macOS Sierra brings Siri to the Mac, allowing users to conduct voice searches to find files, look up information, and more, with the ability to pin searches to the Notification Center for continual monitoring. There are new Continuity features including an “Auto Unlock” option for unlocking a Mac with an Apple Watch, and a “Universal Clipboard” option for copying text on one Apple device and pasting it on another.
MacOS being in maintenance mode, this isn’t the most significant update the operating system’s ever seen. But hey, it’s free, so go get it.
Is it still ugly as F*** or have they fixed that?
As Flavour stated:”
Flavours 2 runs on OS X Yosemite (10.10) only. OS X El Capitan (10.11) will NOT be supported.”
OSX looked great in tiger and i use the tiger theme to restore that to osx in later versions.. as this is no longer possible. I assume all suckers that buy a mac will have to live with the wirst looking non-tiling ui ever. (Not really, original rebecca black os was indeed worse, but not with a large margin.)
You know what? Nobody cares your preferences. Stop whining please.
“Apple introduced a new security policy on OS X El Capitan, preventing every process (even privileged ones) from modifying system files, either on filesystem or dynamically at runtime. Unfortunately, with these security restrictions in place, this is the end of line for Flavours.”
Unless you, you know, go turn this off. If you want it off, it’s easy enough to find out how. Short version: boot from recovery, launch terminal, run this:
csrutil disable
then reboot. Oh, that was so very difficult and the end of the world. And yes this really does work. I had to do it to get the outdated VPN client I had to use operating properly. Fortunately my need for that client is now gone, however I still have a driver for an old scanner which requires this to be off as the driver hasn’t been updated in half a decade. Hmm, need to replace that scanner anyway.
Edited 2016-09-21 14:22 UTC
I don’t get this maintenance mode thing. Sure macOS gets fewer new features than iOS, but that’s largely because it needs fewer new features than iOS to be useful. Windows is in the same shape, except Everytime MS tries to change anything everyone complains…
Yes, personally, I am happy about the incremental improvements. WIMP works well for the desktop and macOS gives WIMP + UNIX. I don’t think anyone on macOS is hoping for Apple to break macOS like Microsoft did with Metro.
Also, there are too many meaningful changes to say that macOS is in maintenance mode. E.g. 10.10 added a Hypervisor to macOS (Hypervisor.framework), which was refined in 10.11. This means that anyone can run VMs as an unprivileged user in an application sandbox (see e.g. Veertu). 10.13 will (probably) switch to Apple’s new filesystem. Continuity. Etc. Maintenance mode means only security and bugfixes.
Then this whole ‘Macs will switch to iOS’. macOS and iOS are already virtually the same. Same default programming language, same kernel/base system, virtually the same frameworks, only a different ‘window manager’. Ok, maybe they will eventually bring Cocoa Touch and Cocoa closer again.
Edited 2016-09-21 06:30 UTC
But not the same wallen garden.
Well… not yet.
I see Thom the troll is back in action. Stating his opinion as fact.
Oh Thom, it’s funny when you latch onto a theory with no evidence and then keep trying to push it every article.
This time it’s “OS X is in maintenance mode” which is about as true as Windows and Linux being in maintenance mode. No there aren’t any revolutionary features being added to OSX. But neither are there to any desktop operating system. It’s a mature product, what do you expect?
Macs are no longer being updated, OS X has been getting nothing but iOS castoffs since the release of the iPhone, and virtually every big name in iOS/OS X development is deeply worried about the future of the Mac. And that new filesystem everybody keeps bringing up? Designed entirely for watchOS and iOS – it’s a freebie that it will also be used on OS X. Add to that the insider information you get from people working at Apple, who confirm that 95% of Apple’s attention, funds, and focus is on iOS and the iPhone, and the picture is crystal clear – whether people are willing to accept it or not.
OS X is dead. Apple is going to move the Mac line to its own Ax processors, and the operating system they’ll run is iOS++. Every piece of evidence points this way, and a few years from now, you’ll look back upon your comments today and wonder “how could I have been so blind?”.
Edited 2016-09-21 09:46 UTC
The important question is, from the perspective of a power user, who wants to use Windows for desktop class applications, has Windows actually improved significantly?
Personally, I’m happier with the incremental changes for the Mac. I am happy with the way things work, and I do not want changes for the sake of changes.
More important is system stability, improvements to the SDK and APIs, security etc. These have all improved significantly over the last few years.
Cloud services have also improved, and iCloud right now works solidly for me. I prefer native apps for each platform with cloud syncing and am happy with Apple’s implementation.
When I open Visual Studio and start a new project, the code I’m writing is almost identical to the code I could have written in 2007 – close enough to 10 years ago. Someone (Lucus Maximus?) will probably pop up and start shouting about how it’s not – but really it is. If you ignore the Syntactic sugar added over the last 10 years, the C# language is pretty much identical. If I open a project created in 2007 in Visual Studio 2003, it’ll open, upgrade the runtime and more than likely compile and run with no changes. I see innovation, obviously. No really I do. 😛
And Thom – sure, Metro. That was “awesome”. And Windows 8.0, yeah, “awesome”. The stuff that matters, the stuff that makes things better for the end user – not much has really changed in Windows. In fact, things have started to go back towards Windows 7 in Windows 10, what with the return to the Start Menu.
The performance – no improvement on low end hardware. Same machine running a vanilla Windows 7 install vs a vanilla Windows 10, Win 7 is noticeably faster, like ridiculously faster. This is using the drivers that Windows auto installs, and nothing vendor specific or third party.
OS X, on the other hand, go look at a Tiger or Leopard install. Have you tried them recently? Because I installed Leopard a while back (on the same hardware as the above test) and it was on a par with Windows 7 in performance, but it felt very featureless compared to El Capitan.
I think the issue is along these lines : if you are looking for bling, Windows has that. But macOS had a lot of that bling early on, and has got a lot more conservative with rewriting subsystems. Windows after XP was floundering, so of course they tried very hard to fix as much as they could. What choice did they have?
DISCLAIMER: I use Windows WAY more than macOS these days. I use Windows (7 and 8.1) daily, I use macOS probably a few times a week, and usually that is looking over my other half shoulder while we talk through coding stuff she brought home from work. My Mac Mini is in storage at the moment, as I didn’t really ever use it.
Edited 2016-09-21 15:06 UTC
Yeah because an iphone needs to keep track of 9 quintillion files… And needs support for resource forks… And needs space sharing across volumes… And needs to work with software RAID, and needs fast directory sizing (on an OS with no file manager to notice it)…
Come on… Seriously? There is no doubt it was designed with iOS/WatchOS in mind, but being designed to scale across all their hardware is quite different from being “a freebie” that is just incidentally implemented in OSX. There are way too many features in it that target OSX usage specifically.
I personally think you are right in one respect – iOS is coming to the desktop. I just don’t think it will (or should) be at the exclusion of OSX, at least not for a very long while… A sandboxed iOS subsystem on top of OSX is entirely doable and probably not even all that complex once you put an ARM chip underneath everything. Why would you alienate so many users when there is no technical reason to do so?
OSX already supports fat binaries. Apple has probably been building and testing internal builds on ARM CPUs for years at this point, because why the hell wouldn’t they? At some point ARM will be good enough for certain classes of desktop hardware, at which point there is literally no reason not to test the waters and release such hardware (and lots of good business reasons to do so). Sure, it probably won’t support Bootcamp, but neither would an “iOS Macbook” – so that obstacle is moot. What other obstacle is there? Nothing really…
But you think it is smarter for them to nix OSX entirely and try to turn iOS into a desktop OS… Why on earth would they do that when they can just run iOS apps on top of OSX and get all the same benefits without alienating half their user base?
Sorry, I think your off your rocker. iOS might one day grow to fill the shoes of OSX, but that day is very, very, very far down the road.
LOL. Shall we revisit this every year to establish how wrong you were?
The laptops might actually move to ARM eventually if Apple can outdo intel on power/performance ratios.
iOS and OSX will continue to gain features from each other, that is a good thing.
Edited 2016-09-21 19:20 UTC
So on one hand, MS ported the core of Windows to other platforms like gaming platforms int eh last 10 years, and that’s progress. On the other, Apple ported the core of OSX to iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV, and that’s maintenance mode.
I’d call it a convenient double standard, but I’m not even sure it rises to that level.
Additionally, Windows needed those components rewritten, because Windows was a mix of hobbled together crapware riddled with security holes for ages. macOS (and it’s derivatives on iOS, and elsewhere) don’t need to be rewritten, though honestly, they’ve done plenty of rewriting anyway, and added plenty of new features that Windows is still catching up on.
Also, where is this so called evidence of forthcoming ARM Macs running iOS. All the rumors (which have actual evidence like photos of machined parts, rather than the speculative reasoning you’ve confused with evidence) I see are still laptops and desktops centered on Intel (even though I’d love to see more innovative stuff, like maybe ARM/AMD hybrids, that’d be sweet, though I doubt it’ll ever happen).
You started of well enough, but then you derailed. You are right it was a double standard by Thom, but these thing are significantly more rewritten between macOS and iOS than between the Windows versions. Windows has since they started using the NT series in the beginning of the 2000s not had fundamental problems with security on an OS level, all that shit has been on application levels.
The main places where Microsoft is doing more, is trying to unify the platforms instead of keeping them separate, and trying to solve hard problems like unifying touch and mouse, they might not be succeding, but unlike Apple they are atleast trying at the moment.
Edited 2016-09-21 23:48 UTC
Microsoft is trying and failing to unify touch & mouse. Right, and Apple has realized that that is a bad approach and so they are not attempting to do that.
How is avoiding a bad idea being lazy? Apple has significantly improved the trackpad interface over the last decade, and they have done that successfully. I am glad that they focused on this instead of trying to fit a touch screen UI on a laptop.
Sorry, but MS keeps rewriting all subsystems because they’re broken. Apple’s are much less so, and due to their competition being shit, they have no incentive to.
Good one Thom. It’s OK, to get it out of “maintenance mode” just delete the .maintenance file of the WordPress root.
Well, some will get macOS Sierra update. Not me. It won’t run on my MacBook Pro 13″ (late 2009), nicely upgraded with 8 GB RAM and SSD. And since it’s not my primary computer – I don’t care. There aren’t particular techonological reasons for Apple to limit Sierra to newer hardware. They do this purely for the greed.
It’s a free, optional upgrade. That doesn’t strike me as being primarily driven by greed. Maybe it’s a streamlining thing, reducing development costs by limiting the target hardware. I’m not a fan of that sort of thing, but it’s not exactly like they’re forcing the upgrade for existing users.
Those that want to upgrade with such systems need to buy a new Mac….
http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html
Not that you care to run it on your 2009 MBP, but others might.
Thom, what would have to be in the new macOS for you to think it wasn’t maintenance mode?
What would you need to see?
Note: Not like to see, but need to see?
1) A new filesystem is very much overdo (and actually in Sierra as a developer preview). So this is both proof that the current OS is in maintenance mode but that it might come out of maintenance next year
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManage…
2) The ability to have macOS and iOS work together (Continuity) expanded to more than just a couple of Apple provided apps.
3) A separately sold version that can run on non-Apple hardware so their server-offering (and now workstation offering) is no longer a joke
4) A browser that doesn’t have completely stalled development for standards (https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html)
Nice2haves would be
* The ability to run a lot more programs (one of the basic tasks of an OS). With OSX came the ability to run “Unix” programs which was great. But you cannot run Android/UWP or even iOS programs on MacOS
* The ability to support a lot more hardware (one of the basic tasks of an OS, but against the best interests of Apple)
1) So, an old filesystem in macOS is proof that it is in maintenance mode, even though there’s a new filesystem, and their obviously-not-in-maintenance-mode iOS still uses the same filesystem?
2) And, a relatively new feature that is tied to an OS that isn’t in maintenance mode (iOS) is evidence, too? I mean, if macOS was in maintenance mode, it’s weird that they’re adding features to iOS that require macOS (I feel dirty typing macOS. It’ll pass with time). Third party support for these things has always been slow to come with Apple, though. It’s nothing new.
3) And, not doing a thing that they haven’t done for twenty years, since they were using their really old OS, is proof that macOS is in maintenance mode? I guess MacOS has been in maintenance mode since MacOS 8
4) Safari being behind in standards if proof? Good thing we have these other browser choices. It isn’t like Safari is a core component of the OS like IE was with Windows. Even when IE was lagging behind, as a core component, nobody used it as an argument that Windows was in maintenance mode, though…
Those are all really weak arguments, I think.
Edited 2016-09-21 14:40 UTC
1) and 4) apply to iOS, which must also be in maintenance mode.
2) Any app can do this without any API support from Apple (though that would be nice, especially if it’s open), including apps running on any other platform like Android.
3) This one is just a joke, moving on
Nice2haves
* applies to iOS (and every single other OS ever, they can only run what they are designed to run).
* same as 3)
Of course, you an achieve 3) and the second *, but that’s another story.
iOS-based devices have different uses and limitations compared to macOS based devices. So the filesystem and browser might be good enough for iOS, but not for macOS.
iOS-based devices don’t even expose the filesystem and don’t even support multiple disks, then again nobody is using macOS for any serious server setups anymore because the software isn’t good enough and there is no server hardware.
There is hardly anything interesting happening with the OS-side of macOS, everything interesting is happening on the user-facing side.
watchOS is clearly not in maintenance mode. They need to support new hardware with new functions, different workflows and different application handling.
macOS is clearly in maintenance mode at the moment. They don’t have to support any new hardware except for a tiny processor-upgrade in the latest macBook.
Being in maintenance mode is normally considered a good thing. I still consider Snow Leopard one of the best releases ever and that was an official maintenance release
But let’s not pretend that macOS is significantly changing or getting more future-ready in this release
Look at the Finder, one of the main components of macOs. Did not change for ages, so it remains outdated: no shortcut to temporarily show hidden files, no directory first sorting, no forced refresh (absolutely needed for remote shares), no side by side column mode, no easy way to permanently erase content from a USB stick.
I never understood that Apple did not adddress these easy to fix issues
Edited 2016-09-21 07:51 UTC
That all sounds like a particular preference for a particular file manager. Yes, it would be nice to have them, but perhaps they’ve decided that there are already too many different viewing modes in Finder and that adding more just adds to that confusion. Of all the things you’ve listed, the forced refresh for filesystems that don’t support notification is the only one I would consider an “issue” – the rest are just your wishlist.
As for permanently erasing content from a USB stick – does deleting and then emptying the trashcan no longer work? Last time I tried it, USB drives followed the very same paradigm as all other drives have on Macs for decades.
There are alternatives to finder that have been available for years. If you don’t like it then why have you not investigated the alternatives?
This one is always thrown up. macOS uses the NextStep style column viewm which if you’ve ever become used to is WAY superior tot he hierarchical fixed pane view that windows etc uses. It just “reads” differently and you need to slightly retrain your brain if you’re not used to it.
root -> folder -> subfolder -> file
At each of those levels ypu get a list of the complete folder contents, it just scrolls across, rather than using a treeview.
Not that many care, but OS X’s column view is far superior from a keyboard navigation perspective as well.
“Maintenance mode” and “iteration” are anathemas to internet website pundits. Too stay in business, they must have something new to talk about every day. There must be a TOTALLY re-designed phone introduced every day. There must be a TOTALLY re-vamped OS version released every few months. If these things do not happen, they gripe, complain, and moan on their sites about how Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, et al, have lost their mojo, have become complacent, no longer innovate, cannot innovate, are no longer relevant, are boring, are living off of past success, etc.
This of course, is ridiculous, but it’s what they do. Sites like OS News, when you get right down to it, only exist to re-post links to articles from other sites with the occasional opinion piece written by Thom. I can read the exact same articles by going to The Verge, C-NET, iMore, Android Authority, etc, or just come here to OS News to see links to those articles in one location. I do enjoy reading some of Thom’s opinion pieces, but I find them lately to just bemoan the lack of “innovation” when there isn’t something totally new and earth-shattering to report.
Uh, I’m not the one complaining?
In fact, Apple is going through one of the most exciting transitions in its history – I’m excited as fuck about this! I may not personally agree with going all-in with iOS++, but I’m excited it’s happening and crazy curious to see where it’s going. Same thing for Microsoft’s unification attempts, and Google trying to bring Android to laptops and desktops.
The only people complaining here are those incapable of seeing the forest through the trees – not entirely unlike people failing to see the success of the iPhone, iPad, or the people stating right up until the night before that Apple’s switch to Intel would never happen.
It’s an exciting time, and you can be damn sure I’ll revel in watching the disgruntled commenters re:OS X eat crow over the coming years.
You will also see a lots of complains coming from those that cannot see beyond classical UNIX, and might be left behind in the new world of iOS++, Android and UWP, in what concerns the desktop, without their beloved PDP-11 desktop experience.
My complaint has nothing to do with your opinion/theory that we will get iOS++, but the way you type them as fact. Such statements needs extraordinary evidence, and at best all you have right now is speculation.
This is no different than if you had written 2 years before Windows Vista that they were going to rewrite it all in .NET. Because that’s how the rumors were at that time, with even public statements from Microsoft saying that yeah, sure, we are TOTALLY rewriting Windows in longhorn.
It’s entirely possible that Apple will “courageously” drop a real productivity centered OS for iOS in the coming years, alienating many users, as they have dropped the headphone jack alienating many users. I would not bet on it though – and this is clearly speculation, and it absolutely not backed by evidence. There is no evidence, just reasoned speculation (not badly reasoned speculation, but speculation just the same).
Definitely not until they have XCode on iOS. Otherwise that would be stupid indeed, and probably the last mistake they would ever make.
The problem is not the XCode, but the OS ideology.
In iOS, programs are isolated in their own space with their data, with nearly zero data exchange.
You can’t save unsupported data format from browser, because there are no app that can store this data.
There are “file systems”, but they all suck and not universally supported. With iOS-style “file system” you have 3 copies of data. Even with APFS that can track copies of files, it is stupid.
So even with JIT enabled (goodbye security) and app reloading it is useless for any serious native coding work.
“MacOS being in maintenance mode, this isn’t the most significant update the operating system’s ever seen.”
If you didn’t write the above statement, I apologize. Otherwise, the words “maintenance mode” and “isn’t the most significant update…” are certainly personal opinions and I consider them to be complaints that this macOS update is not exciting enough for you.
I’d rather have the auto-unlock be able to use your nearby iPhone. In theory it’d be a bit like Chrome OS’s smart unlock feature except I never did get that one to work with my Android phone when I had one. Anyway, sorry Apple, even that won’t get me to spend $350 for a useless gadget.
I started in the publishing industry using a MacPlus Color with system 5 many years ago and have been a Mac user ever since… (until recently..) The last few OS upgrades have been pretty blah and haven’t added anything thats made me more productive. Over the years all my gaming has moved to windows and all my web coding has moved to linux. My email is basically webmail as I don’t use a client.. So this whole (self inflicted silicon valley) hysteria about releasing new features and a new OS of some sort every year (by Apple or anyone else) has left features felling pretty thin.. Especially on platforms like iOS and Windows where the bugs get more news attention than the OS.
I wouldn’t call it so much maintenance mode, but an industry wide struggle to innovate and create something new. A new windows or MacOS used to come out every few years with a bunch of cool new stuff and the masses rejoiced.. now there is so much pressure from investors, mobile OS’s, Linux Releases and competition from the the global market in general that all these companies and their self imposed this yearly deadlines of releasing a new (insert product name here) has created a culture of over delivering products for monetary gain and under delivering in usefulness.
People frankly can’t afford the yearly hardware upgrade anymore just to have one or two new useless features and I think THAT fatigue is what people are really starting to feel. That pixie dust Steve Jobs magic is gone and people are stepping back and realizing that Apple is the new Microsoft and just making billions and billion off of sub-par software and underpowered hardware.
Anyways.. I installed Sierra last night and promptly disabled iCloud and Seri.. as well as deleted iTunes and fixed the scrolling in reverse stupidity that Apple still thinks in great… then went in and added Save As.. back into the shortcuts and removed the duplicate command.. I booting into my Windows bootcamp partition and used admin tools to delete the Photos App from the mac partition so that god awful thing will never annoy me again when I plug my phone in to charge… then booted back into Sierra and turned off continuity so my phone doesn’t bug me when I’m working…
As you can see… I don’t really care about most of the NEW features released in the last few years (cool as they may be to some…) But thats how I feel about Windows and Linux too.. At the end of the day, I want the OS to get out of my way so I can work and get things done, not give me 20 more ways to throw my ADHD into overdrive with useless features…
To qoute
At the end of the day, I want the OS to get out of my way so I can work and get things done
This is the essence of an OS.
Personally, and after 44 years of coding, OSX/MacOs is one of the least intrusive systems out there today.
Windows has gove IMHO, totally do-lally and wants to interfere with everything you do. The ‘Nanny knows best’ syndrome.
Sure MacOs has some shortcomings and what OS does not but for me it does what I wand of an OS and most of the time it gets our of the way and lets me do ‘stuff’.
I am very happy to have made the switch from windows in 2008. I have to use windows for work and even the Server OS’s seem to have gone to pot. Why would voice services be needed on a server? The same for other bits that are end user stuff.
MS has lost it big time.
Many Mac users are students, and if they use EndNote for references, they may want to wait, as the new macOS has a bug/incompatibility that breaks EndNote’s PDF viewer.
Yup, and GPGTools is also not updated yet to Sierra, so if you depend on it for GPG, can’t upgrade yet.
GPGTools usually take their sweet time for update. Last year, I stopped checking in November-December, whether they have an update for El Capitan and learned to be without.
Also, TWAIN SANE is not yet ready for Sierra; I expect it to be ready around October-November, as usually.
Otherwise, I was surprised (in a nice way) that very few things broke. Even Cisco Anywhere survived! I was impressed.
They only came out with their El Capitan compatible version a few months ago. So I’d not hold my breath. Like you, I got bloody sick of waiting and learned to be without.
The general answer would be more like cloud services taking over.
Like it or not offering plans to consumers and controlling how you use their products is more profitable for companies than selling out licenses.
It has been for some time now. Recently they started addressing developer needs. Even gaming in the cloud is on the horizon.
It’s not perfect by any means but “Rome was not build in a day”.