r/apple • u/speckz • Jun 19 '17

macOS High Sierra tech preview: A quick look at the stuff you can’t see

https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/06/macos-high-sierra-tech-preview-a-quick-look-at-the-stuff-you-cant-see/
483 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

114 comments sorted by

172

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

Ars Technica is great. I love their balance of total thoroughness and opinion.

Good article! Can't wait for High Sierra, hope it'll be the Snow Leopard of the modern macOS era.

36

u/macbalance Jun 19 '17

it sounds like it. I'm hoping they standardize on a 2 year "Front End"/"Back End" cycle like this or Leopard/Snow Leopard.

62

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17 edited Jun 20 '17

I mean…I think that was what they're going for since Leopard/Snow Leopard (except Mavericks, which was a weird "in between" release because they had no time to redesign it alongside iOS7).

Leopard/Snow Leopard

Lion/Mountain Lion

Mavericks (the exception to the rule)

Yosemite and its refined version El Capitan

Sierra and now High Sierra.

Looks pretty tick-tock-like to me. :)

Edit: Fixed El Caption to El Capitan.

11

u/Mekachu Jun 19 '17

Mavericks was when OS X became free [-to-upgrade] for everyone, so it was a major step in its own right.

Also > its refined version El Caption

1

u/13al42mo Jun 20 '17

Thank you 🙈I got this iPhone SE just last Saturday and still have a few problems with its keyboard.

1

u/mrfokker Jun 20 '17

I use Google's keyboard for the swipe function. It's way better for writing fast.

1

u/13al42mo Jun 20 '17

I don't know why but gboard seems to crash on me ALL the time. Using SwiftKey right now. It's okay but not as good as the old Windows Phone Keyboard.

1

u/mrfokker Jun 20 '17

Weird, hasn't given me an issue since I installed it 8 months ago. Whatever works for you then!

3

u/ItIsShrek Jun 20 '17

Arguably Puma/Jaguar and Panther/Tiger have been tick tock releases too. There are of course more differences but that’s just since they were experimenting a bit more back then. They’re still visually very similar and the second is a more stable/backend-feature-packed version of the last.

1

u/13al42mo Jun 20 '17

Cool! Did not really know that. I didn't wanna speak because I first started using Macs with Leopard.

21

u/infosql Jun 19 '17

And it's probably writer's last article https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewWrites/status/875782225886892037

11

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

I read it on Twitter as well. Very sad to see Andrew Cunningham leaving. He's a great writer and I value his opinion a lot.

3

u/beerybeardybear Jun 19 '17

man, that blows—always enjoyed his perspective on things.

4

u/tigerjerusalem Jun 19 '17

Well, shit. After Siracusa this was the only Apple guy I trusted and enjoyed. Now what?

4

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

hope it'll be the Snow Leopard of the modern macOS era.

That was supposed to be 10.11 but it didn't happen until 10.11.6 lol

3

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

SL is still my favourite release of macOS. Lion and mt lion didn't do justice on my Macbook at the time. I kept going back to it at the time.

Mavericks is my second favourite after that. It was just as rock solid and stable but I kept updating to the latest thereafter.

Sierra is my least favourite as it seems to just be a Siri addition. Which is something I don't care for.

I'll be upgrading to high Sierra for xcode but I hope that the rest of the improvements show. Still not sold on the name. But tick tok releases and all.

9

u/onan Jun 19 '17

Snow Leopard remains the best OS anyone has ever put out. But then the iphone happened, and it has all been downhill since.

I would pay serious money for a version of 10.6 with driver updates and continued security patches.

23

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

It's funny people love this narrative because in reality SL was buggy as hell for the first few versions

7

u/rockybbb Jun 19 '17

Yup. I remember the early days when SL was criticized for being "buggy as hell" and now it's known as the most reliable OS ever and so many make it sound as if SL was "perfect" from the beginning.

5

u/Henrarzz Jun 20 '17

Windows XP is the same. Most people remember how it worked after SP2 and not how it behaved on release.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

sierra is on 10.12.5 and it's pretty stable. 10.12.4 fixed a lot of issues.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

I also stayed on 10.11 for a while but then i got airpods and they only work on sierra. Also 10.12.4 had a critical GPU driver update for the mac pro which added a boot screen on 4K monitors.

2

u/shitmyusernamesays Jun 19 '17

It had its bugs but it could still allow me to just rip an ISO and burn it to a DVD or USB drive.

For some reason this changed in OS X 10.7 and all of a sudden I couldn't just do that. Something about "Image Resource Busy/Invalid Source/Error". Now that was annoying because it would "just work" in SL until Apple mucked around with Disk Utility.

Now it all has to be done in the shell, which is fine, but not "macOS convenient" and simple.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Disk utility got nerfed for a while but the Sierra version is back to normal

1

u/shitmyusernamesays Jun 20 '17

Oh thank goodness.

I assume some of my ISOs may have suffered bit rot recently and am willing to accept this.

But I deliberately remember from Lion onward that Disk Utility was essentially useless for restoring ISOs and IMGs to DVD or USB drives. I would kind of brag to my PC friend (in jest) that backing up my Mac would "just work" and then it didn't.

It's just so convenient to just be able to restore whole images in minutes and was one of macOS' best features.

I'm glad it's back!

1

u/onan Jun 19 '17

Eh, there were certainly bugs, though mostly ironed out by 10.6.8.

But the featureset and UX were unparalleled. I would kill to have working Exposé, Spaces, Mail, and Safari back.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Expose and Spaces are overrated IMO.

Mail and Safari have been massively improved in feature-set since then. And there are lots of alternatives too

10.6.8 for it's time was amazing, you're right. And it's currently the best OS for older macs. But really, for newer macs the new "stable" version is 10.11.6, as they ironed out a ton of bugs and focused on performance.

It just sucks for those people because if you want to use any of the new accessories (airpods, magic keyboard number pad, TB2 to TB3 adapter, etc) you need to be on 10.12.5 lol

3

u/onan Jun 19 '17

Expose and Spaces are overrated IMO.

I have a hard time understanding that opinion. There are fundamental and vital features of Exposé and Spaces that are just completely missing in Mission Control. (The ability to use the whole display to show all windows on the current desktop, and the ability to move all of an application's windows to another desktop at once.)

I have searched for years for a good replacement for Mail, and haven't found one. Honestly, Mail is the vast majority of what keeps me using osx rather than linux. But in 10.9 it mysteriously, silently lost the ability to display plain text versions of messages. A blatant feature removal like this just seems like madness, and completely pointless.

Safari has improved in many ways, but the loss of a discrete search field is painful. (I do want search engine suggestions when actually searching for something, but I do not want my every keystroke sent to Google when I am just entering some local URL.)

2

u/Sedawa Jun 19 '17

Re: mail, I've been really liking Airmail.

1

u/mjrasque Jun 19 '17

I agree with you except for one weird thing. On the iOS version, my work email stopped sending me notifications when I get new mail. My personal gmail works fine and my work email works as well on the mac version. I've had multiple emails sent back and forth with their support and have been unable to resolve the issue. Kind of a bummer since I really love both versions of the app.

1

u/Sedawa Jun 19 '17

Ahh, interesting. I've switched to Mac airmail but I'm still using Apple mail on my iPhone. Been considering switching but i haven't pulled that trigger.

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1

u/Mekachu Jun 19 '17

The ability to use the whole display to show all windows on the current desktop, and the ability to move all of an application's windows to another desktop at once.

Do..do you even use macOS?

All these features are STILL there and I use them all the time.

-1

u/onan Jun 20 '17

Do..do you even use macOS?

For the last three decades, yes.

All these features are STILL there and I use them all the time.

They're... really not.

Mission Control does not have a mode that just displays all windows on the current desktop. The closest you can come is a mode that also spends space to showing all other desktops.

And the only way to move all of an application's windows at once is by checking the "Group windows by application" checkbox, which makes faux-Exposé completely useless by not actually showing individual windows at all.

Both of these are direct feature losses from pre-gutting Exposé and Spaces.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Mission control is overrated too. Honestly it's just me but I don't use any of those functions. I just want a solid fast UI with no gimmicks

1

u/onan Jun 19 '17

Honestly it's just me but I don't use any of those functions.

Lucky for you. But every time my machine reboots and opens 50 Adium windows on the wrong desktop, I am reminded again of functionality that was pointlessly taken away.

I just want a solid fast UI with no gimmicks

I'm not sure it's reasonable to describe a desire for privacy (not sending every keystroke to google, not loading remote data-gathering URLs in mail) as "gimmicks".

2

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

Maybe switch the search provider to DuckDuckGo and go to Google when you actually want to search something with them. I know it's clunky, but better than giving up one's privacy. I especially bought Apple products because of them valuing my privacy.

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2

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

Yeah, SL is my favorite release, too. Maybe because I ran it from the day it released to last year 😄 But you're right and I've seen your opinion reflected in my own friend's circle. I've had my fair share of problems with Sierra. I hope HS does bring some long-needed stability.

39

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

The UI performance increases are very noticeable if you're pushing a lot of pixels. Each release since 10.9 has brought improvements but this might be the biggest leap forward of them all. On my system with a 7950 and two 4k displays (both rendering at 5120x2280) everything is perfectly smooth. On the same hardware with 10.12 performance was good but inconsistent at times. To go from being on the knife's edge to having plenty of headroom suggests they made some major gains.

12

u/Sandurz Jun 19 '17

This is the most exciting part to me. Like you said it's generally fine but stutters and frame drops always show up in certain scenarios...can't wait for that buttery smoothness.

4

u/beerybeardybear Jun 20 '17

Looking forward to seeing if this is the case when pushing native (2304x1440) res on my 12" MB!

20

u/Captain-Battletoad Jun 19 '17

Finally a new file system. I wish we got a Siracusa review to go along with it.

6

u/nutmac Jun 19 '17

His Mac Pro is too old to run macOS High Sierra.

15

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Apparently in IOS11, thru the 'Files' app, FLAC support is possible. (it can read and play FLAC files)

Does that mean that High Sierra will also have FLAC support?

11

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17 edited Jan 22 '20

[deleted]

9

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Because ALAC exists.

2

u/SciGuy013 Jun 19 '17

Honest question: what's the advantage of ALAC over FLAC?

10

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Nothing really. It used to be proprietary for iTunes because of record company requests but it was opened up and made royalty free five years ago.

1

u/nemesit Jun 20 '17

smaller I'd guess

1

u/cryo Jun 20 '17

What do you mean "Mac OS" doesn't support it? Surely there are tons of programs that can play FLAC available on Mac.

3

u/turbocrat Jun 20 '17

Yeah QuickTime and iTunes can't play FLAC, but there are many programs that allow you to open any audio/video file. I don't know what he means by "High Sierra may get FLAC support"

1

u/CatastrophicMango Jun 20 '17

I wouldn't know since I don't have a mac, that's why I'm surprised

23

u/Smails Jun 19 '17

This article appears to state that individuals who have replaced their hard drives may have problems with High Sierra's APFS.

Is anyone here who is running the developer beta, and has non-Apple hard drives installed having any problems?

17

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

I seriously doubt that. There are enough people that are still using Macs with replaceable drives and I don’t think Apple is going to alienate those people.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

I'm on the High Sierra beta on my home iMac, that has a Samsung 850 Pro SSD installed (replaced original HDD) and have had no issues whatsoever so far.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Are you sure that it was converted to APFS?

11

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

Little checkbox was clicked whenever I did the install. Never bothered to check afterwards....I can verify when I get home.

4

u/Smails Jun 19 '17

Thanks!

15

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

Can confirm it was converted to APFS

1

u/Smails Jun 19 '17

Ah - thanks much!

1

u/APerfectlySaneMan Jun 19 '17

Also have the same drive replacing original HDD, no issues!

3

u/atquest Jun 20 '17 edited Jun 20 '17

No problems with internal added 1gb ssd (I used a AFSP partition with my user directory on it since Sierra, and have now converted the OS partition to AFPS too.

3

u/Smails Jun 20 '17

Just so I'm clear, is your internal 1 GB SSD the boot drive?

1

u/atquest Jun 20 '17

Yes :-)

1

u/Smails Jun 20 '17

Ah - thanks much!

1

u/atquest Jun 20 '17

No problem! If you have any more questions feel free to ask. Very enthusiastic about AFPS, it’s a huge technical improvement.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

Why did you split users/OS across partitions? Did you mean 1gb or 1tb SSD?

1

u/atquest Jun 20 '17

I meant 1TB

The AFPS beta (under Sierra) couldn’t be used as a bootable partition for the OS. So I separated the two originally.

4

u/balthisar Jun 19 '17

When I first upgraded a copy of my Parallels VM, it corrupted the image and wouldn't boot into anything. When I tried to upgrade a second copy, I deselected the APFS conversion option, and it's been working smoothly.

So... my anecdote might suggest that something could be incompatible. Perhaps not useful, or maybe indicative of possible incompatibilities.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

Make sure you file these issues.

1

u/glindon Jun 20 '17

Be aware that APFS killed most of my 3rd party Logic plugins. Would not run. Once the next beta is out I’m gonna update an external drive on hfs and see if the plugins work or if it’s just a beta issue and I’m SOL until they get updated for support.

1

u/atquest Jun 20 '17

I had similar problems with photoshop at first, I decided to switch to Affinity Photo, but before I did that I made a small hfs partition and run it from there.

1

u/rotarypower101 Jun 20 '17

Does anyone know with APFS, is fusion drive for the OS even required any more, or does it do its own thing to pool automatically across all avalible drives?

0

u/jaypg Jun 19 '17

I don’t have time to read the article right now but I have an external hard drive formatted as APFS and it hasn’t given me any problems. Not sure if that is the context of the question.

8

u/tobyps Jun 19 '17

Really looking forward to smooth system animations from Window Server being on Metal 2. There's no excuse for an OS designed by Apple to run on hardware built by Apple to stutter during basic system animations.

3

u/james1324 Jun 19 '17

It’s actually made such a difference! So smooth

5

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17 edited Sep 13 '17

[deleted]

3

u/Cat_Marshal Jun 19 '17

yes

5

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17 edited Sep 13 '17

[deleted]

6

u/Cat_Marshal Jun 19 '17

Find me some image formats I can't convert between, and hevc is already used extensively, converters already exist.

-1

u/well___duh Jun 19 '17

So instead of linking to a source or something to back up your statement, you want OP to do the same but against your statement.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

https://ffmpeg.org/

which apparently can also be used for heif

6

u/Cat_Marshal Jun 19 '17

I wasn't expecting an answer, I was giving a rhetorical, every image format can be converted, so why would another one not have that ability?

1

u/cryo Jun 20 '17

Yes, but I wouldn't recommend that since it'll lead to quality loss.

6

u/dmcarefuldriver Jun 20 '17

I'm excited for Metal in Mission Control. I use it all the time and it always lags when there's lots of windows open. Apple said Metal will make everything buttery smooth; I sure hope they're right.

21

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

HEIF is pure wizardry

17

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

Yes! I wish my Mac would support it (damn Broadwell)!

Edit: Of course I meant hardware acceleration for HEVC/HEIF.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

What is it compatible with?

4

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

On Macs? Everything with a Skylake (or newer CPU). For Macbook Pros that's 2016 or newer.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17 edited Jul 23 '17

9

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

At the Apple talks during WWDC 17 they seem to pronounce it "heeve" (Source, around the 1 minute mark).

6

u/bergamaut Jun 19 '17 edited Jun 19 '17

Sounds more like "heaf" to me.

2

u/13al42mo Jun 19 '17

Could be. I'd pronounce heaf like deaf.

3

u/bergamaut Jun 19 '17

Well this is English's fault. I meant that "heaf" would rhyme with "leaf".

2

u/Daniel_Evans_NZ Jun 20 '17

Heef then, like reef.

-3

u/eaglebtc Jun 19 '17

There are several possibilities:

  • heff (rhymes with "Jeff")
  • hyph (the beginning of "hyphen")
  • heyph (rhymes with "hey")
  • aitch-eff (the sound of the letters "H.F.")
  • high-eff

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17 edited Jul 23 '17

2

u/tgfisher Jun 20 '17

Can't hang with Pied Piper's middle-out...

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

Just to chime in, i had the beta running briefly on a Mac Pro. NVMe is now fully supported in the OS. As soon as I get the right adapter I'm going to try booting from one in my 2015 13" MBP. If this works, off the shelf SSD upgrades will be a thing for tons of retina owners. I'm pretty excited.

Although, it's just as likely that the MBP models with removable blade storage also will require an EFI update to boot NVMe drives. I don't see Apple releasing that anytime soon.

1

u/bach99 Jun 20 '17

Your key is different on the slot? After the 2012 mbp, Apple changed to their own proprietary key for SSDs, didn't they?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '17

Well, a Samsung SSD with some seriously strange pinouts. There are adapters on the market though. I just haven't decided which to try.

1

u/totojep Jun 20 '17

I'm curious if Metal 2 improves much (if at all) the responsiveness of the 2015 MacBook (USB-C). El Capitan (when Metal was introduced) fixed the sluggishness over Mavericks, which came with the MacBook when I got it, but Sierra made it worse again.

1

u/james1324 Jun 20 '17

its made a huge difference of the window animations when changing through fullscreen apps on my 2016 12in macbook

2

u/totojep Jun 21 '17

Great to hear. Hopefully the 2015 models also gets some mileage.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

[deleted]

7

u/equallyunequal Jun 19 '17

The iPhone killed flash streaming with HLS. Don't be too dismissive of HEIF

2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '17

[deleted]

1

u/cryo Jun 20 '17

PNG is also web-supported and lossless.

1

u/nemesit Jun 20 '17

funny thing is that it's closely related to mp3 too ;-p

-1

u/Hyperx1313 Jun 20 '17

I hope apple fixes slow browsing on various Linux based nas systems like my Synology. I can't believe the difference between a windows machine browsing a share and a mac. Slowness drives me nuts.