V5–V6 difference with text selection: desired behavior or bug?

Rhino Rhino for Mac
1
  1. To go top view
  2. Create a text object
  3. Select the text object
  4. Go to Front view
  5. “ZOOM SELECTED”

In Rhino 6, nothing happens and you get the message
“Unable to zoom - no objects are selected.”

2

In your step 4, are you clicking the Front view viewport name to make it current before running Zoom Selected?
V6 Mac is working as expected for me.

3

Yes.

In fact, I cannot select text from a view perpendicular to the orientation of the text.

4

Correct. Annotation text is a 2D object and occluded from the display when viewed from the edge.
To do what you described, you need to have a 3d object that is displayed in both views.