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MacOS Sierra

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56 pointsclumsysmurf58 comments

I'm excited to see a working speech interface. I use the one on my phone quite a bit to send quick messages to my wife while I'm driving. The shortest command so far is [press siri button on dashboard] + "tell my wife to come down in 2 minutes". I wish I could tell Siri I trust it and not to confirm the message. [Are you ready to send this message?] "Yes" [Ok, I'll send it]. Every. time.

On the flip side, we're past the line of scrimmage where I like my OS knowing about my files and talking to a mothership about them. I know it was probably three operating systems ago that my checksums started leaking to interested parties, "hey he has a copy of Frozen, did you know that?"

In about 4 months I'll give it a try. I want to hear how the hardware reacts. I installed 10.10 the day it came out, and got bit by that flakey wifi bug for what was it, nine months before Apple fixed it? I automatically bluetooth paired with the phone when the wifi froze, did about 19 gig over LTE (which kept up!) A beautiful failure scenario.

I think I might not value my privacy enough, is my lingering thought, in reflection of this being available.

How about "Ask my wife to come down in 2 minutes"? :-)

This is the first version of Mac OS X that I'm 0% excited about.

Literally none of the new features[1] are useful to me, considering:

  I don't have or want an iPhone
  I don't have or want an iPad
  I don't have or want an iWatch
  I don't have or want an iCloud account
  I don't have or want an Apple Pay account
  I don't have or want an iTunes Music account
  I don't use or need Photos.app
  I don't use or need Messages.app
  I don't like speaking to my computer
  I don't watch TV while doing something else on the computer
  I don't use the computer enough for tabs to be useful

Am I really the only one who hits all these bullet points? Am I part of a dying demographic, who doesn't use/need/want any of this fancy Star Trek futuristic life, who's okay with using a credit card and organizing photos via folders, and manually typing stuff into google, and taking notes on a physical note pad with a physical pen?

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-sierra/id1127487414?mt... (click "...More")

yes

Well, if you use your computer as a sort of "dumb device" or single (or few) purpose instrument (typewriter, internet terminal, etc), then there's only so much innovation they are likely to make in those areas over a period of time. It's natural for them to also look at integrating with other devices and providing new functionality. Obviously not everything will interest you, and it's possible some releases will just happen to have few changes that hit the particular areas that you care about.

"Integrating with other devices" is not their goal. Selling desktops, laptops, monitors, phones, tablets, watches, keyboards, mice, trackpads, ear buds, and to a lesser extent subscription accounts, that's their goal.

If they truly wanted to provide useful integration, they would make Android and Windows Phone devices first class citizens just as much as the iPhone. They're first and foremost a hardware company. Even their Mac's OS is free! Because they get money from the Mac, not the OS.

There's plenty of useful innovations they could still make that doesn't require them to focus on up-selling me new hardware, if innovating was still their goal. They're using a Star Trek future as their marketing ploy, and it's working scarily well.

I guess the one upside you could say is that they're probably not selling your data and/or profile to advertisers. So at least they have that going for them.

> "Integrating with other devices" is not their goal. Selling desktops, laptops, monitors, phones, tablets, watches, keyboards, mice, trackpads, ear buds, and to a lesser extent subscription accounts, that's their goal.

Obviously, but offering better integration (even if only with their own ecosystem) is how they are trying to sell more right now.

> There's plenty of useful innovations they could still make that doesn't require them to focus on up-selling me new hardware

I didn't say there weren't, just that it's not likely to advance beyond a certain level in a certain time period. This is about feedback and learning what ideas survive in the market. To their credit, Apple is fairly good at coming up with radical leaps (or, at least implementing those leaps on a mass scale)[1], but they are fairly bad IMO at listening to whether they are working out well in practice (Google has the opposite problem, they so aggressively remove failed ideas that the few people that liked them feel betrayed, and express it loudly). Throwing a few hundred million dollars right now at word processing, or the browser, or any particular thing and then ignoring it is probably not as efficient as a few tens of millions spread out over years, just because there's only so much you can do to advance a field in a short period.

> I guess the one upside you could say is that they're probably not selling your data and/or profile to advertisers. So at least they have that going for them.

Apple ran (runs?) their own advertising service for mobile apps, iAd. I'm not sure the status currently.

That said, Google isn't selling your profile or data to advertisers. That makes zero sense for them to do, and they probably have quite a lot of safeguards to make sure absolutely the bare minimum of information about an individual an ad is served to makes it back to the advertiser (preferably nothing). This isn't because they are stalwart defenders of privacy, but because it's in their best interest to not give away the data that they make their money from. I trust them to act in their self interest.

> Apple ran (runs?) their own advertising service for mobile apps, iAd. I'm not sure the status currently.

They shut it down quite a few months ago.

Before that iAd was pretty restricted because of Apples privacy stance: https://9to5mac.com/2015/07/14/iad-user-data-privacy-policy/

"Former iAd exec leaves Apple, suggests company platform is held back by user data privacy policy"

> They shut it down quite a few months ago.

Yeah, I looked it up before I posted because my information was fairly old, but I found some conflicting info when I did. Some sites state it was just the developer integration that allowed developers to advertise their own apps (as an update to the story). I'm not sure if Apple still runs an advertising framework or not, and wasn't willing to dive much deeper when the first few sources seemed ambiguous and nothing official seemed to clarify.

How would integration with Windows Phone be "useful integration" compared to other efforts when Windows Phone has 1% market share?

I apologize to you for Apple for not catering to your specific needs and wants when rolling out their newest version of OSX. I'm so sorry that you consider none of these new features exciting nor useful. Personally, I agree with you to an extent - I prefer taking notes on individual parchment paper with a Ticonderoga #2 HB pencil that I sharpen with my $400 hand crafted knife. Heck, I don't even use digital photos or credit cards. I am 100% satisfied with the polaroid camera that my father left me before he passed, and I always prefer to barter with the root vegetables that I grow in my back yard (100% organic of course) as a means of payment.

Ticonderogas make for fine pencils though.

Yeah, I'm only half sarcastic. Polaroid cameras are also fun to play with.

Apparently good naval vessels as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ticonderoga

I'm far from a hipster. The pens I use are apparently called "uni-ball", which I got from Walmart, which is also where I got my $3 little pocket notepad.

But I'm also not willing to spend large amounts of money to buy cool new gadgets that don't actually improve my quality of life at all, despite whatever Apple's keynotes will say.

This is free.

Did the GP post thinking this is a paid upgrade?

Maybe it wouldn't be such a dud if there was the possibility of using any of this outside the walled garden of filling your house only with Apple products.

Once upon a time apple.com advertised their OS by showing off what you could create with it and how it was based on open technology. Now it's just about how the computer and its flock of gadgets can entertain and do your thinking for you, if only you give in to the mothership.

So in other words: now it's just about making life easier for you.

Sounds good to me!

I agree. Apple needs to take a page from Android, and start breaking up these apps and distributing them outside of the OS so they can deliver new features faster.

Why do we have to update the entire OS just to get a new version of the photos and messages app?

> Why do we have to update the entire OS just to get a new version of the photos and messages app?

The new apps drive adoption of the rest of the OS. This reduces the support cost of the old OS and spreads security updates.

I agree. I use my iMac to run my music studio and none of these features appeal to me in the least. I suppose users who own an iphone or iwatch may be excited about this update, but I don't own either of those devices. Most of these features seem cosmetic or serve to lock current users into the apple ecosystem.Personally, I'm not updating.

> I don't use the computer enough for tabs to be useful

Fine, but why are you posting on a forum principally made of developers?

> Am I part of a dying demographic, who doesn't use/need/want any of this fancy Star Trek futuristic life

Yes, it's called "older people". Just kidding… :-)

TBH, I've never understood this kind of post. Nobody cares if you (or I for that matter) are "excited" about an OS upgrade. It's an OS upgrade!!!

And actually, I think you're expressing something very mainstream, not a "dying demographic" at all. Tech fatigue is a thing.

How hard is it to understand, "It used to be interesting but lately it's boring, what's up with them?" feeling? Besides what good is an OS upgrade, if it isn't exciting while it has a risk of breaking things and possibly changing your workflow?

And the need to get people "excited" is what leads to the kitchen-sink bloat of operating systems.

It used to be that every time you get an OS X upgrade, you can expect the OS to be faster, more stable, crash less, and have more actually useful features, both for developers and casual users. Those days ended with Snow Leopard. Of course Apple isn't charging for MacOS née Mac OS X née macOS anymore, because it's not worth the money anymore, and they know it. Now it's just an auxiliary product to their mobile devices. It's a supplement.

> expect the OS to be faster, more stable, crash less, and have more actually useful features, both for developers and casual users

Haha... that is such a wishful thinking these days... Jobs nearly made me feel that's actually possible, but lately, it became a dream again.

iOS is where all the cash is but for people who both use iOS and macOS, both are equally important but Apple is no longer good at keeping mind shares.

Perhaps what Apple did in the last 5 years could've been done in a few years with Jobs with "a few more things" .

What did you like in previous version of Mac OSX ?

Bigger core updates are in the pipeline. A much improved HFS+ replacement is in the works at Apple. Now only if they'd update the OpenGL drivers and support vulkan...

Yeah, but they claim to have been working on APFS for years. It reminds me of Windows Longhorn (vista). They had been promising WinFS for years and, in the end, they canceled it and doubled down on NTFS.

> Am I really the only one who hits all these bullet points? Am I part of a dying demographic, who doesn't use/need/want any of this fancy Star Trek futuristic life, who's okay with using a credit card and organizing photos via folders, and manually typing stuff into google, and taking notes on a physical note pad with a physical pen?

Nope, I'm still using OSX Mavericks and will keep on using it as long as it is useful for me. I may eventually upgrade if I start developing for iOS, and only because you can only install the latest XCode versions in the latest OSX versions.

Careful if you're a user of Karabiner, it doesn't work in Sierra - there's a rewrite underway to correct.

yeah - this (and Seil) is why I am holding off for now

Was sad to see that karabiner no longer works. I discovered that bettertouchtool can substitute for my purposes (adding media keys to a dasKeyboard)

+1 to Bettertouchtool. I've been using it for the last year, and it is awesome. It meets all my needs of customizing a bunch of shortcuts to different apps.

AFAIK bettertouchtool is not open source, so you have to place your trust onto one individual instead of the community. Not sure I want to do that as it has access to everything I type.

It being closed source doesn't mean that they are any less trustworthy or competent. Trust me, I am totally on board with what you're saying. In this case though, I'd say there would be no need for concern. The developer behind BTT and BST has established trust with their users, great communication and good support.

Also, as for BetterTouchTool being able to replace Karabiner, I have to disagree. I have used both for as long as I can remember and consider them "must haves." But for me at least, they have always been separate in their use and function.

I made the unfortunate mistake of upgrading to Sierra before doing a more thorough check of all my application's compatibility with Sierra. I found out about Karabiner too late - total bummer. I hope an update rolls out soon. (I haven't tried the current "interim" application they created - I need the real thing)

Thanks so much for the heads up! I rely on Karabiner to turn caps lock into a meta key and would not want to lose that.

It's 2016 and we still can't disable the acceleration curve for wired / non-trackpad mice.

It's 2016 and you still can't disable the trackpad while typing.

This drove me insane after switching to an MPB.

The solution was to put the trackpad on the highest pressure setting and hope for the best.

yeah don't be an idiot and install this on your work computer and break vpn. what kind of idiot does that....

We got a warning from work about it.

I feel you. Had to migrate to IPSec, luckily there is a docker container that makes things a little bit easier.

what's the specific issue?

I was the idiot who made the jump. While on VPN, no less. My work laptop has both GlobalProtect and Cisco installed as VPN clients. The GlobalProtect client broke but the Cisco client works fine - both require two factor authentication.

Everything seems to work so the unnecessary risk I took didn't cause too much harm.

Ah ok so 3rd party software not yet ready for new kernel. I thought apple dropped support for pptp or something of the like, esp with the IPSec comment in the thread.

Finder is worse than 10.11 and it crashes on multiple moves. At this point I'm just not sure what the heck is the problem. Now it stops being able to do command-drags (moves) after a while.

The finder never worked all that well. I stopped using it in 10.7 and switched to path finder.

The new smart card support is pretty cool: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12543905

Mac OS X has had smartcard support for a long time. They started removing it a few "updates" ago, but the support was still there. CACKey specifically added missing bits as Apple removed them. This latest release probably features their replacement architecture.

I haven't seen what is needed to make CACKey work on the latest release of the Apple's OS since I don't use it, someone else works on packaging that up.

Yep I realize it's been there, but (as you mentioned) keeping it updated has been ignored by Apple long time and turned into a community effort. Sierra brought a significant overhaul.

Doesn't seem to be much of interest there if you're a Mac user without an interest in iOS devices. Of the WSJ's "Top 5" features [1]:

- Universal Clipboard: Neat, but iOS only. Doesn't appear there's an open API for it that would make it useful elsewhere, which is too bad, because it could be rather neat.

- iCloud Drive: Cloud sync of your document folders. Free space (5GB) is surprisingly limited and the upgrade pricing isn't any better than Dropbox, so not a lot of motivation to switch from Dropbox/Onedrive/Google Drive -- except for the iOS integration. It'll be interesting to see if they end up making any of the filesystem or sync logic that they're using public, so that Dropbox et al could use them (instead of Dropbox's bolt-on hack), but I'm not holding my breath.

- Optimized Storage: Basically a 'feature' that automatically deletes stuff off of local storage when your disk gets full, leaving it on iCloud Drive. This basically makes my skin crawl and I can't imagine ever using it; it seems like a conceptually bad idea. Anyone want to place a bet on how long before the first article in a major news outlet about some poor soul losing everything they've ever created since the age of 5 due to this thing uploading it to the cloud, and then deleting their iCloud Drive account? I'm giving it six months on the outside.

- Apple Pay: Conceptually interesting, and I'm certainly interested in anything that shakes up electronic payments, but there's no way to use it from the desktop (AFAICT) without an iOS device, because that's how you authorize payments. Unfortunate.

- Apple Watch Unlock: Obviously only of interest if you have an Apple Watch. Again, a quick search doesn't seem to reveal any sort of API for other hardware, so it's a dead end unless you're interested in the Apple Watch.

Looking through more feature lists, the only thing I can come up with that seems remotely interesting is the picture-in-picture video, although I don't know why it's better than QuickTime Player's relatively-ancient "stay on top" mode (unless they removed that when I haven't been looking). But hey, I can at least see that getting some use on my workstation.

All in all, it seems like a representative sampling of what Apple has become: a bunch of neat ideas (well, except for the 'Optimized Storage' thing), but they've basically crippled them for business reasons in order to prop up their walled garden hardware ecosystem. It's exactly the sort of behavior people used to lament Microsoft for: coming up with great ideas, but then kneecapping them on the way out the door to make sure nothing threatened the golden goose.

[1]: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-macos-sierra-five-top-fea... or if that's paywalled, Google for "Apple’s MacOS Sierra: Five Top Features"

The other thing that scares me about the optimized storage is the privacy concerns. Has everybody forgotten about "the fappening" stuff?

Now imagine that your PC backs up stuff to the cloud without your knowledge. Not only that, it will only backup those old files that you forgot that existed.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid, though. I guess that a nice interface that only starts the backup after a prompt and that shows what files are being backed up can help a lot.

I would liked to see an option to unlock the Mac with my phone using the fingerprint, as well as an option for a pin lock and a strong password for boot/sleep restore.

There are 3rd party apps that allow you to use the fingerprint scanner but I am not trusting my machine to 1.99$ app from some unknown developer.

The thing that bothers me most is Apple hasn't realized yet that the laptop market has changed. With tablets becoming more powerful, there are fewer and fewer things casual users need a laptop for. That leaves power users as the majority of laptop owners, which is a segment of the market Apple has a history of antagonizing.

I see they changed very little, so I'm hopeful this is one of those versions (like Lion if I remember correctly, might be other) where basically Apple just stopped one year, add very few features, and improved the system stability and performance.

I didn't see (perhaps I've missed it) them saying this was the case, so, any insights on that?

Any news about APFS?

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