Often wished for, finally made possible by Apple: From now on you can use Internet Recovery to install the newest available macOS version.
Via Internet Recovery it is possible to install the operating system from scratch. Up to this time you could only install the version directly, that came with your Mac. After the installation you had to update to the newest one. That was often more complicated than it should have been. This has changed as Apple tweaked the shortcuts a bit. We tried it with a MacBook Pro Retina 2014.
cmd + R
If you press this two keys during the boot process, you can reinstall macOS. The installation starts from a recovery partition on the SSD or hard drive though. This is exactly as before and you just get the installed version again.
cmd + alt + R
This shortcut starts the Internet Recovery (as before) but is configured now to download the newest available software. In our case, we could directly download Sierra.
Shift + cmd + alt + R
This new shortcut with Shift key is the old version so to speak. You will also download the operation system via the internet, but you will get the version the Mac came with originally. In this case it is Mavericks 10.9.
Internet Recovery has become a lot more comfortable now that you can directly install the newest version. Apple did not forget the situations tought, in which you need an older version. Just use the new shortcut with the Shift key in it.
Be aware, that you need to have Sierra 10.12.4 to make use of the new shortcuts. If you have an older operation system installed, “cmd + alt + R” just starts the old Internet Recovery and installs the original macOS or OS X version. Just one more thing: Internet Recovery seems to be renamed to macOS Recovery. Now you know.
