macOS Sierra Is Now Available For Download (engadget.com) 202
Dave Knott writes: Apple's latest desktop operating system, macOS Sierra, is now available for download. In addition to the Siri virtual assistant hitting the desktop for the first time, the free update includes features like a universal clipboard, revamped Messages, a storage optimization tool, and Apple Pay on the web.Engadget has also tested the new operating system and gave it a fairly positive review. It notes that Siri integration is "useful, if you already use Siri," and that iCloud and storage improvements have "practical benefits for everyone." But at the same time, the publication found that Siri "isn't always smart enough."
Awesome!!! (Score:2)
Can I leave UEFI enabled or do I need to set my BIOS boot mode to legacy/CMS??
Re: (Score:3)
....ummm what? Like SGI, Apple never used the legacy BIOS declaring it to be old and obsolete. However, secure boot was never a thing on Apple hardware (or SGI hardware either).
If you're running the GM and can't DL it (Score:2)
delete your GM application and then you can DL the new version.
Reinstall over the old version.
Re: (Score:2)
Did they change anything from the GM? Why would I want to do that? GM usually means done-deal.
Re: (Score:2)
They released a second GM a week later.
Worse than Win10 for Privacy defaults (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got to imagine that some of this stuff is not going to go down well with corporate users, unless they can lock it down real tight.
"Here, we'll automatically upload stuff to the Cloud and remove it from your local computer if we don't think you need it."
"You can have us permanently store your voice and background conversations and run it through our linguistic analysis AI even if you're not dictating anything."
With all of the other privacy and security issues surrounding smartphones, making laptops more smartphone-like doesn't seem like a benefit.
Re: (Score:2)
yes it does, my employer gives choice between Dell laptop with Windows or MacBook Pro. I'll take a Unix(tm) over Windows any day
Re: (Score:2)
I've got to imagine that some of this stuff is not going to go down well with corporate users
MacOS has corporate users?
Actually, yeah it does. Probably more on corporate tech than corporate corporate, but it's there.
From what I've observed, Macs have generally fewer runtime and operational issues, but more configuration issues for IT to deal with.
"Allow apps" from only "sanctioned" sources now (Score:5, Informative)
I see in System Preferences, Security & Privacy, General, that Apple no longer thinks you have the right to run downloaded programs.
The "( ) Anywhere" option has been completely hidden.
WTF !
Thankfully there is a way to disable this crap.
Reference:
http://apple.stackexchange.com... [stackexchange.com]
Re:"Allow apps" from only "sanctioned" sources now (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing in this update stops you from running unsigned apps if you so choose. You just can't (easily) set it to the default.. which is a good thing.
If you want to run an unsigned app you you can just right click on the icon, select "open", respond to the dialog presented saying that you want to open this unsigned app.. and then every other time you open that app you can just double click on the icon.
Easy peasy.
Re: (Score:2)
I've already had to do this for the last two OS X versions.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference being in the previous versions you could turn off gatekeeper entirely from the System Preferences.
In sierra you can't do that. You have to either disable it on the command line (a bad idea IMHO) or just whitelist each unsigned app the first time you use it by using the process I outlined above.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that there aren't many... I have very few that I use regularly.. three I think.
Ever since gatekeeper became a thing I've had it on "App Store and Identified developers". Works really well.
In general for the average user? god only knows. Hopefully even fewer but you never know what garbage people will download. Which is why it's great that Apple has done things the way it has in Sierra.
Re: (Score:2)
The one app I have to approve manually the most often is Xcode betas. Ironic, I've always thought.
Re:"Allow apps" from only "sanctioned" sources now (Score:4, Interesting)
"You just can't (easily) set it to the default.. which is a good thing."
I see no reason why this is a good thing.
"Easy peasy."
Not really. Certainly not "intuitive", definitely not "it just works".
Once upon a time computers could be used to run the software of your choice. This is yet another step away from that. Not a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Once upon a time, malware wasn't a thing. Then once upon another time, malware was a thing and there were no real defenses against it. Times change, grandpa.
Re: (Score:3)
I can see VERY easily why this is a good thing. Because people don't know any better. Even worse, people that *think* they know better but actually don't. There was a fracas (last year or early this year, I think...) where idiot developers downloaded pirated copies of xcode that ended up being bundled with malware. And the apps they created ended up on the App Store until Apple figured out what was going on. And these developers didn't even know because they had completely disabled gatekeeper. If gate
Re: (Score:2)
> You just can't (easily) set it to the default.. which is a good thing.
Treating power users like they are imbeciles is never a good thing.
i.e.How many casual users would even know to what to change it to let alone find it? So what exactly have you accomplished by hiding it ??? Apple pulls this shenanigans by hiding the "Advanced" gamma settings -- you have to hold the option key to reveal it. They could have done the same thing here -- at least it wouldn't be that bad compared to this clusterfuck.
Forcin
Re: (Score:2)
Unlike you, Apple probably has way more data on how many users use each setting. The only person treating others as imbeciles is you.
Re: (Score:2)
The less an option is used the easier it needs to be to find.
There's nothing worse than having to do something every 1-2 years and not being able to remember the command or see the option.
Hiding options is just plain ridiculous. I think Apple's reputation for smart, intuitive, and clever UI design has well and truly disappeared.
Computer controls must be *discoverable* to be useful. Go read some of the UI research papers. You'll be surprised that many were written in the 60s and 70s when human-computer inter
Re: (Score:2)
When you double click on an unsigned app you get a dialog telling you that you are trying to open an app from an unidentified developer. Can't miss it.
Then there is a little help button at the bottom of the dialog. Can't miss it.
Click on the help button (as you do when you want help with something) and it tells you *precisely* what to do to whitelist that app in 3 simple steps (basically the same three steps I outlined way up there).
Can't miss it.
How much more discoverable do you want it than that? Do yo
Re: (Score:2)
But why has the option to always allow non-signed applications been removed/hidden from the settings?
The other posters here are referring to a command line "fix" to allow them.
You do realise that you're being slow-boiled like the apocryphal frog do you not?
Re: (Score:2)
This is all just much ado about nothing.
The setting was removed so as not to allow people to mindlessly set their computer into a much less secure state.
The idea that right clicking on each new app *ONCE* and clicking on a button *ONCE* to whitelist that app is somehow an infringement on ones rights (as the original post I replied to opined) or some great conspiracy to lull us into a false sense of security at which point apple will magically make it so that only App store apps can be run on our computers a
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't make sense when I can still:
- delete all of my files from the HDD.
- uninstall all the software I need to use.
- delete/corrupt system files and render the system unable to boot.
- format the primary disk.
- hit the computer repeatedly with a hammer until it fails to operate.
- throw the fucking computer out the window, walk down stairs, and set fire to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Your fallacy is assuming UI design is about quantity.
Good UI design is scalable across the inexperienced TO the experienced. THAT's what you are missing.
* In 10.11 one simply changed the option. Done. End of story.
* In 10.12 one is forced to jump through extra hoops. There was nothing wrong with having it a dialog. Moving the explicit choice (dialog button) to an implicit choice (command line) is idiotic.
Re: "Allow apps" from only "sanctioned" sources no (Score:2)
There is a help button in the dialog that appears when an app is missing a signature that tells you *exactly* how to permit the launch. Is it too much to expect a user to know to click the help button?
Re: (Score:2)
Treating power users like they are imbeciles is never a good thing.
The intersection of the set of people who can be described as power users and the set of people for whom entering a single command on the command line is too hard is probably zero.
Re: (Score:2)
Myself, I think assuming that power users are incapable of right clicking on an icon, clicking a button and then moving on with their day is treating them like imbeciles.
But who am I to judge?
Re: (Score:2)
The _use_ case is EVERYONE.
* Beginner don't even know about it in the first place -- having the option does nothing for them.
* Power users can change it. I mean the code was _already_ there in 10.11.
How the fuck is _removing_ it practical when it alienates some of the users???
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree pretty shocking: Apple made sure there was a way for knowledgable users to do what they like while reducing the chance that less experienced users could get unwittingly pownd by accidentally downloaded apps. The nerve!
Optimized storage (Score:2)
Please tell me "optimized storage" can be turned off wholesale. If there is one thing I definitely don't need it's a "whole bunch" more of background processes uploading random files to the remote server and deleting them from my local drive. I will manage what I store and where, thank you very much.
I guess I am sounding like an old fart I am, but MacOS is going too far in dumbing it down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/... [macrumors.com]
Don't worry, Apple's arrogance is large... but finite.
Re: (Score:3)
Please tell me "optimized storage" can be turned off wholesale. If there is one thing I definitely don't need it's a "whole bunch" more of background processes uploading random files to the remote server and deleting them from my local drive. I will manage what I store and where, thank you very much.
I guess I am sounding like an old fart I am, but MacOS is going too far in dumbing it down.
During the first post-install reboot, the OS configuration assistant asked me if I wanted to enable this (well, at least the part that makes your desktop available to other Macs and iOS devices via iCloud). For the rest I had to find the configuration in "About this Mac" -> Storage (which seems an odd place to put such a thing).
Yaz
Re: (Score:2)
Unlike Microsoft, Apple tends to leave features like this disabled by default.
Sierra (Score:2)
Does this mean we now have a sadistically difficult operating system complete with 1-900 number to call for advice?
Re: (Score:2)
good grief (Score:3)
since Lion in 2011 a new OS every year instead of every two. Is this supposed to generate market hype or something? I'd rather have more stability, security and QA work
Yeah, I found out the hard way. (Score:2)
I've been trying to get around to installing 10.11 (El Capitan) on my daughter's hand-me-down early-2008 Macbook Pro. (It's been on 10.6 to support some older software.) What with family emergencies, it's taken me a while to get everything cloned onto a new SSD and ready for the upgrade.
Last night, I finally got everything put together, and went off to the App Store to pull down the El Cap upgrade.
Nope.
Since Sierra was released yesterday, El Capitan no longer existed, at least as far as App Store searches w
Re: Wine (Score:2)
GNU's Not Unix!
Re: (Score:2)
Ha Ha funny. You almost got me.
Re: (Score:2)
The truth is NeXT used all these at various times: NeXTSTEP, NeXTstep, NeXTStep, and NEXTSTEP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:universal clipboard wtf (Score:4, Interesting)
Dad hits copy to copy/paste something on his laptop at the office, and the kids upstairs doing their homework go to paste something into a document on the ipad upstairs have that content dumped into the document.
Well it's not quite as bad as that. It only works if they're both signed in using the same iCloud account. So you'll only have a problem if Dad and Son are signed into the same iCloud account on their devices. Even then... I have Sierra and an iPhone, and I can't figure out how the feature is supposed to work. I certainly haven't done it accidentally.
Re: (Score:2)
So you'll only have a problem if Dad and Son are signed into the same iCloud account on their devices.
This is how most people run their family tablets/kitchen computers/etc. Kids don't usually start getting their own logins until *they* own the devices and/or reach teenage years etc. And even then computers and devices in shared spaces; most people just use a common login rather than multiple accounts because that's hassle.
Re:universal clipboard wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people are wrong.
Create apple ID accounts for your kids, and gift them apps if they need stuff. Create gmail accounts for your kids, so they can have their own email addresses. Put credit card information in neither, of course. Put two factor on everything, because kids always choose crap passwords, and make sure you store those passwords somewhere safe because kids can't remember anything. This makes life far, far, simpler. Having one account seems simple at first, but rapidly becomes a nightmare.
The idea of having my kids signed into my apple ID on their devices (which they have to have for school, by the way, before you start telling me that kids shouldn't own iPads etc) is a terrible one. A friend of mine managed to allow her kid to run up huge bills, precisely because she'd used her own apple ID on her kids ipad, and the kid bought $500 of in-game nonsense without her knowledge.
Re: (Score:2)
How does the kid buy $500 of in-game crap, you need the AppleID password for making purchases and each purchase gets a notification.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then don't leave iCloud logged in on their devices. Ta Da!
If you're going to be a stupid idiot, that's your business. But please leave us normal people our useful features. Thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the same company that told millions of people they hold their phone wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple doesn't encourage that usage pattern. They have family setups for kids.
As far as common login / login on a computer, if the family is sharing one login then they are sharing one account they are one person with one set of data. That's the case for all computers. There are "guest" setting for shared computers you don't use a standard login you use a guest type account and that won't have the syncing.
Re: (Score:2)
"run their families". (Families are not a business. They aren't "run".)
the actual sentence clause was "run their family's computers/tablets/etc".
As in the 'running' (or setup and management if you prefer) of the computers and devices used by members of the family.
I don't think it's fair to those of us with a brain [...]
to have you pretending that you belong in the group? You're right. It's not fair.
Re: (Score:2)
Dad hits copy to copy/paste something on his laptop at the office, and the kids upstairs doing their homework go to paste something into a document on the ipad upstairs have that content dumped into the document.
So, doing a quick screen grab from your favorite porn site may end up in a quarterly report in addition to being the intended wallpaper file...
Hilarity ensues!
Also, a possible new application for the term "bottom line"...
Oh, Bonus Points if you can get all the members of the board to twist their heads sideways in unison.
Re:universal clipboard wtf (Score:5, Informative)
1) nothing goes to the internet.
2) nothing will go to a machine/account that isn't signed in to the same icloud account.
3) Calm down.. just turn Handoff off and you're good.
Re:universal clipboard wtf (Score:4, Informative)
How does it get between machines logged-in to the same iCloud account if not through the Internet?
Bluetooth and/or local WiFi. The WiFi login isn't used for communication between the devices, but only for pairing the devices together locally (that is, the devices find each other via Bluetooth and/or WiFi on the local network. A handshake is done to verify that both have successfully authenticated against the same account ID on iCloud. Then local communications is permitted. iCloud isn't involved in the data transfer, nor in the setup of a communications channel between devices).
Yaz
Re: (Score:2)
It's almost like by doing research and asking questions we can learn how these magic lightning boxes work and dispel the Fear (uncertainty & doubt) of the Unknown...
Re:universal clipboard wtf (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what having separate user accounts is for.
There's no way I'd let my kids use anything that I was logged into.
Your just asking for disaster.
Airdrop has never worked well for me although hand off works very nicely.
Uni-Clip sounds good, in theory, although I've yet to try it out.
I'm still on El Capitan & iOS9 until the dust settles and the major bugs have been fixed.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what having separate user accounts is for.
Now if only they actually supported user accounts on the iOS devices..
Re: (Score:3)
Settings -> iCloud
Handoff is tied to the iCloud account. If you leave your iCloud account logged in on your kid's phones, they have access to your photos, mail, contacts, calendar, notes, Safari history & bookmarks, notes, credit cards (via Wallet), keychain passwords, and every document that any iCloud enabled app has ever stored for you from either your phone or computer. You maybe don't want to do that...
Setup family accounts, and let them login to their own. Everyone shares purchases, and ev
Re: (Score:2)
That's what having separate user accounts is for.
Seriously. Nobody wants that hassle.
There's no way I'd let my kids use anything that I was logged into.
Yeah, my main laptop is protected by password etc and the kids aren't even allowed to use it; ditto my main desktop.
but my old laptop is now the living room laptop, and the kids can watch youtube and play games on it, and search the web etc. And I *prefer* it to just have one login that is shared by all users.
And I don't even think twice about the living room ipad... hell i never even use it. But all my OSX devices are on the same itunes account becuase that way purchases
Re: (Score:2)
the music is available to all users, etc, etc.
The kids strongly dislike the music I listen to, and the feeling is (somewhat) mutual.
Re: (Score:2)
Airdrop has never worked well for me
Me neither. What is up with that feature? It's a total disaster.
Re: (Score:2)
Couple of bad things with Airdrop...
First is that there's two completely different technologies called Airdrop that don't interop. First was old-Mac Airdrop that only worked on Macs. Then iOS Airdrop which was different. Then new Macs started using new-Airdrop, but they required newer Bluetooth hardware than lots of old Macs had, so the old Macs still used old-Mac Airdrop & didn't interop with new Macs or iOS. Clusterfsck in other words...
Handoff uses the newer Bluetooth hardware (so no old Macs), b
It uses the Handoff framework (Score:2)
No dirty jokes please!
The TL;DR of this means that the devices must be on the same iCloud account, cooperate with Handoff, be in close proximity geographically and it'll only leave data available for a short period of time after being copied.
https://www.macstories.net/stories/macos-sierra-the-macstories-review/#universal-clipboard [macstories.net]
Obviously a fan site, but contains useful details on the actual implementation and behaviour. As with any online system there is a security concern, but it doesn't strike m
Re: (Score:2)
The TL;DR of this means that the devices must be on the same iCloud account
The default for most couples or family's with small kids.
be in close proximity geographically
Pretty much a given within a household. The home office, bedrooms, and living room all tend to be within a couple dozen feet.
cooperate with Handoff
Does that limit the potential for issues somehow?
and it'll only leave data available for a short period of time after being copied.
Oh, so its like those disappearing message apps! That'll be fine then. /sarcasm.
I'll grant its not as bad as I feared, but this is still a whole series of accidents waiting to happen.
Re: It uses the Handoff framework (Score:3)
Again, why aren't you using Family Sharing? There's zero reason to be sharing your iCloud account. Especially since it gives everyone access to to things like email.
It also seems you need to read up on Handoff. The range of Handoff is about 10 meters (33 feet). All devices must be in this range for Handoff to work.
Handoff (which was added in iOS 8 and Mac OS X 10.10) also shares which webpage you are viewing and which apps you are using to devices logged in with the same Apple ID and in that range. So you h
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be giving this advice to me personally... why don't *I* disable handoff? why don't *I* setup family sharing?
This isn't going to affect me. I'm already pretty careful about what I have syncing to the cloud, and I jump trhough all the hoops so my pcs don't login with microsoft accounts, and OSX doesn't log in with an apple id etc. I sync my android phone to my own owncloud instance etc. I'm not personally at risk here.
This is going to affect people out there who aren't system admins, who don't rea
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't upgrade to Sierra yet, so I haven't tried it, but I've been wanting this feature forever*.
* as defined by the length of time I've owned a device with iPhoneOS (now iOS).
Re: (Score:3)
Why would the kid's iPad be synced with the father's account? Apple offers children and family accounts so you can set an iPad up with an account for a minor.
Re: (Score:2)
You're logging in wrong...
Apple accounts are per-person. If you're sharing them, all kinds of cross-linked badness will happen. Dad uses the main account & kids have family accounts (with limits & allowances set). All purchases are shared, but pasteboard & assorted iCloud storage is kept separate. There's no good reason to be sharing accounts.
The shared pasteboard is useful, and I love it. Browsing slashdot on my phone, have to type a rant-y reply... Type on Mac, copy/pasta & paste int
Re: (Score:2)
Apple accounts are per-person. If you're sharing them, all kinds of cross-linked badness will happen. Dad uses the main account & kids have family accounts (with limits & allowances set). All purchases are shared, but pasteboard & assorted iCloud storage is kept separate. There's no good reason to be sharing accounts.
Ok, here's another example. My parents (aka the kids grandparents. Dad has an iphone, and ipad, and mac. They all use one account because they're all his.
He and my mom use the ipad in the living room all the time. And the grandkids and guests use the ipad all the time as well when visiting.
There's all kinds of opportunity for unwanted clipboard sharing to result. The kids are over while he's working in the office downstairs for example.
Dad uses the main account & kids have family accounts (with limits & allowances set)
Most families simply don't set up their devices this way. Its more work
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand why you would like to log in onto work computer and home computer with same login? THAT is beginning of security disaster!
I wouldn't use the same login as the imac at home.
(Although you know a ton of people absolutely would.)
But even in MY case, my wifes macbook pro, my macbook pro, and my daughters iphone, and the kids ipad in the living room all use the same itunes/icloud account so that music, and app purchases, etc are shared. This is how a lot of families are setup in my experience; especially husband and wife; or families with young kids. Older teens start to want their own accounts but before that a lot of this stuff is
Re: (Score:2)
i believe contents of the clipboard are transferred using Handoff, point to point transfer locally.
so no internet is involved and it won't work if you're not physically present.
Still going to happen to families. Dad in the home office, kid in the living room immediately above. Mom in the living room, kids in the rec-room immediately below... etc etc.
This just seems dumb in much the same way windows 10 wifi password sharing was dumb.
Re: universal clipboard wtf (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of things seem dumb until you actually learn about it and stop spouting from ignorance. Use the feature. Learn how it works, and then rant about it. I know it's not the slashdot way, but at least you'll seem less dumb.
Re: (Score:2)
Is that how you made your decision about windows 10 misfeatures too?
Sometime you don't need to try something to realize its just bound to lead to unintended disclosures. And there are so many actual ways of intentionally moving data between devices that this simply isn't necessary.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds good to me. Everything connected via synergy shares a clipboard. I've often thought about writing a program to share clipboards between android and X, but never got around to it. Though honestly, the android clipboard mechanism seems somewhat clunky compared to the ancient X11 mechanism with the ICCCM protocol and MIME types (that combination has been used together for a very long time).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And yet it's still much more powerful than my 2010 Mac mini, which is allowed to run macOS Sierra with its old 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just about whether it's powerful enough, but whether Apple wants to support hardware that old, including all the drivers, and testing it thoroughly on those machines. You're talking about a model that's 8 years old.
Isn't it odd that a 8 year old Mac is still perfectly fine, but every one that is still being sold is hopelessly antiquated?
Re: (Score:2)
These aren't iMacs that people check their Facebook and send a few e-mails on, they're Pro machines - designed for a completely different environment and completely different workloads. Given that, why shouldn't they be supported longer too?
Yeah... remember the G5? When I worked at Sony Music they had a pile of them in a storage room. All perfectly capable, but obsolete, nonetheless. But your MacPro isn't going to stop working. It just can't run macOS Sierra.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm thinking that Apple's (and my own) concept is that people who spent the premium on Pro hardware because of their ability to handle bigger workloads, those people probably upgraded at some point in the last 7 or 8 years. I'm sure a few people will chime in from the woodwork to say otherwise, but exceptions don't make the rule.
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno. I have a 3,1 MacPro which works for everything but 4K video. It won't make the cut to 'macOS' but it's running El Capitan. OTOH, the new OS really doesn't offer anything I'm terribly interested in and this machine is going on 7 years old. Yeah, it was expensive, but it has been working for ... 7 years. That's not bad. It will continue to work for a while longer. Adobe Creative Suite still runs. Autodesk stuff still runs.
You paid a premium and got a premium amount of work out of it.
It is rea
Re: (Score:2)
You are an idiot if you purchase hardware today for the OS that might exist in the future. It doesn't matter what it costs. Either that price is acceptable at the time of purchase, or it's not. Whining that 7 years later Apple releases an OS without support is just whining.
Re: (Score:2)
That only supports what I said: It's not about whether the machine is powerful enough. It's whether Apple wants to consider investing in supporting old machines.
But you you're telling me you can install it anyway, but it'll just be unsupported? What are you complaining about then?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not positive, but I think if you replace your Bluetooth / WiFi card, you may be able to get this working on older Macs. That was the case with Airdrop when it originally came out. Need something with the appropriate cocktail of BT versions & extensions. Haven't looked at forcefeeding Sierra onto my MacPro1,1 yet, but will likely grab a newer BT card when the time comes. Ditto my MacBookPro5,5.
Anybody know which cards will fit & have the necessary feeps?
Re:Pity my MacPro can't run it (Score:4, Interesting)
You obviously have no idea how much these machines costed when they were released - especially fully loaded. Why should I not expect it to be supported longer, given the premium they demand on the Mac Pro machines?
Forced obsolescence of a perfectly capable, useful (and expensive) machine makes the Hackintosh camp a lot more appealing (mainly because of the apps I already have that are Mac only). Not to mention, the current Mac Pro's are very limited in how they can be customised after purchase.
The (1,1) and (2,1) Mac Pros were retired because they had 32-bit EFI and the new OS's needed 64-bit EFI....a technical limitation. Most of the Macs I've had that have lost support have been because of a technical limitation (be it RAM limits, 32-bit only processors, Power CPU's). This instance is just plain greed.
Microsoft obviously don't think the hardware is obsolete as Windows 10 runs flawlessly on mine in bootcamp for the Windows only stuff I do.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you should buy Microsoft, then.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure about the 64-bit EFI part? From what I've read that was the delineating factor: Apple have removed the 32-bit EFI support (because it truely is a bitch to have to maintain both).
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's Apple's fault that you have decided, years after the fact, that your purchase was, retroactively, a waste. It may be Apple's fault that support was dropped (really, who else could be at fault?), but that doesn't change the value of the computer at the time of purchase.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you name a single model released in the past 12 months that not supported by Sierra?
Didn't think so.
windows 10 runs on older X86-64 bit systems (Score:2)
windows 10 runs on older X86-64 bit systems and they have if just basic drivers for older video cards and it's not like it's hard to buy a new video card for your dual cpu 64 bit system with 4-8GB + ram. Hell you can run the latest Linux distros just fine on 3-6 year old 64 bit high end systems.
Re: (Score:2)
Try running windows 10 on a 2010 vintage computer, ok? Let us know how that goes.
Re: (Score:2)
The DDR2 memory running at 800MHz would be an indication that it's quite obsolete. Regardless, you CAN install macOS Sierra on a MacPro 3,1. It requires you to copy some files from El Capitan into your installer but it's not impossible.
Re: (Score:2)
Create a bootable external drive [macworld.com] of Sierra. It's slower than putting Sierra onto your main drive, and some things might work differently than if it were on your main drive. But it's a way to test out Sierra without committing to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure about virtual box but it definitely works in Parallels.
Personally my preferred method for testing mac OS updates and betas is to install it on an external drive (USB 3.0 if you want somewhat decent performance) and boot from that drive for my testing.
Re: (Score:2)
Virtualbox officially only supports macOS guests on Apple hardware.
Copypasta from Virtualbox's manual:
3.1.1. Mac OS X guests
Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X guests. This allows you to install and execute unmodified versions of Mac OS X on supported host hardware.
Whereas competing solutions perform modifications to the Mac OS X install DVDs (e.g. different boot loader and replaced files), VirtualBox is the first product to provide the modern PC architecture expected by OS X without requiring any "hacks".
You should be aware of a number of important issues before attempting to install a Mac OS X guest:
Mac OS X is commercial, licensed software and contains both license and technical restrictions that limit its use to certain hardware and usage scenarios. It is important that you understand and obey these restrictions.
In particular, for most versions of Mac OS X, Apple prohibits installing them on non-Apple hardware.
These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical level. Mac OS X verifies whether it is running on Apple hardware, and most DVDs that that come with Apple hardware even check for an exact model. These restrictions are not circumvented by VirtualBox and continue to apply.
Only CPUs known and tested by Apple are supported. As a result, if your Intel CPU is newer than the build of Mac OS X, or if you have a non-Intel CPU, it will most likely panic during bootup with an "Unsupported CPU" exception. It is generally best to use the Mac OS X DVD that came with your Apple hardware.
The Mac OS X installer expects the harddisk to be partitioned so when it does not offer a selection, you have to launch the Disk Utility from the "Tools" menu and partition the hard disk. Then close the Disk Utility and proceed with the installation.
In addition, as Mac OS X support in VirtualBox is currently still experimental, please refer also to Chapter 14, Known limitations.
Re: (Score:2)
I've never tried it in VirtualBox, but it runs in VMware and Parallels. Mind you, it doesn't run well in either. I don't think either one feeds it the GPU acceleration or memory that it needs. But for basic functionality testing and experimentation, it's adequate. Just don't expect to get much real work done on it.
Re: (Score:2)
That's correct - there are no GPU drivers for OS X in VirtualBox or VMware. OS X has always fallen back to software rendering of everything when it does not have a GPU driver that supports the features it wants (which was really bad on PPC trying to use Expose and the like on some of the really early G3/G4 machines)
Re: (Score:2)
And this differs from every other major new OS release, how, exactly?
Apple has a very limited hardware and software set, so there's no excuse for their QA to fail to catch bugs like that. It's that simple.
While macOS doesn't approach the breadth of possible hardware that W or L is typically installed-on, If you look at all the available models and their BTO options across all the supported years, it's still WAY too many to test. So, although your argument had a LITTLE validity back in the 1980s and early '90s, it has long since devolved into an unsupportable (no pun) meme.
Oh, and there are a metric buttload of both W and L systems that have issues every single time those OSes are updated; but you tend not