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The complaints here about how the new macOS does not have anything exciting or interesting is weird. I thought the best thing about the new macOS (and iOS) is

by PakG1 8y ago

The complaints here about how the new macOS does not have anything exciting or interesting is weird. I thought the best thing about the new macOS (and iOS) is that it's supposed to be Apple focusing on stability, rather than new features. Given all the bad things that have happened with macOS in the past year, I thought this was going to be appreciated. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/30/apple-focus-on-software-quality-extends-to-mac/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/30/apple-focus-on-software...

jxi 8y ago
When they release new features, people ask for stability. When they focus on stability, people "yawn" at the lack of new features. People who don't like Apple will just find a reason to complain.
deleted 8y ago
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greggman 8y ago
did they announce all the fixes? if not then I'd assume that's why people aren't focusing on them. I too would appreciate stability and fixes. I know they are listed in the notes for each release. Still if that really was the focus that needs to be communicated note I didn't watch the announcements so if they did emphasize that great!
- dogweather 8y ago
  I'm 100% with you. I heard nothing about focus on stability, or bug fixes. Really, just silence about it.
- spunker540 8y ago
  I think no matter what the focus is, they’re never gonna spend time during highly publicized events highlighting bugs in previous versions that they’ve fixed!
shyy 8y ago
High Sierra didn't have much notable or interesting either, and it proved to be the least stable release in a while by a damn sight. Lately it seems like Apple has downshifted in competence all-around (at least on the Mac). I'll believe evidence to the contrary when I see it — not sooner. I know that makes me seem like an HN Apple hater. And it pains me to say that. I've been a Mac fan since the mid-90s. I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt for a few years, but at this point they've blown through that into deep red territory. It makes me sad :(
- PakG1 8y ago
  I would not consider a brand new file system to not be notable. Maybe for average consumers it wouldn't matter much, but for us, we probably should appreciate how big an endeavour a new file system is.
  - seandougall 8y ago
    I certainly appreciated it when I went to install the beta this afternoon. Took two seconds to add a volume, as opposed to many minutes (and the risk of data loss) partitioning in the old days.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    In my case it resulted in total data loss causing me to do a fresh install, then within days a file system that was filled to capacity due to time machine snapshots that couldn't be deleted due to a cyclical depedency. I had to figure out how to reinstall on HFS+ and don't plan on ever trying again.
  - 72deluxe 8y ago
    As much as I value the new file system (interestingly architected by the chap who did the BeFS, if only Apple had bought Be Inc!), it appears to still be lacking all the wonderful features of NTFS. I'm still on Sierra at the moment as I delay upgrading after all the horrible bugs of the new release have been found - in everyone's opinion, is now a good time to leapfrog High Sierra? Time will tell.
dogweather 8y ago
I take Apple at their word. If they don't claim to have focussed on stability in this release, then I won't assume that they did.
- SCdF 8y ago
  I don't think they'd ever admit to focussing on stability because that would imply the OS isn't already stable.
  - Ndymium 8y ago
    But that's exactly how they marketed Snow Leopard (macOS 10.6). They even said it would have "no new features", instead focusing on making it faster and more reliable.
    - SCdF 8y ago
      Fair enough, Snow Leopard marketing was before my time noticing Apple's existence. I've just noticed that in general they never admit that they've done anything wrong or made any mistakes, and it seems hard to market a release for stability without somehow admitting to existing mistakes.
      - 72deluxe 8y ago
        They joyously announced zero new features for Snow Leopard over Leopard and it has been known as the most excellent release of OSX, ever (before the iOS-ification of the system and deep iCloud integration).
      - m_mueller 8y ago
        SJ had plenty of moments where he admitted mistakes, together with the new solution. IMO he was much more engaged with user feedback than Cook/Ive/Federighi.
    - dogweather 8y ago
      Bingo.
dmitriid 8y ago
So. The most important feature of this new release "designed for pros" that gets top placement on the announcement page is ... dark mode. The second is stacks. The third is the ports of iOS apps (including the long overdue Home). I find it very hard to be excited about a yet another "major" release that doesn't even qualify as a minor version bump.
- krisdol 8y ago
  I’ve been wishing for dark mode for all 6 years I’ve had my MacBook Pro, so I’m pretty happy with that alone. I also have next to no qualms with OS X in its current state so I’m pretty easy to please. I will say that the hardware quality on the other hand has taken a nosedive lately.
- some_account 8y ago
  It's not designed for pros. Linux is. Apple is about easy usage and they benefit hugely from having Linux underneath, which is why they even are considered by real pros. It looks nice and that's what people like.
  - danieldk 8y ago
    Their definition of 'Pro' stretches much wider than developers. Traditionally, their Pro Apps were Aperture (raw editing), Logic (audio workstation) and Final Cut (video editing). Of course, the Adobe suite fits that moniker as well. For most people doing video/audio/photo editing, macOS and Windows are the primary choices (though you can obviously do this on Linux as well). Note: macOS is not using Linux underneath. It uses the XNU kernel, which is based on Mach and BSD.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - deleted 8y ago
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  - PaulRobinson 8y ago
    It's not "Linux underneath". It's a Mach microkernel and a BSD userland taken from FreeBSD, which coincided with them hiring the founder of FreeBSD into a role to do release management. He's left since. The fact you don't know this suggests you might not be aware of macOS fundamentals, the history of OS X, or MacOS that preceded it, the design decisions that went into all of those, the user groups they targeted at key points (including the adoption of FreeBSD userland), or their overall design intent. I therefore struggle to agree with your premise that it's "not designed for pros", or that you are qualified to make that assertion.
some_account 8y ago
Maybe because it doesn't actually mean anything. It's like those random numbers they pull out... 40% faster app starts etc... In practice, you won't even think about it in real usage. They take some part of upstart procedure and load it afterwards in the background so it seems the app is faster. It's smoke and mirrors.
- aeontech 8y ago
  I am guessing you have some specific examples of that happening in mind? Otherwise, you’re just spreading FUD, not to mention insulting the developers working there. PS: i am pretty sure caching, pre-compiling, etc are perfectly reasonable optimization techniques that many of us rely on.
pndy 8y ago
Seems like some people still got this ongoing "war" concept in their minds between major desktop OSes. They demand breathtaking features that will make them outstanding placed side by side with competition and all what they're getting are gimmicks, changes for sake of change. And I don't find that surprising either; for more than a decade OS are feature complete and you can do your everyday chores no matter if it's Windows, OSX or any *nix with DE of choice - the difference is in style that mentioned are giving; so it's hard to give something really meaningful that would change the workflow, especially when majority of people are more happy with mobile envirnoments
- AriaMinaei 8y ago
  I'd disagree. I can think of multiple feature that only OSes can improve upon, not apps. One is, creating a common platform for apps to share data, live data, with one another. By live data, I mean editing a spreadsheet in Excel, and seeing it change a chart in Photoshop, instantaneously. Not after saving the file. Not after hitting a refresh button somewhere. I know, this has been possible for decades, but there are no apps taking advantage of it, mainly because these things need a common platform with well-defined standards. This is something that OSes are best positioned to implement, but none do.
antirez 8y ago
The side story could be different: very low effort on MacOS -> No much new features -> No much work to stability issues.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
I was hoping they were going to remove some features that didn't work out - Launchpad for example, which seems to have been a spasm in macOS a couple years ago to make macOS more suitable for a touch screen that never came.
- dddddaviddddd 8y ago
  It's somewhat useful on a laptop where it's easily invoked by a trackpad gesture — I've sent a few users who consider it to be where all their apps 'are'.
- dwaite 8y ago
  My understanding is a lot of users use LaunchPad (possibly all those who don't have an Applications folder dragged to their dock and do not know they can just type the name of their app to run it via spotlight)
gruturo 8y ago
I for one am extremely happy if they work on stability rather than gimmicks (or worse, breaking my workflow which pointless changes for the sake of change). The problem is, it's difficult to be excited in advance about a stability which is being promised, but can only be verified some months away. But I don't care really. Give me an OS which works and doesn't get in my way. Something without ridiculous amounts of telemetry, please.

by PakG1 8y ago

jxi 8y ago

When they release new features, people ask for stability. When they focus on stability, people "yawn" at the lack of new features. People who don't like Apple will just find a reason to complain.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

greggman 8y ago

did they announce all the fixes? if not then I'd assume that's why people aren't focusing on them. I too would appreciate stability and fixes. I know they are listed in the notes for each release. Still if that really was the focus that needs to be communicated note I didn't watch the announcements so if they did emphasize that great!

dogweather 8y ago
I'm 100% with you. I heard nothing about focus on stability, or bug fixes. Really, just silence about it.
spunker540 8y ago
I think no matter what the focus is, they’re never gonna spend time during highly publicized events highlighting bugs in previous versions that they’ve fixed!

shyy 8y ago

High Sierra didn't have much notable or interesting either, and it proved to be the least stable release in a while by a damn sight. Lately it seems like Apple has downshifted in competence all-around (at least on the Mac). I'll believe evidence to the contrary when I see it — not sooner. I know that makes me seem like an HN Apple hater. And it pains me to say that. I've been a Mac fan since the mid-90s. I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt for a few years, but at this point they've blown through that into deep red territory. It makes me sad :(

PakG1 8y ago
I would not consider a brand new file system to not be notable. Maybe for average consumers it wouldn't matter much, but for us, we probably should appreciate how big an endeavour a new file system is.
- seandougall 8y ago
  I certainly appreciated it when I went to install the beta this afternoon. Took two seconds to add a volume, as opposed to many minutes (and the risk of data loss) partitioning in the old days.
- garmaine 8y ago
  In my case it resulted in total data loss causing me to do a fresh install, then within days a file system that was filled to capacity due to time machine snapshots that couldn't be deleted due to a cyclical depedency. I had to figure out how to reinstall on HFS+ and don't plan on ever trying again.
- 72deluxe 8y ago
  As much as I value the new file system (interestingly architected by the chap who did the BeFS, if only Apple had bought Be Inc!), it appears to still be lacking all the wonderful features of NTFS. I'm still on Sierra at the moment as I delay upgrading after all the horrible bugs of the new release have been found - in everyone's opinion, is now a good time to leapfrog High Sierra? Time will tell.

dogweather 8y ago

I take Apple at their word. If they don't claim to have focussed on stability in this release, then I won't assume that they did.

SCdF 8y ago
I don't think they'd ever admit to focussing on stability because that would imply the OS isn't already stable.
- Ndymium 8y ago
  But that's exactly how they marketed Snow Leopard (macOS 10.6). They even said it would have "no new features", instead focusing on making it faster and more reliable.
  - SCdF 8y ago
    Fair enough, Snow Leopard marketing was before my time noticing Apple's existence. I've just noticed that in general they never admit that they've done anything wrong or made any mistakes, and it seems hard to market a release for stability without somehow admitting to existing mistakes.
    - 72deluxe 8y ago
      They joyously announced zero new features for Snow Leopard over Leopard and it has been known as the most excellent release of OSX, ever (before the iOS-ification of the system and deep iCloud integration).
    - m_mueller 8y ago
      SJ had plenty of moments where he admitted mistakes, together with the new solution. IMO he was much more engaged with user feedback than Cook/Ive/Federighi.
  - dogweather 8y ago
    Bingo.

dmitriid 8y ago

So. The most important feature of this new release "designed for pros" that gets top placement on the announcement page is ... dark mode. The second is stacks. The third is the ports of iOS apps (including the long overdue Home). I find it very hard to be excited about a yet another "major" release that doesn't even qualify as a minor version bump.

krisdol 8y ago
I’ve been wishing for dark mode for all 6 years I’ve had my MacBook Pro, so I’m pretty happy with that alone. I also have next to no qualms with OS X in its current state so I’m pretty easy to please. I will say that the hardware quality on the other hand has taken a nosedive lately.
some_account 8y ago
It's not designed for pros. Linux is. Apple is about easy usage and they benefit hugely from having Linux underneath, which is why they even are considered by real pros. It looks nice and that's what people like.
- danieldk 8y ago
  Their definition of 'Pro' stretches much wider than developers. Traditionally, their Pro Apps were Aperture (raw editing), Logic (audio workstation) and Final Cut (video editing). Of course, the Adobe suite fits that moniker as well. For most people doing video/audio/photo editing, macOS and Windows are the primary choices (though you can obviously do this on Linux as well). Note: macOS is not using Linux underneath. It uses the XNU kernel, which is based on Mach and BSD.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- PaulRobinson 8y ago
  It's not "Linux underneath". It's a Mach microkernel and a BSD userland taken from FreeBSD, which coincided with them hiring the founder of FreeBSD into a role to do release management. He's left since. The fact you don't know this suggests you might not be aware of macOS fundamentals, the history of OS X, or MacOS that preceded it, the design decisions that went into all of those, the user groups they targeted at key points (including the adoption of FreeBSD userland), or their overall design intent. I therefore struggle to agree with your premise that it's "not designed for pros", or that you are qualified to make that assertion.

some_account 8y ago

Maybe because it doesn't actually mean anything. It's like those random numbers they pull out... 40% faster app starts etc... In practice, you won't even think about it in real usage. They take some part of upstart procedure and load it afterwards in the background so it seems the app is faster. It's smoke and mirrors.

aeontech 8y ago
I am guessing you have some specific examples of that happening in mind? Otherwise, you’re just spreading FUD, not to mention insulting the developers working there. PS: i am pretty sure caching, pre-compiling, etc are perfectly reasonable optimization techniques that many of us rely on.

pndy 8y ago

Seems like some people still got this ongoing "war" concept in their minds between major desktop OSes. They demand breathtaking features that will make them outstanding placed side by side with competition and all what they're getting are gimmicks, changes for sake of change. And I don't find that surprising either; for more than a decade OS are feature complete and you can do your everyday chores no matter if it's Windows, OSX or any *nix with DE of choice - the difference is in style that mentioned are giving; so it's hard to give something really meaningful that would change the workflow, especially when majority of people are more happy with mobile envirnoments

AriaMinaei 8y ago
I'd disagree. I can think of multiple feature that only OSes can improve upon, not apps. One is, creating a common platform for apps to share data, live data, with one another. By live data, I mean editing a spreadsheet in Excel, and seeing it change a chart in Photoshop, instantaneously. Not after saving the file. Not after hitting a refresh button somewhere. I know, this has been possible for decades, but there are no apps taking advantage of it, mainly because these things need a common platform with well-defined standards. This is something that OSes are best positioned to implement, but none do.

antirez 8y ago

The side story could be different: very low effort on MacOS -> No much new features -> No much work to stability issues.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

I was hoping they were going to remove some features that didn't work out - Launchpad for example, which seems to have been a spasm in macOS a couple years ago to make macOS more suitable for a touch screen that never came.

dddddaviddddd 8y ago
It's somewhat useful on a laptop where it's easily invoked by a trackpad gesture — I've sent a few users who consider it to be where all their apps 'are'.
dwaite 8y ago
My understanding is a lot of users use LaunchPad (possibly all those who don't have an Applications folder dragged to their dock and do not know they can just type the name of their app to run it via spotlight)

gruturo 8y ago

I for one am extremely happy if they work on stability rather than gimmicks (or worse, breaking my workflow which pointless changes for the sake of change). The problem is, it's difficult to be excited in advance about a stability which is being promised, but can only be verified some months away. But I don't care really. Give me an OS which works and doesn't get in my way. Something without ridiculous amounts of telemetry, please.