using the spanish acapella voice Antonio and it reads most of them, haven't tested the new ones yet.
Battery status
The battery status didn’t reflect actual battery life in the new mac pro models so they removed it for now. This is intentional, not a bug.
Workaround for battery status
I also lost VO feedback to the battery status indicator after upgrading to 10.12.2 on my 2013 MBA. My fix, which I now wish I'd done years ago, was to map a keyboard commander hotkey to an Applescript script which reports power status. I now press a hotkey, in my case right Option + P (for Power) and VO announces the battery percentage and time remaining. YMMV. Credit to Bryan Smart for the script and full instructions for implementing, both of which can be found at the following site:
https://blog.bryansmart.com/2014/07/24/some-scripts-for-voiceover/
time vs percentage
Yes, I understand the rationality of removing predicted charge lifespan, especially since different activity changes the time. But the percentage? That's still important. Can anyone with eyes confirm that the percentage is still there? I'm sure it is, the notice even specified that percentage is still being displayed. I've tried battery monitor. That will announce your charge status right when launching the app, with Speech. It works as expected on the mbp, but for some reason, will not speak when launching the app on the MBA. Any ideas why? Went into accessibility/speech, it was set to alex. Am I missing another settings adjustment?
Watch Unlock Mac Fails
Auto Unlock via Watch has stopped working for me since this update.
I've unchecked/re-checked "auto unlock" in Security prefs (also restarted after each toggle).
Wach Unlock Mac worked flawlessly in 10.12.1...
Okay. So if you want to find
Okay. So if you want to find the percentage of the battery, use a utility called battery monitor. It works well and will give you the info you need.
Coconut Battery!
You can use Coconut Battery as well.
Can't find this update
For some reason, I'm running MacOS 10.12.1 but I can't find this update in the Mac app store. Is it supported on MacBook Air 2012?
Re: Battery
To clarify: Apple removed the time remaining on purpose. The lack of a percentage (which Apple does still show) being reflected in VoiceOver is definitely a bug. I'd venture to say that, while it's not by any means the most serious bug I've ever seen in my eleven years of using a Mac, it is certainly one of the most indicative of the lack of quality testing on the Mac platform as of late. How did they let something like that slip by? I'd call that a serious "duh!" moment.
A couple findings
just like iOS, Apple has broken some things while fixing and adding new things. I just found out that pressing function tab performs the escape action. The function number keys feature appears to work on my MacBook Air. Previously, it did not. Still, this battery issue is ridiculous! Why can't they just fix all these annoying issues?
Can't Find Update Either
Same here. I checked but cannot find this update anywhere. I guess only time will tell. But at least in the meantime, I now have Coconut Battery in case the default battery notification is broken in this update. The app seems to be working very well with VoiceOver.
Hi.
Hi.
I've found the update a couple days ago. Everything seems fine on my end. I usually don't check the battery with the status menu anyway, I just use the battery monitor app.
update
The update should appear in the Mac App Store. If you don't find it, you probably automatically updated. I turn all those automatic features off because I want control over when and how the computer updates.
Well that's strange...
I just checked again before I replied to this post, and the update has just appeared in my Mac App Store now. It definitely wasn't there yesterday though, and in About This Mac it definitely showed I was running version 10.12.1. Ah well, I'll update tomorrow, and I already have Battery Monitor so will use that to get around the percentage bug.
Just Updated
Well apparently my Mac decided to update earlier this morning. So I let it do its thing, and thus far I've had very few issues. However, in the past couple days I've noticed that upon booting up my Mac VoiceOver says "Apple Logo" rather than logging in and bringing up the password dialog like it should. I don't exactly know how I got it to log in, and re-starting using the Power button didn't seem to help. I'm going to contact Apple about this too and see what they say. Regarding the battery status, it still seems to be displayed when I go into Menu Extras. I had no idea there was a checkbox for that now, but will have to find out. Also Safari edit fields now seem to display the "Skip to Main Content" thing. At least they seem to do so here on AppleVis.