18 ms·

If macOS High Sierra shows your password instead of the password hint

627 points by 0x0 9y ago

egb 9y ago
I so wish Apple had not removed the older Sierra installer from the Mac AppStore... I need to update some machines but High Sierra does not seem ready for reliable use yet.
- pi-err 9y ago
  If you haven't updated yet, why would you need the Sierra installer? Nobody managing multiple machines would use a 1.0 anyway.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    Depending on how old the OSX currently running is, some features (especially integration into other Apple devices, like unlock with watch or seamless switching to AirPods) are unavailable, but would be available in Sierra.
  - pilsetnieks 9y ago
    I think he needs to update something even older.
    - egb 9y ago
      Correct - snow leopard to sierra would be the goal.
      - gm-conspiracy 9y ago
        10.6.8 seemed to be the most stable for me.
- mortenjorck 9y ago
  I just wish they had made APFS optional for SSDs (as it is if you install to spinning media). It seems like 99% of the problems I'm seeing reported for High Sierra are due to the filesystem (or apps using a brittle, hand-rolled method of disk access).
  - jsz0 9y ago
    That would just delay the problems getting fixed though. IIRC you can pass the installer a flag to skip APFS conversion.
- freedomben 9y ago
  I know it's not helpful at all to your current situation, but this vicious cycle with proprietary OSes was one of the most beneficial thing we got when switching my dev shop to Linux. You can install a release from the late 90s if you really want to (not recommend tho lol). Nobody can ever take it away.
- jakobegger 9y ago
  If you've downloaded Sierra on another Mac before, you can still find the Sierra installer in the Mac App Store in the "Purchases" tab. If you don't have it in your purchases list, you can just ask a friend who has it to download Sierra for you from the Mac App Store. Then you can just copy the Installer app on a thumb drive and run it on your Mac. Only problem might be that maybe you can't download Sierra from a machine running High Sierra... UPDATE: I'm wrong, see comment below.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pfranz 9y ago
    They stopped doing that with Sierra: "macOS Sierra or later doesn't appear in the Purchased tab. Instead, use the Search field in the upper-right corner to find and open the App Store page for the current version of macOS." https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201272 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201272
    - jasomill 9y ago
      Note, however, that if[1], and apparently only if[2], you’ve downloaded Sierra from the App Store in the past, you can install https://github.com/mas-cli/mas https://github.com/mas-cli/mas and then use the command mas install 1127487414 to download the latest Sierra installer from the App Store. [1] It worked for me. [2] Or so I’ve heard.
      - pfranz 9y ago
        Thanks a bunch! I downloaded and stashed a copy of Sierra when it first came out, but I recently bought a new Mac that came with Sierra (likely a point release and 10.12.0 likely won't install). I can restore from a netboot, but like having something I can put onto a USB drive.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    You've missed the step of looking in the hidden purchases tab. If Sierra was downloaded previously, it is going to be there. There won't be a need to get copies of the software from elsewhere. In App Store go to Store -> View My Account -> Hidden Items/Manage.
- miles 9y ago
  If you still have a copy of "Install macOS Sierra.app" on any of your Macs, you can simply copy that or make a bootable installer from it: sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app If you can't locate a copy of Sierra, please let me know and I'll mail you a USB installer.
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  I don't understand why Apple can't just make the past few releases of OS X available to anyone who needs it. It's a free OS now, and it has tons of hardware checks to prevent it from being run on non-Apple hardware. I don't understand their need to remove/hide the OS upgrades. I have to repair a friend's older MBP next week, and now I need to jump through hoops to get a legitimate installer. If you fall more than 1 version of OS X behind and they remove the previous upgrade, you're screwed from upgrading to the latest version. WHY, Apple?
  - Tsiklon 9y ago
    They do; if you have it in your purchase history on your iCloud account and your machine supports the older version you can grab the installer.
chmars 9y ago
Description: 'If a hint was set in Disk Utility when creating an APFS encrypted volume, the password was stored as the hint. This was addressed by clearing hint storage if the hint was the password, and by improving the logic for storing hints.' https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165
- rightos 9y ago
  So basically if you set a hint your entire disk encryption became useless because the hint storage gave your password away? Yikes, hope no one was relying on that.
  - eonti09taeuo 9y ago
    Keep in mind that this only happens if you turned it on using Disk Utility. If you did the normal upgrade (the vast majority of users) you didn't go through disk utility, and everything's fine (presumably). Still a terrible error, but affects far fewer people than your comment implied.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      What if you used command line diskutil?
      - FabHK 9y ago
        Apparently the bug only affected the GUI app. > When creating an encrypted APFS volume in Terminal with the diskutil command line utility, the actual hint is shown, rather than the password. https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/05/macos-high-sierra-disk-utility-vulnerability/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/05/macos-high-sierra-disk-...
- Kenji 9y ago
  Absolute incompetence. Absolute, utter incompetence. The developer responsible for this should create static HTML front ends for the rest of their life. They are not fit for writing security related code.
wallnuss 9y ago
how??! In what context does a clear-text password end up anywhere, except as the input for a hash function.
- eridius 9y ago
  It doesn't. The bug is Disk Utility was setting the password as the password hint.
  - kerouanton 9y ago
    well, strictly speaking storing the password itself is a good hint, no?
    - eridius 9y ago
      One might say it's too good.
- robinwassen 9y ago
  You need to fetch the value to use as hint from the input somewhere. Doing a typo of writing passwordInput instead of passwordHintInput is not that unlikely, even though it is unfortunate.
  - mehrdada 9y ago
    Unless you visually connect the fields like the NeXT Interface Builder does.
    - robinwassen 9y ago
      Well, then it's just an unfortunate drag and drop away. Still same principle :)
      - mehrdada 9y ago
        Sorry I totally misread your comment the first time. Apologies.
maxton 9y ago
It's rather frightening that a bug as serious as this one got past Apple's QA. It seems like the list of known problems with the new Disk Utility is growing - recently there was a submission about how High Sierra's Disk Utility did not show unformatted disks.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  I really hope a head rolls for this mistake. That team needs some new leadership.
  - georgespencer 9y ago
    Or maybe: “I hope they improve and nobody loses their job”
    - nevir 9y ago
      Agreed. You can be sure that whomever was involved with the bug will probably never make that mistake again.
      - stinos 9y ago
        You can be sure ... probably So which one will it be? On a more serious note: this really depends on the person in question. Not everyone has that state of mind it takes to be extra wary when you find yourself in a similar situation where it went worng before. I've worked with people who made pretty severe mistakes, were pointed out, nodded 'yes', only to just make the exact same programming mistake a few months later. And again, and again.
        cakes 9y ago
        Agreed - something I've personally seen drive such a thing in some people are plans/checklists/etc (nothing wrong with having these) where the recognition of severity is overriden with checking as many boxes as possible in an 8hr day as is required.
adenylyl 9y ago
"Erase the affected volume" is really the best solution they could come up with?
- Grollicus 9y ago
  Propably couldn't come up with a way to restore the password hint because it was nowhere saved in plain text
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rcthompson 9y ago
  As others have pointed out, the password was apparently written in plain text on the disk. So yes, I think a complete erase is warranted.
  - Someone 9y ago
    That can’t be the reason. If you _change_ the password (and use good passwords that are not correlated with each other), an attacker learns nothing from being able to read your old password.
    - rcthompson 9y ago
      The key is also stored on the disk, encrypted with the password. So presumably an attacker reading the disk could recover the encrypted key and the password and use those to recover the encryption key, which they could then use to decrypt any un-erased fragments of files they find on the disk. Or something like that. It's an admittedly implausible scenario, but good security is not based on "meh, it probably won't happen". Of course, a much more plausible scenario is password re-use.
- Someone 9y ago
  I think encryption uses a generated key to encrypt most of the disk, and stores that key encrypted with the user password on the disk. That makes changing the password fast; they only need to re-encrypt the encrypted key with the new password, and write it out. Problem is that an attacker who knows the old password may already have decrypted the generated key, so they can decrypt the encrypted data from the raw data, even after the password was changed. Erasing generates a new key for the data. I think it could be done without reformatting, but they still would have to read each block, decrypt with the old key, encrypt with the new, and write back the result. Testing the recovery procedure for that (how do you know where to restart that after it crashed?) would be a challenge, though.
Grollicus 9y ago
The Password got written in plain text on disk. It can possibly be recovered by some obscure technique (wear leveling reserve I'm looking at you) and should be considered burned.
nkkollaw 9y ago
Apple is really going downhill, in every field. I have a MacBook Pro, and the keys no longer work reliably. I also barely get 2 hours of battery life. High Sierra keeps restarting by itself. They removed the jack, and all ports from laptops. They placed the charger for their wireless mouse under the mouse so you can't use it while charging, and the list goes on and on--particularly with software. It's just not premium stuff anymore. I've already switched to Android, and I am not buying another computer from them.
- jordache 9y ago
  which mbp model?
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    2016. The keys are so shallow that after normal use (no crumbs or anything like that) they start having problems. As for battery life, they had to make it 4mm thinner just for the sake of it, and the screen sucks all the battery. I wish it was thicker but I could actually use it without keeping plugging it in.
    - artursapek 9y ago
      Oh, the emoji bar laptop? Yeah. I tried one of those when they showed up in the stores and the keyboard is pathetic. Ended up switching to a Thinkpad (should have done it years ago).
      - nkkollaw 9y ago
        Yes, I have the version without the touchbar, though. The keyboard is the best I've ever used in terms of typing, but it only lasted a few months, which is not what you'd expect for a premium laptop.
    - jordache 9y ago
      My 2016MBP just crashed from sleep wake twice within 1 hr.. Crash meaning I need to hold down the power button to force a hard reset. Apple you POS! THe only thing that keeps your MBP some what usasble is the "so far" stellar state restore post crash.
Someone 9y ago
”Your password might be displayed instead of your password hint if you used the Add APFS Volume command in Disk Utility to create an encrypted APFS volume, and you supplied a password hint. Changing the password on an affected volume clears the hint but doesn’t affect the underlying encryption keys that protect the data.” They go on to advise users to do a backup, format, restore cycle. I guess they are that paranoid because the old password may have been leaked, and, with it, the attacker may have recovered the encryption key for the volume. Or is something else going on? They also advise (rightfully so): ”If your disk password for any affected encrypted APFS volume is the same as the password that you use for a macOS user account or an internet service, you should change the password of the user account or internet service”
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
pasbesoin 9y ago
Perhaps you should test your security before you test your (graphic) "design". Good grief.
dep_b 9y ago
Apple needs some internal competition, iOS and macOS should never have been merged into one team. macOS needs a leader that doesn't believe desktop computing got superseded by mobile.
- dman 9y ago
  I whole heartedly agree. I would like at least one desktop platform vendor to not start with the defeatist mindset that Web / Mobile won. Desktop is where I do most of my productive work, the basic way I do my work (programming / research) has not improved in a long time. There is tremendous room for innovation on the desktop.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- makecheck 9y ago
  Somewhat yes but there is also a risk of too much divergence (e.g. the similarities in frameworks are what make development great in some respects). I would structure it so that the internal cross-platform app groups have a lot of “pull”, ensuring that both OS teams continue to communicate and keep the APIs similar.
thought_alarm 9y ago
How did Disk Utility.app go from being one of the great built-in OS X utilities to the embarrassing amateurish shit show that it is today? Perhaps the same people responsible for the file system engineering are also responsible for developing this user-facing application. They might excel at low level system engineering, but they are utterly unqualified to develop a high level GUI application. Spend 5 minutes with the app and you'll find a half dozen bugs and amateurish mistakes. It's baffling, and it's been a problem for two years now.
- revelation 9y ago
  But it looks very sleek now, with big graphs and fonts for the crucial information.
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  Some genius decided they had to rewrite it. The current iteration looks like an intern shitshow rewrite, this bug included.
- ulfw 9y ago
  It's the iOSification of OS X. Sadly the whole OS is going in that wrong direction. I would like to know how many folks are working on MacOS vs iOS. Would put things into perspective.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    Hard to imagine that anyone at Apple sees MacOS (or the Mac in general) as a promising career path. All the 'A' players are either working on the iOS platform and devices, or have cashed out completely. Especially with the move toward forced open-plan workspaces in the new campus, I suspect Apple is going to have serious problems attracting and retaining key talent in the years ahead. They are reaching the point where stock options will no longer be a strong incentive due to lack of upside potential.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - 9y ago
planetjones 9y ago
The lack of attention to detail by Apple recently e.g. code reviews, in house testing is clearly too low. I have seen too many software failures recently from this company. Like photos freezing on my new iMac (before High Sierra), numerous issues with iOS (I remember the podcasts app wasting all my cellular allowance because it ignored WiFi only) and other nuances, inconsistencies and defects. Only in iOS 11 have they added tags to the files app - the previous iCloud Drive app had a button for tags but it was seemingly not implemented. Finding issues in apple products is really like going hunting in a zoo at the moment.
- mi100hael 9y ago
  I have a Dell Precision laptop running Linux at home and a MacBook Pro from work. On a weekly basis, the Mac won't wake from sleep and requires a hard reboot. The Time Machine backups get corrupted at least every other month and require a full backup from scratch. Sometimes the audio just quits working when I wake from sleep. The App Store is some horribly wrapped, unresponsive web app. Disk Utility is useless. Etc, etc. It's a horrible mess of an experience. The Dell running Linux is far more stable. I can get literal months of uptime out of the Dell using it on a daily basis w/ 100% hardware functionality. No stereotypical Linux desktop pains. And this is coming from someone who was an Apple fanboy for 10+ years. Apple's QA just went to shit and I was sick of dealing with their bugs. Edit: For those telling me it's a hardware problem: it's possible, but I've had similar experiences w/ the wake-from-sleep issues on two different copies of the 2016 15" MBP, and the Time Machine corruption on a MBP and an Air. So if it is a hardware problem, then their hardware QC is as bad as their software.
  - sbd01 9y ago
    After my previous MacBooks became buggier and less responsive after updating, I decided to abstain from updating altogether. I'm still on El Capitan, and while there are some bugs and rather baffling programs (z.B. the updated Disk Utility), they are far and few between compared to the High Sierra experience on my other computers. Perhaps you could consider downgrading?
csomar 9y ago
Wow. This is very obscure language and I'm disappointed. They don't even mention that this is a "BUG". I didn't have any trouble with High Sierra so far, but was disappointed to upgrade to iOS 11. It is still unstable. A lot.
- eridius 9y ago
  How is this obscure, and why do they have to mention it's a "BUG"? This is a support article for how to fix the issue. There's no reason why the article needs to say "Hey this is a bug", because the whole reason the support article exists is because of the bug.
  - TheKarateKid 9y ago
    So should Security Bulletins released by Apple and Microsoft not state that a vulnerability/exploit was found since stating how to fix it implies that one existed? This support article speaks mostly to people who have already seen the symptoms of the bug. It doesn't do anything to inform people who may still be affected but haven't noticed it yet.
    - eridius 9y ago
      This isn't a security bulletin. It's an article explaining how to fix the issue.
dsschnau 9y ago
how do you have infinity billions of dollars and fuck that up, damn
Andersos 9y ago
So how do you test if you are affected?
- Grollicus 9y ago
  Look at your password hint for disk encryption.
Andersos 9y ago
so how do you test if you are affected?
- fixmycode 9y ago
  press the password hint button and see if it spits out your password :-)
Froyoh 9y ago
The way they wrote the article really convinced me that it was a minor issue.
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  They train their Apple store staff to speak in a similar manner, to play down any problems and try to sidestep aknowleging that there is a fault with the product.
runesoerensen 9y ago
Apparently the supplemental update also fixed the Keychain extraction vulnerability https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xenadu02 9y ago
If you don't want to reformat (and you aren't re-using a password you've used elsewhere) you can change the password: 1. Open Disk Utility and select the volume 2. Select File, Change Password 3. IMPORTANT: If on High Sierra GM, leave the hint field blank. If you've installed the update then you can provide a new hint. Word of warning: the most secure course of action is to follow the instructions in the linked support article.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  And leave the old hint sitting on your drive as “\x00ld-password”? No thanks.
  - breakingcups 9y ago
    "(and you aren't re-using a password you've used elsewhere)"
CodeWriter23 9y ago
I’m sure the approach to dealing with this will be some variation of restorative justice instead of a public pillory and termination of an entire team like Steve did to the MobileMe Team.
ericfrederich 9y ago
Okay... can somebody spoof/re-spin the relevant xkcd? https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
robtaylor 9y ago
As there are a few mac gurus on this thread - an OT question... colleague has 2014 rMBP and used HDMI out and a DVI adapter via thunderbolt port to have two external displays. Sierra update killed that - only one display will work at a time. prams zapped, settings fiddled with, cables tested in millions of combos and even playing with AppleGraphicsControl.kext Any other ideas? Seems nuts an update can kill such a thing!
- joombaga 9y ago
  Connect the other monitor via thunderbolt->HDMI adapter? You're right, it does seem silly. Possibly just coincidental?
grandalf 9y ago
Would this vulnerability also exist in iOS devices using APFS?
- yebyen 9y ago
  It's a flaw in Disk Utility, so no I don't think so
grandalf 9y ago
Since this thread is broadly about Apple losing its edge as a fairly secure-by-default platform: I installed Windows 10 on a computer and use it from time to time and the built-in anti-virus and malware protection makes me feel more comfortable running unsigned applications on Windows than I feel running them on OSX. I find myself wishing that Apple would take similar responsibility for security (virus, malware) threats. One possible reason Apple is not doing this is because the next iteration of MacBooks will run iOS and unsigned apps will not be possible without jailbreaking.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Apple has repeatedly said iOS and MacOS serve two different purposes. So, while I firmly believe we'll see Macs running Apple processors, I do not believe we'll see them running iOS.
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  Doing that on MacOS would be the death of it. Apple does have the audacity to move towards that direction (OS X already makes you jump through a few hoops with downloaded unsigned apps) but even they know that a lot of their users are developers who need that freedom.
  - grandalf 9y ago
    I could see XCode and Command Line Tools becoming apps. And Homebrew could be an app that let all of its contents run in a sandbox and not touch any of the device's other data.
marsrover 9y ago
Software issues among all of Apple's products have become much more numerous in recent years. I don't want to get down voted for putting the blame on Tim Cook, but I do not believe he has been a positive influence on the quality of their software. It's sad, really. My first Mac was a late 2009 MacBook Pro. I remember craving the machine before I finally splurged. After I bought it, I used nothing but a Mac for the next 6 years of my life. Those 6 years were some of the happiest times I've ever had using a computer. Everything worked flawlessly. The build quality of the machines I bought was pristine. At the end of those 6 years my MacBook was getting buggier with each update, as was my iPhone. I ended up buying a Surface Book. I'm back on Windows for the first time since XP, and while I'm sure I made the right decision, I can't help look back 5 years ago and think that maybe the golden age is over.
- IBM 9y ago
  Even if we accept your premise, it would be Craig Federighi's "influence" since he actually runs software engineering.
- Posibyte 9y ago
  I agree with the assertion of Tim Cook being a negative influence on Apple. Their product reveals just don't feel stunning anymore. I used to be enamored by their product lines, and truly envious of those people you knew that used Apple products for as much of their production pipeline as possible. But it's so much different now. It feels less like a well crafted experience and more just an alternative. It was always an alternative, but a complementary one at that. You could buy a hammer, but you could also buy this nice, shiny, beautiful hammer, weighted perfectly to swing like an extension of your arm, etc. I started getting this feeling right around the first iPhone release after Jobs passed away. As much as I romanticized it here, I wouldn't exactly call myself an Apple fan, nor a Jobs fan, but the sort of impact and hype he could build felt a lot more exciting than Cook for me. And that kinda sucks because I know Apple has some great people with even greater ideas.
  - TheKarateKid 9y ago
    I didn't want to believe that the loss of Jobs' would change much, but sadly time has shown otherwise. I miss the days of the annual iPod lineup, where each year would bring some totally new, radical design even though last year's was stunning and enough to last at least 2-3 years as the flagship model. The ever-changing iPod Nano lineup is clearest to me. When Jobs' was asked why he would change something that was already above and beyond anything else on the market, his response was "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will." Geeze, I really miss Steve Jobs.
y3sh 9y ago
Why isn't this a 10.13.1 update?
- sneak 9y ago
  Perhaps the QA team that does full releases is overburdened, lol.
- jasomill 9y ago
  One plausible reason is that they’ve already released a 10.13.1 beta, announced features and API changes coming in 10.13.1, and started revising documentation to reflect changes introduced in 10.13.1, so branding today’s update “10.13.1” would result in a nontrivial amount of extra work and confusion, in exchange for...what, exactly? The updated version does come with a new full App Store installer and build number (17A405), however, so it’s as easy to install and identify programmatically as a new “point release” would be.
paultopia 9y ago
It does seem like there are a ton of really huge bugs in recent OSX and iOS releases. I just got bitten hard by this bug with dashes in iOS: http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/26/tips-turn-off-ios-11-smart-punctuation-to-avoid-data-entry-problems http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/26/tips-turn-off-ios-... -- I've been writing an academic article on my ipad pro, and I just realized that the damn thing ate a ton of my text---whenever the "smart capitalization" feature sees something that looks like an em dash, it inserts a null byte and blows up the end of the string. How did this thing get through testing without anyone ever typing an em dash?
ce4 9y ago
the site connection attempt throws this: Error code: SSL_ERROR_UNSAFE_NEGOTIATION I guess thats not the posts message
DonHopkins 9y ago
Apple Computer has always been a pioneer on the cutting edge of accessibility and ease-of-use. I'll bet it will even read your password out to you with the speech synthesizer, clearly and unambiguously spelling out each of the upper and lower case letters, digits and symbols.
VonGuard 9y ago
I made the jump off of HFS+ a few months back, as soon as I heard a new FS was coming. After years of keeping TBs of data on Mac OS on HFS+ as a home file server, I was just completely fed up. My external volumes were dead without a Mac. Nothing can read them, without paying for special software, and even that doesn't work correctly. Now, I know there are many things that can read HFS+ in Linux and Windows, but none of them cover 100%. Sometimes you can't write, sometimes you can't mount on boot, other times you can't rely on it as a long-term solution. I spent weeks copying everything over to a NAS, and I have never looked back. Apple should have gone with ANYTHING open source, or even remotely open standards, but it seems like the lesson they've taken from Jobs' legacy is "be different for difference's sake." I know they've open sourced the iOS kernel, but that's because it doesn't matter. It doesn't keep you locked in, like XCode keeps you locked into Mac desktops. The Apple world went from innovating in UI and design, to innovating in supply chain management and pricing structures.
Girlang 9y ago
I'm glad I use Windows 10
canadianhacker 9y ago
If we're bashing Apple's engineering quality, have no further look than the Apple Music App on Android. Some examples: * App crashed for no apparent reason multiple times * Bug where on multiple occasions music won't be added to my playlists * Bug where music not downloading after pressing the cloud icon. I always have to press it twice before the download begins, which seems like an obvious bug Like, these are features that should be nailed down. I developed an android app which did file downloads. Press the button and download begins or is queued. Will tell users that the download fails, which is better than nothing.
- romanovcode 9y ago
  Try iTunes on Windows. I'm pretty they deliberately make it slow and clunky on Windows. Also, for some reason the CC input for Month just showed 4 out of 12 months so I could not even subscribe. Seems like they really don't give a crap.
beedogs 9y ago
It's a shame what's happened to Apple since Jobs died. Boring hardware coupled with increasingly buggy software.
duncan_bayne 9y ago
I have a number of friends who use OSX and Windows, and keep telling me "just give up on Linux (or FreeBSD) and use something which Just Works!" Well, except for stuff like this. Or the built-in advertising. Or the VBA code that beachballs in Excel Mac but not Excel Windows. Or the buggy, crashy drivers. Or the awful printing experience. Or the ability to reliably predict behaviour when plugging in external monitors or projectors. Or ... I _think_ what most people mean by "Just Works" is "I don't have to edit configuration files in order to set up my system", not "my system is reliable and predictable."
teekert 9y ago
Hmm I'm still on El Capitan because of aperture and iPhoto. This thread makes want to stay there forever.
- josteink 9y ago
  Had Apple been anything like Microsoft, you would be able to stay there for another 10 years while they sorted things out.
rayascott 9y ago
The ultimate hint.

627 points by 0x0 9y ago

egb 9y ago

I so wish Apple had not removed the older Sierra installer from the Mac AppStore... I need to update some machines but High Sierra does not seem ready for reliable use yet.

pi-err 9y ago
If you haven't updated yet, why would you need the Sierra installer? Nobody managing multiple machines would use a 1.0 anyway.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  Depending on how old the OSX currently running is, some features (especially integration into other Apple devices, like unlock with watch or seamless switching to AirPods) are unavailable, but would be available in Sierra.
- pilsetnieks 9y ago
  I think he needs to update something even older.
  - egb 9y ago
    Correct - snow leopard to sierra would be the goal.
    - gm-conspiracy 9y ago
      10.6.8 seemed to be the most stable for me.
mortenjorck 9y ago
I just wish they had made APFS optional for SSDs (as it is if you install to spinning media). It seems like 99% of the problems I'm seeing reported for High Sierra are due to the filesystem (or apps using a brittle, hand-rolled method of disk access).
- jsz0 9y ago
  That would just delay the problems getting fixed though. IIRC you can pass the installer a flag to skip APFS conversion.
freedomben 9y ago
I know it's not helpful at all to your current situation, but this vicious cycle with proprietary OSes was one of the most beneficial thing we got when switching my dev shop to Linux. You can install a release from the late 90s if you really want to (not recommend tho lol). Nobody can ever take it away.
jakobegger 9y ago
If you've downloaded Sierra on another Mac before, you can still find the Sierra installer in the Mac App Store in the "Purchases" tab. If you don't have it in your purchases list, you can just ask a friend who has it to download Sierra for you from the Mac App Store. Then you can just copy the Installer app on a thumb drive and run it on your Mac. Only problem might be that maybe you can't download Sierra from a machine running High Sierra... UPDATE: I'm wrong, see comment below.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pfranz 9y ago
  They stopped doing that with Sierra: "macOS Sierra or later doesn't appear in the Purchased tab. Instead, use the Search field in the upper-right corner to find and open the App Store page for the current version of macOS." https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201272 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201272
  - jasomill 9y ago
    Note, however, that if[1], and apparently only if[2], you’ve downloaded Sierra from the App Store in the past, you can install https://github.com/mas-cli/mas https://github.com/mas-cli/mas and then use the command mas install 1127487414 to download the latest Sierra installer from the App Store. [1] It worked for me. [2] Or so I’ve heard.
    - pfranz 9y ago
      Thanks a bunch! I downloaded and stashed a copy of Sierra when it first came out, but I recently bought a new Mac that came with Sierra (likely a point release and 10.12.0 likely won't install). I can restore from a netboot, but like having something I can put onto a USB drive.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  You've missed the step of looking in the hidden purchases tab. If Sierra was downloaded previously, it is going to be there. There won't be a need to get copies of the software from elsewhere. In App Store go to Store -> View My Account -> Hidden Items/Manage.
miles 9y ago
If you still have a copy of "Install macOS Sierra.app" on any of your Macs, you can simply copy that or make a bootable installer from it: sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app If you can't locate a copy of Sierra, please let me know and I'll mail you a USB installer.
TheKarateKid 9y ago
I don't understand why Apple can't just make the past few releases of OS X available to anyone who needs it. It's a free OS now, and it has tons of hardware checks to prevent it from being run on non-Apple hardware. I don't understand their need to remove/hide the OS upgrades. I have to repair a friend's older MBP next week, and now I need to jump through hoops to get a legitimate installer. If you fall more than 1 version of OS X behind and they remove the previous upgrade, you're screwed from upgrading to the latest version. WHY, Apple?
- Tsiklon 9y ago
  They do; if you have it in your purchase history on your iCloud account and your machine supports the older version you can grab the installer.

chmars 9y ago

Description: 'If a hint was set in Disk Utility when creating an APFS encrypted volume, the password was stored as the hint. This was addressed by clearing hint storage if the hint was the password, and by improving the logic for storing hints.' https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165

rightos 9y ago
So basically if you set a hint your entire disk encryption became useless because the hint storage gave your password away? Yikes, hope no one was relying on that.
- eonti09taeuo 9y ago
  Keep in mind that this only happens if you turned it on using Disk Utility. If you did the normal upgrade (the vast majority of users) you didn't go through disk utility, and everything's fine (presumably). Still a terrible error, but affects far fewer people than your comment implied.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    What if you used command line diskutil?
    - FabHK 9y ago
      Apparently the bug only affected the GUI app. > When creating an encrypted APFS volume in Terminal with the diskutil command line utility, the actual hint is shown, rather than the password. https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/05/macos-high-sierra-disk-utility-vulnerability/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/05/macos-high-sierra-disk-...
Kenji 9y ago
Absolute incompetence. Absolute, utter incompetence. The developer responsible for this should create static HTML front ends for the rest of their life. They are not fit for writing security related code.

wallnuss 9y ago

how??! In what context does a clear-text password end up anywhere, except as the input for a hash function.

eridius 9y ago
It doesn't. The bug is Disk Utility was setting the password as the password hint.
- kerouanton 9y ago
  well, strictly speaking storing the password itself is a good hint, no?
  - eridius 9y ago
    One might say it's too good.
robinwassen 9y ago
You need to fetch the value to use as hint from the input somewhere. Doing a typo of writing passwordInput instead of passwordHintInput is not that unlikely, even though it is unfortunate.
- mehrdada 9y ago
  Unless you visually connect the fields like the NeXT Interface Builder does.
  - robinwassen 9y ago
    Well, then it's just an unfortunate drag and drop away. Still same principle :)
    - mehrdada 9y ago
      Sorry I totally misread your comment the first time. Apologies.

maxton 9y ago

It's rather frightening that a bug as serious as this one got past Apple's QA. It seems like the list of known problems with the new Disk Utility is growing - recently there was a submission about how High Sierra's Disk Utility did not show unformatted disks.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
I really hope a head rolls for this mistake. That team needs some new leadership.
- georgespencer 9y ago
  Or maybe: “I hope they improve and nobody loses their job”
  - nevir 9y ago
    Agreed. You can be sure that whomever was involved with the bug will probably never make that mistake again.
    - stinos 9y ago
      You can be sure ... probably So which one will it be? On a more serious note: this really depends on the person in question. Not everyone has that state of mind it takes to be extra wary when you find yourself in a similar situation where it went worng before. I've worked with people who made pretty severe mistakes, were pointed out, nodded 'yes', only to just make the exact same programming mistake a few months later. And again, and again.
      - cakes 9y ago
        Agreed - something I've personally seen drive such a thing in some people are plans/checklists/etc (nothing wrong with having these) where the recognition of severity is overriden with checking as many boxes as possible in an 8hr day as is required.

adenylyl 9y ago

"Erase the affected volume" is really the best solution they could come up with?

Grollicus 9y ago
Propably couldn't come up with a way to restore the password hint because it was nowhere saved in plain text
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rcthompson 9y ago
As others have pointed out, the password was apparently written in plain text on the disk. So yes, I think a complete erase is warranted.
- Someone 9y ago
  That can’t be the reason. If you _change_ the password (and use good passwords that are not correlated with each other), an attacker learns nothing from being able to read your old password.
  - rcthompson 9y ago
    The key is also stored on the disk, encrypted with the password. So presumably an attacker reading the disk could recover the encrypted key and the password and use those to recover the encryption key, which they could then use to decrypt any un-erased fragments of files they find on the disk. Or something like that. It's an admittedly implausible scenario, but good security is not based on "meh, it probably won't happen". Of course, a much more plausible scenario is password re-use.
Someone 9y ago
I think encryption uses a generated key to encrypt most of the disk, and stores that key encrypted with the user password on the disk. That makes changing the password fast; they only need to re-encrypt the encrypted key with the new password, and write it out. Problem is that an attacker who knows the old password may already have decrypted the generated key, so they can decrypt the encrypted data from the raw data, even after the password was changed. Erasing generates a new key for the data. I think it could be done without reformatting, but they still would have to read each block, decrypt with the old key, encrypt with the new, and write back the result. Testing the recovery procedure for that (how do you know where to restart that after it crashed?) would be a challenge, though.

Grollicus 9y ago

The Password got written in plain text on disk. It can possibly be recovered by some obscure technique (wear leveling reserve I'm looking at you) and should be considered burned.

nkkollaw 9y ago

Apple is really going downhill, in every field. I have a MacBook Pro, and the keys no longer work reliably. I also barely get 2 hours of battery life. High Sierra keeps restarting by itself. They removed the jack, and all ports from laptops. They placed the charger for their wireless mouse under the mouse so you can't use it while charging, and the list goes on and on--particularly with software. It's just not premium stuff anymore. I've already switched to Android, and I am not buying another computer from them.

jordache 9y ago
which mbp model?
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  2016. The keys are so shallow that after normal use (no crumbs or anything like that) they start having problems. As for battery life, they had to make it 4mm thinner just for the sake of it, and the screen sucks all the battery. I wish it was thicker but I could actually use it without keeping plugging it in.
  - artursapek 9y ago
    Oh, the emoji bar laptop? Yeah. I tried one of those when they showed up in the stores and the keyboard is pathetic. Ended up switching to a Thinkpad (should have done it years ago).
    - nkkollaw 9y ago
      Yes, I have the version without the touchbar, though. The keyboard is the best I've ever used in terms of typing, but it only lasted a few months, which is not what you'd expect for a premium laptop.
  - jordache 9y ago
    My 2016MBP just crashed from sleep wake twice within 1 hr.. Crash meaning I need to hold down the power button to force a hard reset. Apple you POS! THe only thing that keeps your MBP some what usasble is the "so far" stellar state restore post crash.

Someone 9y ago

”Your password might be displayed instead of your password hint if you used the Add APFS Volume command in Disk Utility to create an encrypted APFS volume, and you supplied a password hint. Changing the password on an affected volume clears the hint but doesn’t affect the underlying encryption keys that protect the data.” They go on to advise users to do a backup, format, restore cycle. I guess they are that paranoid because the old password may have been leaked, and, with it, the attacker may have recovered the encryption key for the volume. Or is something else going on? They also advise (rightfully so): ”If your disk password for any affected encrypted APFS volume is the same as the password that you use for a macOS user account or an internet service, you should change the password of the user account or internet service”

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

pasbesoin 9y ago

Perhaps you should test your security before you test your (graphic) "design". Good grief.

dep_b 9y ago

Apple needs some internal competition, iOS and macOS should never have been merged into one team. macOS needs a leader that doesn't believe desktop computing got superseded by mobile.

dman 9y ago
I whole heartedly agree. I would like at least one desktop platform vendor to not start with the defeatist mindset that Web / Mobile won. Desktop is where I do most of my productive work, the basic way I do my work (programming / research) has not improved in a long time. There is tremendous room for innovation on the desktop.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
makecheck 9y ago
Somewhat yes but there is also a risk of too much divergence (e.g. the similarities in frameworks are what make development great in some respects). I would structure it so that the internal cross-platform app groups have a lot of “pull”, ensuring that both OS teams continue to communicate and keep the APIs similar.

thought_alarm 9y ago

How did Disk Utility.app go from being one of the great built-in OS X utilities to the embarrassing amateurish shit show that it is today? Perhaps the same people responsible for the file system engineering are also responsible for developing this user-facing application. They might excel at low level system engineering, but they are utterly unqualified to develop a high level GUI application. Spend 5 minutes with the app and you'll find a half dozen bugs and amateurish mistakes. It's baffling, and it's been a problem for two years now.

revelation 9y ago
But it looks very sleek now, with big graphs and fonts for the crucial information.
LeoNatan25 9y ago
Some genius decided they had to rewrite it. The current iteration looks like an intern shitshow rewrite, this bug included.
ulfw 9y ago
It's the iOSification of OS X. Sadly the whole OS is going in that wrong direction. I would like to know how many folks are working on MacOS vs iOS. Would put things into perspective.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Hard to imagine that anyone at Apple sees MacOS (or the Mac in general) as a promising career path. All the 'A' players are either working on the iOS platform and devices, or have cashed out completely. Especially with the move toward forced open-plan workspaces in the new campus, I suspect Apple is going to have serious problems attracting and retaining key talent in the years ahead. They are reaching the point where stock options will no longer be a strong incentive due to lack of upside potential.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- 9y ago

planetjones 9y ago

The lack of attention to detail by Apple recently e.g. code reviews, in house testing is clearly too low. I have seen too many software failures recently from this company. Like photos freezing on my new iMac (before High Sierra), numerous issues with iOS (I remember the podcasts app wasting all my cellular allowance because it ignored WiFi only) and other nuances, inconsistencies and defects. Only in iOS 11 have they added tags to the files app - the previous iCloud Drive app had a button for tags but it was seemingly not implemented. Finding issues in apple products is really like going hunting in a zoo at the moment.

mi100hael 9y ago
I have a Dell Precision laptop running Linux at home and a MacBook Pro from work. On a weekly basis, the Mac won't wake from sleep and requires a hard reboot. The Time Machine backups get corrupted at least every other month and require a full backup from scratch. Sometimes the audio just quits working when I wake from sleep. The App Store is some horribly wrapped, unresponsive web app. Disk Utility is useless. Etc, etc. It's a horrible mess of an experience. The Dell running Linux is far more stable. I can get literal months of uptime out of the Dell using it on a daily basis w/ 100% hardware functionality. No stereotypical Linux desktop pains. And this is coming from someone who was an Apple fanboy for 10+ years. Apple's QA just went to shit and I was sick of dealing with their bugs. Edit: For those telling me it's a hardware problem: it's possible, but I've had similar experiences w/ the wake-from-sleep issues on two different copies of the 2016 15" MBP, and the Time Machine corruption on a MBP and an Air. So if it is a hardware problem, then their hardware QC is as bad as their software.
- sbd01 9y ago
  After my previous MacBooks became buggier and less responsive after updating, I decided to abstain from updating altogether. I'm still on El Capitan, and while there are some bugs and rather baffling programs (z.B. the updated Disk Utility), they are far and few between compared to the High Sierra experience on my other computers. Perhaps you could consider downgrading?

csomar 9y ago

Wow. This is very obscure language and I'm disappointed. They don't even mention that this is a "BUG". I didn't have any trouble with High Sierra so far, but was disappointed to upgrade to iOS 11. It is still unstable. A lot.

eridius 9y ago
How is this obscure, and why do they have to mention it's a "BUG"? This is a support article for how to fix the issue. There's no reason why the article needs to say "Hey this is a bug", because the whole reason the support article exists is because of the bug.
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  So should Security Bulletins released by Apple and Microsoft not state that a vulnerability/exploit was found since stating how to fix it implies that one existed? This support article speaks mostly to people who have already seen the symptoms of the bug. It doesn't do anything to inform people who may still be affected but haven't noticed it yet.
  - eridius 9y ago
    This isn't a security bulletin. It's an article explaining how to fix the issue.

dsschnau 9y ago

how do you have infinity billions of dollars and fuck that up, damn

Andersos 9y ago

So how do you test if you are affected?

Grollicus 9y ago
Look at your password hint for disk encryption.

Andersos 9y ago

so how do you test if you are affected?

fixmycode 9y ago
press the password hint button and see if it spits out your password :-)

Froyoh 9y ago

The way they wrote the article really convinced me that it was a minor issue.

amiga-workbench 9y ago
They train their Apple store staff to speak in a similar manner, to play down any problems and try to sidestep aknowleging that there is a fault with the product.

runesoerensen 9y ago

Apparently the supplemental update also fixed the Keychain extraction vulnerability https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208165

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

xenadu02 9y ago

If you don't want to reformat (and you aren't re-using a password you've used elsewhere) you can change the password: 1. Open Disk Utility and select the volume 2. Select File, Change Password 3. IMPORTANT: If on High Sierra GM, leave the hint field blank. If you've installed the update then you can provide a new hint. Word of warning: the most secure course of action is to follow the instructions in the linked support article.

CodeWriter23 9y ago
And leave the old hint sitting on your drive as “\x00ld-password”? No thanks.
- breakingcups 9y ago
  "(and you aren't re-using a password you've used elsewhere)"

CodeWriter23 9y ago

I’m sure the approach to dealing with this will be some variation of restorative justice instead of a public pillory and termination of an entire team like Steve did to the MobileMe Team.

ericfrederich 9y ago

Okay... can somebody spoof/re-spin the relevant xkcd? https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

robtaylor 9y ago

As there are a few mac gurus on this thread - an OT question... colleague has 2014 rMBP and used HDMI out and a DVI adapter via thunderbolt port to have two external displays. Sierra update killed that - only one display will work at a time. prams zapped, settings fiddled with, cables tested in millions of combos and even playing with AppleGraphicsControl.kext Any other ideas? Seems nuts an update can kill such a thing!

joombaga 9y ago
Connect the other monitor via thunderbolt->HDMI adapter? You're right, it does seem silly. Possibly just coincidental?

grandalf 9y ago

Would this vulnerability also exist in iOS devices using APFS?

yebyen 9y ago
It's a flaw in Disk Utility, so no I don't think so

grandalf 9y ago

Since this thread is broadly about Apple losing its edge as a fairly secure-by-default platform: I installed Windows 10 on a computer and use it from time to time and the built-in anti-virus and malware protection makes me feel more comfortable running unsigned applications on Windows than I feel running them on OSX. I find myself wishing that Apple would take similar responsibility for security (virus, malware) threats. One possible reason Apple is not doing this is because the next iteration of MacBooks will run iOS and unsigned apps will not be possible without jailbreaking.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Apple has repeatedly said iOS and MacOS serve two different purposes. So, while I firmly believe we'll see Macs running Apple processors, I do not believe we'll see them running iOS.
TheKarateKid 9y ago
Doing that on MacOS would be the death of it. Apple does have the audacity to move towards that direction (OS X already makes you jump through a few hoops with downloaded unsigned apps) but even they know that a lot of their users are developers who need that freedom.
- grandalf 9y ago
  I could see XCode and Command Line Tools becoming apps. And Homebrew could be an app that let all of its contents run in a sandbox and not touch any of the device's other data.

marsrover 9y ago

Software issues among all of Apple's products have become much more numerous in recent years. I don't want to get down voted for putting the blame on Tim Cook, but I do not believe he has been a positive influence on the quality of their software. It's sad, really. My first Mac was a late 2009 MacBook Pro. I remember craving the machine before I finally splurged. After I bought it, I used nothing but a Mac for the next 6 years of my life. Those 6 years were some of the happiest times I've ever had using a computer. Everything worked flawlessly. The build quality of the machines I bought was pristine. At the end of those 6 years my MacBook was getting buggier with each update, as was my iPhone. I ended up buying a Surface Book. I'm back on Windows for the first time since XP, and while I'm sure I made the right decision, I can't help look back 5 years ago and think that maybe the golden age is over.

IBM 9y ago
Even if we accept your premise, it would be Craig Federighi's "influence" since he actually runs software engineering.
Posibyte 9y ago
I agree with the assertion of Tim Cook being a negative influence on Apple. Their product reveals just don't feel stunning anymore. I used to be enamored by their product lines, and truly envious of those people you knew that used Apple products for as much of their production pipeline as possible. But it's so much different now. It feels less like a well crafted experience and more just an alternative. It was always an alternative, but a complementary one at that. You could buy a hammer, but you could also buy this nice, shiny, beautiful hammer, weighted perfectly to swing like an extension of your arm, etc. I started getting this feeling right around the first iPhone release after Jobs passed away. As much as I romanticized it here, I wouldn't exactly call myself an Apple fan, nor a Jobs fan, but the sort of impact and hype he could build felt a lot more exciting than Cook for me. And that kinda sucks because I know Apple has some great people with even greater ideas.
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  I didn't want to believe that the loss of Jobs' would change much, but sadly time has shown otherwise. I miss the days of the annual iPod lineup, where each year would bring some totally new, radical design even though last year's was stunning and enough to last at least 2-3 years as the flagship model. The ever-changing iPod Nano lineup is clearest to me. When Jobs' was asked why he would change something that was already above and beyond anything else on the market, his response was "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will." Geeze, I really miss Steve Jobs.

y3sh 9y ago

Why isn't this a 10.13.1 update?

sneak 9y ago
Perhaps the QA team that does full releases is overburdened, lol.
jasomill 9y ago
One plausible reason is that they’ve already released a 10.13.1 beta, announced features and API changes coming in 10.13.1, and started revising documentation to reflect changes introduced in 10.13.1, so branding today’s update “10.13.1” would result in a nontrivial amount of extra work and confusion, in exchange for...what, exactly? The updated version does come with a new full App Store installer and build number (17A405), however, so it’s as easy to install and identify programmatically as a new “point release” would be.

paultopia 9y ago

It does seem like there are a ton of really huge bugs in recent OSX and iOS releases. I just got bitten hard by this bug with dashes in iOS: http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/26/tips-turn-off-ios-11-smart-punctuation-to-avoid-data-entry-problems http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/26/tips-turn-off-ios-... -- I've been writing an academic article on my ipad pro, and I just realized that the damn thing ate a ton of my text---whenever the "smart capitalization" feature sees something that looks like an em dash, it inserts a null byte and blows up the end of the string. How did this thing get through testing without anyone ever typing an em dash?

ce4 9y ago

the site connection attempt throws this: Error code: SSL_ERROR_UNSAFE_NEGOTIATION I guess thats not the posts message

DonHopkins 9y ago

Apple Computer has always been a pioneer on the cutting edge of accessibility and ease-of-use. I'll bet it will even read your password out to you with the speech synthesizer, clearly and unambiguously spelling out each of the upper and lower case letters, digits and symbols.

VonGuard 9y ago

I made the jump off of HFS+ a few months back, as soon as I heard a new FS was coming. After years of keeping TBs of data on Mac OS on HFS+ as a home file server, I was just completely fed up. My external volumes were dead without a Mac. Nothing can read them, without paying for special software, and even that doesn't work correctly. Now, I know there are many things that can read HFS+ in Linux and Windows, but none of them cover 100%. Sometimes you can't write, sometimes you can't mount on boot, other times you can't rely on it as a long-term solution. I spent weeks copying everything over to a NAS, and I have never looked back. Apple should have gone with ANYTHING open source, or even remotely open standards, but it seems like the lesson they've taken from Jobs' legacy is "be different for difference's sake." I know they've open sourced the iOS kernel, but that's because it doesn't matter. It doesn't keep you locked in, like XCode keeps you locked into Mac desktops. The Apple world went from innovating in UI and design, to innovating in supply chain management and pricing structures.

Girlang 9y ago

I'm glad I use Windows 10

canadianhacker 9y ago

If we're bashing Apple's engineering quality, have no further look than the Apple Music App on Android. Some examples: * App crashed for no apparent reason multiple times * Bug where on multiple occasions music won't be added to my playlists * Bug where music not downloading after pressing the cloud icon. I always have to press it twice before the download begins, which seems like an obvious bug Like, these are features that should be nailed down. I developed an android app which did file downloads. Press the button and download begins or is queued. Will tell users that the download fails, which is better than nothing.

romanovcode 9y ago
Try iTunes on Windows. I'm pretty they deliberately make it slow and clunky on Windows. Also, for some reason the CC input for Month just showed 4 out of 12 months so I could not even subscribe. Seems like they really don't give a crap.

beedogs 9y ago

It's a shame what's happened to Apple since Jobs died. Boring hardware coupled with increasingly buggy software.

duncan_bayne 9y ago

I have a number of friends who use OSX and Windows, and keep telling me "just give up on Linux (or FreeBSD) and use something which Just Works!" Well, except for stuff like this. Or the built-in advertising. Or the VBA code that beachballs in Excel Mac but not Excel Windows. Or the buggy, crashy drivers. Or the awful printing experience. Or the ability to reliably predict behaviour when plugging in external monitors or projectors. Or ... I _think_ what most people mean by "Just Works" is "I don't have to edit configuration files in order to set up my system", not "my system is reliable and predictable."

teekert 9y ago

Hmm I'm still on El Capitan because of aperture and iPhoto. This thread makes want to stay there forever.

josteink 9y ago
Had Apple been anything like Microsoft, you would be able to stay there for another 10 years while they sorted things out.

rayascott 9y ago

The ultimate hint.