
Apple Announces macOS High Sierra - salimmadjd
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/05/apple-announces-macos-high-sierra/
======
clumsysmurf
"Safari also now blocks auto-playing videos and will use machine learning to
identify trackers and segregate the cross-site trackers so advertisers won’t
be able to easily track you across sites."

Finally, I feel a corporation is using ML to project me, rather than sell me.

~~~
vhost-
I totally agree with this. I hate auto-playing videos too. But I am curious
what people's opinions are on youtube auto-playing. when I go to youtube or
click on a youtube video, I kind of have the expectation that it will start
playing for me when the page loads. What does everyone else think?

~~~
M4v3R
Maybe it will be possible to whitelist certain sites like Youtube, that would
be useful. Even more useful if it did figure out that by itself.

~~~
muninn_
Yes it is exactly that, and says so on the macOS High Sierra page. :)

------
canuckintime
Apple adding native support for eGPUs is huge.

(Can't believe Microsoft missed a beat and didn't add an official eGPU dock to
their Surface line. A couple people I know passed on the Surface Studio
because it isn't powerful enough despite loving the hardware otherwise)

~~~
kllrnohj
Is it really huge, though? They still don't support Vulkan or even OpenGL 4.2
(2011)

What are you even going to use that eGPU with other than installing Windows
through bootcamp so you can actually make use of the hardware?

~~~
Analemma_
It's been pretty clear for a while that OpenGL on Macs is dead, and that it's
"Metal or GTFO". If modern OpenGL is still a requirement for you, grit your
teeth and choose Windows or Linux.

~~~
pjmlp
OpenGL is also dead on Windows for UWP applications. The only available option
is via ANGLE or stay on Win32 until it gets kicked out.

~~~
rtpg
Does this mean opengl is going to work on less and less platforms?

Are there real crosspolatform options left? Or are people going to rely more
and more on things like Unity to capture that extra complexity?

~~~
snuxoll
With everything realistically heading towards lower level API's like DirectX
12, Vulkan and Metal I doubt many people are going to be rolling their own
engines anymore. OpenGL and D3D11 made it fairly doable, but these new API's
are more than most people will want to deal with.

------
IBalic
...and XCode 9 beta seems to be available as well with refactoring support
(finally).
[https://developer.apple.com/xcode/](https://developer.apple.com/xcode/)

------
throwaway-1209
Lots for ML, and their Accelerate framework is already second to none on the
CPU. Meanwhile, Microsoft doesn't even bundle BLAS with their OS.

------
ksherlock
I don't know about geography but High Sierra was also the name of the 1985-era
CD ROM data specification. Apple was a participant. Named (if Wikipedia is to
be believed) after the High Sierra Hotel and Casino that hosted the working
group.

~~~
astrodust
That occurred to me too during the keynote. Memories of the days when
installing a CD-ROM meant fiddling with a half dozen settings in CONFIG.SYS to
ensure all the drivers loaded properly.

~~~
rangibaby
If you miss those days you can install a driver to get your camera working on
a MacBook with Linux. It worked fine for me but took about an hour or so of
fiddling:
[https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie](https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie)

------
tapoxi
No mention of Vulkan? Is Apple determined to avoid supporting it?

~~~
pjmlp
Vulkan might become the next OpenCL, with the focus being Android (7% devices
as of today) and GNU/Linux thing.

All major game engines already support Metal, DX 12, NVN (the actual Switch
main GX API) and LibGCM. Middleware is what counts, switching the graphics API
on a compilation switch.

Apple just announced on the Keynote, Metal 2, Metal VR and updated Metal
Compute, with the Window Manger being ported from OpenGL to Metal.

Also how ILM is now using Metal on their production pipelines.

It remains to be seen what will be shown later on the technical sessions.

~~~
kllrnohj
Except OpenCL was more like Metal - designed by Apple, pushed by Apple, used
by nobody.

The major game engines already support Vulkan, too, and Vulkan is getting
_far_ more game developer support than Metal is. A few of the major engines,
like Source 2 & ID Tech 6, also chose to only support Vulkan and not DX12.
Largely because DX12 requires Win10 which means out the gate you've eliminated
half of your Windows gaming population compared to Vulkan.

Currently all signs point towards Vulkan edging out DX12 in the Windows gaming
market. That could change, of course, but Microsoft making DX12 win10-only as
well as the closed access preview thing have so far put it at a pretty large
disadvantage vs. Vulkan in these early days. Which matters as otherwise the
APIs are pretty much the same, so why go with the Win10-exclusive when you can
have the exact same thing but everywhere?

Then for your content creation apps where unity/unreal middleware isn't really
an option, that's going to be extra painful. Or they just ignore the problem
and run OpenGL 4.1 on OSX and OpenGL 4.5+/Vulkan on Windows, and say "suck to
all you pro consumers on mac, you should have bought a windows workstation
instead"?

~~~
pjmlp
> Except OpenCL was more like Metal - designed by Apple, pushed by Apple, used
> by nobody.

Because Apple could not stand Khronos politics.

Also Apple isn't to blame Khronos could not make something as usable as CUDA.

Really. only now they start to care about C alternatives for GPGPU?!

> Currently all signs point towards Vulkan edging out DX12 in the Windows
> gaming market.

Vulkan and OpenGL don't work in UWP, which is the future of Windows
application model, nor on XBox.

~~~
kllrnohj
> Also Apple isn't to blame Khronos could not make something as usable as
> CUDA.

Apple is the one that developed OpenCL. Apple submitted OpenCL to Khronos. So
if Apple isn't to blame then who is?

> Vulkan and OpenGL don't work in UWP, which is the future of Windows
> application model

It's only the future if applications adopt it. Which since it's win10 only
there's no real chance of that happening anytime soon.

Keep in mind Steam is the dominate marketplace for gaming on Windows, not the
Microsoft app store (followed by a few other stores - Origin, Battle.net,
etc...). So what Microsoft wants to happen is pretty irrelevant to what will
actually happen since nobody really cares about Microsoft's store.

> Vulkan and OpenGL don't work [...] on XBox.

Neither does DX12. Console devs aren't writing for UWP nor for Direct3D. UWP
on xbox sounds like that old XNA thing - something for maybe indie devs but
since indie devs now have a choice of engines to pick from they probably will
care even less now than they did back when XNA was a thing.

~~~
pjmlp
> Apple is the one that developed OpenCL. Apple submitted OpenCL to Khronos.
> So if Apple isn't to blame then who is?

The Khronos group that wanted OpenCL to look something else than what Apple
cared about.

When one is in minority, better leave.

> Which since it's win10 only there's no real chance of that happening anytime
> soon.

I remember hearing the same about DX 10/Vista, DX 11/Windows 7 and how
GNU/Linux would save the world of gaming with SteamOS and here we are.

> Neither does DX12.

I guess you don't follow XBox SDK news, UWP is irrelevant in XBox context.

~~~
kllrnohj
> I remember hearing the same about DX 10/Vista, DX 11/Windows 7

And DX 10 & 11 adoption took _forever_ to happen. Those claims were completely
accurate. The difference now is that Vulkan is actually good with good tools,
debugging, and support (probably because it came out of AMD instead of
Khronos), so DX12 brings nothing to the table other than reduced platform
support including worse support on Windows. Particularly since both are
massive breaking API changes, so you're basically starting from scratch anyway
not just porting over your DX11 code to DX12.

I didn't claim GNU/Linux would save the world, so why are you trotting out
that claim as if I did?

> I guess you don't follow XBox SDK news, UWP is irrelevant in XBox context.

Huh? I literally said "Console devs aren't writing for UWP nor for Direct3D."
as the very next sentence. So I'm obviously aware of that, why are you
pretending I'm not?

~~~
pjmlp
> I didn't claim GNU/Linux would save the world, so why are you trotting out
> that claim as if I did?

Because it is the only OS where Vulkan is actually relevant in practice.

Also Vulkan tools only look good to developers that never used graphical
debugging tools outside OpenGL, specially in regarding to shader debugging and
frame level information.

> Huh? I literally said "Console devs aren't writing for UWP nor for
> Direct3D." as the very next sentence. So I'm obviously aware of that, why
> are you pretending I'm not?

Because you reveal not knowing about DirectX, by mentioning Direct3D, which
has died long time ago and then go on to compare UWP and DirectX 12 to XNA.

While what XBox game developers care about is XBox SDK, which already has
support for DirectX 12.

~~~
kllrnohj
> Because it is the only OS where Vulkan is actually relevant in practice.

Vulkan has a very strong presence on Windows, which is what I focused on
entirely.

> Also Vulkan tools only look good to developers that never used graphical
> debugging tools outside OpenGL, specially in regarding to shader debugging
> and frame level information

RenderDoc, one of the major graphical debugging tools, has Vulkan support in
addition to Direct3D 11 & 12 support. It seems you're just entirely oblivious
of everything about vulkan...

> Because you reveal not knowing about DirectX, by mentioning Direct3D, which
> has died long time ago

Direct3D is the 3D graphics API of DirectX. It's not dead. If it was we
wouldn't be having this discussion at all as Direct3D 12 wouldn't even exist.
DirectX is more than just 3D graphics APIs - that's what D3D is. DirectX also
includes Direct2D (not dead, either), DirectCompute for GPGPU, and XAudio2 for
low-level audio access.

Most of DirectX, though, has died over the years - like DirectInput,
DirectSound, and DirectSound3D. Direct3D & Direct2D/DirectWrite are largely
the only parts of DirectX that matter anymore.

------
mixedCase
Anyone else able to pitch in on the JS performance claims? How honest is it?

~~~
yusukesuzuki
[https://webkit.org/blog/7536/jsc-loves-
es6/](https://webkit.org/blog/7536/jsc-loves-es6/) :)

~~~
foobarbazetc
Would be nice if this translated into real world apps and Apple allowed
embedding new WebKit into native apps.

WKWebKit doesn't even support printing properly from 3rd party code.

~~~
pier25
Sadly Apple has no interest in helping developers make hybrid iOS apps.
WKWebView and UIWebView will only give you headaches.

------
wdb
Hopefully it improves the Bluetooth support as on my 2013 rMBP it's really
flaky. Unable to use my Magic Mouse and keyboard without getting annoyed by
the constant disconnects.

------
drinchev
Sounds great.

I think most of the Safari updates are as well in it's webkit js engine.

Although I'm really still confused why does Apple bounds their Safari browser
with it's OS updates.

I will be very, very happy if I can receive up-to-date battery-savvy browser,
without having to wait for a full-blown conference.

~~~
weabot
Apple are a bit old-school about releases, they seem to bundle all major
updates together and only give security and minor updates to their previous
releases, and they follow that for all of the software they provide.

This is how it has historically been for 90's and early 00's unix-like
operating systems like *BSD and Solaris. A lot of things come bundled with the
base so everything in the operating system's base release is updated with a
new release of the kernel that comes bundled with it.

~~~
city41
It's in Apple's interest to get everyone onto the latest macOS, so packaging
app updates into the OS update helps accomplish that.

~~~
rtpg
The counterpoint is that doing these releases means having to roll out 100
changes at once instead of trickling them out continuously

The reason people hate upgrading is half "losing features", half "everything
breaks". Imagine if they rolled out changes continuously?

~~~
netheril96
Yeah, Win 10 and Arch Linux are poster children for "everything just works".

~~~
rtpg
well... Chrome updates all the time (version 50 now, can you believe it?)

I haven't used Win 10, but even Win 8 was pretty good for me (crashed less
than Sierra + the new MBP).

------
accountyaccount
Wonder how Steve Jobs would feel about all these Dad jokes becoming a part of
Apple's brand.

~~~
Analemma_
Didn't Jobs once say taking LSD was "one of the most important things that
ever happened" to him? I'm sure he'd be just fine with the weed jokes ;)

~~~
accountyaccount
Sure, weed jokes — but the general "dadness" of the last few keynotes seems
new and a bit weird.

~~~
Analemma_
I don't think it's every presenter though, just Federighi. He's been known as
"the dad joke guy" for a while now. Personally, I kinda like it when each
presenter has a distinct personality, it keeps it all from blurring together.

------
chrismatheson
Will new APFS mean a beast of an upgrade as it changes my fs?

~~~
deedubaya
If you're on iOS 10.3, you've already been upgraded from HFS+ to APFS. I
believe this was done for all iOS users without much notice.

[https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/01/ios-10-3-will-be-
apple...](https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/01/ios-10-3-will-be-apples-first-
update-to-convert-storage-to-apfs/)

So to answer your question, maybe not so beastly.

~~~
pvg
This is about the macOS update. High Sierra is the first macOS release with
APFS as default

~~~
deedubaya
Yes, I was just showing as an example of how seamlessly they were able to
upgrade iOS devices to APFS.

~~~
pvg
It's a far more constrained (and typically, more frequently backed up)
environment. I don't think it really answers the question of 'how is it going
to work out on macOS'.

~~~
masklinn
Of course not, but it shows that transparent in-place update should be
possible.

------
empath75
The pitch meeting for that must have been something else.

~~~
apetresc
Yeah, everyone's making a big deal out of the name. Is "Sierra" some sort of
stoner reference I don't understand, or is it really just the fact that they
put the word "High" in there? Is that really how grade-school we've all
gotten?

~~~
empath75
I think it's half funny because of the 'high' and half funny because it's just
a really lazy naming scheme.

~~~
curun1r
It'd be fine if it were actually consistent and they picked different
locations. But 'High Sierra' is a region, 'Yosemite' is a park in that region
and 'El Capitan' is a large rock in that park (side note...a large rock that
was climbed without ropes this weekend...Alex Honnold is both insane and a
huge inspiration). They've essentially made the last three releases about the
same place. It's lazy and inconsistent. And it's not like there's a shortage
of exquisite places in California. Big Sur, Shasta, Lassen, Mendocino, Lost
Coast, San Simeon, Joshua Tree, Catalina, Monterrey Bay...just off the top of
my head, I've named 9 better California places that they could have used for
their releases.

It'd also be kinda funny for them to jab at Microsoft's advertising and have
an OS X Mojave, since it would fit with their naming scheme.

~~~
toyg
Some of those names I recognise from other IT-related products (Mendocino,
Catalina, Monterey...). Generally speaking, naming products after CA landmarks
has been done for 30+ years in this industry, it just feels very unoriginal. I
think it's a desperate attempt from Apple to remind you (or themselves) that
they "design in California", despite manufacturing in China, selling in
Europe, and stashing profits in Bermuda; and to suggest the OS is "hard as a
rock", as opposed to the wobbly and airy "windows".

I very much preferred the big-cats theme. It humanised the OS in powerful
ways, making it an extremely powerful and very intelligent animal that
dominates through speed and elegance. Rocks are just dumb and static.

~~~
palimpsests
Advocate here; rocks are quite dynamic on geologic timescales. Also, I don't
think it really makes sense to call them dumb, as that is a quality one would
apply to something with a central nervous system and capacity to self-identify
in conjunction with capacity for intelligence.

We know that rocks don't have a CNS; if they can self-identify the mechanism
for this and their experience is obviously quite alien to our own so it
doesn't make much sense to project human qualities onto them without more
information.

It is true that the qualities of rocks are quite different than those of large
felines.

------
asciimo
I'm going to hold out for High Sierra Plus.

~~~
Xeoncross
Plus

------
tostitos1979
Woah Woah .. how does one get a VR headset to run on a Mac? Are they referring
to a macbook pro and Oculus?

~~~
empath75
The demo was a Vive.

------
s73ver
Auto video-blocking and tracking blocking built in is huge.

------
FireBeyond
"It's all about deep technologies which are the foundation for new
technologies".

What an utterly pointless statement.

------
diimdeep
APFS don't support compression like HFS+ ?

~~~
astrodust
During the 2016 talk on APFS they mentioned it was dropped for various
reasons. SSD performance is so ridiculous now that the CPU can't decompress
quickly enough, so it'd impair performance. The new notebooks and desktops do
3GB/s read/write, so that's a lot to crunch through in real-time.

I'd suppose if compression is imporatant, do it in your application.

~~~
kartickv
Thanks for sharing Apple's rationale, but I disagree. The bottleneck is space,
not speed, of SSDs. Few people need a GB per second of read or write more than
they need space. If compression gives me even a GB of extra space on a 128GB
SSD, I'd take it.

In fact, a 7200RPM hard disc is adequate for me.

~~~
veidr
I would respectfully argue that you perhaps are the outlier, rather than the
people who want more speed out of their direct-attached storage.

Disk speed was the most significant performance bottleneck for years — a point
that Apple has repeatedly made in their developer guidelines on
performance[1].

I think this is (happily) starting to be less of a concern with these new SSDs
capable of 2GB-3GB/second. The 1TB SSD in my 2013 Mac Pro benchmarks at
1GB/sec and I find doubling/tripling that an extremely attractive proposition.

Other than offline backups and archiving systems, I literally haven't used a
spinning-magnetic-media storage device since 2013 (and avoided them when
possible before that). And I definitely don't plan to ever do so again.

[1]: e.g.
[https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Pe...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/PerformanceOverview/DevelopingForPerf/DevelopingForPerf.html)

~~~
kartickv
I wonder if this is a divide between geeks / power users / developers on one
hand, who want more speed, and average users, who want more space. Every time
someone talks about speed, that statement comes from a geek. By contrast, I
have heard non-technical people complain about insufficient space on their
128GB Macbooks, but not about the speed. Maybe my sample size isn't big
enough. I don't know.

When you said that people want more speed out of their storage, sure, we all
want it in the abstract, but did you mean even at the cost of having less
space for a higher price?

My iMac's Fusion Drive failed, in the sense of not using the SSD at all, and I
didn't notice much difference except in specific situations, like booting, app
startup and swapping. On the whole, I wasn't any less productive or more
irritated with a hard disc. A small screen, a slower Internet connection and
having to move data back and forth to external hard discs are a bigger pain
for me than the speed of a hard disc, assuming it's 7200 RPM.

------
CleanCut
I still maintain that even I can come up with a better naming scheme than
"places in California you've never heard of."

[https://medium.com/@nathanstocks/dear-apple-your-naming-
sche...](https://medium.com/@nathanstocks/dear-apple-your-naming-scheme-
stinks-here-let-me-fix-it-for-you-d4dd697c51a8)

------
Larrikin
Can anyone confirm that they finally fixed the bug prevents an ethernet
connected computer from becoming a hotspot?

------
kunthar
slightly off topic but we should have alternates lik puri.sm guys. if the
privacy is quite important at this age, their slick linux hardware woth to
look at it.

------
likelynew
There are only two hard things in Computer Science..

------
IgorPartola
Off topic: can I just say how much I hate TechCrunch articles? Clearly poorly
and hastily written, with grammar issues, calling HEVC a "container" format,
and WTF is a "Thunderbolt 3 enclosure" when it comes to external graphics
cards? Like I get it, first to market wins the ad clicks, but come on. Do we
have to keep upvoting this crap on HN?

~~~
zymhan
A Thunderbolt 3 enclosure for External GPUs is exactly what it sounds like: A
GPU that sits external to your computer, and connects to it via Thunderbolt 3.

It's hardly TC's fault you don't know what that is. Just Google it.

~~~
IgorPartola
I know what an external GPU is. But the external graphics aren't powered by an
external GPU "enclosure". They are powered by an external GPU.

~~~
mbilker
The external GPU is in an enclosure and that enclosure doesn't have to have a
GPU in it. Most of the Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe enclosures support other PCIe
devices.

~~~
astrodust
Exactly. You can put whatever you want in it, but the only thing that people
would want to, generally speaking, is a GPU.

------
kogepathic
Really inspired OS names Apple's got these days...

I mean if they're going for geographical places in California, why not "macOS
Sierra Nevada" ?

