Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac released with macOS Sierra support, Toolbox app
Virtualization software Parallels on Thursday issued its latest release, Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac, with a host of new features including support for Apple's upcoming macOS Sierra, a standalone Toolbox app and performance improvements.
Parallels Toolbox is touted as a highlight of this year's Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac version, offering users 20 tools to streamline commonly executed tasks. The toolbox resides in the menu bar as a drop down option, with one-click access to handy tools grouped into four sections: take screenshots, record screen, time and archiver.
Alongside everyday tasks like capturing screenshots, Toolbox tools can initiate area, window and screen recording, download and convert videos, manage stopwatches, alarms, timers and date countdown utilities and archive files. Additional tools include record audio, mute microphone and hide desktop, the latter being useful for screen recording and presentations.
For those just getting started with Microsoft Windows, Parallels 12 adds the ability to purchase and install the operating system directly from the Parallels Desktop Wizard. In addition, a Scheduled Windows Maintenance option enables update downloads at times convenient to the user.
Developers also worked with gaming studio Blizzard Entertainment to optimize Parallels 12 for Mac to support Overwatch, popular multiplayer FPS available on PC and Xbox. Parallels' gaming chops also extend to the Windows 10 Xbox app, meaning users can stream Xbox games on Mac.
Other new features include the ability to control storage space used by virtual machines from the Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra, port Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer passwords in Mac's Keychain, manually cancel VM actions and assign special behaviors to Windows apps. Parallels Desktop 12 also improved support for resizing Windows VMs on Macs equipped with Retina displays.
As for backend improvements, Parallels Desktop 12 offers up to 90 percent faster Snapshot creation, 60 percent faster suspend of VMs and 23 percent faster Shared Folders performance. Finally, users can expect an up to 10 percent battery life improvement from previous iterations.
Existing users running Parallels Desktop 10 and 11 can upgrade to Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac, Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition and Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition can upgrade today. Upgrade pricing comes in at $49.99 or $49.99 per year for the Pro Edition.
New customer pricing for Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac is $79.99, while the Pro Edition and Business Edition both cost $99.99 per year. Availability begins on Aug. 23.
Finally, Parallels Toolbox for Mac, which comes with all versions of Parallels Desktop 12, will also be available as a standalone product for $9.99 per year. A 14-day trial can be downloaded from the Parallels website starting Aug. 23.
Comments
Totally disagree with VM's being slow. Windows 10 boots instantly for me as does Windows 7 Enterprise. I've tried VMWare and it blows.
Bad!
It's a shame, because I have multiple Macs and VMWare offers a much better licensing scheme where one license covers up to three Macs meaning I was only paying $50/year for upgrades. I've recently switched to Parallels Pro and am now paying $50/year for each of my machines.
I had to click a number of links before I finally found this one. I'm hesitant to upgrade yet until I hear if all the bugs have been worked out, especially with Parallels Tools.
New and improved features present in the latest version of Fusion are obviously missing but Fusion never stopped working. Since it still does everything I need and the new features are incremental niceties but non essential I found no reason to update Fusion. If older versions of Fusion quit working with the latest MacOS I'd be very disappointed.
Makers of these MacOS add-ons should come clean about whether upgrading to their latest version that's aligned with a specific MacOS version is required or optional.
This demonstrates a serious lack of regard for the customer and the fact that they did not mention this issue, even in a positively spun marketing blurb, but just took our money and then said, "Oh, by the way...." That was deceitful and unethical. I am going to be very unhappy with Desktop for a long time.
To take it one step further, I am seriously considering requesting a NFR copy in order to write a review that specifically mentions this intentional gotcha. In the past, if I ever reviewed an app that had a serious flaw, I always gave the developer the benefit of the doubt, knowing that most developers would be working on the problem and that the issue would be fixed as quickly as possible. As such I would cancel the review rather than hammer the developer before they had a chance to make things right. With Parallels 12, however, their deceitful approach simply begs for a bad review. I am very upset with these guys and they deserve a serious hammering.