7 ms·

Ask HN: MacOS High Sierra – Update or Not to Update?

21 points by franze 9y ago

Etheryte 9y ago
Personally, I’ve had a mostly pleasant experience, however, I had a lot of trouble with small niche tools and such. So if you’re an average user, I don’t see any reason not to, but if you’re a poweruser, ymmv.
TomMarius 9y ago
I've had two kernel panics since last week, something that has never happened before the update. Don't.
Spacemolte 9y ago
Still on Sierra, may consider it again in a couple of months. Keeping an eye on critical issues though.
The_suffocated 9y ago
Updated two weeks ago from Maverick on my mid-2014 MacBook Air because Homebrew no longer supports OS X 10.9.5. So far I haven't encountered any major issue. Wi-fi actually connects better. There are a few minor annoyances, though: (1) The battery lasts slightly shorter (< 10%) than before. (2) Tapping no longer works on trackpad during login (but it works after you've logged in). You must physically click the trackpad if you want to click anything. (3) CPU load is high (> 50%) when the Applications folder is kept open in Finder, but I'm not sure if this is specific to High Sierra or not.
- gargravarr 9y ago
  A side note, since the later Retina MBPs, the trackpad no longer has a physical button - a linear motor thumps the non-moving pad surface when you push hard enough to register a click (and I can't tell the difference, it's brilliantly implemented). So really, tap-to-click is the only thing that works - the difference between it and what used to be a physical 'click' is disappearing.
  - arbie 9y ago
    The ForceTouch Trackpad on the 2017 MacBook still recognizes taps and clicks as separate events.
    - gargravarr 9y ago
      Indeed. I just found it curious that 'tap to click' as a separate action is no longer relevant, as both actions are no longer physical.
freehunter 9y ago
My personal 13" 2015 MBP, my work-issued 13" 2014 MBP, and my wife's current-gen 13" MBA are all on the latest patch. I've never had a kernel panic, Homebrew works fine, all my (fairly mainstream) software works fine, my disks work fine, speed seems about the same. I can't comment on battery life since I rarely use my MBP more than a few feet away from a charger at any moment so I never pay attention to battery life. I somehow manage to escape most of the weird software issues that seem to be commonly reported elsewhere, though. Not sure how that is.
kevinherron 9y ago
I'm still on Sierra, but my wife's MacBook Air has been on High Sierra since day 1. No issues. I'm waiting until 10.13.4 to update myself.
myrandomcomment 9y ago
Running fine on a 2017 MacBook and my old 2014 MacBook Pro. No issues beyond anything I saw on any other versions. To be clear, I did end up wiping and re-installed the 2014 MacBook Pro as I had some strangeness. That laptop had been upgraded through ever version since 2014 and had 3rd party kxet, etc.
DEinspanjer 9y ago
I have skipped the update so far because after reading through the release notes, I found not a single useful feature for a business / programming focused MBP. Of course, they are still trying to nag me into updating it by popping up a notice very few days that has no close option, only "Install" and "Details" which opens the App Store. >:(
- ramenmeal 9y ago
  Generally those are the updates that are the best. It means they focused on performance and stability rather than gimmicky features
jason_slack 9y ago
I have all sorts of issues on a 15rMBP (non touchbar). There are apps that works fine before 10.13.1 and still don't work on 10.13.4. My machine runs at high CPU a lot of the time, fans blazing away. I'm actually considering going back to 10.12 for a while. All of my 10.12 machines are stable. 2 of my 10.13 machines seem to always have some quirkiness.
matchmike1313 9y ago
My biz partner upgraded and it wrecked all of his VM stuff...
- grzm 9y ago
  Do you have details on what happened?
weitzj 9y ago
Works with 10.13.3 on a 2015 MacBook pro. Weird issues/hangs when upgrading using multiple external monitors: Unplug all devices/monitors and then upgrade
andrei_says_ 9y ago
I’m running an old MacBook Pro on Sierra and will delay for as long as I can.
sheinsheish 9y ago
I have a mbp late 2011 with absolute no issues. I had some issues with Yamaha / Steinberg audio driver on macOS sierra but not on high sierra. It's speedy with an SSD and 8gb of ram.
- lostgame 9y ago
  Thanks for this. I have a late 2011 and was curious if I should update.
  - sheinsheish 9y ago
    Good luck. The rest of the comments make me believe that anything can happen. I've been always upgrading with my Macbooks. With iOS it's a whole different story though.
potta_coffee 9y ago
2015 MBP, I upgraded because I got tired of being nagged. I haven't noticed a single difference. I don't use OSX apps generally, most of my time is spent in Firefox/iTerm/Sublime.
dddw 9y ago
I have a macbook late 2009, oldest official supported hardware for sierra. Works smooth with a ssd and 8gb ram
joezydeco 9y ago
Two personal friends of mine have had their photo libraries screwed up on the High Sierra upgrade. I'm staying away.
Jemaclus 9y ago
I tried to update my personal macbook, and it almost bricked it. (Took about 4 hours to recover because it kept booting up with a white disabled icon.) I updated my work macbook and it worked fine. Can't explain that. That said, I don't really see any material improvements, so...
Crontab 9y ago
I haven't had any issues so far on my 2013 Macbook Air.
LarryMade2 9y ago
I had to roll back one users High Sierra update, no other way to get the computer to boot... while researching patches I found a lot of people were having similar problems with that model Macbook, so I told the user best to skip High Sierra for that computer, and am very leery of trying it on other because of how bad it was.
sdfjkl 9y ago
MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012). I've done it, because Final Cut Pro demanded it. Regrets, because Photos.app is now severely broken and causes high loads to the point where my mouse pointer (or beach ball) freezes intermittently (which, in my opinion, should be impossible on a modern computer system). Can't really process photos now. Extremely shameful work from Apple there. Finder bugs have been persisting since Yosemite, with a very common one where drag & drop stops working until Finder is force restarted. APFS conversion went well and problem free. Even homebrew survived (mostly). Strange USB problems persist, but they seem to be hardware related and ever present on this generation machine (first one with USB 3).
- ordinaryradical 9y ago
  Mostly!? What did they do to Homebrew? I was considering but this would be a dealbreaker for me.
aprdm 9y ago
Have latest Macbook Pro entry version. Did all the updates and always keep it up to date. Had 0 problems so far. Not sure if you mean to update from old OSX to High Sierra or to keep up-to-date High Sierra itself

21 points by franze 9y ago

Personally, I’ve had a mostly pleasant experience, however, I had a lot of trouble with small niche tools and such. So if you’re an average user, I don’t see any reason not to, but if you’re a poweruser, ymmv.

TomMarius 9y ago

I've had two kernel panics since last week, something that has never happened before the update. Don't.

Spacemolte 9y ago

Still on Sierra, may consider it again in a couple of months. Keeping an eye on critical issues though.

The_suffocated 9y ago

Updated two weeks ago from Maverick on my mid-2014 MacBook Air because Homebrew no longer supports OS X 10.9.5. So far I haven't encountered any major issue. Wi-fi actually connects better. There are a few minor annoyances, though: (1) The battery lasts slightly shorter (< 10%) than before. (2) Tapping no longer works on trackpad during login (but it works after you've logged in). You must physically click the trackpad if you want to click anything. (3) CPU load is high (> 50%) when the Applications folder is kept open in Finder, but I'm not sure if this is specific to High Sierra or not.

gargravarr 9y ago
A side note, since the later Retina MBPs, the trackpad no longer has a physical button - a linear motor thumps the non-moving pad surface when you push hard enough to register a click (and I can't tell the difference, it's brilliantly implemented). So really, tap-to-click is the only thing that works - the difference between it and what used to be a physical 'click' is disappearing.
- arbie 9y ago
  The ForceTouch Trackpad on the 2017 MacBook still recognizes taps and clicks as separate events.
  - gargravarr 9y ago
    Indeed. I just found it curious that 'tap to click' as a separate action is no longer relevant, as both actions are no longer physical.

freehunter 9y ago

My personal 13" 2015 MBP, my work-issued 13" 2014 MBP, and my wife's current-gen 13" MBA are all on the latest patch. I've never had a kernel panic, Homebrew works fine, all my (fairly mainstream) software works fine, my disks work fine, speed seems about the same. I can't comment on battery life since I rarely use my MBP more than a few feet away from a charger at any moment so I never pay attention to battery life. I somehow manage to escape most of the weird software issues that seem to be commonly reported elsewhere, though. Not sure how that is.

kevinherron 9y ago

I'm still on Sierra, but my wife's MacBook Air has been on High Sierra since day 1. No issues. I'm waiting until 10.13.4 to update myself.

myrandomcomment 9y ago

Running fine on a 2017 MacBook and my old 2014 MacBook Pro. No issues beyond anything I saw on any other versions. To be clear, I did end up wiping and re-installed the 2014 MacBook Pro as I had some strangeness. That laptop had been upgraded through ever version since 2014 and had 3rd party kxet, etc.

DEinspanjer 9y ago

I have skipped the update so far because after reading through the release notes, I found not a single useful feature for a business / programming focused MBP. Of course, they are still trying to nag me into updating it by popping up a notice very few days that has no close option, only "Install" and "Details" which opens the App Store. >:(

ramenmeal 9y ago
Generally those are the updates that are the best. It means they focused on performance and stability rather than gimmicky features

jason_slack 9y ago

I have all sorts of issues on a 15rMBP (non touchbar). There are apps that works fine before 10.13.1 and still don't work on 10.13.4. My machine runs at high CPU a lot of the time, fans blazing away. I'm actually considering going back to 10.12 for a while. All of my 10.12 machines are stable. 2 of my 10.13 machines seem to always have some quirkiness.

matchmike1313 9y ago

My biz partner upgraded and it wrecked all of his VM stuff...

grzm 9y ago
Do you have details on what happened?

weitzj 9y ago

Works with 10.13.3 on a 2015 MacBook pro. Weird issues/hangs when upgrading using multiple external monitors: Unplug all devices/monitors and then upgrade

andrei_says_ 9y ago

I’m running an old MacBook Pro on Sierra and will delay for as long as I can.

sheinsheish 9y ago

I have a mbp late 2011 with absolute no issues. I had some issues with Yamaha / Steinberg audio driver on macOS sierra but not on high sierra. It's speedy with an SSD and 8gb of ram.

lostgame 9y ago
Thanks for this. I have a late 2011 and was curious if I should update.
- sheinsheish 9y ago
  Good luck. The rest of the comments make me believe that anything can happen. I've been always upgrading with my Macbooks. With iOS it's a whole different story though.

potta_coffee 9y ago

2015 MBP, I upgraded because I got tired of being nagged. I haven't noticed a single difference. I don't use OSX apps generally, most of my time is spent in Firefox/iTerm/Sublime.

dddw 9y ago

I have a macbook late 2009, oldest official supported hardware for sierra. Works smooth with a ssd and 8gb ram

joezydeco 9y ago

Two personal friends of mine have had their photo libraries screwed up on the High Sierra upgrade. I'm staying away.

Jemaclus 9y ago

I tried to update my personal macbook, and it almost bricked it. (Took about 4 hours to recover because it kept booting up with a white disabled icon.) I updated my work macbook and it worked fine. Can't explain that. That said, I don't really see any material improvements, so...

Crontab 9y ago

I haven't had any issues so far on my 2013 Macbook Air.

LarryMade2 9y ago

I had to roll back one users High Sierra update, no other way to get the computer to boot... while researching patches I found a lot of people were having similar problems with that model Macbook, so I told the user best to skip High Sierra for that computer, and am very leery of trying it on other because of how bad it was.

sdfjkl 9y ago

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012). I've done it, because Final Cut Pro demanded it. Regrets, because Photos.app is now severely broken and causes high loads to the point where my mouse pointer (or beach ball) freezes intermittently (which, in my opinion, should be impossible on a modern computer system). Can't really process photos now. Extremely shameful work from Apple there. Finder bugs have been persisting since Yosemite, with a very common one where drag & drop stops working until Finder is force restarted. APFS conversion went well and problem free. Even homebrew survived (mostly). Strange USB problems persist, but they seem to be hardware related and ever present on this generation machine (first one with USB 3).

ordinaryradical 9y ago
Mostly!? What did they do to Homebrew? I was considering but this would be a dealbreaker for me.

aprdm 9y ago

Have latest Macbook Pro entry version. Did all the updates and always keep it up to date. Had 0 problems so far. Not sure if you mean to update from old OSX to High Sierra or to keep up-to-date High Sierra itself