Apple Announces Its New Desktop OS macOS Sierra Featuring Siri, Apple Pay (9to5mac.com) 249
After playing with the names of cats and a few California landmarks, Apple at WWDC 2016 announced that its desktop operating system will now be called macOS -- and its first version update is macOS Sierra. It comes with a range of new features including Siri, the digital voice assistant. The move comes roughly a year and a half after Microsoft brought its Cortana virtual assistant to desktop platform Windows 10. Sierra also supports Apple Pay payment service via Safari web browser. Ars Technica reports about some other features of macOS Sierra: Universal Clipboard answers a longstanding complaint of Mac and iOS users -- copying and pasting now works automatically between an iOS device and a desktop Mac device. iCloud now plays an expanded sync role, too, letting you move files and folders from Mac to Mac or from Mac to iOS. Another new feature called Optimized Storage can sweep through old documents and files and push them to iCloud, clearing up local disk space for other uses. It also can automatically dump your trash, clear your web history, and do some other behind the scenes sweeps. Tabs are coming to more and more applications. Federighi said that Apple wants tabs on all multi-window applications, and says that tabs can be flipped on without developer modification. Update: 06/13 18:55 GMT by M : macOS Sierra won't support many Mac models from 2007, 2008, and 2009. Find more information here.
Sierra with Siri (Score:2)
Somewhere, Apple's marketing and tech support personnel are currently forming an unholy alliance to overthrow management.
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Having some familiarity with a similarly stupid naming scheme at another company, marketing very likely *loves* it, but tech support certainly is pissed.
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Good point. It reminds me of my mid-90's tech support days... (in the south) "I'm havin' trouble with my email... ENDORA doesn't wanna start to check.."
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Well at least we still have internal versions of 10.12.
So we have some way to determine which version is newer and older over a period of Time.
Vs. say Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10.
That 2000 - Vista can get confusing if you didn't happen to pay much attention during that time. Or for some people getting into the market now were only a kid when they had those versions.
Re:Sierra with Siri (Score:5, Interesting)
I always wanted to choke MS's marketing group with their version names. There are, in my opinion, two acceptable methods of naming a product that continues to get new version:
1) Version numbers. You can have just one number or number.number whatever you like. You decide how to increment them. What matters is that you are consistent, and that the number is easy to find.
2) Version year. When you release a product it is named via whatever year it is released. Doesn't matter how much changed, it gets the release year in its name.
Either one works well for quickly mentally comparing how out of date something is, as well as being able to impress that on users. But it needs to stay consistent or it gets all confusing. You can't go numbers to years and back or things get all fucked up.
The XP and Vista crap is just totally stupid. Fuck off with that. How do I compare "Vista" to "XP"? They are both meaningless terms. It's as bad as Eclipse. No guys, I do NOT know the order of the Jovian moons, please just publish the version number and/or year clearly.
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I always wanted to choke MS's marketing group with their version names. There are, in my opinion, two acceptable methods of naming a product that continues to get new version:
1) Version numbers. You can have just one number or number.number whatever you like. You decide how to increment them. What matters is that you are consistent, and that the number is easy to find.
2) Version year. When you release a product it is named via whatever year it is released. Doesn't matter how much changed, it gets the release year in its name.
Either one works well for quickly mentally comparing how out of date something is, as well as being able to impress that on users. But it needs to stay consistent or it gets all confusing. You can't go numbers to years and back or things get all fucked up.
The XP and Vista crap is just totally stupid. Fuck off with that. How do I compare "Vista" to "XP"? They are both meaningless terms. It's as bad as Eclipse. No guys, I do NOT know the order of the Jovian moons, please just publish the version number and/or year clearly.
I was with you until you went off on searching XP vs. Vista - what's your gripe on searching including "Microsoft Windows" as your context?
Numbers are meaningless - e.g. FF 47 - why the F should I care? That's why project names / named versions are meaningful. They are easier to remember and more meaningful. I think they should be combined (e.g. 10.5 Leopard is a great google search term).
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I don't mean with a google search, I mean for users. What I want is the ability to have an easy comparison system for how out of date something is. If the current version is 10 and you are on version 5, or if the current version is 2015 and you are on version 2002, I have an easy way to demonstrate how behind it is and thus help them understand why an upgrade is a good idea.
For someone who's doing it as a job, as I am, it doesn't really matter. I can remember the progression, and the rough time of release,
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Exactly.
On one side of the camp we have Mac OS X (and later just OS X) 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 & 10.11 with minor updates coming out at 10.x.x
On the other side of the camp we have Windows 95, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 with some of them receiving service packs, some receiving rollups and some getting service releases.
Windows SP / patch level / update level / build (Score:2)
Windows SP / patch level / update level / build level has also gotten bad with 8 and after.
Windows 8 then windows 8.1 then windows 8.1 update X with the X part not being listed any where that is easy to find.
Windows 10 has build numbers but why not windows 10.1 windows 10.2 windows 10.2.1 etc?
desktop / mobile convergence? (Score:3)
Is that a step towards the convergence of OS X and iOS?
How long before macOS be stuck with a walled garden in which we can't install non-approved "apps"?
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How long before macOS be stuck with a walled garden in which we can't install non-approved "apps"?
As soon as an Apple A? is as fast as a Intel i5, there will be a KVM mode for the iOS devices, and then you'll have your desktop whenever you want it.
802.11ad is on its way, and Apple is already moving the GPU to the display in preparation.
It's possible you could see a preview of this at WWDC 2017 at the rate things are going, with an iOS Desk Set available that Christmas for $999.
Replace the Mac Mini with a hi
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I have a Chromebook with some ARM processor which feels faster and more responsive than my old (2010) Macbook Air so it's certainly possible.
However, would Apple shoot themselves in the foot and offer something faster, better, and cheaper?
Then what to develop Mac apps? (Score:3)
How long before macOS be stuck with a walled garden in which we can't install non-approved "apps"?
A developer needs Xcode for macOS to develop apps for iOS. Since Xcode 7, any Mac owner has been able to build apps from source and install them on an iOS device on the same Apple ID without charge. (This is a change from previous Xcode, which allowed only developers with a valid App Store seller account to do this.) The walled garden that you propose would reverse this trend. Under the walled garden that you propose, what would one use to develop apps for macOS?
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I'm sure they can come up with restrictions, such as you can develop apps for macOS and run them on your own Mac, but not send it to others without passing through the Mac App Store.
Microsoft is doing something similar with its driver signing policy. You can develop your own driver and test it on your PC, but other's can't use it by default, making it a hassle to offer a driver without passing through MS.
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Never, because the use cases are different.
And anyhow, Apple couldn't get Microsoft and Adobe on board to support it.
In fact, Apple's been loosening the restrictions - and in a weirdly RMS move, has made iOS open-source friendly. As in you can load in any app you can compile onto your iOS devices without Apple getting in the way.* Yes, you can "sideload" apps onto iOS, using Xcode.
So yes, lots of previously ban
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The average user can't side-load and this is what counts.
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The average user doesn't know what side-loading is. If you can figure out side-loading, you can figure out how to compile your own binaries in XCode and side-load them. This theoretical person that understands side-loading and wants to use it but can't work out how to download source and compile it is so rare as to be ignorable.
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Side-loading is much easier than:
1. buying a Mac2
2. figuring what Xcode is, installing it
3. compile
4. finally side-load
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macOS and FreeBSD leave no place for Linux. (Score:3, Interesting)
Despite using Linux for a couple of decades, I switched to OS X after I experienced numerous problems with Linux. After spending so many hours fighting to get stuff like PulseAudio, GNOME 3 and systemd working, I finally had enough. Although it was expensive, I bought myself a Mac Mini.
I didn't expect I'd ever say this, but OS X (or macOS or whatever it's called now) is superb. It is UNIX under the hood, but with a really nice UI. Most importantly, it just works. There's no fighting with it like there was with Linux. While upgrading my Linux system was always a crapshoot, I've never had any problems doing an upgrade on OS X. At this point I don't think I will ever have any reason to use desktop Linux ever again.
I moved all of my servers over to FreeBSD. Like OS X, it was a breath of fresh air. Everything works so much better. Plus I get ZFS out of the box. Plus most of its code is released under much friendlier and freer licenses than so much Linux code is.
So I need to ask, with OS X and FreeBSD available to us, what room does that leave for Linux? I know on my computers it means that there's no room for Linux any longer. FreeBSD is excellent for servers. OS X is excellent for workstations. That means that there's no need for Linux any longer.
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FreeBSD is excellent for servers. OS X is excellent for workstations. That means that there's no need for Linux any longer.
It takes me no time at all to get Ubuntu working on a workstation (I've yet to install it on anything that didn't just work out of the box!), and I don't have to sell my organs and children to afford it.
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Perhaps if you spent more time flipping burgers and less time on slashdot, you'd be able to afford some real hardware.
In order words, I work less than you and have equivalent hardware because I didn't throw out half my budget to get an Apple logo.
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The install of OS X is quite simple, but the operating system that it ends up installing leaves much to be desired.
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FreeBSD is an excellent choice for server applications. Really, it is.
Linux can still have a lot to offer for workstations and even laptops. So long as you don't try to wrestle with bleeding edge hardware and bleeding edge drivers, etc.
Stick to Intel graphics and sound hardware and you shouldn't have any drama. I've used Ubuntu for everything and XFCE for my DE and can't really complain about anything. I have speed, stability, maximum flexibility and scriptability/customization. Something that you can'
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So I need to ask, with OS X and FreeBSD available to us, what room does that leave for Linux?
Not much. Servers (most web servers are running Linux), embedded devices (many, if not most WiFi routers use Linux), smartphones (Android has 80% market share) and super computers (most of the top 500 is running Linux). And then some desktop users. All other users, and by that I mean all 4 of them, use FreeBSD.
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How many times have you, word for word, posted this exact same thing?
FreeBSD vs. Linux driver support (Score:2)
with OS X and FreeBSD available to us, what room does that leave for Linux?
That depends on whether FreeBSD supports the hardware in a particular computer better than Linux. For example, how well does FreeBSD work on a 2009 Mac mini? Because according to the article, macOS sure doesn't.
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Here... fixed that for you:
Despite using OSX for a couple of years, I switched to Unix after I experienced numerous problems with OSX. After spending so many hours fighting to get stuff like Finder, iMovie and web browsers working, I finally had enough. Although it was inexpensive, I bought myself a Chromebook.
I didn't expect I'd ever say this, but ChromeOS is superb. It is UNIX under the hood, but with a really nice UI. Most importantly, it just works. There's no fighting with it like there was with OSX.
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I didn't expect I'd ever say this, but OS X (or macOS or whatever it's called now) is superb. It is UNIX under the hood, but with a really nice UI. Most importantly, it just works.
It's what Linux could have been if the development community had gotten their heads out of their asses decades ago instead of going with the whole Gnome/KDE split shit.
I don't really mind this to be honest. All the hipster UX designers that write extensions in JavaScript and Python have willingly segregated themselves to GNOME3. The people who want to get on with their lives use MATE or KDE now.
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Apple's flavor of Unix is really quite impoverished once you start trying to do anything beyond the most basic things. Sorry, it's true. I like my Mac laptop for stuff that requires a GUI, but Mac OS X cannot hold a candle to Linux when it comes to command line stuff.
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I've found this to be the case EXACTLY. Great for everyday stuff sans CLI. My workplace bought me a MacBook Pro recently, and while it's a phenomenally powered and beautiful machine, it does not hold a candle AT ALL to the power of Linux CLI. Maybe part of that is having grown up on Linux CLI, but the fact remains, in my case of course.
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1) chroot that works in any sane fashion
2) control the network interfaces in a sane way that is fully functional on all versions of Mac OS X. Doesn't have to be the same for every version, but there should be something sane for every version.
These are two things that I ran into on the very first complex task I tried to do on the Mac OS X command line (reproduce a chroot based build environment at work).
When the first thing you try has immediate limitations, it's a good indicator that many or most complex t
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I set up QubesOS on my home computer two weeks ago now, and the only complaint I have is that I had to read the instructions in order to get my usb wifi dongle working, then fudge my own script to get the browser to start automatically when I start the web-browsing VM/"Qube". Everything else I was doing in windows (email, web browsing, rss feeds) Just Worked. I even installed Steam and can play 2d games in a window with the keyboard and mouse.
Siri been there, done that (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Depressing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't care for Siri, nor the fact that the computer will have to actively listen in 24/7 to support that. I was hoping for some under the hood improvements, like a new filesystem, better software RAID, iSCSI, a package management/repository system usable by third parties, so signed code and repos would be easy to add, so we wouldn't need ports, brew, or other third party stuff. Maybe even more blue-sky stuff like having root be a role like Solaris as opposed to an actual user, filesystem snapshots (something like btrfs send/zfs send), deduplication (since all Mac laptops are SSD based, might as well have an offline dedup process to help with storage), maybe even build in a ESXi compatibile hypervisor, so virtualization is baked in and usable without third party utilities, which adds to security.
I wish Apple would actually extend OS X to do more fundamental stuff, not 1-2 gewgaws.
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Apple wants to have a locked down store where they have the all the control and keep the profit. And app dev look out if your game let people edit there own maps then the user maps can trigger you app getting kicked off the store if they don't comply with app store rules.
And adobe we want 30% of the CC subscription fees or no MAC OS for your.
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In Apple's defense, the Keynotes tend to be more for "the public" than for developers. The last couple times I went to WWDC, I blew off the keynote. I was more interested in the appropriate platform's "State of the Union." I could sleep late and go to the conference hall around noon, eat lunch (before the lines get too long), and look over all the stuff that gets reported.
So things like RAID, iSCSI, hypervisors, and the like get mentioned elsewhere because most reporters would just sort of glaze over tha
Re:Depressing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the first thing I want to know about most of the announced stuff is how easy it will be to optionally disable it.
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I know it's silly, but the thing I would most like to see improved in MacOS is the print dialog. It's so hard to get a good printout on Mac OS these days; you have no controls for resizing or repositioning the printed material to ensure that it covers the page properly. There appear to be several different print dialogs that appear depending upon the application; so it's possible that I'm experiencing problems related to a particular application, and yet there is no print dialog that any application has e
AirPrint (Score:2)
I know it's silly, but the thing I would most like to see improved in MacOS is the print dialog.
Agreed but what I would like to see is printing supported on iDevices properly. Yeah I know about AirPrint but guess what? Millions of printers don't have that (including all of mine) and Apple can't be bothered to make a simple way make existing printers compatible with AirPrint despite it being technologically trivial to do so. It could be done with a simple network attached print server or an app on any macintosh. I get if they don't want to support Windows but it's absurd that my mac can't provide A
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Agreed but what I would like to see is printing supported on iDevices properly. Yeah I know about AirPrint but guess what? Millions of printers don't have that (including all of mine) and Apple can't be bothered to make a simple way make existing printers compatible with AirPrint despite it being technologically trivial to do so. It could be done with a simple network attached print server or an app on any macintosh. I get if they don't want to support Windows but it's absurd that my mac can't provide AirPrint services right out of the box.
Yes, if only Apple had been making something like that for the last decade. What a wonderful world we would be living in... [apple.com]
Airport Express does not solve the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, if only Apple had been making something like that for the last decade. What a wonderful world we would be living in..
Try again.
The Airport Express does NOT solve the problem [apple.com]. It does not turn non-AirPrint printers into compatible ones by plugging into the USB port. You will need third party solutions to actually print to any non-AirPrint compatible printer attached to it. I actually own the hardware and have tried. Eventually I bought a third part print server (Lantronix xPrintServer) which solves the problem. It's ridiculous that any Mac cannot provide this functionality out of the box.
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Anonymous delivers. [startech.com] Please have exact change. [lantronix.com]
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I know it's silly, but the thing I would most like to see improved in MacOS is the print dialog.
All hail Clarus the Docgow! Moof!
In all seriousness though, that one little icon did wonders to tell you how you were manipulating the page as per the print dialog... much better than what's on there now.
Ya that's not going to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is moving desktop Macs in the "consumer electronics toy" direction. They have been for some time now. Their focus has been on gewgaws, not fundamentals for a good bit. This is not the company you want to stick with for desktop computing if that's what you care about. They are the company for people who have the attitude of a computer being a disposable device they don't care much about: You get the one you like the looks of, don't worry a whole lot about the technical stuff, and use it until it breaks or you decide you like the looks of a new one better.
If low level stuff and long-term support is what interests you, then you want to look at Linux or Windows. Yes really, Windows, Microsoft makes fundamental improvements to their OS quite often, and they are usually good. Either way while all OSes have fluff you don't care about and will keep getting it, Windows and the vast majority of Linux distros also spend plenty of time on the under-the-hood part.
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Matched by equal and opposite dis-improvements to the EULA, which becomes ever more intrusive, as well as much obnoxious behaviour you have to guard against with the vigilance of Sleepless in Sparta. So far I haven't figured out how to get just the good bits. Daring forecast: it ain't never gonna happen.
My wife's iMac is early 2008 and appears not be supported. Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory.
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I really don't care for Siri, nor the fact that the computer will have to actively listen in 24/7 to support that.
Quick, someone read the new OSX EULA... and see all the fun stuff in there to allow Siri to work in OSX. Will it by default want to upload all your contacts and browsing search terms and the apps you use, and your calendar events, and your current location, etc to apple? I can't imagine it won't want to do that.
A lot of the crap in the Windows 10 EULA was to give Cortana the data it would need to operate. I assume Apple will have to do the same for Siri now.
It's going to be interesting to see how people rea
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If you quit watching the keynote before the end, Cook was careful to point out that they’re using on-device intelligence.
Win-win: They don’t have to build out more servers, and we don’t have to upload our data to the butt.
Re:Depressing... (Score:5, Informative)
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It exists; it's Command-C / Command-Option-V, as it has been for many years now.
But he wants to move files - so when something goes wrong, they get lost.
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Thanks. That goes a long way into addressing a major shortcoming in OS^WmacOS. Even though snapshots have no accessible API, at least this will be there eventually, so the box can get backed up via sends.
Boring (Score:5, Interesting)
This WWDC is so boring I've actually stopped watching. Is it just me or is the age of Tim Cook extremely dull? This is like watching paint dry.
Tough act to follow (Score:2)
This WWDC is so boring I've actually stopped watching. Is it just me or is the age of Tim Cook extremely dull?
In comparison to Steve Jobs pretty much anyone they put on stage would likely be considered extremely dull. It's hard to follow an act like that and Cook has never been known for his oratory skills or charisma. Like him or not you have to admit that Steve Jobs was second to none as a salesman.
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Things were getting boring while Steve was still alive. So much of the low-hanging fruit has been taken care of, now all that's left are things like thinking up more and more ways to integrate messaging and calendaring.
Things like the shared clipboard are nice, but for the most part, I don't want my phone and desktop integrated any more than I want my bathroom and kitchen integrated, or a bicycle and a moving van. They are different devices that I use for different things.
Just as long as tabs can be turned OFF by the user (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, the biggest advantage of a desktop OS over a tablet is the ability to have multiple monitors filled with dozens of windows. I can't even begin to imagine the hell that OS X would become if, for example, Terminal.app forced all of its windows into tabs, or even used tabs by default. Imagine doing all your work in a single terminal window running screen and you're roughly in the ballpark. If you've ever done this, you know what a nightmare it is, and not just because of the control-A behavior. The cognitive load induced by hiding the state of other windows is considerable.
So I just want to make sure that it is as easy to disable the tabs feature systemwide as it is to disable the unnatural scroll direction feature. Not only do I not want tabs to be created automatically, I don't want them to be created at all. I don't want to accidentally release the mouse at the wrong time while dragging a window around and have two of my windows suddenly become a single window with tabs.
Frankly, I don't like tabs even in a web browser, much less in any app that I use to actually get work done. Tabs mean having to manage a nested hierarchy of content state. Not only do I have to remember which browser window something is in, but also which tab. And to get to it, I have to remember three different keyboard navigation shortcuts—one to choose the app, one to choose the window, and a third one to choose the tab. And the headache gets even worse when you start minimizing windows into the dock, because the dock shows you only the frontmost tab. When you go to find something later, tabs make serious computer use an absolute nightmare.
So yeah, that feature is fine for your non-power-user who is scared by having to see more than one window at a time, but it absolutely must be possible for users to kill it with fire as soon as they realize that it is hindering their workflow... because it invariably will for some people.
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Good luck with that. In my experience, Apple's user interface hubris knows no bounds, to the extent that when they decide what the user experience should be like, they are very reticent to provide any customization which would allow it to be changed.
Example: click-to-focus. It's not possible to have focus-follows-pointer in Mac OS X. There is no option that would enable it. Apple decided that everyone should use click-to-focus, and that is the unassailable law in the Mac world.
Another example: dock colo
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Actually, you've got two choices, light and dark, which sounds like it might suit you. It's not in the Dock Control Panel, of course. It's in General.
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You may be right. It's been a while since I futzed with it. I believe that they changed the color of the dark dock, and it's a color that clashes with my background. So I guess it's not that I can't choose a dark dock, it's that I can't choose an arbitrarily colored dock.
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The cognitive load induced by hiding the state of other windows is considerable.
I agree with you. But when I've mentioned this before on Slashdot, a lot of replies were to the effect that "all maximized all the time" behavior is something that people can and ought to just learn to tolerate. I seem to remember their reasoning being along the lines that people got used to it on the Apple II, Commodore 64, IBM PC running DOS, and old Macs running Switcher [folklore.org], and they can get used to it now.
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Yes, keyboard navigation in OS X is a total shit show. Apps behave differently to the keystrokes, and some don't respond at all (if the window is "hidden" instead of minimized - why is there a fucking difference?, and if you use a laptop from the built in screen at home, and then use multiple monitors at work, good luck getting UI's and windows to scale right. So much broken.
Also, I know homebrew is nice and all, but OS X REALLY REALLY REALLY needs a decent package manager system. AND a FUCKING UNINSTALL
WTF Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got a Mac and an iPhone, and although I would say I tend to favor Apple products, I would not call myself a fan.
I just heard about this "rich links" feature in Messages where links to images or video will display in a preview attached to the link. My immediate reaction was one of revulsion and disbelief. That kind of "feature" is a security nightmare and there better be a way to disable it or else I am NOT going to upgrade. Whoever thought this was a good idea is a fucking idiot. Your phone should NEVER pre-emptively download the content of a hyperlink that someone else sends you. I don't care if it's a trusted site or not.
P0WN-0-V1510N would also suit... (Score:2)
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Burglar break in and plays an recording of YOU (Score:2)
A burglar break in and plays an edited recording of YOU:
Hey Siri,
Move $500 to account # 123456789...
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A burglar break in and plays an edited recording of YOU:
Hey Siri, Move $500 to account # 123456789...
How exactly did this criminal get a voice recording of me making financial transactions?
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make a phone call.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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please speak more slowly
This is awful (Score:4, Insightful)
As I type this on my 2011 macbook pro (OS X 10.11) I wonder what I will do when I need to finally upgrade. Stick with apple just because it is what I know or finally jump to something else. And based off the multiple forums I am reading I am not the only one.
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Is there some problem with showcasing a lot of different people?
Like, those people all exist. Those people all have lives and buy things. I'm not sure what your issue is with having them in the commercials or videos or whatever. Is it really that galling to have every white dude and occasional woman replaced with another person that actually lives on this planet?
I can't stress enough that these are actual people and not a made-up fabrication of Apple's imagination. As actual, existing people, they should ha
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Or maybe it was too scripted and so forced that made it come off awful/soulless/*insert a better phrase if you can think of one*. I mean look at the woman who did the apple music demo. Let us get the audience to rap along. Really?
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Yeah, but having white actors do the job isn't actually any better. May as well check some boxes while they're at it.
I know this is kind of a weird situation, but diversity matters even when it's this kind of dumb shit.
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Look into the Microsoft Surface Book.
No, really. The last time I suggested that I got called a Microsoft shill, which is funny because I'm typing this on a 2012 MacBook Pro, but I'm serious. The Microsoft Surface Book is essentially what the iPad Pro wants to be combined with what Apple should have done with the MacBook Pro but didn't.
It's got a high-resolution, high-DPI display, pen support, a real keyboard, and an actual discrete graphics card. Unlike the iPad, it supports a real desktop OS. And it's cost-competitive with the MacBook Pro while having superior specs.
Now I'm sure some people will complain about Windows 10 and its telemetry. But unlike Apple, you have nearly complete control of the OS and can almost entirely disable it. Apple is instead locking down what root can do while sending more and more of your data to Apple. One of the key new macOS features is that it's going to automatically dump even more of your documents onto Apple's servers!
So look into the Microsoft Surface Book. I know I am.
The Surface Book is a terrible machine. Wildly overpriced and plagued with bugs, overheating and firmware issues since day 1.
In other words, no useful improvements (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sick and tired of modern OS's focusing on adding 8 tons of crap thats not useful to 99% of the users, and not working on better I/O, networking, etc.
Between Windows 10, and this, it sure seems like each new version just gets more and more bullshit stuffed into it, but no real improvements otherwise.
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They are, those just aren't things that make the keynote. WWDC is a developer's conference, and most of the actual conference is sessions where the devs go to learn things about the OS.
For instance, Apple has introduced a new scalable file system. That wasn't in the keynote, but it's a technical detail that will definitely benefit everyone. But it's not something that anyone other than us nerds are going to care about.
Keep an eye on Ars Technica; I bet they'll have a list of interesting non-keynote things t
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and not working on better I/O, networking, etc.
Funny you mention Windows 10 and this line in the same breath. If it weren't for the privacy and UI fuckups in Windows recently you'd be getting exactly what you want. Under the hood Windows 10 is faster and far more efficient, better support for networking protocols .... though I guess they did fuck up the computer browser too so that one cancels itself out.
iCloud to sync files between Macs? (Score:2)
Not sure why this is a feature. The slowest connection is my internet connection. The biggest issues I have is getting media files to be viewed by other devices and other users without having to run an app for every type of file. You need iTunes to be running to share music. You need photos t/b running to share pictures. The easiest solution is provided by third party software.
Now in order for sharing to happen between devices it will be synced with iCloud? iCloud would free space on my system? How much wou
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well just wait the law suit to hit when some get's a big data overage or even an $20K+ data roaming bill.
Apple doesn't care about nerds anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
Nowadays, the hardware is not competitive at all for the price point; plus the drives and RAM are soldered in, so tweakers have moved on to other things. OS X is falling way behind in features to Linux (native ZFS, kGraft, gaming and GPU support, etc.), and newer versions are splicing in iOS features rather than adding anything compelling.
I don't blame them. Focusing on stylishness, ease of use and cross-device features (to encourage vendor lock-in) probably yields higher profits than repairability, high performance and terminal utilities. But that's also a dangerous road to go down.
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Apple never really cared. At least with the Macintosh brand.
Going to Unix was a business decision to use a Freely available OS and just tweak it with a New UI. Saving a lot of time programming the details of making an OS from scratch. Multi-Tasking, Memory management, Network Stack.... and many of the core system tools are already programmed and in tack. Allow Apple to mostly focus on building the UI.
Being that it had the Unix Guts just made it easy for Apple market it to Geeks. Because as the parent st
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Apple never really cared. At least with the Macintosh brand. Going to Unix was a business decision to use a Freely available OS and just tweak it with a New UI. Saving a lot of time programming the details of making an OS from scratch. Multi-Tasking, Memory management, Network Stack.... and many of the core system tools are already programmed and in tack. Allow Apple to mostly focus on building the UI.
Being that it had the Unix Guts just made it easy for Apple market it to Geeks. Because as the parent stated. Getting Linux to work well on a Laptop back in early 2000's while not impossible, did require a lot of extra legwork. And Windows 98-XP (Early SP) were very buggy and crashed a lot, as well that is when they had the first set of high profile attacks on the OS. Making OS/X the best choice.
Now 16 years later. They still have all the Unix behind it, however it needs to stay current. And that isn't easy with the Desktop and Laptop Brands going out of fashion. At least Apple didn't go the route that Microsoft went by making a hybrid tablet and desktop system, that handles both poorly.
Another point to make is that the Powerbooks were really a lot better than contemporary laptops in just about every way. Except for their displays, today's Macs are inferior in just about every respect to comparable laptops.
Apple wanted NeXTSTEP not Unix (Score:2)
Going to Unix was a business decision to use a Freely available OS and just tweak it with a New UI.
No. Going NeXTSTEP was the business decision to get a modern operating system. NeXTSTEP just happened to be built upon Unix. NeXTSTEP contained many software elements beyond Unix. And NeXTSTEP would bring Steve Jobs with it.
Unix was a useful afterthought. Something useful to attract some scientists, engineers and other high end users to the Mac platform. People who were migrating from traditional Unix workstations and weren't sure about PC-based Linux.
Re:Apple doesn't care about nerds anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple's main "technology" development in the past half decade has been making things "thinner." That's basically it.
It's becoming increasingly clear their vision died with Jobs. That they've been able to coast for 5 years is a testament to the momentum that asshole built. But as it stands Apple is running on technology fumes. All "style" in the world can't mask feature retardation, i.e. their flagship OS is hopelessly outdated in most of its core technologies; they don't seem to be able to improve on a 15+ yr old filesystem, their graphics stack hasn't yet entered this decade, their online services are worst in class consistently, etc, etc, etc.
I worked at Apple when they were tossing around ZFS as an option. I still for the lif eof me can not figure out why they cling to HFS+. That filesystem has eaten more data than any filesystem I can think of. Shameful how they drag that out.
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They've introduced a new filesystem, apparently. It just wasn't mentioned in the keynote.
It really is crazy how long HFS+ lasted, though.
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ZFS needs ECC RAM (Score:2)
ZFS requires an absurd amount of RAM dedicated to managing storage.
And ZFS needs ECC RAM, errors must be detected because with ZFS there can be a write to the hard drive to fix a mismatched "checksum" when the software is requesting a read. Bad RAM is a much bigger problem with ZFS than other file systems. Its really not a good idea for consumer hardware.
Forget OS X, this one goes to 11 (Score:2)
Why drop systems with 32bit efi? they can run 64 b (Score:2)
Why drop systems with 32bit efi? they can run 64 bit windows and with boot loader hacks 64 bit mac os.
Also the older mac pros can take new video cards. apple is just being an dick. Even old core 2 or even 1st gen amd 64 systems can run windows 10 in 64 bit.
Dear Apple, (Score:2)
If you want to solve my space woes, do something about the 2 GB of "other" on my phone. Or up the base model from 16 GB to 32.
iCloud as a place to store stuff? (Score:2)
Waitwaitwait. They want me to use iCloud to store files to save hard drive space?
Really?
I use my hard drive (and a couple of prodigious USB flash drives) to save iCloud space, which is currently at a premium. Seriously - the free tier is still 5 GB, and currently 90% of that is backups for just my iPhone. I had to disable backup of my iPad because neither one was backing up any more. Immediately, my iPhone unloaded another two gigs into iCloud.
Right now, I’m afraid to use iCloud, for fear of my ba
MacOS, what it has always been (Score:2)
>"Apple at WWDC 2016 announced that its desktop operating system will now be called macOS "
Really, it has always been MacOS. The big change happened when it went from MacOS version 9 to MacOS version 10... they just used a roman numeral "X" for the major version of 10 and added a cutesy cat name as an alternative for the minor version number. So really, they have just dropped the "X" nonsense so perhaps now it is possible to actually have a MacOS 11 at some point.
We can finally stop hearing the incorre
How do I turn off Optimized Storage? (Score:2)
The last thing I want is OS X trying to upload terrabytes of audio/video clips to iCloud because it thinks they're "old files".
iCloud storage must be great when you don't have 300ms latency and expensive ISP-imposed bandwidth caps to deal with, but the rest of the world doesn't actually want it.
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Actually, this is bringing "mac" back into the name. It's been called just plain "OS X" for a couple years now.
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New hardware as in a 2013 system still at the 2013 price in 2016?
if only they hardware that is not trying to get thinner and thinner each round. Had m.2 cards / does not have fixed ram sizes with ripoff upgrade pricing / even the mini is being comeing a joke.
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You can't own the abode products any more just rent them.