Apple's mobile wallet play is getting positioned to compete with online payment companies like PayPal, while you can now talk to Siri on your laptop, thanks to an update to Apple's newly unveiled MacOS operating system.
Apple is rebranding its personal computer operating platform, and alongside it, focusing more on integrating users' activities across devices via the cloud. That means mobile hallmarks Siri and Apple Pay can expand across devices, said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering.
Online shoppers will now have a pay-with-Apple-Pay button available in their desktop browsers, which will seamlessly link up with the touch ID fingerprint reader on the smartphone or smartwatch, Federighi announced Monday at the company's annual developers conference, WWDC, held Monday in San Francisco, California. And, using context, Siri can help users access the documents stored across their desktop, Federighi demonstrated.
The newest version of Mac's operating system will be updated to MacOS Sierra from OS X. The new operating system lets users' devices communicate with each other in other ways too. One could, for instance, unlock their MacBook with their Apple Watch, or copy text in one device and paste it into another using a Universal Clipboard. Similarly, apps will get the "tab" interface familiar to desktop browser users, Federighi said.
It comes as more than 10 billion customer documents have been added to iCloud Drive, which lets users access documents across devices.
"We want to take this a step further," Federighi said. "We want to make your documents and your desktop accessible to you everywhere."
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