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This is the type of article that can be published continuously for all of history. The computers get bigger and bigger. It would be more impressive if the updat

This is the type of article that can be published continuously for all of history. The computers get bigger and bigger. It would be more impressive if the updates were smaller for a while.

rekoil 3y ago
I thought one of the features of having signed and verified boot partitions was that you could know exactly what's in it and can thus do cool things like binary diff patching where it makes sense (which should be like >90% of all files in an update), and only ship complete binary images where absolutely necessary. Obviously this means you have to maintain 2 update tracks, one optimised flow for all the normies, and one for everyone who has disabled SIP. But the benefits are worth it when you consider all the electricity and bandwidth used by all the excess data you're no longer sending over the network. Combine this with APFS snapshotting and it should make for a resilient update schema which uses minimal amounts of data. Or am I completely wrong in my assumptions about binary diff patches?
- AdamN 3y ago
  iirc Windows already does this - MacOS is just behind the curve here. Perhaps there are security/stability edge cases that make this more difficult than it would seem?
- saagarjha 3y ago
  They do this.
sdflhasjd 3y ago
Download size inflation seems to be outstripping improvements in my internet connection.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xethos 3y ago
  I hadn't realized any country was getting progressively slower internet speeds. Per TFA: > Since Big Sur, updates have reduced in total size, and in Ventura were close to or below earlier versions Apple is shipping smaller updates over time, not larger (any more).
  - sdflhasjd 3y ago
    It's a bold extrapolation from two updates though, I doubt it will continue, and I'll be downloading 1TB Xcode updates in ten years time. Also, I just checked. Even this record "small" sized update is still an upward trend based on when my Internet connection was originally provisioned.
galad87 3y ago
Actually the article says they are smaller. Big Sur has the biggest ones, than they progressively got smaller.
Klonoar 3y ago
You should actually read the article. ;p

This is the type of article that can be published continuously for all of history. The computers get bigger and bigger. It would be more impressive if the updates were smaller for a while.

rekoil 3y ago

I thought one of the features of having signed and verified boot partitions was that you could know exactly what's in it and can thus do cool things like binary diff patching where it makes sense (which should be like >90% of all files in an update), and only ship complete binary images where absolutely necessary. Obviously this means you have to maintain 2 update tracks, one optimised flow for all the normies, and one for everyone who has disabled SIP. But the benefits are worth it when you consider all the electricity and bandwidth used by all the excess data you're no longer sending over the network. Combine this with APFS snapshotting and it should make for a resilient update schema which uses minimal amounts of data. Or am I completely wrong in my assumptions about binary diff patches?

AdamN 3y ago
iirc Windows already does this - MacOS is just behind the curve here. Perhaps there are security/stability edge cases that make this more difficult than it would seem?
saagarjha 3y ago
They do this.

sdflhasjd 3y ago

Download size inflation seems to be outstripping improvements in my internet connection.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xethos 3y ago
I hadn't realized any country was getting progressively slower internet speeds. Per TFA: > Since Big Sur, updates have reduced in total size, and in Ventura were close to or below earlier versions Apple is shipping smaller updates over time, not larger (any more).
- sdflhasjd 3y ago
  It's a bold extrapolation from two updates though, I doubt it will continue, and I'll be downloading 1TB Xcode updates in ten years time. Also, I just checked. Even this record "small" sized update is still an upward trend based on when my Internet connection was originally provisioned.

galad87 3y ago

Actually the article says they are smaller. Big Sur has the biggest ones, than they progressively got smaller.

Klonoar 3y ago

You should actually read the article. ;p