Why no Siri or Control Center?

[Joseph C]

It seems madness to me Siri hasn't come to OS X with all of the "convergence" they've done. How great it would be to be able to say "Open Bluetooth Preferences" or "Show me PDFs from 2012".

Also Control Center has been rumoured for 2 years now and reported by 9to5Mac pre-WWDC in otherwise very accurate reporting. Why does it keep getting culled? Again, would be a handy feature and clean up the menu bar a little bit.

I guess we will have to wait until OS X 10.12 for Siri and Control Center to hit the Mac, which is a shame.

 

[yjchua95]

It seems madness to me Siri hasn't come to OS X with all of the "convergence" they've done. How great it would be to be able to say "Open Bluetooth Preferences" or "Show me PDFs from 2012".

Also Control Center has been rumoured for 2 years now and reported by 9to5Mac pre-WWDC in otherwise very accurate reporting. Why does it keep getting culled? Again, would be a handy feature and clean up the menu bar a little bit.

I guess we will have to wait until OS X 10.12 for Siri and Control Center to hit the Mac, which is a shame.

There isn't any need for Control Centre - activating/disabling Bluetooth and Wifi can be done from the top bar.

Do Not Disturb can be activated from Notification Centre.

Airplane Mode doesn't exist on Macs. Neither does screen orientation.

iTunes can be controlled using the keyboard (F7, F8 and F9 keys). Same applies to Volume (F10, F11 and F12).

AirPlay can be done from the top bar when AirPlay options are available.

Quick access to apps can be done via Launchpad.

So is there any more need for Control Centre?

 

[LewisChapman]

I agree on the control center not being needed.

Siri on the other hand - it should be here by now. I would love to be able to set reminders, place calls, send messages etc at my desk, using my voice whilst I am typing up a document, with my phone charging in another room.

 

[Joseph C]

There isn't any need for Control Centre - activating/disabling Bluetooth and Wifi can be done from the top bar.

Do Not Disturb can be activated from Notification Centre.

Airplane Mode doesn't exist on Macs. Neither does screen orientation.

iTunes can be controlled using the keyboard (F7, F8 and F9 keys). Same applies to Volume (F10, F11 and F12).

AirPlay can be done from the top bar when AirPlay options are available.

Quick access to apps can be done via Launchpad.

So is there any more need for Control Centre?

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for illuminating me about where to access functions I've used on the Mac OS for 20 years.

And I'm so glad you didn't think for one minute I was advocating the concept and "one place" nature of Control Center to easily access quick-access functions otherwise scattered everywhere in the OS, or endorsing the continuation of iOS and OS X feature sets being more uniform and consistent, whilst still keeping both platforms strong.

Again, thank you.

 

[boston04and07]

It seems madness to me Siri hasn't come to OS X with all of the "convergence" they've done. How great it would be to be able to say "Open Bluetooth Preferences" or "Show me PDFs from 2012".

Also Control Center has been rumoured for 2 years now and reported by 9to5Mac pre-WWDC in otherwise very accurate reporting. Why does it keep getting culled? Again, would be a handy feature and clean up the menu bar a little bit.

I guess we will have to wait until OS X 10.12 for Siri and Control Center to hit the Mac, which is a shame.

Personally I would find a use for both. I would like a cleaner menu bar, which a Control Center could probably help with by moving some icons there. I would really like Siri as well. I think I would use it in an office setting way more than on my phone, which I primarily use in public settings.

 

[Traverse]

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for illuminating me about where to access functions I've used on the Mac OS for 20 years.

And I'm so glad you didn't think for one minute I was advocating the concept and "one place" nature of Control Center to easily access quick-access functions otherwise scattered everywhere in the OS, or endorsing the continuation of iOS and OS X feature sets being more uniform and consistent, whilst still keeping both platforms strong.

Again, thank you.

Now now, don't be snippy. How would @yjchua95 have known how much you've used OS X? Why hide these functions from an ever-present menu bar not a hidden slide out menu? Plus, the menu bar can now be automatically hidden so it's like a skinny Control Center I suppose. Plus, auto hidden Dock, Menu, Notification Center, and now Control Center? There will be menus popping out from the edge all the time like in Windows 8.

As for Siri, I'm genuinely surprised. I have little use for it on OS X, but I thought it'd be in Yosemite and then I was positive it'd be in El Capitan.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Control Centre is a tricky one. It makes sense having this facility on iOS since it collects features into one shortcut, but in OS X, the said features (and any that are similar) are distributed differently across the system. The three main destinations are the Menu Bar, System Preferences and Notification Centre, each one having different ways to engage with the said settings. Adding a 'Control Centre' would likely only confuse users - especially newcomers.

For example, iTunes controls are already available on your keyboard, iTunes.app and Notification Centre, so there would be no sense adding them to another area of control.

There is, however, always the argument that Apple could remove the options/shortcuts located on the right of the Menu Bar and instead place them in a 'Control Centre', which would actually be a more logical place for them.

 

[Paradoxally]

Who needs Control Center when you can do anything on OS X with keyboard shortcuts?

 

[w0lf]

1: Control center seems pointless on OSX and if you really NEED it 3rd party solutions already exist. I can almost guarantee if Apple does add control center it will be worse than what's already offered at least for a few iterations.

2: Speakable items already exist and have for a long time but nobody uses them. I'm sure Siri is on the roadmap though, probably 1 maybe 2 iterations off at max. I'm guessing there's also the issue of mic quality and the fact that not all macs even have a built in mic which are holding back the release/implementation of siri.

 

[KALLT]

1: Control center seems pointless on OSX and if you really NEED it 3rd party solutions already exist. I can almost guarantee if Apple does add control center it will be worse than what's already offered at least for a few iterations.

2: Speakable items already exist and have for a long time but nobody uses them. I'm sure Siri is on the roadmap though, probably 1 maybe 2 iterations off at max. I'm guessing there's also the issue of mic quality and the fact that not all macs even have a built in mic which are holding back the release/implementation of siri.

It will likely not be customisable, like Launchpad. ;-) I am not impressed with the idea of a control centre either. That seems like convergence for the sake of convergence. OS X is much richer with its keyboard shortcuts, menubar and expandability. On iOS it is simply a necessity and I do see it as the equivalent of the menu bar in some respects.

I think many Macs ship with microphones, no? At least those with an iSight camera, which includes (I think) all MacBooks and iMacs. Microphones could be added to Mac Pros and Mac Minis. That shouldn't be much of an obstacle for Apple and even if it is, they could omit those Macs from using Siri, just as with many other features.

I personally think that Apple either has not figured it out yet or deemed it unimportant. Siri would probably have to work with a lot more commands than on iOS -- meaning a lot more commands to understand and process -- and the fact that Siri still doesn't have an API means that only some of Apple's applications will work with it. I have played around with Cortana and have not quite found a use for it yet, although it has a certain coolness factor. The best part about it is the 'today view' anyway. At this time I am actually more worried that Proactive will destroy the information parity between my phone and my Mac again. I hope I will be able to receive my Siri notifications on the Mac too.

 

[zaneliu]

I could see Apple removing the top line of keys on the keyboard and that would lead to control center being necessary.

 

[MikhailT]

Apple is working on it in each successive OS update. El Cap is adding NLP to Spotlight, which is needed for Siri. Dictation is already there if you want to add it, which was improved in OS X a few years ago.

I suspect in a few years, Spotlight will become the place to issue commands for system operations. It is possible that Apple will just rename Spotlight into Siri. Apple already hired the guy behind Flashlight add-on for Spotlight, which hopefully means, they're working on a powerful API for Spotlight.

Think of the Alfred app, which already exists. Spotlight will likely sherlock it in a few years.

 

[r3volution11]

Supposedly they are working on it. Mac Rumors itself has reported it (https://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/22/os-x-10-11-control-center-rootless-ios-9-a5/).

I would like to see it also. Mostly to declutter the menu bar. I already use Bartender to do that but I'm always open for more optimization.

 

[Laurence Eckert]

Apple apparently has a patent for some sort of virtual assistant for the Mac so we will most likely see it in 10.12. Shame it wasnt in this version though. They need to make it useful though. In Windows 10, Cortana gives you some information based on location and previous searches... Maybe Siri could eventually do that. Please Apple