macOS Big Sur(apple.com)
apple.com
macOS Big Sur
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/macos-big-sur-is-here/
838 comments
> - Actually decent dev tools (used to be terrible)
As a daily user of Safari, I can't let you say that. The devtools suck. The network tools suck (why is it so hard to find the request payload??), the elements tools suck, there are basically no extensions (React, Redux, etc.). They are just horrible. As much as I try to use only Safari, I still fallback on Firefox Dev when I need some real devtools.
I use it for the reasons you mention but it's a really bad browser. It's the only browser that still has consistent rendering issues in 2020: sometimes parts of the pages stay blank, CSS grid support has inconsistencies with other browsers, and some basic layouts fail only on Safari.
Another one of my pet peeves with Safari is text selection. It's the worst I have ever seen: https://imgur.com/qC7amU1
It has the potential to be good, but it's just not.
As a daily user of Safari, I can't let you say that. The devtools suck. The network tools suck (why is it so hard to find the request payload??), the elements tools suck, there are basically no extensions (React, Redux, etc.). They are just horrible. As much as I try to use only Safari, I still fallback on Firefox Dev when I need some real devtools.
I use it for the reasons you mention but it's a really bad browser. It's the only browser that still has consistent rendering issues in 2020: sometimes parts of the pages stay blank, CSS grid support has inconsistencies with other browsers, and some basic layouts fail only on Safari.
Another one of my pet peeves with Safari is text selection. It's the worst I have ever seen: https://imgur.com/qC7amU1
It has the potential to be good, but it's just not.
Everything they said!
Rendering is shockingly bad at times. Try running some transforms on SVG with CSS or WAAPI and it’s laughably bad.
The dev tools are all but useless. Just simple things like adding a new prop/value to a selector declaration is horrid and often inadvertently removed a different declaration.
The JS perf is great but the debugging stepper is virtually opaque with buttons with no labels and the like.
Let’s not even get started on the raft of web platform features it either doesn’t have yet or has no intention of adding.
I too would like to use Safari but it’s so far behind evergreen browsers like FF and Chrome I just can’t rely on it.
I too would like to use Safari but it’s so far behind evergreen browsers like FF and Chrome I just can’t rely on it.
Seconding all of this.
I still regularly use it because of battery life/power (Firefox seems determined to turn my laptop into a space heater) and that has its merits but it's objectively bad in a number of other ways.
(Oh, and I'm still thinking about the MBP 16" release a year ago -- Apple had a fancy web page for it with certain actions that triggered on scroll. That page crashed every time I tried to read it in Safari; I literally had to use another browser besides Apple's in order to take in an Apple product page. And I reported to Apple, they had mildly helpful front line support suggestions for troubleshooting... as if it was my problem, not theirs.)
I still regularly use it because of battery life/power (Firefox seems determined to turn my laptop into a space heater) and that has its merits but it's objectively bad in a number of other ways.
(Oh, and I'm still thinking about the MBP 16" release a year ago -- Apple had a fancy web page for it with certain actions that triggered on scroll. That page crashed every time I tried to read it in Safari; I literally had to use another browser besides Apple's in order to take in an Apple product page. And I reported to Apple, they had mildly helpful front line support suggestions for troubleshooting... as if it was my problem, not theirs.)
I'll second the text selection (on Catalina, but the new safari). Not sure how they messed up so badly on that.
Also, safari on my iPad sucks as well, but got better with the 14.2 update.
EDIT: Screenshot here of Apple's Big Sur page NOT rendering! https://imgur.com/a/tF4TDPH
Also, safari on my iPad sucks as well, but got better with the 14.2 update.
EDIT: Screenshot here of Apple's Big Sur page NOT rendering! https://imgur.com/a/tF4TDPH
Screenshot of the sidebar of GitHub rendering only partially: https://i.imgur.com/Fa370r2.png (I hid the center feed myself, but the left sidebar is blank)
The only time I've seen rendering issues with Safari was on early versions of Catalina but that was true of a lot of apps back then. I blame how sucky Catalina was for the first few releases.
In the latest versions of Catalina and on Big Sur, Safari has been rock solid; none of these issues.
Again, no issues with CSS Grid either.
Igalia (https://www.igalia.com) implemented CSS Grid for both Webkit and Blink; they had more commits to Webkit and Blink than anyone else except Apple and Google.
It's not clear why there would be major differences between the two…
In the latest versions of Catalina and on Big Sur, Safari has been rock solid; none of these issues.
Again, no issues with CSS Grid either.
Igalia (https://www.igalia.com) implemented CSS Grid for both Webkit and Blink; they had more commits to Webkit and Blink than anyone else except Apple and Google.
It's not clear why there would be major differences between the two…
Devtools on Safari have been a joke for 5 years now. Ever since they split from Chrome and went down the Xcode "fancy" route, I have not been able to accomplish anything debugging in that browser.
They never split from Chrome. Chrome forked WebKit into Blink because Apple's wasn't merging Google's patches
Not sure why you're getting downvoted but this is correct. KHTML -> WebKit -> Blink.
He's getting downvoted because people misunderstand what he means. Real debugging requires the xcode tools , not the built in 'web developer' garbage.
And now we only can only hope for the next iteration to take over: KHTML → WebKit → Blink → Edge
There were many reasons for the split, but as far as I know this was not one of them. There was no patch backlog, and there were many reviewers on the Chrome team. I think it was a combo of desire for control and debates over various architectural approaches.
> Ever since they split from Chrome
WOW, talk about revisionism! Chrome/Chromium was based on WebKit!
Unless you mean something else?
WOW, talk about revisionism! Chrome/Chromium was based on WebKit!
Unless you mean something else?
Yeah, the devtools have come a long way but there's still some friction there. At this point it might just be because I'm used to Chrome's and I just need a little exercise in mental plasticity. However, eventually I'd like to take a look at porting Vue devtools to Safari, if only for iOS.
Maybe I'm just old enough to remember the bad old days, but browser bugs seem very few and far between. One I've found is Chrome's implementation of backdrop-filter is extremely buggy, while Safari works 100% of the time. Specifically it seems that two sibling elements cannot both specify a backdrop-filter in Chrome. I work on a rather large SPA and it has only one browser hack: a dummy div that works around Chrome (and thus Edge's) implementation.
Maybe I'm just old enough to remember the bad old days, but browser bugs seem very few and far between. One I've found is Chrome's implementation of backdrop-filter is extremely buggy, while Safari works 100% of the time. Specifically it seems that two sibling elements cannot both specify a backdrop-filter in Chrome. I work on a rather large SPA and it has only one browser hack: a dummy div that works around Chrome (and thus Edge's) implementation.
The browser bugs/differences I run into these days aren’t surprising; they live at the edges with features that aren’t 100% complete usually, and I know that going in. Long gone are the days of surprising cross browser bugs, I’ve found
The network tools drive me insane. It's a major part of why I can't use the dev tools routinely.
> consistent rendering issues
This is because lazy/incompetent web developers make their sites in Chrome and don’t bother testing other browsers.
You could have said the same about any browser that wasn’t IE a decade ago.
This is because lazy/incompetent web developers make their sites in Chrome and don’t bother testing other browsers.
You could have said the same about any browser that wasn’t IE a decade ago.
I think you're probably right, but if the site doesn't work in Safari that's a problem for Safari users regardless of whose fault it is.
> This is because lazy/incompetent web developers make their sites in Chrome and don’t bother testing other browsers.
This has not been my experience at all.. I use Firefox on a day to day basis and generally build applications which work in Chrome and Firefox. They used to work well with EdgeHTML too.
I've run into cases in the past where basic SVG rendering with an feColorMatrix filter doesn't work properly in Safari and looks like garbage .. but works fine in Firefox and Chrome. I've run into lack of support for HTML elements that every other modern browser vendor supports. I still can't believe there's no proper input[type=date] support on desktop.
Away from desktop, I've also run into Mobile Safari failing to properly calculate the height of <iframe> elements, not supporting background-attachment: fixed and localStorage failing unintuitively in incognito mode.
Safari is absolutely the browser that gives me the most issues; I'd call it the new IE.
This has not been my experience at all.. I use Firefox on a day to day basis and generally build applications which work in Chrome and Firefox. They used to work well with EdgeHTML too.
I've run into cases in the past where basic SVG rendering with an feColorMatrix filter doesn't work properly in Safari and looks like garbage .. but works fine in Firefox and Chrome. I've run into lack of support for HTML elements that every other modern browser vendor supports. I still can't believe there's no proper input[type=date] support on desktop.
Away from desktop, I've also run into Mobile Safari failing to properly calculate the height of <iframe> elements, not supporting background-attachment: fixed and localStorage failing unintuitively in incognito mode.
Safari is absolutely the browser that gives me the most issues; I'd call it the new IE.
Or they just don't own a Mac and have mixed results with virtualization. Maybe instead of blaming them recognize that Safari is extremely inaccessible software for most people
> Safari is extremely inaccessible software for most people
How the hell is it "extremely inaccessible" for "most" people?
It's Chrome that has an weirdass non-standard UI (the practice of showing app preferences/dialogs in a webpage needs to burn in the flames of Hades) and other niggles, not to mention being a privacy black hole.
If they weren't told to use Chrome (i.e. Google didn't nag people to use Chrome when they're trying to use Search etc.) "most" Mac users wouldn't give a fuck about Chrome.
How the hell is it "extremely inaccessible" for "most" people?
It's Chrome that has an weirdass non-standard UI (the practice of showing app preferences/dialogs in a webpage needs to burn in the flames of Hades) and other niggles, not to mention being a privacy black hole.
If they weren't told to use Chrome (i.e. Google didn't nag people to use Chrome when they're trying to use Search etc.) "most" Mac users wouldn't give a fuck about Chrome.
> How the hell is it "extremely inaccessible" for "most" people?
Because most people don't own Macs. The last Windows compatible version of Safari was back in 2012 or so, and as far as I know, it was never available on Linux.
Therefore, for me to test on Safari, I either have to spend thousands to buy a laptop, or pay out of my pocket for some sort of cross-browser testing tool (even if it's free, I am spending extra time) while Chrome/Firefox are used by most of the world and ensuring that I deal with Safari's idiosyncrasies does nothing much for me.
> It's Chrome that has an weirdass non-standard UI (the practice of showing app preferences/dialogs in a webpage needs to burn in the flames of Hades) and other niggles, not to mention being a privacy black hole.
I would argue its more standard since it is the same UI in every OS I wanted to use. I honestly don't think people are that angry about preferences as a webpage.
In terms of privacy, Firefox kicks Safari out of the water, and in terms of performance, it is faster, and actually renders everything (something Safari fails way too often at).
> "most" Mac users wouldn't give a fuck about Chrome.
Eh. Safari not rendering elements of the page, constantly crashing, and other myriad of issues do well enough to push people to Chrome/Firefox. Also, most people quickly start using Firefox when they realize that UBlock Origin doesn't work on Safari and is easily better than anything that comes on Safari.
Honestly, for me as developer, Safari is the new IE6, except possibly worse because bugs for IE6 are very well-documented with good workarounds.
Because most people don't own Macs. The last Windows compatible version of Safari was back in 2012 or so, and as far as I know, it was never available on Linux.
Therefore, for me to test on Safari, I either have to spend thousands to buy a laptop, or pay out of my pocket for some sort of cross-browser testing tool (even if it's free, I am spending extra time) while Chrome/Firefox are used by most of the world and ensuring that I deal with Safari's idiosyncrasies does nothing much for me.
> It's Chrome that has an weirdass non-standard UI (the practice of showing app preferences/dialogs in a webpage needs to burn in the flames of Hades) and other niggles, not to mention being a privacy black hole.
I would argue its more standard since it is the same UI in every OS I wanted to use. I honestly don't think people are that angry about preferences as a webpage.
In terms of privacy, Firefox kicks Safari out of the water, and in terms of performance, it is faster, and actually renders everything (something Safari fails way too often at).
> "most" Mac users wouldn't give a fuck about Chrome.
Eh. Safari not rendering elements of the page, constantly crashing, and other myriad of issues do well enough to push people to Chrome/Firefox. Also, most people quickly start using Firefox when they realize that UBlock Origin doesn't work on Safari and is easily better than anything that comes on Safari.
Honestly, for me as developer, Safari is the new IE6, except possibly worse because bugs for IE6 are very well-documented with good workarounds.
"Therefore, for me to test on Safari, I either have to... pay out of my pocket for some sort of cross-browser testing tool (even if it's free, I am spending extra time)"
That's precisely the 'lazy web developer' that they're talking about. Oh god no, you have to test on a browser you don't use.
Sure Chrome is dominant, but Safari has about 15% of the market so by taking the stance you do, you're dismissing 1 of 6 people. Because you're lazy.
That's precisely the 'lazy web developer' that they're talking about. Oh god no, you have to test on a browser you don't use.
Sure Chrome is dominant, but Safari has about 15% of the market so by taking the stance you do, you're dismissing 1 of 6 people. Because you're lazy.
That 15% of the market is only relevant for companies targeting first world countries with people having wages to buy Apple stuff.
The large majority of the companies across the globe have already enough to do with their local markets with zero (0%) presence of Apple devices.
If Apple wants them to care about Safari, they can easily make Safari available in other platforms, has they have done when they were struggling for survival.
The large majority of the companies across the globe have already enough to do with their local markets with zero (0%) presence of Apple devices.
If Apple wants them to care about Safari, they can easily make Safari available in other platforms, has they have done when they were struggling for survival.
Supporting 85% of the market is basically free - because you already have a PC, and all browsers can be installed on that, except for Safari. But supporting the remaining 15% requires paying several hundred dollars for hardware that you don't really need for any other purpose. I don't think that refusing to do the latter is a case of "lazy".
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We have very different opinions on how bad IE6 really was if you think Safari is comparable at all.
I wouldn't go so far as to say Safari is the new IE 6, but I do feel that calling it the new IE 11 is very accurate across multiple dimensions.
I don’t remember good workarounds. IE6 fixes often required entire libraries. Websites ballooned in size due to needing constant shims, normalization, and polyfills. For a long while it wasn’t uncommon to send out a separate stylesheet for ie6 to fix whatever would break using the regular styles. I can’t think of anything Safari does that’s that bad.
How does Firefox win in privacy? Maybe through certain extensions but Safari has the edge in things like private mode tabs not sharing cookies etc. between each other.
It sure doesn’t feel faster.
As for Chrome I read this just now:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-patches-two-more-chrome...
It sure doesn’t feel faster.
As for Chrome I read this just now:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-patches-two-more-chrome...
Privacy/no-cookie sharing: Container Tabs + Multi Account Containers in Firefox is incredible. Yes, I realize those are extensions - but that kind of control or extensibility isn't even possible in Safari.
Which is actually the biggest reason I don't use Safari, it has no support for profiles or user-chosen cookie separation (multiple different accounts for GSuite, etc).
As for Chrome just getting patched with zero-days - fine, but remember that Safari doesn't have the concept or ability to do Site Isolation the way Chrome or FF do, Chrome uses the macOS sandbox the same way Safari does, and there have been plenty of Safari CVEs as well. Chrome is usually the last to fall at Pwn2Own; pointing out "oh they just patched a zero-day CVE" doesn't mean much, especially since Apple pushes Safari updates far less often than Chrome does, and will often leave desktop Safari unpatched for weeks after iOS has been fixed.
Which is actually the biggest reason I don't use Safari, it has no support for profiles or user-chosen cookie separation (multiple different accounts for GSuite, etc).
As for Chrome just getting patched with zero-days - fine, but remember that Safari doesn't have the concept or ability to do Site Isolation the way Chrome or FF do, Chrome uses the macOS sandbox the same way Safari does, and there have been plenty of Safari CVEs as well. Chrome is usually the last to fall at Pwn2Own; pointing out "oh they just patched a zero-day CVE" doesn't mean much, especially since Apple pushes Safari updates far less often than Chrome does, and will often leave desktop Safari unpatched for weeks after iOS has been fixed.
It’s inaccessible in the sense that most devs don’t have Macs
If you're a professional and don't test Safari, you're not being professional. Don't have a Mac? Use https://www.browserstack.com or similar. Don't want to bother? Then, yeah, you're lazy.
I don't have a Windows machine. I still test against Edge. No Android phone. Still test against a range of them. How? See above.
I don't have a Windows machine. I still test against Edge. No Android phone. Still test against a range of them. How? See above.
That is so obvious! But For those of us who has a Mac we dont think about these issues as we can test Chrome and Firefox.
How are Windows Dev suppose to test with Safari when they dont have access to it?
How are Windows Dev suppose to test with Safari when they dont have access to it?
Generally by running selenium tests with BrowserStack or SauceLabs, but that's not cheap.
That is awful! Thank You I think Apple needs to do something about this.
There's the Epiphany web browser which is based on WebKit and will get you a similar experience to Safari - https://webkit.org/downloads/
Not so much in macos but in ios safari is our constant pain. Most bugs we get are in ios and most of the times are because of bugs in safari engine and are unfixable.
As a daily user of the safari devtools, I have to disagree
I don‘t have much need for the Network tab, so maybe that’s why. They handle the basics very well for me, with a much better interface (IMHO) than chrome tools.
I really wish they didn‘t skip the devtools part of WebExtensions so we could get the tools for React/Vue/Redux et al.
I don‘t have much need for the Network tab, so maybe that’s why. They handle the basics very well for me, with a much better interface (IMHO) than chrome tools.
I really wish they didn‘t skip the devtools part of WebExtensions so we could get the tools for React/Vue/Redux et al.
Genuinely curious: what are you developing that you don’t ever need the network tab?
I don‘t know, like, average SPA stuff, a lot of React.
I just considered what the network tab actually is and I have of course used it before, to work on the loading speed of sites, but haven‘t done that for a while. The only performance work I‘ve done recently is with react profiler.
I have never used it to inspect API requests, which I assume it can do? I‘m comfortable with Charles proxy, which is likely overkill.
My usage is maybe 45% elements, 45% console, 5 % source/debugger, 3% storage, 2% network. Somehow I dislike elements UI in chrome.
Now I‘m thinking that I may be missing out and should look at what it does and what chrome could give me.
Edit: after playing around with it for a few minutes: I have in fact been missing out and using Charles and Paw way too much when I could have done it way quicker in the browser. I hope I don't have to switch to chrome now.
I just considered what the network tab actually is and I have of course used it before, to work on the loading speed of sites, but haven‘t done that for a while. The only performance work I‘ve done recently is with react profiler.
I have never used it to inspect API requests, which I assume it can do? I‘m comfortable with Charles proxy, which is likely overkill.
My usage is maybe 45% elements, 45% console, 5 % source/debugger, 3% storage, 2% network. Somehow I dislike elements UI in chrome.
Now I‘m thinking that I may be missing out and should look at what it does and what chrome could give me.
Edit: after playing around with it for a few minutes: I have in fact been missing out and using Charles and Paw way too much when I could have done it way quicker in the browser. I hope I don't have to switch to chrome now.
I was going to tease you but you've realized the error of your ways. Unless you don't value your time, by all means, continue to use Charles and Paw. Network tab is great.
I've been using Safari as my browsing browser and Chrome as my development browser for years. Chrome's network tab is way better than Safari and their profiling tools are also very useful.
In old safari, try setting 'max-content' to to any div 'width' attribute and it'll crash. This has been a persistent since many years and yet not fixed.
Still no webm support on mobile is awful :(
That’s why I keep Firefox around as well. Surf in Safari and work in Firefox or Chrome.
yep, Safari is absolutely unusable for development. Opening DevTools from an iOS open tab crashes instantly for me and it's impossible to use. It's the biggest pile of and I hope one day that Apple just discontinue it cause they obviously aren't putting any effort into it.
If you use Safari I hate you
If you use Safari I hate you
And why are you using Safari daily?
I only use it to open non work related sites to split distractions because I agree it's not the best browser.
I only use it to open non work related sites to split distractions because I agree it's not the best browser.
• Because Safari takes up much fewer CPU and RAM and feels much snappier in general compared to Chrome and Firefox.
• The UI is 100% Mac'cy and doesn't try to be different in retarded ways. Fuck preferences-as-a-webpage.
• The automatic syncing between my iPhone, iPad and Mac is also amazingly convenient. I can Handoff this page over to my phone and it will retain the comment I am currently typing! Can't beat that shit.
• I don't do webdev so I don't care about the in-browser devtools, but they suffice for me when I dabble in it.
• I want to limit what Google sees about me to as little as possible.
• The UI is 100% Mac'cy and doesn't try to be different in retarded ways. Fuck preferences-as-a-webpage.
• The automatic syncing between my iPhone, iPad and Mac is also amazingly convenient. I can Handoff this page over to my phone and it will retain the comment I am currently typing! Can't beat that shit.
• I don't do webdev so I don't care about the in-browser devtools, but they suffice for me when I dabble in it.
• I want to limit what Google sees about me to as little as possible.
It's not perfect but it's pretty darn close. Using the dev tools in Safari daily and it works like a charm.
You’re so right. It used to be great, the nightly WebKit build still uses the old one, I think.
But I now use Safari for browsing and Chrome for developing, ever since they destroyed it.
But I now use Safari for browsing and Chrome for developing, ever since they destroyed it.
> The network tools suck (why is it so hard to find the request payload??)
Speaking as a non-web-dev who looks at web inspector once in a blue moon, this took me about 5 seconds. I looked at the Network tab, selected a resource, noticed the information in the detail pane had headers but not payload, and then right-clicked the resource and selected "Reveal in Sources Tab" which revealed the payload there.
Speaking as a non-web-dev who looks at web inspector once in a blue moon, this took me about 5 seconds. I looked at the Network tab, selected a resource, noticed the information in the detail pane had headers but not payload, and then right-clicked the resource and selected "Reveal in Sources Tab" which revealed the payload there.
Clearly not an old-school mac user. Right click?!
If I followed your instructions correctly, that's the response payload not the request.
Exactly :) the request payload is hidden at the bottom of the Headers tab (yep...), you need to uncollapse it. I always forget where it is and confuse it with the response payload, which is really confusing when trying to debug what you send to a REST endpoint
Yes, which I think helps prove the parent's point!
Personally I'm usually looking through a bunch of responses trying to find the one I'm interested in, and that workflow sounds pretty awful.
Isn't that the response payload and not the request payload?
It is great, but:
1. Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session. Not the first time this has happened to me on Safari. ( Firefox used to have this problem as well, they implemented multiple LastSession.json to combat the problem and it is basically a thing of the past. )
2. Fav Icons meant they are no longer showing the Tab Description once you have a dozen tabs as they will shrink to Icons Size. So you either have normal Tabs or Tabs with Fav Icons, not both. ( This is new in Safari 14 )
3. Show Tab Overview will reload all the tabs, including those that were in idle / unload state. If you are a heavy tab user you should not do this. Having a hundred tabs reload will cause hundreds of GB of Data written to your SSD. Basically shortening its lifespan.
4. AFAIK ( I could be wrong ), Extensions still requires you to have an $99/ year developer account. Some of my favourite extensions are now either paid or can no longer be used.
Apart from that, yes it is very good.
1. Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session. Not the first time this has happened to me on Safari. ( Firefox used to have this problem as well, they implemented multiple LastSession.json to combat the problem and it is basically a thing of the past. )
2. Fav Icons meant they are no longer showing the Tab Description once you have a dozen tabs as they will shrink to Icons Size. So you either have normal Tabs or Tabs with Fav Icons, not both. ( This is new in Safari 14 )
3. Show Tab Overview will reload all the tabs, including those that were in idle / unload state. If you are a heavy tab user you should not do this. Having a hundred tabs reload will cause hundreds of GB of Data written to your SSD. Basically shortening its lifespan.
4. AFAIK ( I could be wrong ), Extensions still requires you to have an $99/ year developer account. Some of my favourite extensions are now either paid or can no longer be used.
Apart from that, yes it is very good.
"Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session. Not the first time this has happened to me on Safari. ( Firefox used to have this problem as well, they implemented multiple LastSession.json to combat the problem and it is basically a thing of the past."
Everyone has a story like this - from all of the browsers.
It seems like FF behaves better in this way now, but I still do silly things like rsync my home directory to a backup before every reboot/update. If I ever need these tab backups, I will have to do silly things like dissect them with JSON tools or monkey around with plists, etc.
Why, Why WHY can't we just have tabs:// ?
Plain text list of all URLs. Dead simple. Just pull up tabs:// and cut and paste. Or select all. Or whatever.
Lose-all-tabs bugs will always be with us - and a fix would be so simple ...
Everyone has a story like this - from all of the browsers.
It seems like FF behaves better in this way now, but I still do silly things like rsync my home directory to a backup before every reboot/update. If I ever need these tab backups, I will have to do silly things like dissect them with JSON tools or monkey around with plists, etc.
Why, Why WHY can't we just have tabs:// ?
Plain text list of all URLs. Dead simple. Just pull up tabs:// and cut and paste. Or select all. Or whatever.
Lose-all-tabs bugs will always be with us - and a fix would be so simple ...
I agree that it should be easier to get a simple list, but I want to note that backing up the firefox tab data is one file, and it makes its own backup whenever you update.
Chrome on the other hand will deliberately reject and wipe your profile if you copy it to another computer.
Also "bookmark all tabs" serves roughly the same purpose as a dumb URL list for backup purposes, even if it's awkward to edit.
Chrome on the other hand will deliberately reject and wipe your profile if you copy it to another computer.
Also "bookmark all tabs" serves roughly the same purpose as a dumb URL list for backup purposes, even if it's awkward to edit.
> Why, Why WHY can't we just have tabs:// ?
That's actually a nifty feature idea, but it seems like it could be easily abused with a little client-side JS for the sake of fingerprinting or analytics, unless it's treated similarly to chrome:// urls. You could probably whip up your own small browser extension to provide a simple formatted list of tabs, though.
That's actually a nifty feature idea, but it seems like it could be easily abused with a little client-side JS for the sake of fingerprinting or analytics, unless it's treated similarly to chrome:// urls. You could probably whip up your own small browser extension to provide a simple formatted list of tabs, though.
Found an Chrome extension that lets you do this!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabcopy/micdllihgo...
I just tried it out -- you click a button to copy the list of tabs. If you just want the URLs and not the page titles, choose the "Compact" option.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabcopy/micdllihgo...
I just tried it out -- you click a button to copy the list of tabs. If you just want the URLs and not the page titles, choose the "Compact" option.
Have you tried out:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/copy-all-tabs...
> Why, Why WHY can't we just have tabs:// ?
I expect that the vast majority of users would be entirely uninterested in the workflow you describe.
> Why, Why WHY can't we just have tabs:// ?
I expect that the vast majority of users would be entirely uninterested in the workflow you describe.
I do have a story like this for all the browsers, save one: Opera, from back when it had its own rendering engine. It's not that it never crashed, mind you - but, somehow, the tabs would always be back after. Makes me wonder just how much effort wend into the error shutdown code path to make sure everything is saved.
> Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session
This is horrifying! How do you get to have one hundred tabs, or worse, a few hundred?
This is horrifying! How do you get to have one hundred tabs, or worse, a few hundred?
As a UX designer, when I see people using something in a way it wasn’t intended (and having a hundred tabs is clearly not how tabs were intended to be used), my question is: how is this UI failing them?
I think the problem is that people generally don’t know when they’ll return to a tab, so they leave it open, and that creating a bookmark is asking too much commitment for something potentially ephemeral.
A good system might be one that doesn’t automatically close tabs, as some extensions do, but collapses ones that have remained unused for a certain period into a set of temporary bookmarks. Recently accessed tabs stay in the bar, while stale ones are swept into an “old tabs” list that can be perused at the user’s convenience.
I think the problem is that people generally don’t know when they’ll return to a tab, so they leave it open, and that creating a bookmark is asking too much commitment for something potentially ephemeral.
A good system might be one that doesn’t automatically close tabs, as some extensions do, but collapses ones that have remained unused for a certain period into a set of temporary bookmarks. Recently accessed tabs stay in the bar, while stale ones are swept into an “old tabs” list that can be perused at the user’s convenience.
> when I see people using something in a way it wasn’t intended (...), my question is: how is this UI failing them?
This is a legitimate question, but not the only one in that situation. Another view, more in line with the unix philosophy, is that "using something in the intended way" is a meaningless concept. A tool must work always, no matter how it is used and abused.
Thus, instead of asking "how is this UI failing them?", you could be more pragmatic and ask "how can I optimize the UI so that this usage works correctly?"
This is a legitimate question, but not the only one in that situation. Another view, more in line with the unix philosophy, is that "using something in the intended way" is a meaningless concept. A tool must work always, no matter how it is used and abused.
Thus, instead of asking "how is this UI failing them?", you could be more pragmatic and ask "how can I optimize the UI so that this usage works correctly?"
As a non-programmer, this seems like an odd philosophy. If I use the claw side of a hammer to strike a nail, I’d expect that it is t going to work well. It seems like there’s a limit on “make the tool work regardless of the use case.”
A better comparison would be: Hammers are designed for striking nails, but some customers have figured out they work well for cracking walnuts, so as a hammer manufacturer we should avoid using toxic ingredients such as lead.
I think you misunderstand that some people treat tabs as bookmarks. Let's be honest - bookmark management is tedious in all browsers, so I would rather have tabs open with stuff that I want to browse later.
This is pretty funny because you're saying it's working as intended, but also saying the problem is that bookmark management is tedious. So fixing bookmark management would fix the tab problem.
I think many of us are also aware that saving a bookmark, whether in the browser or to something like pinboard.in, is an invitation to lose it in a back hole. Whereas if it's at least theoretically in "working memory" we want to keep it as a tab. But AFAIK there isn't a really good tool--and certainly not native to a browser as far as I can tell--that lets me quickly and easily rationalize all my tabs into coherent working sets. e.g. Project X, Project Y, email/calendar/etc., to read, and so forth.
TreeStyleTabs in Firefox (which is a great tool regardless of bookmarking), keeps track of parent/child relationships, you can drag & drop into subsets to create the relationship you're talking about, and has a "Bookmark this tree" feature, which would create a folder with subfolders with the top level named as you choose.
(I use the heck out of this, both for the extra vertical space that comes from hiding the top tab bar, and for the conceptual organization that it provides).
(I use the heck out of this, both for the extra vertical space that comes from hiding the top tab bar, and for the conceptual organization that it provides).
> I think the problem is that people generally don’t know when they’ll return to a tab, so they leave it open, and that creating a bookmark is asking too much commitment for something potentially ephemeral.
Safari's reading list is my solution to this. CMD+SHIFT+D adds the current tab to the reading list which is visible on a new tab page or in a side panel. Syncs across devices too. You just right click > delete to remove the item from the list when done.
Safari's reading list is my solution to this. CMD+SHIFT+D adds the current tab to the reading list which is visible on a new tab page or in a side panel. Syncs across devices too. You just right click > delete to remove the item from the list when done.
As someone who doesn't use Safari this just sounds like a secondary Bookmark list.
Kind of but I think the implementation matters. I use this and bookmarks in very different ways. I can also add to it from the iOS share sheet so add links I see on the web/social media that I want to read later.
I think that's related. I think also for a lot of web pages, they have ephemeral state that would not be captured by a bookmark, so they get left open and accumulate. One can never know sometimes which page will succeed as a bookmark or just fail.
Tabs store context (history, cookies, container, etc, with tree-style tabs also parent & child tab relations) that bookmarks don't. I'm not sure about Safari (since I don't use a Mac) but on Firefox you can set up tab discarding (via extension) that unloads unused tabs. So there's a lot less incentive to use bookmarks when you can just leave a tab open forever. Really the only reason to use bookmarks instead of tabs is for synchronization across devices.
Even then, you can sync open tabs with Firefox Sync! (Or Chrome sync, or Safari via iCloud)
Yes, though I find I want far fewer tabs on Mobile than I do on Desktop.
Tab sync usually doesn't maintain the same list of tabs on all devices like that - it just lets you see what you had opened elsewhere, and easily re-open it. My desktop and mobile browsing sessions are very different, as well - but I "move" tabs across devices all the time to continue some research etc.
>Firefox you can set up tab discarding (via extension) that unloads unused tabs
What Add-on do you use for this.
What Add-on do you use for this.
You can simple exit and reopen your browser. Only the focus Tab will be loaded while all others are unloaded.
Auto Tab Discard[1] does it automatically after a time. Tabs can be set to not get discarded, eg when form elements with changes are present, media is playing, tab is pinned, or just whitelisting.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
Firefox is so good for this even after e10s, it's not even comparable.
I have 3088 tabs right now. I don't see how this is horrifying at all. I have a tab open for every dependency of every project I do, including one for every component of every electronics project I maintain. I have a tab for every webcomic I follow, a tab for every news page, a tab for every package that's on its way to me. It's like searchable, zero-effort bookmarks with state (including page scroll location) saved. Of course this is on firefox, and total suspender makes it easy to keep resource usage low. I have many years worth of state here, and if I didn't have this I don't see why I would even bother using a browser. It's like a personal knowledge base. Related tabs are clustered together in the list, I know approximately where things are in the list, I have two different search tools (% search and Tab Center Redux' own search box). I don't get why people keep trying to tell others that their workflow is bad ("horrifying") and they should feel bad. I don't care, this works, and nothing else compares.
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How do you not get there? There’s no point in the “core gameplay loop” of browsing the web where you are encouraged to close a tab. They just disappear among the other ones and you don’t really have a reason to stop and think about whether you’re done with them. At some point there are hundreds.
I personally close tabs as soon as I'm done with them. If I see I have more than ~10 open, I purge them of all but the pinned tab(s) and maybe the left most 2-3 which is generally where I keep the tab I for the ticket I am actively working on.
On my personal machine, I'd be surprised if I ever get above 5 non-pinned tabs open. I open a tab, look at it, close it, rinse and repeat.
I have the same habits in my IDE and Finder windows and iTerm and Sublime (which I mostly use as a scratchpad). If I have more than a few open, I inherently think I am doing something wrong and go to clean it up.
Frankly, I've always viewed the "hundreds of tabs open" as a sorta hoarder mentality. You might need that tab in the future, so you don't ever close it. Even when it is obvious you will never need it, you still don't close it. Even when it makes finding other tabs unusually difficult, you still do not close it. It clearly has no benefit, but you're afraid or unwilling to close it (I use "you" in the general sense; not indicating you, tobr, specifically)
On my personal machine, I'd be surprised if I ever get above 5 non-pinned tabs open. I open a tab, look at it, close it, rinse and repeat.
I have the same habits in my IDE and Finder windows and iTerm and Sublime (which I mostly use as a scratchpad). If I have more than a few open, I inherently think I am doing something wrong and go to clean it up.
Frankly, I've always viewed the "hundreds of tabs open" as a sorta hoarder mentality. You might need that tab in the future, so you don't ever close it. Even when it is obvious you will never need it, you still don't close it. Even when it makes finding other tabs unusually difficult, you still do not close it. It clearly has no benefit, but you're afraid or unwilling to close it (I use "you" in the general sense; not indicating you, tobr, specifically)
I close a tab when I want to stop thinking about it, and if I hit fifty tabs, I’m so distracted I don’t have time to think about any of them and just close the entire set.
Same but more like five for me.
Personally I close tabs as soon as I'm done with them. If I need it for later it goes into sorted bookmark folders or in a list of bookmarks right in front of me if I'm gonna need it sooner. If I ever get over 15 tabs I'm deep in research mode, but those will all be closed by the end of the day.
Ever since SSDs I also shut down my computer when I'm not using it so maybe I'm weird.
Ever since SSDs I also shut down my computer when I'm not using it so maybe I'm weird.
The only reason I'm using FF is TreeStyleTab. I seriously don't understand how people live without it. Right now I have 993 open tabs, sometimes I have 100, sometimes 2k - don't really care, but they are easily navigatable as a tree-like structure on the side of the screen.
Genuine question because our tab handling strategies seem to differ - how frequently do you return to a given tab? Do you keep them for reference in some way, or is it more out of concern of having to navigate back over again?
- First, bookmarks - if you bookmark something and close the tab, the bookmark stays there forver. If you bookmark something that you know you won't need later (e.g. after you finish researching something), then it adds a mental burden of having to clean it up later. When a lot of them accumulate, it's really hard to recall why exactly they were added in the first place and whether each one of them should be now removed or not.
- Open tabs are the opposite - if you close them, they're gone forever. So once you no longer need a certain tree of tabs (e.g., like above, you've finished researching something), you just dispose of the whole tree; if there's anything particularly valuable in there, you can add it to bookmarks.
So, e.g. if I'm doing house renovation I may have trees of tabs with hundreds of open tabs in them while researching something. Same when coding, if I'm investigating a particular topic I may have tons of open tabs that will eventually get closed all together.
In some rare cases, I keep a tab or a tree of tabs open just so I don't forget to navigate back to it in the foreseeable future (at which point it will likely get closed).
- Open tabs are the opposite - if you close them, they're gone forever. So once you no longer need a certain tree of tabs (e.g., like above, you've finished researching something), you just dispose of the whole tree; if there's anything particularly valuable in there, you can add it to bookmarks.
So, e.g. if I'm doing house renovation I may have trees of tabs with hundreds of open tabs in them while researching something. Same when coding, if I'm investigating a particular topic I may have tons of open tabs that will eventually get closed all together.
In some rare cases, I keep a tab or a tree of tabs open just so I don't forget to navigate back to it in the foreseeable future (at which point it will likely get closed).
I use TreeStyleTab, and for me it's a mixture.
For example, I have a bunch of tabs for online grocery shops in recent months. These are for reference. Whenever I'm in the mood to check for delivery slots (which have become scarce), I click through each of them, login and check if there's a viable delivery slot available. The set of tabs is a reference to remind me of the list of 10 or so shops to check periodically. I might forget some of them otherwise, because they are not all ones I use regularly; they are only in the list to improve my chances when slots become hard to obtain.
Then I'll use the same tabs for convenience rather than reference. Muscle memory and visual location. If I found a slot, I might place an order in stages over a few days (one to book the slot, then adding items over the coming days if I realise I need something, finally to amend the order to fit my needs shortly before the delivery date). Then it's useful to have the tabs in use in a convenient location. Their visibility as a pinned tab also serves as a reminder until the shopping is finished (typically ~3-12 days) in case I forget to amend the order.
I have a similar thing going on with financial institutions. I have about 20 of these in use, counting both personal and business use (I run accounts of two businesses), banks, credit cards, and tax pages. From time to time I'll want to peruse them and check in on balances and pending tasks, occasionally download a statement. Then it's useful to have a list in one place, similar to with shops. without a list I'd probably miss one.
Both of the above could in theory be replaced by bookmarks, but there's a bunch of UX reasons why bookmarks don't work so well. One of them is that we really need a "live bookmarks folder" for each group. If I open another shop/institution tab, I need that to remain in the "persistent" set by default. Using a normal bookmark group, I'd open the group as tabs, then half an hour after I open something else, I'd have to remember to add that extra item to the bookmark group, and just that item. But after an hour of browsing and having visited maybe 250 pages, I'm likely to forget which open tabs are already in a bookmark group and which one's aren't. It's too much work to step through and compare item by item by hand when I'm done and need to move to another task, so I end up taking new "snapshot" bookmark groups rather than managing the existing bookmark set. This gets messy fast. In practice it's easier to just keep a set of tabs open, and delete the ones which are no longer required.
Also in my tabs are the articles (many from HN) that I collect into a knowledge base. Tabs aren't a great way to save these, but neither are bookmarks. Ideally I'd want something that saves them with tags and brief notes. For now, I send tabs from my active window over to a dedicate HN window, where they form a long queue of things to go through in a systematic batch at some point and group, sort, categorise, filter, and take notes on the salient points I want proper notes on. They are a kind of research multi-queue. You could think of them as a set of about 50 long-term tasks that are likely to take years to produce the results I want (which are for actual tech developments, not reminiscence). From time to time I'm tempted to batch convert these to bookmarks, but doing so makes them unusable because it loses scroll position and text highlight, so it's labour intensive having to take notes instead. I guess people use "web clipper" software for this kind of task. I haven't found something I'm happy with yet, but I haven't tried much either. I wouldn't be happy locking so much long term research into proprietary software though. On my phone, I use "Share to Orgzly" to capture such things, rather than tabs.
For example, I have a bunch of tabs for online grocery shops in recent months. These are for reference. Whenever I'm in the mood to check for delivery slots (which have become scarce), I click through each of them, login and check if there's a viable delivery slot available. The set of tabs is a reference to remind me of the list of 10 or so shops to check periodically. I might forget some of them otherwise, because they are not all ones I use regularly; they are only in the list to improve my chances when slots become hard to obtain.
Then I'll use the same tabs for convenience rather than reference. Muscle memory and visual location. If I found a slot, I might place an order in stages over a few days (one to book the slot, then adding items over the coming days if I realise I need something, finally to amend the order to fit my needs shortly before the delivery date). Then it's useful to have the tabs in use in a convenient location. Their visibility as a pinned tab also serves as a reminder until the shopping is finished (typically ~3-12 days) in case I forget to amend the order.
I have a similar thing going on with financial institutions. I have about 20 of these in use, counting both personal and business use (I run accounts of two businesses), banks, credit cards, and tax pages. From time to time I'll want to peruse them and check in on balances and pending tasks, occasionally download a statement. Then it's useful to have a list in one place, similar to with shops. without a list I'd probably miss one.
Both of the above could in theory be replaced by bookmarks, but there's a bunch of UX reasons why bookmarks don't work so well. One of them is that we really need a "live bookmarks folder" for each group. If I open another shop/institution tab, I need that to remain in the "persistent" set by default. Using a normal bookmark group, I'd open the group as tabs, then half an hour after I open something else, I'd have to remember to add that extra item to the bookmark group, and just that item. But after an hour of browsing and having visited maybe 250 pages, I'm likely to forget which open tabs are already in a bookmark group and which one's aren't. It's too much work to step through and compare item by item by hand when I'm done and need to move to another task, so I end up taking new "snapshot" bookmark groups rather than managing the existing bookmark set. This gets messy fast. In practice it's easier to just keep a set of tabs open, and delete the ones which are no longer required.
Also in my tabs are the articles (many from HN) that I collect into a knowledge base. Tabs aren't a great way to save these, but neither are bookmarks. Ideally I'd want something that saves them with tags and brief notes. For now, I send tabs from my active window over to a dedicate HN window, where they form a long queue of things to go through in a systematic batch at some point and group, sort, categorise, filter, and take notes on the salient points I want proper notes on. They are a kind of research multi-queue. You could think of them as a set of about 50 long-term tasks that are likely to take years to produce the results I want (which are for actual tech developments, not reminiscence). From time to time I'm tempted to batch convert these to bookmarks, but doing so makes them unusable because it loses scroll position and text highlight, so it's labour intensive having to take notes instead. I guess people use "web clipper" software for this kind of task. I haven't found something I'm happy with yet, but I haven't tried much either. I wouldn't be happy locking so much long term research into proprietary software though. On my phone, I use "Share to Orgzly" to capture such things, rather than tabs.
I have one window per "task" (like if I'm looking up how to do something using some API, I'll have a single window for that, with new tabs for API docs, some stackoverflow responses, etc), and when I'm done with the task I'll close the window.
Windows for "idle browsing" get closed the next day when I open up my computer and look at the tabs and think "well this sounds boring, let's see what new has happened overnight".
On my phone OTOH, the tabs just stack up until twice a year I just mass-close them all.
Windows for "idle browsing" get closed the next day when I open up my computer and look at the tabs and think "well this sounds boring, let's see what new has happened overnight".
On my phone OTOH, the tabs just stack up until twice a year I just mass-close them all.
> How do you not get there?
My browser is configured to not restore tabs. And I shutdown every night.
My browser is configured to not restore tabs. And I shutdown every night.
I hate clutter. Once i get past maybe 10 or 15 tabs it's time to go on a Ctrl-W spree.
Yeah, I only close tabs when my computer starts to feel slow. Or when iOS Safari tells me I have too many tabs open.
Some people use tabs the same way others use bookmarks. Myself, I regularly have 100 tabs, easily, across several windows which are minimized.
If the browser were to lose all tabs by accident, it wouldn't be a big deal (same as losing bookmarks isn't actually a big deal for some people)
If the browser were to lose all tabs by accident, it wouldn't be a big deal (same as losing bookmarks isn't actually a big deal for some people)
I think if you treat tabs as memory its interesting:
- The active tab is short term memory - The tab list is medium term memory - Bookmarks are long term memory
(or if you prefer replace short/medium/long with cache/ram/disk)
- The active tab is short term memory - The tab list is medium term memory - Bookmarks are long term memory
(or if you prefer replace short/medium/long with cache/ram/disk)
I think you pretty much nail it. Active Tabs for news, mail, Youtube kind of things. Open Tab List ( That is why I really wish Apple would implement Tab Listing instead of Tab ScreenShots Overview ) For reading list and getting back into, I use Bookmark for something like long term memory. But part of the problem are the links no longer works.
I really like the idea someone on HN purpose sometimes ago. Where all your visited webpage ( excluding images ) are saved on your SSD, and you can basically search it back like your memory.
I really like the idea someone on HN purpose sometimes ago. Where all your visited webpage ( excluding images ) are saved on your SSD, and you can basically search it back like your memory.
Some people use tabs the same way others use bookmarks
My wife does this on her phone. I find it maddening, and tell her to just bookmark her sites. But that's just not how her brain works.
Fortunately, even between iOS updates, Safari remembers all of her old tabs.
My wife does this on her phone. I find it maddening, and tell her to just bookmark her sites. But that's just not how her brain works.
Fortunately, even between iOS updates, Safari remembers all of her old tabs.
Genuinely curious, why do you find it maddening? Is it just the feeling that it’s somehow messy? Wouldn’t bookmarking every page be a lot worse?
I find others' distaste for my personal workflows amusing, until it becomes annoying.
At which point the proper response becomes, "go work through your issues in some way that does not involve me."
At which point the proper response becomes, "go work through your issues in some way that does not involve me."
I find it maddening too, but hey, it’s her phone. It’s only maddening in a “I wouldn’t personally do it that way” sense, so I don’t sweat it.
My wife even does it more extremely: when she opens a web site, she opens it in another tab, even if she already has that web site in an existing tab. So she ends up with hundreds of Facebook tabs, hundreds of shopping tabs at the same store, thousands overall. I don’t think she has ever deliberately closed a tab, and might not even know how. Safari’s UI makes it totally non-obvious how to do it, like how Apple makes it non-obvious how to kill apps.
My wife even does it more extremely: when she opens a web site, she opens it in another tab, even if she already has that web site in an existing tab. So she ends up with hundreds of Facebook tabs, hundreds of shopping tabs at the same store, thousands overall. I don’t think she has ever deliberately closed a tab, and might not even know how. Safari’s UI makes it totally non-obvious how to do it, like how Apple makes it non-obvious how to kill apps.
This is essentially what I do as well (modulus Facebook). Sure, if I happen to see the open tab I need, I’ll switch to it. But you only see about a handful of tabs at the same time so it’s easier to just open a new one. I don’t see the value of going through and tending to my old tabs at all.
I guess I’m just an old school C guy. I pair my malloc()s with free()s and get grumpy in environments where you don’t really have to.
It’s like people who store EVERYTHING on their desktop in a huge unorganised pile.
Yes, it works.
It’s also maddening, like they’ve never even grasped the basic file operations.
Yes, it works.
It’s also maddening, like they’ve never even grasped the basic file operations.
I'm like that, and I really do believe I have "grasped the basic file operations"; maybe I just have a better grasp of the basic concepts of search, but I guess that's not the case, either; I have it like this because it fits my needs and preferences and works better, quicker, smoother for me, and in my case it's the result of decades of refining the way I use computers. Other people have different needs and preferences and that's absolutely fine as well, as far as I'm concerned. My "messy desktop" approach seems to be almost unbearable to some few people, though, and some very few seem to find it so unbearable that they have been outright aggressive about this in the past, and I really don't get that at all. But in case someone who feels like that reads this, here's my rationale:
I pretty much never ever see my desktop. I see my screensaver all the time, desktop never. I use spaces to separate tasks I'm working on and arrange windows to fill the screen, and they pretty much always do. I use the desktop mostly as a drop-off area for whatever it is I momentarily need; I drag and drop stuff there all the time, like images from Firefox. There are some directories, but at most two layers deep I think. I do archive stuff from time to time, but there are pretty much always multiple desktop grids worth of stuff on there.
That works really well because I only ever interact with the desktop via Finder (where I can just type the beginning of a name or use the datetime column or Spotlight set to search current directory per default), CLI (which has fd, ag etc.) or file pickers, though I tend to drag-and-drop more than I use "open file" dialogs. Relying on those is much faster and more intuitive for me than thinking up some kind of organisation scheme for dozens of unrelated activities that don't seem to fit into a single scheme very well, and organising everything accordingly, when I'm in the "zone" and would rather not have to think about where to place this particular file. I find it hard to remember such schemes, but I pretty much always know when and how I created something, so a chronological view of everything at once is very helpful. Software work is somewhat more organised (~/workspace and a lot of git repos in there), and data sets are very neatly organised (it doesn't work any other way), but most other things live somewhere on the desktop (or in some kind of searchable cloud).
As I see it, as long as I find whatever I need quickly, which I do, why would I "tidy up" those imaginary "folder" things? It's not like they have much in common with physical ordering aids (like folders), where you have to structure things rigidly or else never find a thing, and even there, you often don't structure things very deeply – who puts physical folders inside folders inside folders? My hand tools are organized pretty neatly, but if I could just say "8mm wrench" in the direction of my toolbox and magically hold it in my hand, or magically have all my tools neatly arranged by name, date-of-purchase, type, or just say "wrench for that nut" and find it ... I daresay my toolbox would be a lot messier. Can't do that, so I must put in the work. Where I don't have to, and can keep the chaos out of sight, I won't.
I pretty much never ever see my desktop. I see my screensaver all the time, desktop never. I use spaces to separate tasks I'm working on and arrange windows to fill the screen, and they pretty much always do. I use the desktop mostly as a drop-off area for whatever it is I momentarily need; I drag and drop stuff there all the time, like images from Firefox. There are some directories, but at most two layers deep I think. I do archive stuff from time to time, but there are pretty much always multiple desktop grids worth of stuff on there.
That works really well because I only ever interact with the desktop via Finder (where I can just type the beginning of a name or use the datetime column or Spotlight set to search current directory per default), CLI (which has fd, ag etc.) or file pickers, though I tend to drag-and-drop more than I use "open file" dialogs. Relying on those is much faster and more intuitive for me than thinking up some kind of organisation scheme for dozens of unrelated activities that don't seem to fit into a single scheme very well, and organising everything accordingly, when I'm in the "zone" and would rather not have to think about where to place this particular file. I find it hard to remember such schemes, but I pretty much always know when and how I created something, so a chronological view of everything at once is very helpful. Software work is somewhat more organised (~/workspace and a lot of git repos in there), and data sets are very neatly organised (it doesn't work any other way), but most other things live somewhere on the desktop (or in some kind of searchable cloud).
As I see it, as long as I find whatever I need quickly, which I do, why would I "tidy up" those imaginary "folder" things? It's not like they have much in common with physical ordering aids (like folders), where you have to structure things rigidly or else never find a thing, and even there, you often don't structure things very deeply – who puts physical folders inside folders inside folders? My hand tools are organized pretty neatly, but if I could just say "8mm wrench" in the direction of my toolbox and magically hold it in my hand, or magically have all my tools neatly arranged by name, date-of-purchase, type, or just say "wrench for that nut" and find it ... I daresay my toolbox would be a lot messier. Can't do that, so I must put in the work. Where I don't have to, and can keep the chaos out of sight, I won't.
Maybe this should be formalized, like automatically get open tabs into easily searchable persistent storage, whether they are called Bookmarks or not. Then they can be closed by prompting to "clean up".
Maybe even skip that manual step entirely. People use browser histories like emails now -- by searching, not by active organizing.
Maybe even skip that manual step entirely. People use browser histories like emails now -- by searching, not by active organizing.
I was about to say, you just described browser history!
It's completely, totally and utterly different from browser history!
If I visit HN, browse a bunch of comment threads, and find something I want to come back to later, that's 1 tab but 20 history entries.
Same if I searched for something on Google and eventually found something I want to come back to later. Except that's 1 tab and 50 history entries.
To recover that state via history is practically impossible. It's a needle in a haystack. I've occasionally needed to do it, and it takes a long time.
(Compared with a tab, a bookmark doesn't work well either for something to come back to. Anything where there is a context, such as scroll position. Perhaps if bookmarks were better, keeping track of scroll position and allowing text to be highlighted or a note to be attached, and showing a thumbnail (scrolled to the right place), and retaining some temporal relationships between different pages. But I find bookmarks consisting of just a title and URL to be completely useless.)
If I visit HN, browse a bunch of comment threads, and find something I want to come back to later, that's 1 tab but 20 history entries.
Same if I searched for something on Google and eventually found something I want to come back to later. Except that's 1 tab and 50 history entries.
To recover that state via history is practically impossible. It's a needle in a haystack. I've occasionally needed to do it, and it takes a long time.
(Compared with a tab, a bookmark doesn't work well either for something to come back to. Anything where there is a context, such as scroll position. Perhaps if bookmarks were better, keeping track of scroll position and allowing text to be highlighted or a note to be attached, and showing a thumbnail (scrolled to the right place), and retaining some temporal relationships between different pages. But I find bookmarks consisting of just a title and URL to be completely useless.)
I would propose that the issue is that browser history navigation is generally poorly designed, at least if you want to do something more sophisticated than hit “back” or search it as a set of URLs. It should be richer and store much more details about each entry.
I'm not sure how to improve history navigation to help with this, as the browser doesn't know which 1 in 20 history entries are worth finding again, and which are junk traversed on the way to something worth finding.
It can't figure it out from content search, because the junk is often the stuff that resulted from useful searches and was assessed by the user as not worth keeping. Keeping tabs is a signal from the user about which entries were useful. A form of curation. Without that signal, what is there?
However, I think bookmarks would be profoundly transformed from nearly useless to better than tabs by improvements to bookmark navigation, UX and a little extra context.
So I have to give credit to you for the idea - history navigation improvements might be transformative in a similar way.
It can't figure it out from content search, because the junk is often the stuff that resulted from useful searches and was assessed by the user as not worth keeping. Keeping tabs is a signal from the user about which entries were useful. A form of curation. Without that signal, what is there?
However, I think bookmarks would be profoundly transformed from nearly useless to better than tabs by improvements to bookmark navigation, UX and a little extra context.
So I have to give credit to you for the idea - history navigation improvements might be transformative in a similar way.
Something like this, evolved, perhaps?
https://getmemex.com/
https://getmemex.com/
It shouldn't even be a "hard" problem any more. Search and relevance are mature technologies. You do need to provide some features, but there are many: time spent interacting with tabs, was it a "terminus" in a navigation session, active user marking/tagging, signals from other users, other products, etc. It would be an excellent use of ML. The rest is capturing these in a user friendly product, though if it makes Megacorp no more ad money, I doubt anyone will work on it however useful it may be.
But browser history has way more stuff in it than matters. For example, I'll often have tabs open with documentation that was relevant to a project I'm working on. I want that, I don't want the 20 other search results I clicked on that were useless and I don't want to have other pages O had to navigate through to get to the right doc page.
For the use case of a loosely organized queue, bookmarks are even worse than tabs.
My wife does the same. The other day she wanted to open a new tab and the button was disabled. She had reached the limit of 500 tabs.
Some people hate bookmarks. When you want to read something later you just keep that tab open until you have time to go back. I usually have 200-300 tabs open at any given time. Works great.
A set of a few hundred tabs, spread across a few windows, is like the bubbling organic head of a stream of temporal bookmarks. It would be great if there were some kind of time-based decay -- or ripening, depending on your perspective -- of open tabs into a more permanent bookmark-like arrangement, with spatial/proximity and window affinity cues. These could easily rehydrate to their live versions, or become fixed as "organic bookmarks" living alongside "affirmative" bookmarks and the normal, more ephemeral, uncurated browsing history.
Tree Style Tab for organization, Auto Tab Discard for the decay, Vimium-FF for search.
Thanks, I'll check those out.
I have had similar hundreds of tabs before, though I try to keep to a few dozen nowadays. The source tends to be a cluster of tabs (say 10) associated to a single subject, full of articles and tools I am using related to it. Frankly an obvious solution is to have a "rough-assortment ephemeral bookmark-group" where I can shift-select say 7 tabs at once and keep them for later, with an easy deletion cycle at will. And it would be good for this method to keep track of my local data of the tabs (scroll position, typed entries, ect.). Bookmarks (in Firefox at least) suck for this in contrast to just working directly with tabs, since you need to bookmark each tab individually + name it + sort them, meanwhile the tabs are grouped together nicely alongside interest-groups I hold for them, and can scroll for what I want or type in the address-bar.
Definitely not a good solution for the local tab data problem, but for:
> since you need to bookmark each tab individually + name it + sort them
If you're already using Tree Style Tab on Firefox, there's a `Bookmark this tree` option that collapses the above workflow to just bookmarking the tree and naming a bookmark folder.
Not enough of an improvement, of course.
> since you need to bookmark each tab individually + name it + sort them
If you're already using Tree Style Tab on Firefox, there's a `Bookmark this tree` option that collapses the above workflow to just bookmarking the tree and naming a bookmark folder.
Not enough of an improvement, of course.
People need to learn to let go and just close tabs. It's freeing. If you need the info again, typing some related words into the address bar will usually surface the results from your history. If it doesn't, no big deal. The benefits of not lugging around that baggage outweighs the potentially tiny productivity hit you take to look up the info again.
It’s funny how there’s a borderline moral judgement about things like this. It’s as if having many files on your desktop, emails in your inbox, unnamed layers in photoshop, or open windows or tabs or apps or whatever would say something about your character. No, to the extent that these things are even a problem at all, that’s a consequence of a design that fails to take actual human factors into account.
I was also going to draw parallels to the icons on the desktop. Hundreds of browser tabs open is the 2020 version of having hundreds of icons all crammed onto your Windows desktop.
> It’s as if having many files on your desktop, emails in your inbox
Not really. Desktop icons and email are persisted to non volatile storage.
Expecting windows and tabs to persist in the exact state you left them as if they were real world objects is just not how computers work.
Not really. Desktop icons and email are persisted to non volatile storage.
Expecting windows and tabs to persist in the exact state you left them as if they were real world objects is just not how computers work.
That's not true, many applications have moved to the "constant save" model (and games too). For instance, you never ever save in Final Cut Pro anymore (I wish ProTools would go this route). There is no reason a browser can't persist your tab state, or your window state, window positions, etc to disk continually and always relaunch with the persisted state.
I agree that hoarding tabs is a bad practice that is hindering your productivity by slowing down your computer and causing distractions.
However it's definitely not true that it's easy to find things again after closing them. Search engines are terrible solution for trying to find a specific thing with broad categorical terms. All you will get are referral and affiliate websites that most definitely don't contain the most accurate, trustworthy, or up-to-date information.
I think at the moment, best information is discovered through recommendations of other people via twitter, slack, whatsapp groups, etc. But resurfacing that info later on is hard, so you need to act immediately.
My point is, when people find obscure things that will/might come handy soon or later, they tend to keep them open in the browser as a way of temporary storing them. First, because native bookmarks are a terrible solution where you quickly run out of space and keeping them organised is too much work. Second, because keeping them open serves as a visual reminder to get back to it (once bookmarked they are out of sight, out of mind).
This is precisely the reason why we developed Tablerone. It's an Chrome extension that serves as a bookmarking system (saving and organising entire sessions) and as a tab manager (easier navigation). https://tabler.one/
By having an easily accessible and private space to store information you are still processing or intend to return later liberates you of the need to keep them open. As a result you get a concise timeline overview of your browsing history, that makes it much easier to later search through with broad categorical terms.
I'm very eager to hear what you think about this.
However it's definitely not true that it's easy to find things again after closing them. Search engines are terrible solution for trying to find a specific thing with broad categorical terms. All you will get are referral and affiliate websites that most definitely don't contain the most accurate, trustworthy, or up-to-date information.
I think at the moment, best information is discovered through recommendations of other people via twitter, slack, whatsapp groups, etc. But resurfacing that info later on is hard, so you need to act immediately.
My point is, when people find obscure things that will/might come handy soon or later, they tend to keep them open in the browser as a way of temporary storing them. First, because native bookmarks are a terrible solution where you quickly run out of space and keeping them organised is too much work. Second, because keeping them open serves as a visual reminder to get back to it (once bookmarked they are out of sight, out of mind).
This is precisely the reason why we developed Tablerone. It's an Chrome extension that serves as a bookmarking system (saving and organising entire sessions) and as a tab manager (easier navigation). https://tabler.one/
By having an easily accessible and private space to store information you are still processing or intend to return later liberates you of the need to keep them open. As a result you get a concise timeline overview of your browsing history, that makes it much easier to later search through with broad categorical terms.
I'm very eager to hear what you think about this.
History has far too many pages to browse, and doesn't have full-test search.
Correct me if I'm wrong but does not Firefox supply full-text search on your history, bookmarks, and open tabs when you type stuff in the address bar?
I believe Chrome does the same?
I believe Chrome does the same?
What's more FF History window is fully searchable, to the point that I am regularly (it seems) bringing up results from years past, and have actually restored my firefox profile from Time Machine to get my history back. The location bar search is more limited than the history window search (if nothing else it's easier to browse the results.)
> If you need the info again, typing some related words into the address bar will usually surface the results from your history.
This just isn't useful for the kinds of information retrieval I find myself doing, and I truly don't understand why people think that ought to be enough for everyone. Perhaps other people don't collect and combine large amounts of information into new artefacts as part of their regular online activity?
When I'm retaining state such as tabs, it's not so I can find the same information by searching for it.
It's so that I can go through information I have already found through searching and following links, which has passed my filter as the useful things I'll need for the next phase in processing, to do something useful with.
The important part isn't that the information is findable again by searching. The important part is that I've already half-catalogued what's useful once, and it's that cataloguing which is what I need to build on a second or third time.
All the "next phases" in processing typically take from a few days to a few months to complete.
To give a concrete example:
Recently I had to do some research on QUIC protocol and HTTP/3 for a job. In my searches I found various pages of particular interest that I should at some point extract information from, and add them as references to a report I'm writing. But there was no point adding them at the time to my report, because until I had found more documents and pages to read, I wouldn't know which ones were the best ones to include as references for someone else to use, and which ones to drop.
Also, that list of 100 represented things I would need to systematically check through again in my code implementation and report before dismissing them. By systematically, I don't mean in linear order, but I do mean complete.
So I ended up with about 100 tabs, expecting to go through them systematically later, and turn them into about 30 references for my report eventually. As the task would be completed in about 5 weeks (in parallel with a number of other jobs), those 100 tabs were context for that task for about 5 weeks.
If I deleted them "to reduce clutter", the fact I could find the information again by searching for it was pretty much useless. That would be starting my task all over again.
And if I bookmarked them, that would loses track of the scroll position, which meant I'd lose which page sections, headings, etc were the relevant item I was keeping to use, or decide not to use, in the final code and report.
Really I had only two options: Keep a lot of tabs open for this one task for a few weeks. Or write down a lot of notes as I went, intending to delete some of the notes eventually. I've tried both, and find keeping the tabs to take much less time and overhead compared with taking notes in the first round.
Now imagine I'm doing several research-like tasks like that overlapping in time, each of them taking a few weeks or a few months each. The overlap means that number is multiplied by the amount of concurrency, so it reaches several hundred or a thousand easily.
I'd love to use something better, but tabs are the thing I've found most effective so far. In the past I've taken more notes, and I found that led to a lot of time taking notes. It's like the difference between a more efficient or less efficient batch sorting algorithm for information discovery, indexing, merging and eventually selecting out the most relevant things.
People love to suggest alternatives. I'd love one because tabs do have many problems. But I've yet to find a good alternative which is actually helpful. Bookmarks are not because of lost context and poor UX for going through them (large thumbnails with retained scroll position and/or highlighted current section heading and/or tags/notes would be great). Deleting and searching again is useless. Taking notes at every stage is ok but labour intensive by comparison. I tried Org mode but it has the same problem as taking lots of notes. What else is there for organising work-in-progress information like this?
This just isn't useful for the kinds of information retrieval I find myself doing, and I truly don't understand why people think that ought to be enough for everyone. Perhaps other people don't collect and combine large amounts of information into new artefacts as part of their regular online activity?
When I'm retaining state such as tabs, it's not so I can find the same information by searching for it.
It's so that I can go through information I have already found through searching and following links, which has passed my filter as the useful things I'll need for the next phase in processing, to do something useful with.
The important part isn't that the information is findable again by searching. The important part is that I've already half-catalogued what's useful once, and it's that cataloguing which is what I need to build on a second or third time.
All the "next phases" in processing typically take from a few days to a few months to complete.
To give a concrete example:
Recently I had to do some research on QUIC protocol and HTTP/3 for a job. In my searches I found various pages of particular interest that I should at some point extract information from, and add them as references to a report I'm writing. But there was no point adding them at the time to my report, because until I had found more documents and pages to read, I wouldn't know which ones were the best ones to include as references for someone else to use, and which ones to drop.
Also, that list of 100 represented things I would need to systematically check through again in my code implementation and report before dismissing them. By systematically, I don't mean in linear order, but I do mean complete.
So I ended up with about 100 tabs, expecting to go through them systematically later, and turn them into about 30 references for my report eventually. As the task would be completed in about 5 weeks (in parallel with a number of other jobs), those 100 tabs were context for that task for about 5 weeks.
If I deleted them "to reduce clutter", the fact I could find the information again by searching for it was pretty much useless. That would be starting my task all over again.
And if I bookmarked them, that would loses track of the scroll position, which meant I'd lose which page sections, headings, etc were the relevant item I was keeping to use, or decide not to use, in the final code and report.
Really I had only two options: Keep a lot of tabs open for this one task for a few weeks. Or write down a lot of notes as I went, intending to delete some of the notes eventually. I've tried both, and find keeping the tabs to take much less time and overhead compared with taking notes in the first round.
Now imagine I'm doing several research-like tasks like that overlapping in time, each of them taking a few weeks or a few months each. The overlap means that number is multiplied by the amount of concurrency, so it reaches several hundred or a thousand easily.
I'd love to use something better, but tabs are the thing I've found most effective so far. In the past I've taken more notes, and I found that led to a lot of time taking notes. It's like the difference between a more efficient or less efficient batch sorting algorithm for information discovery, indexing, merging and eventually selecting out the most relevant things.
People love to suggest alternatives. I'd love one because tabs do have many problems. But I've yet to find a good alternative which is actually helpful. Bookmarks are not because of lost context and poor UX for going through them (large thumbnails with retained scroll position and/or highlighted current section heading and/or tags/notes would be great). Deleting and searching again is useless. Taking notes at every stage is ok but labour intensive by comparison. I tried Org mode but it has the same problem as taking lots of notes. What else is there for organising work-in-progress information like this?
Trivial: you need to look something up, you follow a trail on wikipedia and you pretty quickly have 100 tabs.
I have OneTab for Firefox, which allows me to convert active tabs into a bookmark list. This helps the problem a lot because I can now park my active tabs.
I have OneTab for Firefox, which allows me to convert active tabs into a bookmark list. This helps the problem a lot because I can now park my active tabs.
I've tried something like that. Maybe it was OneTab, I don't remember.
Unfortunately I found bookmarks rather useless and switched back to using tabs. It's really unfortunate.
Unfortunately I found bookmarks rather useless and switched back to using tabs. It's really unfortunate.
This is horrifying! How do you get to have one hundred tabs, or worse, a few hundred?
No one used bookmarks anymore, they just leave a tab open.
No one used bookmarks anymore, they just leave a tab open.
There are people with thousands of tabs. ( Not all Loaded Of course ). Every time there are HN discussion about browser you will see those mentioning it. Most of them are on Firefox so I guess I might be the few who does that on Safari.
Combination of depth-first browsing and FOMO. The one thing that's serendipitous about it is that you might just get to that article you opened up last week after all
I’ve met some disorganized sales or business development people juggling a lot of proposals and client spiels in browser
Speaking only for myself: ADHD
numpad0(1)
It's actually abnormal to actively throw away things. It's not how the brain works. Do you actively try to "forget" things? Very rarely.
We only need to throw away physical objects due to space constraints and rearrangement/search cost. Mental and virtual objects can decay away and there is no rearrangement cost when they are already organized by relevance.
We only need to throw away physical objects due to space constraints and rearrangement/search cost. Mental and virtual objects can decay away and there is no rearrangement cost when they are already organized by relevance.
>It's not how the brain works.
It actually does...which is how we are able to specialize our knowledge
It actually does...which is how we are able to specialize our knowledge
> We only need to throw away physical objects due to space constraints and rearrangement/search cost.
This is the same for throwing away tabs. If I'm not using a tab anymore, I want it out of the way so I can more easily find the tabs I do use.
This is the same for throwing away tabs. If I'm not using a tab anymore, I want it out of the way so I can more easily find the tabs I do use.
There’s literally a movement of affluent people to move into tiny houses. It may seem strange to some but maybe what’s abnormal is all this want for more more more is just marketing and one has to admit that they’ve fallen prey to it. I don’t like stuff and I loathe acquiring things. Getting rid of a car, for example changed my life for the better. Needing one in the future leads me anxious, no matter how much money car manufacturers spend to tell me I need to do just that to fit in with their status quo.
Acquiring fewer things is not mutually exclusive with not discarding things. They may even be positively correlated.
My brain is constantly forgetting things. How many steps did it take you to go from your bed to your desk? What was the color of the car you last saw driving down the street? How many times have you blinked this last hour? What did you have for lunch on March 23rd? Its constantly filtering out things it doesn't think are interesting or important to me anymore, and it disappears from my consciousness.
That's exactly my point, it happens automatically by relevance ("how many times did it get recently refreshed"). It's not you going in to actively close out memory "tabs". All your "tabs" are open.
> Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session. Not the first time this has happened to me on Safari. ( Firefox used to have this problem as well, they implemented multiple LastSession.json to combat the problem and it is basically a thing of the past. )
You can restore the old plist with this to get them back, if you had it backed up in Time Machine or something. It's annoying but it's saved me a couple times.
You can restore the old plist with this to get them back, if you had it backed up in Time Machine or something. It's annoying but it's saved me a couple times.
In response to point 1, were you able to use History > Reopen All Windows from Last Session?
Nope, it was blank, because the Plist files have nothing in it. And I cant rescue it either. In Firefox they make lastsession.json and lastoeesion.bak where .bak was a backup and could be restored from within UI setting. I think they also had the .bak zipped somewhere in case all things fails, you can manually restore some part of it.
Although the frequency of that zip creation was something like daily so you still lose some part of tabs. There were additional guarantee they put in place so last session will never be overwritten again or blank out. But that was a very long time ago when I was still a heavy Firefox users and follows its development very closely. If I remember correctly those features development and debugging happened on Mozillazine.
Although the frequency of that zip creation was something like daily so you still lose some part of tabs. There were additional guarantee they put in place so last session will never be overwritten again or blank out. But that was a very long time ago when I was still a heavy Firefox users and follows its development very closely. If I remember correctly those features development and debugging happened on Mozillazine.
You can set this as the default as well.
> Fav Icons meant they are no longer showing the Tab Description once you have a dozen tabs as they will shrink to Icons Size. So you either have normal Tabs or Tabs with Fav Icons, not both. ( This is new in Safari 14 )
FYI, there is a way to get around this annoying new setting.
1. Enable Preferences -> Tabs -> Show website icons.
2. Quit Safari.
3. Enable Safari Debug menu as described in https://yuriy.eu/design/2020/09/21/safari-tab-preview.html
4. Open Safari and disable Debug -> Tab Features -> Narrow Tabs.
FYI, there is a way to get around this annoying new setting.
1. Enable Preferences -> Tabs -> Show website icons.
2. Quit Safari.
3. Enable Safari Debug menu as described in https://yuriy.eu/design/2020/09/21/safari-tab-preview.html
4. Open Safari and disable Debug -> Tab Features -> Narrow Tabs.
OMG Thank You!.
>>
1. Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session. Not the first time this has happened to me on Safari. ( Firefox used to have this problem as well, they implemented multiple LastSession.json to combat the problem and it is basically a thing of the past. )
>>
With Safari's switch to WebExtensions, I hope that the developer of OneTab (1) makes their extension available on Safari as well. I started using this extension on Firefox to get an additional layer of protection from an unexpected crash that corrupted tabs data. This was before the multiple backups approach that Firefox has adopted, which has all but eliminated tab data corruption. I continue using it because I like to see tabs in a list.
1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/?utm_s...
1. Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session. Not the first time this has happened to me on Safari. ( Firefox used to have this problem as well, they implemented multiple LastSession.json to combat the problem and it is basically a thing of the past. )
>>
With Safari's switch to WebExtensions, I hope that the developer of OneTab (1) makes their extension available on Safari as well. I started using this extension on Firefox to get an additional layer of protection from an unexpected crash that corrupted tabs data. This was before the multiple backups approach that Firefox has adopted, which has all but eliminated tab data corruption. I continue using it because I like to see tabs in a list.
1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/?utm_s...
I can confirm point 4.
I have a small, open-source Chrome/Firefox extension that has about 260 active users.
I was considering porting it to Safari, but I can't justify the $99/year fee for it.
I have a small, open-source Chrome/Firefox extension that has about 260 active users.
I was considering porting it to Safari, but I can't justify the $99/year fee for it.
Same here. My extension these days approaches 3000 users across Chrome/Firefox, but only a fraction of those visit the donations link and send something. It just makes no sense to pay $99 to maybe get a few donations. I don't want to make this a paid extension and then spend time and money on marketing and hope that maybe I will one day break even. I just want the extension to be available to users, that's all!
Is that too much to ask?
Is that too much to ask?
> Just lost a few hundred Tabs from last session.
Honestly, if you like to live on the edge, you have to except some accidents.
Honestly, if you like to live on the edge, you have to except some accidents.
A few things that kept me from using Safari full time (instead of Chrome) last time I tried it:
- On my 15" Macbook Pro (mid 2014), when you speed up videos in Safari the sound is distorted and weird, while in Chrome it sounds properly sped up. I use this a lot when watching educational videos.
- Youtube videos max out at 1080p.
- While there are decent ad blocking extensions, they're not as good as uBlock Origin.
- Web pages are fast and smooth, but the browser UI doesn't consistently feel as quick and snappy as Chrome.
- I once saw some rendering bugs when loading old reddit -- parts of the page were black.
This was Safari 14.
- On my 15" Macbook Pro (mid 2014), when you speed up videos in Safari the sound is distorted and weird, while in Chrome it sounds properly sped up. I use this a lot when watching educational videos.
- Youtube videos max out at 1080p.
- While there are decent ad blocking extensions, they're not as good as uBlock Origin.
- Web pages are fast and smooth, but the browser UI doesn't consistently feel as quick and snappy as Chrome.
- I once saw some rendering bugs when loading old reddit -- parts of the page were black.
This was Safari 14.
uBlock Origin is glorious.
Safari 14 has resolved an inconsistent, tedious bug I kept experiencing (most often on reddit): changing the URL query parameters in the address bar and hitting return immediately resulted in the page merely being reloaded. Had to wait a solid second or so before hitting return to have a decent chance of getting the correct page.
But I've grown much, much too fond of this "No Javascript unless I say so, etc etc" experience to give it up without a substantial other benefit.
Safari 14 has resolved an inconsistent, tedious bug I kept experiencing (most often on reddit): changing the URL query parameters in the address bar and hitting return immediately resulted in the page merely being reloaded. Had to wait a solid second or so before hitting return to have a decent chance of getting the correct page.
But I've grown much, much too fond of this "No Javascript unless I say so, etc etc" experience to give it up without a substantial other benefit.
> Safari 14 has resolved an inconsistent, tedious bug I kept experiencing (most often on reddit): changing the URL query parameters in the address bar and hitting return immediately resulted in the page merely being reloaded. Had to wait a solid second or so before hitting return to have a decent chance of getting the correct page.
I've experienced something similar before Safari 14: when opening Safari for the first time and quickly pasting the URL to the address bar and hitting Enter, the URL would just disappear and I'd hear a bell sound. Had to wait a second to paste the URL and have it actually go to that page. These little things contribute to a general feeling that the browser is not polished enough for everyday use.
I've experienced something similar before Safari 14: when opening Safari for the first time and quickly pasting the URL to the address bar and hitting Enter, the URL would just disappear and I'd hear a bell sound. Had to wait a second to paste the URL and have it actually go to that page. These little things contribute to a general feeling that the browser is not polished enough for everyday use.
Ah, shucks. I never managed to find a conclusive "acknowledgment" of my issue, so once Safari 14 rolled around, I only checked whether I can make my issue reoccur and shrugged it off as resolved. Guess I was wrong, because your description feels eerily familiar. Maybe we're using it too fast.
Agreed about the user experience. Really unpleasant to work around some indiscernible and apparently unfixable problems. I feel like in a "death by a thousand papercuts" scenario with Apple software, but I suppose that is a topic unto itself.
With Firefox I sometimes notice oddities with how fonts are rendered, and it generally feels "less native", but at least I don't run into miscellaneous issues like that anymore.
Agreed about the user experience. Really unpleasant to work around some indiscernible and apparently unfixable problems. I feel like in a "death by a thousand papercuts" scenario with Apple software, but I suppose that is a topic unto itself.
With Firefox I sometimes notice oddities with how fonts are rendered, and it generally feels "less native", but at least I don't run into miscellaneous issues like that anymore.
This has been ongoing for me for... I don't even know how long. At least Mojave, maybe earlier.
Loss of ublock orgin is the real dagger for me. I haven't found another adblocking software (apart from maybe DNS adblocking via pihole) that I trust the same as ublock origin.
I use ublock origin when I can, but on safari (ios and mac) I use Wipr. Doesn't have much in the way of configurability, but it works well enough as-is, even blocking "annoyances", which ublock origin does not block by default (must be configured).
Doesn’t macOS Safari use the same content blocking model as iOS Safari now? You don’t have to trust the software as much, because all it does is give Safari a list of blocking rules.
With Big Sur safari now supports 4K YouTube videos
Given that the comment you're replying to mentions support for WebExtensions being added to Safari, does that mean we can expect to see uBlock Origin support sometime in the near future?
For the best video experience you shouldn’t use a browser anyway, with mpv you get not only undistorted fast audio, but with https://github.com/jgreco/mpv-scripts/blob/master/rubberband... librubberband kicks in to automagically tweak the playback rate on the fly for the perfect balance of raw speed and intelligibility (which in turn allows you to play faster without having to go back 5 seconds and rewatch at a slower speed when someone speaks a line faster than the others).
I use a simple hack to make opening mpv easy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24509028, but IIUC there are browser extensions that make it completely automatic.
I use a simple hack to make opening mpv easy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24509028, but IIUC there are browser extensions that make it completely automatic.
Good news for you then: the new Safari on Big Sur lets you play 4K HDR videos on youtube.
Luckily there is a Webkit-based macOS browser that runs uBlock Origin.
Sorry, as someone who maintains and develops a web application, from my perspective Safari is the new Internet Explorer. I had to wrote so many workarounds for Safari now, it is just annoying. And you even can't write real bug reports for it! The worst was an incorrect daylight saving time handling which drove me nuts, because some users had problems with the application and some not.
Does it still have adblocking limitations? The same that Chrome wanted to implement?
Yes, there's a few features of WebExtensions that Safari chose not to implement. I'm having a hard time finding the article and discussion about this. The missing features prevent ad blockers like uBlock Origin from working.
This was a complete deal breaker for me. Half the internet is unusable without a decent ad blocking implementation these days and a decent one is virtually impossible with the charred remains of the API they left behind.
This was actually one of the (many) things that motivated me to migrate away from OSX.
This was actually one of the (many) things that motivated me to migrate away from OSX.
You're not going to find the same AdBlockers that Chrome/FF have, but you will find AdBlockers that _work_. I agree that ads make the web unusable, but I've been content with the various blockers I've tried on Safari, and there's more every day. I use ABP, but 1Blocker and Wipr look good, and Safari's got the first 30% of privacy/adblocking taken care of with their various privacy and reader features.
1Blocker is a rip off. Wipr doesn't work properly. ABP lets a lot of ads through. There is nothing that approaches uBlock at all.
I'm using AdGuard and it covers pretty much everything and is very customizable, including the annoying "accept cookies" banners that we have in Europe.
try Adguard. It's the best one for this Apple interface for adblocking.
…which requires an Electron app to constantly be running for it to really work. Not great.
Untrue in my understanding.
The Electron app needs to run to set options or to force filters update, not the rest of the time. It's still an annoyance but it's better than nothing.
The Electron app needs to run to set options or to force filters update, not the rest of the time. It's still an annoyance but it's better than nothing.
why does it work like this in macos? (meaning - it seems to be running an outside process to block ads, unlike in Chrome where the process is internal to the browser, is this correct?
as a windows user i was puzzled by this when installing adguard
as a windows user i was puzzled by this when installing adguard
It doesn't, the Adguard developers just chose to write their app in such a way that their main app (which is an Electron app) needs to be in the loop for everything.
Actually it's true - Adguard needs to run as a standalone process that lives in the menu bar in order to work properly with Safari. This permanent process does appear to be Electron based.
My guess is that it's engineered like this to simplify their code base(s) between their various free plugins and their paid "Adguard for Mac" and "Adguard for Windows" apps.
My guess is that it's engineered like this to simplify their code base(s) between their various free plugins and their paid "Adguard for Mac" and "Adguard for Windows" apps.
No problems with Wipr here, at all..
> Wipr doesn't work properly.
How does it not work properly? Been using it and am pretty satisfied so far.
How does it not work properly? Been using it and am pretty satisfied so far.
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Consider setting up a pihole locally or on a vps.
Or NextDNS.io if you trust them. I do and it's super convenient, both on desktop and mobile.
This isn't that effective anymore. A lot of sites now proxy their ads through their own Web server for the express purpose of making them harder to block. The only way to effectively block these, without something horribly draconian like breaking TLS, is a browser extension.
I wonder if the newly enabled safari extension capabilities paired with pihole largely cover for what is missing from what Chrome can do.
for the express[ed] purpose
This doesn't mean what you think it means. What you wrote means that web sites put text on their pages stating, "We're proxying our ads so you can't block them, nanny nanny boo boo!"
You probably mean "specific" purpose.
More to the point, this isn't new. We were doing this on web sites at least as far back as the early 2000's.
This doesn't mean what you think it means. What you wrote means that web sites put text on their pages stating, "We're proxying our ads so you can't block them, nanny nanny boo boo!"
You probably mean "specific" purpose.
More to the point, this isn't new. We were doing this on web sites at least as far back as the early 2000's.
Uh, no GP's usage was fine. Take Collins dictionary: "If you refer to an express intention or purpose, you are emphasizing that it is a deliberate and specific one that you have before you do something".
Perhaps you are thinking of the term "express written consent", but there it's the word "written" that means it was, well, written.
Perhaps you are thinking of the term "express written consent", but there it's the word "written" that means it was, well, written.
Yeah, I guess if you insert the incorrect [ed], it becomes incorrect.
It now supports WebExtensions like Firefox: https://www.wwdcnotes.com/notes/wwdc20/10665/
That said, it prefers its existing adblock implementation over extensions that block network requests manually, as that functionality is disabled, I think? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/saf...
Note also that the existing Safari adblock implementation is not subject to the hard limit of 30,000 rules that Chrome had announced in their V3 manifest format, as you can enable more rule sets to get around length limits. And now, on macOS Safari, you can add companion extensions that could monitor and modify the page after the fact if you need additional scripts to run, but at the cost of privacy and battery life...
I personally use AdGuard, 1Blocker and (my favourite) Small Technology Foundation’s Better Blocker (formerly Ind.ie). I use all three of them (but without any companion extensions, for privacy) on both iOS and macOS and rarely see any ads except the occasional static image that sometimes slips through. edit: I reported the ads I did see and they’re gone now from the sites that had them. So yes, I see no current limitations with Apple’s adblocking system except that it doesn’t apply to other apps, just Safari or other apps using Safari.
That said, it prefers its existing adblock implementation over extensions that block network requests manually, as that functionality is disabled, I think? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/saf...
Note also that the existing Safari adblock implementation is not subject to the hard limit of 30,000 rules that Chrome had announced in their V3 manifest format, as you can enable more rule sets to get around length limits. And now, on macOS Safari, you can add companion extensions that could monitor and modify the page after the fact if you need additional scripts to run, but at the cost of privacy and battery life...
I personally use AdGuard, 1Blocker and (my favourite) Small Technology Foundation’s Better Blocker (formerly Ind.ie). I use all three of them (but without any companion extensions, for privacy) on both iOS and macOS and rarely see any ads except the occasional static image that sometimes slips through. edit: I reported the ads I did see and they’re gone now from the sites that had them. So yes, I see no current limitations with Apple’s adblocking system except that it doesn’t apply to other apps, just Safari or other apps using Safari.
WebKit has a 50K rule limit per extension.
AdGuard gets around this by running a different “extension” for different lists.
It's not a great workaround because then your exclusion rules don't work across lists.
Well, the workaround is to append them to all lists. Which has the downside of requiring recompilation of all lists which might take a couple seconds on a slower device, but it certainly works. I do it for my personal adblocker.
Honestly I've been finding ad blockers much less useful over time. Seems like every page I visit these days blocks the content until I disable it, if it's not an outright paywall. I think I spend more time disabling my ad blocker temporarily than I save by not loading ads in the first place.
Do others find that ad blockers actually still work well?
Meanwhile, reader mode in Safari will generally hide every ad on the page. It doesn't help with the privacy or battery life or security benefits that ad blockers provide, but in terms of just the user experience, at this point at least for me it's far superior to using an ad blocker. So I've been using safari more and more just for this.
Edit: Why am I getting downvoted? I don't think I'm violating any guidelines or saying anything inflammatory here, just curious about other people's experiences using ad blockers.
Do others find that ad blockers actually still work well?
Meanwhile, reader mode in Safari will generally hide every ad on the page. It doesn't help with the privacy or battery life or security benefits that ad blockers provide, but in terms of just the user experience, at this point at least for me it's far superior to using an ad blocker. So I've been using safari more and more just for this.
Edit: Why am I getting downvoted? I don't think I'm violating any guidelines or saying anything inflammatory here, just curious about other people's experiences using ad blockers.
The downvotes are maybe because you replied to a question of “is xyz still broken?” with “you don’t really need xyz.”
For me it was kind of an annoying place to make that point.
Many people use of ad block really more to protect from the surveillance aspects of ads than their aesthetics. Ads on big sites don’t really look terrible.
For me it was kind of an annoying place to make that point.
Many people use of ad block really more to protect from the surveillance aspects of ads than their aesthetics. Ads on big sites don’t really look terrible.
Well, appreciate the explanation at least. I thought I was saying "even if xyz is still broken, I find abc to be a better solution anyway".
Guess my views are too radical for this crowd though.
Guess my views are too radical for this crowd though.
I also find generalizations from such unlikely scenarios a bit annoying. You (poster above) have to consistently visit the worst sites on the internet, and so many that whitelisting doesnt suit you, to conclude the adblocking isn’t useful.
If that really describes what you do online, then you need some self-awareness over how little you have in common with everyone else and then temper your epiphanies accordingly.
If that really describes what you do online, then you need some self-awareness over how little you have in common with everyone else and then temper your epiphanies accordingly.
I almost exclusively see that on News websites, but I don't visit those very often, so for the most part this doesn't affect me.
> Honestly I've been finding ad blockers much less useful over time. Seems like every page I visit these days blocks the content until I disable it, if it's not an outright paywall. I think I spend more time disabling my ad blocker temporarily than I save by not loading ads in the first place.
Good ad blockers have a solution for this. For example, with uBlock Origin you enable an "annoyance" list.
Good ad blockers have a solution for this. For example, with uBlock Origin you enable an "annoyance" list.
Can you mention some websites that you can't view with uBlock Origin? I haven't seen any and I've been using it for as long as I can remember. Do you also have the Unbreak and Annoyances filter lists enabled?
I've been under the assumption that FF with its ABP, uBlock, and Privacy Badger extensions, as well as the included FF tracking protections were the toughest you can get. Is Safari is up to that level now?
No, Safari is not bad at all but lack of third-party ad blockers hinders it.
Safari has many third-party adblockers.
It doesn't have uBlock Origin, and the ones that it does have aren't as good.
Not one that can block youtube ads though.
Wipr seems to block YouTube ads for me.
Content blockers work fine in blocking YouTube ads.
This is a lie.
I really need Firefox's container models. The battery life for Firefox is awful, but everything else seems great.
Yeah I love containers and don't think I could go back to any browser without them ever again. On FF now after using Brave for ~2 years (and Chrome for ages before that).
I haven't noticed any more battery drain compared to Chrome, but both are worse than Safari (or so I've heard).
I haven't noticed any more battery drain compared to Chrome, but both are worse than Safari (or so I've heard).
Containers in FF have made me so much more productive as a consultant. I’ve been considering trying to develop a “containers” extension for Safari, but I suspect that the requisite APIs are not available...
> - Support for the WebExtensions standard means addons are trickling back into the ecosystem - I'm happy with my AdBlocker and Nightmode extensions
The critical functionality required for uBlock Origin and other request-based ad-blockers is blocking using the WebRequest API, which isn't supported in WebExtensions in Safari [0].
[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web... [0]: https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data/blob/master/webex...
The critical functionality required for uBlock Origin and other request-based ad-blockers is blocking using the WebRequest API, which isn't supported in WebExtensions in Safari [0].
[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web... [0]: https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data/blob/master/webex...
As long as the Firefox Containers idea is not implemented I will be sticking with Firefox.
It’s just one of those “no-shit” killer features that a browser touting its privacy-centricity cannot afford to not have
It’s just one of those “no-shit” killer features that a browser touting its privacy-centricity cannot afford to not have
I have absolutely zero interest in using a browser that is locked to a single platform. I move constantly between Windows and Linux (I don't have any Mac machines right now) and the idea of using a different browser on each platform seems crazy.
I'm kind of in a same boat with switching (and I use an Android phone) but I use OSX primarily - still using Safari on MBP is a noticeably better experience than chrome or FF - fan noise alone is worth the switch.
Agree. The beauty/power of the browser is to create a layer over the OS (Windows/Mac/Android) so that you don't need to care much about the OS.
Probably because they use unexposed, undocumented APIs, but non-hardware accelerated CSS animations that trigger repaints (width, top, etc) in Safari are much, much smoother than in Chrome and FF. They look almost as good as accelerated animations.
Unfortunately I can't really commit to using Safari on desktop because they don't have good ad blocking extensions (please correct me if I'm wrong). Really like FF for this.
But I really appreciate how Apple is committed to improving and highlighting Safari. After totalitarian regimes, browser engine monoculture is the greatest threat to Internet freedom I can think of.
Unfortunately I can't really commit to using Safari on desktop because they don't have good ad blocking extensions (please correct me if I'm wrong). Really like FF for this.
But I really appreciate how Apple is committed to improving and highlighting Safari. After totalitarian regimes, browser engine monoculture is the greatest threat to Internet freedom I can think of.
I thought 1Blocker is quite a reasonable ad blocker for Safari: https://1blocker.com
I settled on AdGuard. It has a pretty good UI and works fairly well. I don't know if it's as good as uBlock Origin, but it feels like it.
They have AdblockPlus, which is what I use on Chrome anyway
And my favorite:
- Pinned tabs are actually pinned tabs, not a small tab at the side of a single window that can still be easily closed
- Pinned tabs are actually pinned tabs, not a small tab at the side of a single window that can still be easily closed
So many times I accidentally close my pinned tabs from cmd-w and then have to remember what they were, slowly remembering as I need them again which is why I’d have them pinned in the first place.
My beef with macOS Safari (I use it) is simply that they don't render tab switching on the touch bar as favicons.
I'm looking down on the touch bar, and it's an indecipherable blur of basically identical tiny renders of web pages. I've never once found it useful, and the tab view has favicons (finally), if the touch bar had them I would likely use touch bar switching fairly frequently.
To be fair, no other browser does this obvious thing, either. I don't understand it.
I'm looking down on the touch bar, and it's an indecipherable blur of basically identical tiny renders of web pages. I've never once found it useful, and the tab view has favicons (finally), if the touch bar had them I would likely use touch bar switching fairly frequently.
To be fair, no other browser does this obvious thing, either. I don't understand it.
> - Native support for keychain + fingerprint
Been using Safari for almost a year now, and this is one of my favourite features.
Been using Safari for almost a year now, and this is one of my favourite features.
I periodically try out Safari, I guess I'll have to try it again.
The last time, the thing that kept me from switching was inconsistent or confusing behavior around the URL bar auto-filling suggestions. When I focus on it and start typing it would fill in URLs with a lag, and so I'd try to navigate to a page, but just as I was about to hit Enter, it would auto-suggest some different path or set of parameters and then my Enter would navigate there instead.
It also (I guess to appear speedy?) would always speculatively load the root page when I'm typing something. So if I'm trying to type in "localhost:4000/somepage", it would issue a request while I'm still typing that for "localhost:4000/", which would inevitably cause me confusion when developing by triggering breakpoints and stuff I wasn't intending.
The last time, the thing that kept me from switching was inconsistent or confusing behavior around the URL bar auto-filling suggestions. When I focus on it and start typing it would fill in URLs with a lag, and so I'd try to navigate to a page, but just as I was about to hit Enter, it would auto-suggest some different path or set of parameters and then my Enter would navigate there instead.
It also (I guess to appear speedy?) would always speculatively load the root page when I'm typing something. So if I'm trying to type in "localhost:4000/somepage", it would issue a request while I'm still typing that for "localhost:4000/", which would inevitably cause me confusion when developing by triggering breakpoints and stuff I wasn't intending.
You can still only open about 15 tabs, after which the Safari tab bar turns into a completely unusable horizontally-scrolling list.
Chrome solved this a decade ago... just keep shrinking the tabs down to Favicon size or smaller. Safari just added Favicon images last year, and I don't even think they're visible by default.
---
EDIT: Favicon-only compact tabs to have actually been changed/added in Safari 14 for Big Sur!? Which would actually probably push me to switch (and upgrade to Big Sur, even).
> https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/07/macOS...
Chrome solved this a decade ago... just keep shrinking the tabs down to Favicon size or smaller. Safari just added Favicon images last year, and I don't even think they're visible by default.
---
EDIT: Favicon-only compact tabs to have actually been changed/added in Safari 14 for Big Sur!? Which would actually probably push me to switch (and upgrade to Big Sur, even).
> https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/07/macOS...
This isn’t true. Chrome on macOS will literally stop showing you new tabs altogether once you have too many which is the worst solution I can think of.
One of the best trade-offs is to stop shrinking tabs at some point and let you scroll them.
One of the best trade-offs is to stop shrinking tabs at some point and let you scroll them.
> Chrome solved this a decade ago... just keep shrinking the tabs down to Favicon size or smaller. Safari just added Favicon images last year, and I don't even think they're visible by default.
Don't give them too much credit. For a very long time, the minimum size for chrome tabs resulted in them hiding the favicon, becoming a completely useless row of triangles. And to add insult to injury, the tabs were still big enough to show favicons if they wanted to.
Don't give them too much credit. For a very long time, the minimum size for chrome tabs resulted in them hiding the favicon, becoming a completely useless row of triangles. And to add insult to injury, the tabs were still big enough to show favicons if they wanted to.
Even when you have a lot of Chrome tabs open, you still mostly always see the favicon.
When it stop showing the favicons, that's when you really know you have too many tabs open.
It's a bit of a feature, really. The tabs are still completely usable, but not seeing the favicons was just annoying enough that it changed my behavior and would cause me to finally close a bunch of my open tabs.
When it stop showing the favicons, that's when you really know you have too many tabs open.
It's a bit of a feature, really. The tabs are still completely usable, but not seeing the favicons was just annoying enough that it changed my behavior and would cause me to finally close a bunch of my open tabs.
If you had a small window it could happen with a pretty small number of tabs. It was bad.
My current tab bar on 10.15.7 with Safari 14, you don't even need to upgrade to Big Sur. Cmd + hover lets you preview a page or close it.
https://i.imgur.com/NS6Zjd6.png
https://i.imgur.com/NS6Zjd6.png
I work and live in Sweden since one year, but I don't speak Swedish. For that reason, the one thing I miss in Safari and Firefox is the Google Translate integration in Chrome, on macOS and iOS. A life saver, honestly.
Yeah, it's built-in to Safari now: https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/translate-a-webpage-b...
Yes, but no Swedish yet as far as I know.
Safari added translation support this year, although the number of languages it supports is fairly small at the moment.
I haven't upgraded from Mojave but I've also been daily driving Safari for the last few years. I gotta admit that in the butt dyno department everything feels significantly faster than any other browser. I made the switch when I realized how much more power efficient it is and haven't looked back.
I only use FFX and Chrome for testing, although I tend to use FFX a lot for the developer tools and Vue integration. That being said, Safari has extremely polished dev tools that are highly capable.
I only use FFX and Chrome for testing, although I tend to use FFX a lot for the developer tools and Vue integration. That being said, Safari has extremely polished dev tools that are highly capable.
Are the firefox dev tools getting udpates? the last news about it was that the whole team got fired.
Safari is my favorite browser. It is only missing some sort of containers or personas functionality. Those features are really good in Chrome/Firefox.
I mainly use Brave now, one killer feature is the “Open Private Tab with Tor”. That and Ad blocking out the box. Is Safari’s privacy any better than that?
I use Chrome/Brave only for work, so I started using Safari for the personal stuff to separate the history and open state, since I use the same device for both.
I was using Safari 14 since the day it was released for macOS Catalina. The animations, for example when you open the link menu (cmd+L), make it sluggish. And that's on last year's 16" macbook pro without any heavy load, so it should not be slow.
Dev tools have improved, but so has Chrome. They still have a long way to go. I'm a frontend developer so I use these tools daily and I still use Chrome only because of the superior developer experience.
The touchid support is a neat feature, but 1password gets very close to it and I can use it in any browser. The only place where I was truly surprised with Safari was when you log to icloud.com, Apple pulls some 1st party magic there.
I'm now using Firefox in place of Safari, it feels faster and snappier. Checks all the boxes listed in the parent and then some, except native fingerprint support. I wonder if Safari is somehow performing better on big sur. I will test it during the weekend when I upgrade.
I was using Safari 14 since the day it was released for macOS Catalina. The animations, for example when you open the link menu (cmd+L), make it sluggish. And that's on last year's 16" macbook pro without any heavy load, so it should not be slow.
Dev tools have improved, but so has Chrome. They still have a long way to go. I'm a frontend developer so I use these tools daily and I still use Chrome only because of the superior developer experience.
The touchid support is a neat feature, but 1password gets very close to it and I can use it in any browser. The only place where I was truly surprised with Safari was when you log to icloud.com, Apple pulls some 1st party magic there.
I'm now using Firefox in place of Safari, it feels faster and snappier. Checks all the boxes listed in the parent and then some, except native fingerprint support. I wonder if Safari is somehow performing better on big sur. I will test it during the weekend when I upgrade.
I started using the first Beta of Safari back when I was running OS X 10.2 ‘Jaguar’ and Internet Explorer was the default browser on the Mac.
Basically I’ve been using Safari (desktop and mobile) for eighteen years in a row. I usually have Chrome on my machine too, for one reason or another, but I don’t think I fire it up more than a handful of times a year.
Basically I’ve been using Safari (desktop and mobile) for eighteen years in a row. I usually have Chrome on my machine too, for one reason or another, but I don’t think I fire it up more than a handful of times a year.
Yep, I've been using it for a couple years on my personal laptop and it's mostly great.
And remember: your browser doesn't have to be open-source to chip away at the Chrome monopoly. Every website that sees an uptick in non-Chrome visits will have to adjust their product priorities accordingly.
And remember: your browser doesn't have to be open-source to chip away at the Chrome monopoly. Every website that sees an uptick in non-Chrome visits will have to adjust their product priorities accordingly.
Native support for keychain + fingerprint
Not sure if they fixed this in Big Sur, but since Mavericks all the way through Catalina there's been a critical bug with Safari's use of the macOS keychain, such that if you don't use iCloud Keychain, then you cannot migrate your Local Items keychain (the one used by Safari) to another machine, even during a restore from a backup. Hence a loss, damage, or theft of your machine means the loss of all passwords saved by Safari.
I posted about it here recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24626562
I switched to Firefox for this reason. I can't afford to lose all my passwords.
Not sure if they fixed this in Big Sur, but since Mavericks all the way through Catalina there's been a critical bug with Safari's use of the macOS keychain, such that if you don't use iCloud Keychain, then you cannot migrate your Local Items keychain (the one used by Safari) to another machine, even during a restore from a backup. Hence a loss, damage, or theft of your machine means the loss of all passwords saved by Safari.
I posted about it here recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24626562
I switched to Firefox for this reason. I can't afford to lose all my passwords.
For adblocking in Safari, I recommend Wipr. It's not free but it's very unintrusive.
What is it about Safari that leads to it performing better than the competitors, and why can't they seem to figure it out? Is it because Safari is using undocumented APIs that only Apple is allowed to use?
If so, that's a deal breaker for me right there.
If so, that's a deal breaker for me right there.
It seems to me that Google assumes Chrome is the only app you have open. It is optimized for performance for the sites you have open, and it doesn't care about the performance of other apps you are using. This is in line with Google's revenue model.
Safari on the other hand wants to make sure your whole computer is responsive, and has good battery life. If native apps work better than web apps that is fine. This is in line with Apple's revenue model.
Safari on the other hand wants to make sure your whole computer is responsive, and has good battery life. If native apps work better than web apps that is fine. This is in line with Apple's revenue model.
Besides its ad blocking limitations, I'm disappointed that Safari doesn't support WebGL 2 by default. It is the only one of the mainline browsers that doesn't. Firefox, Chrome, and even Edge have had it enabled for eons.
Good news: WebGL 2 support is now enabled by default in Safari Technology Preview, as of September. Please give it a try now before it goes out in a Safari release and file bugs if you see any issues.
I recall reading something from an Apple engineer about fixing something before enabling WebGL 2.0 by default.
But it's only a click away:
But it's only a click away:
Develop > Experimental Features > WebGL 2.0All this good, but I'm sorry, I can't breath without ublock origin
Every since the last few betas of Big Sur, I can't play Youtube videos in Safari anymore. It always gives a playback error. They all work fine if I copy the URL and load it in Chrome.
Is this just me or anyone else?
Is this just me or anyone else?
I think I've had issues before where YouTube refused to play videos at all while I had my AdBlocker blocking the ads. Not sure whether it was intentional.
No, not just you,
I’ve had the same problem, and I have youtube premium. Though it’s not consistent, sometimes it works, which makes me think that it might be related to some choice of the content creator.
I’ve had the same problem, and I have youtube premium. Though it’s not consistent, sometimes it works, which makes me think that it might be related to some choice of the content creator.
YouTube premium you say? Grab yourself a free Stadia controller: https://stadia.google.com/SdFGljSduV5z
All of these are of course great but I remember I stopped using it because some JavaScript-heavy sites lagged on it.
Also I need tab syncing with my Android phone and adblocking wasn't great on Safari
Also I need tab syncing with my Android phone and adblocking wasn't great on Safari
A lot of Apple users also have devices outside the Apple ecosystem. It really doesn't matter how good Safari is if you can't use it in your Android phone or Windows machine.
Yep. Not supported on Linux so I’m a Firefox user.
Man, i just wish i could sync history across all devices between safari and chrome. This pulls me back to chrome every time, due to my android phone and windows gaming pc.
- Privacy seems to be top-notch
It's baffling at best that you imply you believe this.
It's proprietary software (so you can't prove it already at this point) from one of the most user-hostile companies in history, and one that at the bare minimum "was" involved in mass data gathering programs (example: PRISM), but everything points to "still is" and "will be" - not only for arbitrary governments but for its own pockets too.
It's baffling at best that you imply you believe this.
It's proprietary software (so you can't prove it already at this point) from one of the most user-hostile companies in history, and one that at the bare minimum "was" involved in mass data gathering programs (example: PRISM), but everything points to "still is" and "will be" - not only for arbitrary governments but for its own pockets too.
Completely unfounded speculation on your part does not make other’s beliefs baffling.
OP is making a claim that privacy is top notch with no proof. I don't really agree that we can automatically say it isn't because it's closed source, but it's pretty hard to confirm that it is without reading the source code.
The biggest thing from Chrome for me is multiple users to switch between home and work contexts - I don't think there's something like that on Safari?
Can concur. Been exclusively on Safari ~6 months and I’ve gotten so used to it now that I feel crippled whenever I’m forced to use anything else.
A few more good things
- Credit/Debit Card store
- I browse on iPhone as well as Mac. They tabs are visible on both devices, including book marks etc
- The killer reader mode
- Reading List: it’s replaced Pocket app for me.
I think some of these aren’t new in the browser world but it’s just nice when I could use them without being hounded by a few thousand trackers.
A few more good things
- Credit/Debit Card store
- I browse on iPhone as well as Mac. They tabs are visible on both devices, including book marks etc
- The killer reader mode
- Reading List: it’s replaced Pocket app for me.
I think some of these aren’t new in the browser world but it’s just nice when I could use them without being hounded by a few thousand trackers.
I absolutely quit on Chrome a couple years ago. It was SUCH a pig, and at the end of the day I wasn't happy using a Google browser, so I don't have it on anything.
My main browser is Safari, and I'm very happy with it, but I do also run Firefox for some things. I enjoy some of its plugins more (eg, ForgetMeNot), but overall it's pretty clunky compared to Safari.
My main browser is Safari, and I'm very happy with it, but I do also run Firefox for some things. I enjoy some of its plugins more (eg, ForgetMeNot), but overall it's pretty clunky compared to Safari.
Just to mention that Safari 14 is available on earlier version on MacOS too - I'm running it on Mojave and it works very nicely.
If I only used Safari for browsing the internets, I probably would, but I'm doing web development and right now I'm pretty invested in Chrome and its dev tools in that regard.
That said, I do have to close the tab / restart after a few dozen reloads. I blame the 35 MB of JS that's being loaded, :/. (production version is 1/10th of that)
That said, I do have to close the tab / restart after a few dozen reloads. I blame the 35 MB of JS that's being loaded, :/. (production version is 1/10th of that)
Ehm, push notifications?
Desktop Safari has had push notifications since like… 10.9 Mavericks. Only mobile Safari doesn't support them.
I thought this too, but it seems Safari only supports the Notifications API for when a site is open, not Web Push for background notifications?
https://caniuse.com/push-api
https://caniuse.com/push-api
For Safari specifically you have to use Apple's push notification service (APNS), which is a lot of hassle compared to web push.
There is a ticket open for adding support into Safari, but it probably won't happen anytime soon. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182566
There is a ticket open for adding support into Safari, but it probably won't happen anytime soon. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182566
Wouldn't this be true for any browser? Unless other browsers leave daemons running at all times, which would be kinda creepy.
Most desktop browsers don't run daemons but they do "soft close" for this feature to work. If you completely kill your browser then notifications and service workers stop working.
>- Actually decent dev tools (used to be terrible)
As someone who has to support Safari, I can still say that both Chrome and Firefox are better by about an order of magnitude. They are bad enough that I've given up trying to debug safari specific issues in safari, and just proxy the behavior in firefox.
As someone who has to support Safari, I can still say that both Chrome and Firefox are better by about an order of magnitude. They are bad enough that I've given up trying to debug safari specific issues in safari, and just proxy the behavior in firefox.
The latest Safari breaks many of the WebGL demos on Shadertoy where Chrome has zero issues. I haven't investigated the reason but that could affect more than just games. TensorflowJS relies on WebGL backend for heavy model weight lifting (lots of puns)
Could you share which specific ones? In Safari 14 we changed our WebGL to be fully based on ANGLE, and that fixed more compact issues than it caused, but there may still be some bug tail which we are trying to clean up in updates.
Sorry for the very late reply. Contrary to the other response which I find baffling, it’s not a WebGL2 vs WebGL1 issue. Safari 14 on Catalina was able to render 4 out of the 6 shader demos on the Shadertoy homepage on a MacBook Pro 16 2020 with AMD Radeon 5600. Chrome was able to render all. Obviously, if it was a case of WebGL version support either all would run or none would run depending on the supported version. That comment really made no sense.
Anyway, I had to return the MBP 16 as I wasn’t happy with it’s performance when the browser has to deal with multiple GPU contexts. I’m waiting for an M1 laptop and it won’t arrive till next month.
My old MBP 15 does not have Catalina so it doesn’t have the latest Safari.
Hope that helps.
Anyway, I had to return the MBP 16 as I wasn’t happy with it’s performance when the browser has to deal with multiple GPU contexts. I’m waiting for an M1 laptop and it won’t arrive till next month.
My old MBP 15 does not have Catalina so it doesn’t have the latest Safari.
Hope that helps.
AFAIK Safari still has WebGL2 behind a flag which means many Shadertoy shaders will not run without enabling experimental features
loved safari for a long time now. people, especially the privacy focused set, do not give it enough credit.
the showstopper for me is lack of profiles. you can effectively have 2 profiles, one for 'safari' and one for the dev or preview edition. there's a very expensive (>$10) cookie switcher extension that would have the ability to effectively create profiles, but the need for that has escaped them. i actively inquired maybe 18 months ago and they had no inkling to work on that.
the other thing i like about recent chrome is the ability to have an extension only activate on click. this gives you a much higher assurance about it's safety.
the showstopper for me is lack of profiles. you can effectively have 2 profiles, one for 'safari' and one for the dev or preview edition. there's a very expensive (>$10) cookie switcher extension that would have the ability to effectively create profiles, but the need for that has escaped them. i actively inquired maybe 18 months ago and they had no inkling to work on that.
the other thing i like about recent chrome is the ability to have an extension only activate on click. this gives you a much higher assurance about it's safety.
It's noticeably faster on the same hardware in Big Sur than it was in Catalina.
- Privacy seems to be top-notch
This is a joke when your telemetry is sent unencrypted over the wire with no way to disable the same. Right now, Windows beats MacOS for privacy. At-least you can disable stuff on Windows with some effort.
This is a joke when your telemetry is sent unencrypted over the wire with no way to disable the same. Right now, Windows beats MacOS for privacy. At-least you can disable stuff on Windows with some effort.
Until I can wrong uBlock Origin on Safari I'm entirely unable to switch back.
Prior to Big Sur I found that it stuttered one sites with scrolling, like Twitter. I would like to use it, but it got too annoying, Firefox is fine. This is on a 16" MB Pro with i9 and lots of ram.
We'll see after I upgrade
We'll see after I upgrade
Does it have anything like Firefox containers and NoScript?
The first is a must for privacy reasons and I would be very shocked if FF without javascript running didn't beat the pants of Safari with it for almost all sites.
The first is a must for privacy reasons and I would be very shocked if FF without javascript running didn't beat the pants of Safari with it for almost all sites.
Reason why I use Firefox is multiplatform support. On daily bases I use OS X, Windows, Linux, and iOS. It is nice to have browser history synced and being able to pull open tabs from one machine to another.
Sounds great. Only thing really holding me back is no Safari for Windows. I use Windows for about 20% of my screentime, and I'd like for my browser to be synced across every single device I use.
I’ve always used safari. I have had no incentive to use another browser.
I actually would use Safari on OS X if I still retained a way of syncing history / bookmarks / password with my Google account to my other Chrome instances on Android / Linux.
What is the best ad blocker / content blocker for Safari now?
I would love to use safari, but I am a big fan of having separate chrome windows for different google accounts (personal vs work) and I don't think safari can handle this.
You should check out Firefox containers. Going back to Chrome and multiple profiles would feel so last century in comparison. In FF you can choose a specific container for each tab. The containers are color coded so you can easily which tab is in which container.
I'm glad adblockers are back. I'm not sure if it ever truly left, but the moment there was a bit of resistance I was happy to jump ship to FF.
As far as I can see, there is literally no way to disable network caching via a toggle in the dev tools. This is a huge problem for me.
Next to the trashcan on the top right of the network tab, there's a button, which when hovered, "ignores the resource cache when loading resources." I think this what you're referencing.
It's silly but I can't stand using Safari because the bookmarks bar doesn't show favicons.
> - Privacy seems to be top-notch
How can you assess the privacy of the browser? Did you do tests to verify this?
How can you assess the privacy of the browser? Did you do tests to verify this?
Pinned tabs in safari are brilliant.
Does Safari sync user data across devices (MacBook, iPhone)? Browsing history, bookmarks, etc.
Not sure about browsing history, but it definitely does bookmarks, and with various other bits of iCloud will do things like passwords (iCloud Keychain) and such. Pretty instantaneous as well. Handoff works pretty well as a way to pop open tabs between a computer and an iPhone/iPad too.
Yes.
I deffo want to try this, but I'm torn because reddit enhancement suite is not supported
Does it have Tree Style Tabs yet?
> tab ordering situation
What are you referring to? I have upgraded but haven’t noticed a difference.
What are you referring to? I have upgraded but haven’t noticed a difference.
For me, not supporting uBlock Origin trumps every single advantage Safari may have.
The second the React and Redux Devtools extensions are available, I'm all in!
As much as I love Safari, I found that Zoom is not working properly on Safari
Is there anyway to switch between two or three different Keychains?
What's behind the battery life being so much better?
That’s because the M1 processor comes from a mobile heritage that’s always been focused on efficiency. The fact that they started an architecture decades after x86 allowed them to learn from its errors, remove its complexity and tune it for low energy usage. At least that’s my superficial understanding. There are probably good articles on that topic.
Anyone have recommendations for vim simulator plugins?
If you mean like Vimium, there's Vimari [https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari].
the biggest gripe on my side was always the favbar which I put icons in, unfortunatly not on safari.... only icon mode is really bad there.
Does one crashing tab crash them all?
Safari is the new IE. Now some people like it...less.
What adblocker is recommended?
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* no tab syncing with Android or Windows or Linux
* no uBlock Origin
* further deepening an abusive relationship
* no uBlock Origin
* further deepening an abusive relationship
The lack of integration with other services is why I don't use it. I stick to MSFT Edge which also has improved battery life over Chrome.
are you saying edge on macos is better than chrome on macos? curious about how this is even possible, considering google has been at this (meaning - developing chrome for macos) for more than a decade (i think)
Wont use Chrome because of the Google services. But given Edge is Chromium, they're benefiting from that development.
I don't know how "privacy" and "https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/" can co-exists in one OS.
Because of how bad Safari is on iOS I won't use it on MacOS out of pure fury at how Apple is holding back the mobile web.
Safari privacy is a dumpster fire that has been ignored for more than a year now. https://www.imore.com/google-engineer-says-apples-intelligen...
Also, it doesn't support clearing data upon closing the browser if you're interested in that feature.
Also, it doesn't support clearing data upon closing the browser if you're interested in that feature.
I'm a begrudging Mac user (work provides a computer) and there's absolutely no way I want to dig myself deeper into this terrible ecosystem. They already force me to create a throwaway Apple ID just to install particular pieces of free software.
Just want to put here the long term consequences of supporting closed ecosystem Apple:
-A future of monolithic internet instead of a flourishing forrest.
-Technological advances driven by singular forces - i.e ultra thin laptops.
-The decimation of small but potentially impactful hardware innovation that my flourish one day.
Don’t get me wrong - i write this post on a Mac, for the same reason you all use it. Much of the technology is now mature enough but Apple’s muscle and patent have now become an inhibiting force. Thus this is my last Mac, last iphone. hopefully this resonates with someone, and instead of picking holes in a 5 bullet point post you focus on the bigger message here. Because there is one.
-A future of monolithic internet instead of a flourishing forrest.
-Technological advances driven by singular forces - i.e ultra thin laptops.
-The decimation of small but potentially impactful hardware innovation that my flourish one day.
Don’t get me wrong - i write this post on a Mac, for the same reason you all use it. Much of the technology is now mature enough but Apple’s muscle and patent have now become an inhibiting force. Thus this is my last Mac, last iphone. hopefully this resonates with someone, and instead of picking holes in a 5 bullet point post you focus on the bigger message here. Because there is one.
You know, I waffle on this. I don't think Apple is big enough in computing (as opposed to mobile) to be such a scary monolithic force.
I've been off Apple laptops for a few years, but I might go back soon. The new M1 is basically in the direction that I think computing should have gone a decade ago (RISC, increased integration into processor package, heterogeneous processing). Intel didn't succeed in taking us to such a great place, so I'm hoping Apple pushes things along.
And, of course, AMD silicon is flourishing too, which is nice.
Apple's been a far better steward of the internet and of computing than Intel had been-- perhaps mostly because of Apple's limited market share here.
I've been off Apple laptops for a few years, but I might go back soon. The new M1 is basically in the direction that I think computing should have gone a decade ago (RISC, increased integration into processor package, heterogeneous processing). Intel didn't succeed in taking us to such a great place, so I'm hoping Apple pushes things along.
And, of course, AMD silicon is flourishing too, which is nice.
Apple's been a far better steward of the internet and of computing than Intel had been-- perhaps mostly because of Apple's limited market share here.
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Seconded.
PSA: Big Sur forgets where apps' windows are when plugging back into an external display
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/651131?answerId=64... https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/jt0gjk/big_sur_forge...
I've been on the public beta of Big Sur for months (and issued Feedback Assistant bug reports on this). As of 11.0.1, there's still a dealbreaker bug for people who use external monitors.
If you unplug an external display and then plug it back in, none of your apps' windows (which were on the external display’s Space beforehand) are visible or where they used to be. The external monitor’s Space usually appears completely empty.
I genuinely hope Apple fixes this ASAP.
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/651131?answerId=64... https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/jt0gjk/big_sur_forge...
I've been on the public beta of Big Sur for months (and issued Feedback Assistant bug reports on this). As of 11.0.1, there's still a dealbreaker bug for people who use external monitors.
If you unplug an external display and then plug it back in, none of your apps' windows (which were on the external display’s Space beforehand) are visible or where they used to be. The external monitor’s Space usually appears completely empty.
I genuinely hope Apple fixes this ASAP.
If you're a stickler for keeping your windows neat and orderly like I am, you may want to check out Yabai (+ skhd):
https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
I used to use BetterTouchTool and Stay to do this, but after a co-worker tipped me off on yabai+skhd, I've been extremely pleased and rarely have to think about window placement (took me a while to get the config "just right", of course).
I haven't tried it on Big Sur, but because of the way yabai can assign windows to spaces, I don't believe you'd face this issue.
https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
I used to use BetterTouchTool and Stay to do this, but after a co-worker tipped me off on yabai+skhd, I've been extremely pleased and rarely have to think about window placement (took me a while to get the config "just right", of course).
I haven't tried it on Big Sur, but because of the way yabai can assign windows to spaces, I don't believe you'd face this issue.
I use a combo of phoenix [0] and displayplacer [1]. displayplacer is used for making sure my monitors are arranged correctly and I wrote a small script in phoenix (that I bind to a hotkey) that moves all my windows into the right spot, as well as keybinds to resize my windows for tiling purposes.
It's not perfect but it works pretty well for me, I'll have to look into yabai some more, it seems interesting.
[0] https://github.com/kasper/phoenix
[1] https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer
It's not perfect but it works pretty well for me, I'll have to look into yabai some more, it seems interesting.
[0] https://github.com/kasper/phoenix
[1] https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer
As a developer who makes an app that specifically places windows on external displays, i have to disagree with you(r level of confidence). MacOS's APIs have become unreliable on external displays in 11.0.1
I hate the fact that this needs to be an additional purchase and not part of the core OS. Windows and most Linux desktop environments are years ahead of macOS in terms of managing window placement. It doesn’t feel like macOS has advanced much in that department since it’s initial release in 2000 yet Windows has snapping, easier tiling, less glitchy multi monitor support....and this is coming from someone who hates using Windows!
I really wish Apple would give their core OS a little TLC. These days Apple feels more like 90s/00s Microsoft with the continuous chasing of shiny new things rather than fixing any of their existing tech.
I really wish Apple would give their core OS a little TLC. These days Apple feels more like 90s/00s Microsoft with the continuous chasing of shiny new things rather than fixing any of their existing tech.
> Windows and most Linux desktop environments are years ahead of macOS in terms of managing window placement.
I don’t understand. Windows has no ability to remember window positioning on screens to the point where I dread undocking my laptop because of the wasted time spent rearranging everything. The same way I dread it when Windows goes to sleep.
I don’t understand. Windows has no ability to remember window positioning on screens to the point where I dread undocking my laptop because of the wasted time spent rearranging everything. The same way I dread it when Windows goes to sleep.
What version are you using? I haven't had any of these issues for a long time with Windows 10. I also have some weird configs going between an external monitor upstairs and a KVM-based setup in my basement office.
I love using HammerSpoon for this sort of thing. Not for the faint-hearted to get to a point where you're happy with the configuration, but it's a total Swiss Army knife for scripting just about anything on your system, from window placement/moving to changing DNS or proxy settings when connecting to different networks, to preventing sleep, etc. It pretty much does the job of 15 other tools I might need to install otherwise. Yeah, you need to learn Lua (easy), and be willing to invest a bunch of time in it initially for setup, but once you have done that, you won't want to go back!
I am currently using Yabai without disabling system protection as my company would not approve of disabling system protection. I wish many of its features were possible without it. It's _better_ than nothing, but it's still pretty bad without disabling it.
It looks like yabai (mostly) works on Big Sur: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/issues/589
I've had this problem for all of 10.15 too, but using an eGPU with all my monitors connected to it. Simply putting the display in sleep mode is enough for macOS to forget where all my windows are when I return. You don't even need to disconnect.
That sounds awful. I can say the situation gets more hopeless in 11.0.1. I'm a Mac developer so have tested this behavior side-by-side with Catalina and even Mojave, and Big Sur has unique problems
Thanks, this is actually my favourite MacOS feature and I don't wish to go without it until they fix it!
Thank you. I'm definitely not upgrading yet.
Yes, the biggest surreal challenge of the 20th century is screen rotation and a second monitor, because that's not part of the original OS design. I am having similar problems while developing my phone operating system and one audio channel for multiple events in the same time like call ringtone, alarm clock, speakerphone, recorder. Every early version of android / ios did not work properly with sound and it took years until the problem was resolved.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean so maybe I’m missing the point, but pre-NeXT Mac software handled multiple monitors back in at least the early 90’s, maybe even the 80’s. A friend of mine had 4 displays on his Power Mac 8600 for example. I wouldn’t call this a new challenge (for Apple at least), but rather a disappointing regression.
My IBM 8088 had dual monitors (1 graphics card per display, monochrome and EGA).
Frustratingly, this has also been happening in Apple's open source xorg server for like a decade. Whenever I unplug from my external monitor I just kill it and restart with `xinit`.
https://www.xquartz.org/
https://www.xquartz.org/
This doesn't happen to me, though admittedly, I'm using an iPad with SideCar as an external display. Whenever I connect to it, it restores the last window arrangement that was in use when the iPad was last connected.
I use Amethyst, as advised by another commenter here. It places and sizes windows automatically. Crazy good.
It’s great, or it was. Just refuses to work on my Mac now. It runs, but does nothing.
Have you checked Accessibility options? I think lots of software that needs this enabling for it silently fails if it’s not enabled.
Pretty sure I did, but good shout, will try it again.
Twice bitten, thrice shy. Every MacOS upgrade for the past 5+ years has been a bag of hurt: regressions in functionality and stability, annoying "features" like Notification Center and Catalina warning nags, various PITAs on fixing UNIX/dev toolchains, all for little to no benefit. I've stopped upgrading all my machines (other than security updates), unless forced by a mission-critical app or a new machine.
>Catalina warning nags
I appreciate those nags. Those nags clued me into app behavior; I learned what apps are requesting keyboard access even when they're not in focus, for instance. Blindly trusting our apps to access our keyboards and not gradually become keyloggers is a recurring problem in our industry, it seems, so that was a very welcome change.
I appreciate those nags. Those nags clued me into app behavior; I learned what apps are requesting keyboard access even when they're not in focus, for instance. Blindly trusting our apps to access our keyboards and not gradually become keyloggers is a recurring problem in our industry, it seems, so that was a very welcome change.
The nags for regular apps don’t bother me too much, but the fact that I still can’t figure out how to run GDB worries me. The old CLI overrides don’t work in Catalina anymore. I’ve only ever owned Mac laptops and I’m seriously considering switching to a Linux/arm on the next laptop. I’m fine with the lack of ability to run random apps on my iPad, but not on my computer. Big Sur apparently won’t let me run the ZFS extensions or my vpn software (or I gotta hope the vpn has an upgrade). Apple has gone too far, from improved security defaults to whittling away the ability to override those options at all and run my own software.
I switched to Linux after the TouchBar was introduced. I've been using it for work exclusively for 3 years. It crashes, hangs, and generally acts weird every day. It's not always greener on the other side.
The upside is 1) total customization, 2) if there is a problem you have a lot more power to fix it. There are just a lot more problems.
Here's a list of my daily Linux issues (NVIDIA driver required to use external monitors)
1. Resume from sleep causes browsers and electron apps to fail to draw anything. I have to close and restart them. I found a workaround for Chrome (turn on Vulkan) but that's not possible for Slack.
2. Periodically Linux reports I have no internal speakers and I have to kick pulseaudio
3. NVIDIA driver page faults several times a day requiring me to unplug, replug monitors and run xrandr to reconfigure the displays.
4. After an upgrade my system now boots to TTY and I can't figure out how to fix it.
5. Zoom annotations don't work
6. Discord audio didn't work until I found an obscure workaround.
7. External monitor detection doesn't work
8. The laptop display doesn't go into power saving mode ever
9. Usb devices have to be unplugged/replugged to be detected
10. Complete system crashes (hang with no recognition of any input, so no way to switch to TTY)
So, pros and cons.
edit: I should note that the last Macbook (2017 I think) would kernel panic randomly when connecting or disconnecting external monitors (like when going to a meeting).
The upside is 1) total customization, 2) if there is a problem you have a lot more power to fix it. There are just a lot more problems.
Here's a list of my daily Linux issues (NVIDIA driver required to use external monitors)
1. Resume from sleep causes browsers and electron apps to fail to draw anything. I have to close and restart them. I found a workaround for Chrome (turn on Vulkan) but that's not possible for Slack.
2. Periodically Linux reports I have no internal speakers and I have to kick pulseaudio
3. NVIDIA driver page faults several times a day requiring me to unplug, replug monitors and run xrandr to reconfigure the displays.
4. After an upgrade my system now boots to TTY and I can't figure out how to fix it.
5. Zoom annotations don't work
6. Discord audio didn't work until I found an obscure workaround.
7. External monitor detection doesn't work
8. The laptop display doesn't go into power saving mode ever
9. Usb devices have to be unplugged/replugged to be detected
10. Complete system crashes (hang with no recognition of any input, so no way to switch to TTY)
So, pros and cons.
edit: I should note that the last Macbook (2017 I think) would kernel panic randomly when connecting or disconnecting external monitors (like when going to a meeting).
You need a laptop with verified compatible hardware.
I run an IdeaPad p400 with Ubuntu 20.04. Everything just works. Had a sager and a System76 that worked without issues, too.
Sometimes, it's the hardware that's the problem. Had a Dell and an HP for work that were so bad with Ubuntu that I had to give them up entirely for Linux machines.
Honestly, my next laptop is going to be a System76, top of the line model. If it can last as long as my Lenovo (2010, I think), it will be money well spent.
I run an IdeaPad p400 with Ubuntu 20.04. Everything just works. Had a sager and a System76 that worked without issues, too.
Sometimes, it's the hardware that's the problem. Had a Dell and an HP for work that were so bad with Ubuntu that I had to give them up entirely for Linux machines.
Honestly, my next laptop is going to be a System76, top of the line model. If it can last as long as my Lenovo (2010, I think), it will be money well spent.
It's a System76 laptop that comes with PopOS preinstalled.
4, 7, and 10 are issues I've only experienced on systems running the proprietary NVIDIA driver. The cause isn't always clear, but I've easily had the most unexplainable graphical issues/crashes on my desktop with a GTX 980 compared to any of my Intel laptops running very similar software. Tend to chalk it up to that as a result.
Unfortunately I have to use that driver to support the external monitors on my laptop because the display ports are directly wired to the nvidia GPU and the open source one doesn't work at all for me.
Stuff like this is why I haven't decided. Hopefully the new Arm laptops like the Pinebook or MNT reform will (eventually) provide better integrated experience. That route would be a lighter laptop + long battery mainly to remote into an amd ryzen desktop. LTE connectivity is pretty amazing these days. Though Apple still wins for fit and polish..
I have the same problem. Luckily working from home means I don't have to touch my laptop any more and I can instead use the rx580 in my desktop, haven't really had any graphics problems with the AMD open source drivers.
The cause (on Debian/Ubuntu/etc) is often DKMS not updating the kernel module. It's often possible to find a better error message in /var/log/Xorg.0.log or in dmesg (for X11; I have never used Wayland and probably won't until X11 is completely removed, so can't help you there).
Big Sur removed network kernel extensions (NKEs) in favor of a different API (NetworkExtension) to accomplish the same thing in userspace, but it didn't affect filesystem kernel extensions.
For GDB, the instructions on the GDB wiki should still work on Big Sur, and they actually last changed in the release before Catalina:
https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/PermissionsDarwin
For GDB, the instructions on the GDB wiki should still work on Big Sur, and they actually last changed in the release before Catalina:
https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/PermissionsDarwin
I have similar feelings. On the one hand I would love to check out the new version of MacOS. On the other hand I use my machine for work and can't afford any downtime.
I upgraded to Catalina 5-8 months after it was released, mostly because the initial rollout was so rocky (at least according to the articles on HN).
Going to keep my eyes peeled for reviews here in the next few weeks. Hopefully this is a more stable release than Catalina.
I upgraded to Catalina 5-8 months after it was released, mostly because the initial rollout was so rocky (at least according to the articles on HN).
Going to keep my eyes peeled for reviews here in the next few weeks. Hopefully this is a more stable release than Catalina.
> I upgraded to Catalina 5-8 months after it was released, mostly because the initial rollout was so rocky (at least according to the articles on HN).
The last part is the key: people who have problems usually complain loudly and widely, so there's a huge sampling bias. I've been using and supporting Macs professionally since the 90s. In that time, I've had exactly one case where a day one upgrade broke something — 10.4 shipped with a bug where all NFS exports were read-only — as long as you did a check first to confirm that any commercial software you were using was supporting (e.g. Adobe sometimes had fairly long delays).
There are two common problems you'll see frequently: a system which was already failing will be attributed to the new OS (I've seen people claim it broke their hard drive, when it was really just the first problem which couldn't be excused as a fluke), and people will often say that their system got slow because Spotlight / Photos were reindexing in the background.
The last part is the key: people who have problems usually complain loudly and widely, so there's a huge sampling bias. I've been using and supporting Macs professionally since the 90s. In that time, I've had exactly one case where a day one upgrade broke something — 10.4 shipped with a bug where all NFS exports were read-only — as long as you did a check first to confirm that any commercial software you were using was supporting (e.g. Adobe sometimes had fairly long delays).
There are two common problems you'll see frequently: a system which was already failing will be attributed to the new OS (I've seen people claim it broke their hard drive, when it was really just the first problem which couldn't be excused as a fluke), and people will often say that their system got slow because Spotlight / Photos were reindexing in the background.
Going to keep my eyes peeled for reviews here in the next few weeks. Hopefully this is a more stable release than Catalina.
I had several problems with the early releases of Catalina, including my Apple-made USB keyboard not being recognized.
Even after it seemingly was fixed, a dot release would break it again. I did at least two clean installs to resolve the problem once a stable version of Catalina was released.
It's completely different with Big Sur. I upgraded my work machine to Big Sur. After the Spotlight indexing was done, everything was working as it was previously, except I had the latest and greatest operating system.
It's still only been a few days but so far, I have no complaints about Big Sur.
Loving the new desktop dynamic illustrations and how much faster Safari is, even compared to Catalina.
Obviously YMMV but so far, it's been smooth sailing with Big Sur.
I had several problems with the early releases of Catalina, including my Apple-made USB keyboard not being recognized.
Even after it seemingly was fixed, a dot release would break it again. I did at least two clean installs to resolve the problem once a stable version of Catalina was released.
It's completely different with Big Sur. I upgraded my work machine to Big Sur. After the Spotlight indexing was done, everything was working as it was previously, except I had the latest and greatest operating system.
It's still only been a few days but so far, I have no complaints about Big Sur.
Loving the new desktop dynamic illustrations and how much faster Safari is, even compared to Catalina.
Obviously YMMV but so far, it's been smooth sailing with Big Sur.
I’ve been on it since one of the earlier betas for testing reasons and it’s been a bumpy ride, I’ve filed more feedback than before. It’s definitely stabilised a lot though and feels reasonably solid today. There’s a few nagging visual bugs and weird performance spikes floating around though.
Same here. I eventually upgraded to a Linux distro and couldn't be happier.
What finally did it for me was when I did an "ls" in a terminal after an upgrade, accidentally hit the wrong button when the OS asked for permission, and locked my terminal out of file system access. Mac OS is no longer any good for professional use, outside of media creation.
What finally did it for me was when I did an "ls" in a terminal after an upgrade, accidentally hit the wrong button when the OS asked for permission, and locked my terminal out of file system access. Mac OS is no longer any good for professional use, outside of media creation.
You can easily change the permissions in settings. This is a security feature.
What's the best ~15" Linux laptop to ask for as a new hire these days?
I haven't had an issue with Dell laptops.
Over many years, models, and indirectly hundreds of laptops (buying for teams, not myself) I'm pretty confident that Dells have a higher failure rate than many alternatives, but if you buy the higher tier support they are also more responsive than most. NB if you fall back on out of warranty and/or lower tier from them, support is not good.
Really enjoying my Thinkpad x390, which is 13", but I'd easily go for a 15" version of this machine.
I had a 2016 Dell Xps 15" and both me and my coworker with the same machine had terrible issues with the keyboard randomly writing letters twice in a row. Also the on-board nvidia graphics card, while nice, was also a big power hog and that system had bad battery life until I turned it off. After a couple of years, the battery puffed up and started pushing up on the trackpad until it was unusable. Really soured me on Dell's build quality, and I can't recommend them at all, even though I admire their support for linux drivers.
I had a 2016 Dell Xps 15" and both me and my coworker with the same machine had terrible issues with the keyboard randomly writing letters twice in a row. Also the on-board nvidia graphics card, while nice, was also a big power hog and that system had bad battery life until I turned it off. After a couple of years, the battery puffed up and started pushing up on the trackpad until it was unusable. Really soured me on Dell's build quality, and I can't recommend them at all, even though I admire their support for linux drivers.
I think one of those or system76 will be my next personal laptop, but I hadn't seen any around the office yet (back when that was a possibility).
> Mac OS is no longer any good for professional use, outside of media creation.
I agree, and I bet they will kick themselves for it in ~5 years time.
I agree, and I bet they will kick themselves for it in ~5 years time.
What makes it good at media creation? AFAICT almost all the major creation apps are cross platform. Further, there are entire media creation industries that are majority non-mac. CGI movie effects (Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Pictures, ...), CGI animation (Pixar, Dreamworks, Disney), Game Dev, VR, etc...
> What makes it good at media creation?
Technically, probably nothing unless you're tied to something like Final Cut. I like little things like obj (geometry), abc (geometry), and exr (image/textures) files can be previewed in Finder/Quickview out of the box. Quicktime is way better than what Windows offers by default (I miss Quicktime 7)--I'm not sure Windows can open Apple ProRes movies (a fairly common working format) without additional software.
ILM, Sony, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Disney aren't great examples since they all use Linux. For the few artists that need it, they have a second Windows or Mac box just for Photoshop. Because of their size they use Linux and a lot of in-house proprietary tools. There's like 10-30 companies in the world that work like this so it's not a great comparison for someone doing motion graphics bumpers for the web or making TV commercials--I would not recommend Linux for them.
Technically, probably nothing unless you're tied to something like Final Cut. I like little things like obj (geometry), abc (geometry), and exr (image/textures) files can be previewed in Finder/Quickview out of the box. Quicktime is way better than what Windows offers by default (I miss Quicktime 7)--I'm not sure Windows can open Apple ProRes movies (a fairly common working format) without additional software.
ILM, Sony, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Disney aren't great examples since they all use Linux. For the few artists that need it, they have a second Windows or Mac box just for Photoshop. Because of their size they use Linux and a lot of in-house proprietary tools. There's like 10-30 companies in the world that work like this so it's not a great comparison for someone doing motion graphics bumpers for the web or making TV commercials--I would not recommend Linux for them.
Any "professional" who can't spend two minutes googling how to reset this doesn't deserve the title.
I'm still on Mojave and it's okay honestly. It does everything I need my OS to do. I see no benefit in upgrading to Catalina, especially with it not supporting 32-bit apps and introducing new annoyances under the guise of "security", and Big Sur doesn't (officially) run on my computer at all.
Granular app permissions are a huge thing for me; I really like being able to keep certain apps from having e.g. full disk access or camera access. Plus sidecar, as sibling already mentioned.
Mojave has some of these. Except I don't like filesystem permissions, e.g. "access to photos" which is really "access to ~/Pictures". I'm fine with unix permissions on files and directories. I wish internet access was a permission instead.
As far as Sidecar goes, I don't own an iPad and don't plan to, so not relevant to me by any stretch of imagination.
As far as Sidecar goes, I don't own an iPad and don't plan to, so not relevant to me by any stretch of imagination.
sidecar is one thing I like from Catalina.
Unfortunately for me, Xcode is mission critical, and Apple always restricts updates to it about 6 months into any new OS.
I still haven’t take Catalina update.
Totally agreed. There's always disasters.
I have a friend who effectively works on code quality at apple who's always talking about how seriously they take this kind of stuff... and yet, there are without fail always issues in their flagship OS releases. I don't get it.
I have a friend who effectively works on code quality at apple who's always talking about how seriously they take this kind of stuff... and yet, there are without fail always issues in their flagship OS releases. I don't get it.
Same, every year since 10.13 I am offset about one year from the current MacOS release so a few weeks ago I upgraded to Catalina/10.15.7.
Have you tried dual-booting the newest OS from an SD or USB memory card? Hold down the Option key at power on and it prompts you for boot device.
It runs a bit slower, but at least you can try it out.
It runs a bit slower, but at least you can try it out.
True, that's an option; but there's been nothing in new releases that justifies going through the effort (for my own n=1, anyway). It's not that the new releases are awful; they're just a hassle that fail a cost-benefit analysis.
I take your point. I don't have a choice, I have to confirm my app runs on the latest version because some of my customers will be going there :o)
I am one of those that likes to keep my mac updated to latest. I never have been hit by a problem when upgrading in the last 5 years so i have still full confidence on this one :)
So far this one has been great... for me. Everything feels faster now and I'm digging the new UI. I'm pleasantly surprised.
I've been fine. Of course I wait till at least 2 dot releases afterwards.
I feel like Apple exploded due to synergies between mac / ipod then iphone iwatch but now they're falling into the unified trap (a bit like MS did)
Same. I'm still on Mojave
I released iTerm2 version 3.4.0 this morning with Big Sur support. Please update because 3.3 has various issues with it.
And if you love iTerm2 (especially if you use it for your work), I'd like to remind you that George has a Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gnachman
Thanks for the pointer and of course thanks to George for iTerm2! I just joined his patreon.
I just ran "Check for Updates" and it gave me this remarkable message: "iTerm2 3.1.7 is currently the newest version available. (You are currently running version 3.3.12.)"
Wat?
Wat?
https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/-/issues/9234#note_447292...
"Oh, I think I see what happened. Here's what's going on:
* I'm currently only making 3.4.0 available through software update for Big Sur users to slow the rollout in case there is a critical bug.
* I should not have removed 3.3.12 from the appcast file. That's why you're being told that 3.1.7 is the newest version. I've put it back.
If you want to upgrade to 3.4.0, you can download it from https://iterm2.com/downloads or else wait a few days until I push it out for everyone."
"Oh, I think I see what happened. Here's what's going on:
* I'm currently only making 3.4.0 available through software update for Big Sur users to slow the rollout in case there is a critical bug.
* I should not have removed 3.3.12 from the appcast file. That's why you're being told that 3.1.7 is the newest version. I've put it back.
If you want to upgrade to 3.4.0, you can download it from https://iterm2.com/downloads or else wait a few days until I push it out for everyone."
Exact same for me.
[deleted]
Same for me
Being so responsive to macOS updates adds value to an already superb and essential tool. I just donated and added to my things to support list.
What ? Who would ever think they need to update their app to support NEWER OS ? Or are newer generations completely oblivious to the fundamental concept of backward compatibility ?
Your app helps me every day. Thank you for all your hard work
Thank you for the hard work and love put into iTerm2.
Oh man, iTerm2 is the main reason i could switch to mac os from linux. Thanks for the great work.
Thanks for a fantastic app that makes working on macOS a smooth experience.
iTerm2 is definitely the high bar for terminals! The new composer window is great, thanks!
Another grateful iTerm2 user. A better terminal there is not.
Thank you for your great work.
thank you for the work - love iTerm2
Running iOS apps on the M1 Macs feels like such a game changer. Literally too cause a lot of games have been ported to iOS and now you can easily run them on Macs that were not possible before (Final Fantasy franchise for example). People can now play PUBG (although the mobile version but still). Fortnite (which have been removed but if you have downloaded it before you can still play it). And so many other games. I think the whole thing is not just a step but a huge leap forward. I really wonder what the future holds, just looking at the performance of the M1 chips. Wishful thinking but the fact that the Switch is also on the ARM platform I hope we will see more games on Mac. This feels like the 2007 iPhone moment again.
Genshin Impact, which made $100mm in its first two weeks as a free-to-play game simultaneously released on iOS, Android, Windows, and PS4, is remarkably important in this context. If Apple can ride the "convergence of console gaming and mobile gaming" wave that Genshin has shown to be a path to massive profitability for AAA game studios, it can suddenly become a relevant platform for the next generation of games, while completely bypassing the chicken-egg problem of "we won't port games to Mac because the market for games on Mac is small."
I can't help but games that straddle the fidelity of the AAA space with the exploitative and all consuming monetization endemic to iOS are really the worst that gaming has to offer as a medium.
While there are plenty of impressive perks M1 has to offer elsewhere, trading OpenGL and 32-bit support for Arm & Metal means trading access from the most creative and innovative sector of the gaming industry (the indie & AA market) for the most derivative and exploitative (mobile titles).
While there are plenty of impressive perks M1 has to offer elsewhere, trading OpenGL and 32-bit support for Arm & Metal means trading access from the most creative and innovative sector of the gaming industry (the indie & AA market) for the most derivative and exploitative (mobile titles).
Oh yeah totally forgot about and now people can play it on their Macs. Crazy moment really
I wonder if any game (or other) developers are going to have major heartburn over this.
"Woah, pricing/releasing this game this way was part of our mobile strategy, not our desktop strategy - how dare you run that game on a computer!"
I know not all iOS apps target all devices - some are iPad only, etc. Is Apple allowing developers to arbitrarily prevent their apps from running on Macs? Can an app tell it's running on a Mac rather than an iPad?
"Woah, pricing/releasing this game this way was part of our mobile strategy, not our desktop strategy - how dare you run that game on a computer!"
I know not all iOS apps target all devices - some are iPad only, etc. Is Apple allowing developers to arbitrarily prevent their apps from running on Macs? Can an app tell it's running on a Mac rather than an iPad?
You can opt out of them being available on the Mac.
“All iPhone apps and iPad apps that run on Apple silicon Macs will be published automatically on the Mac App Store, unless you edit their availability. Edit Availability | Learn More”
“All iPhone apps and iPad apps that run on Apple silicon Macs will be published automatically on the Mac App Store, unless you edit their availability. Edit Availability | Learn More”
In that case it's yet another case of some developers choosing to screw users over by crippling the features that Apple wanted to be available for everyone by default :(
(Fuck Google in particular for actively hindering iOS Picture-in-Picture for years)
(Fuck Google in particular for actively hindering iOS Picture-in-Picture for years)
Android apps already run on Chromebooks, so maybe this situation has already come up? The performance is certainly better on M1 Macs, but the same situation is possible.
I‘m sure audio software developers will love it. FabFilter Pro Q costs 149€ on Mac and 33€ iOS, probably because they assume you can‘t really use it in a studio, which you suddenly could.
I‘m sure most developers will opt out soon enough though and who knows if it even works for Audio Units.
I‘m sure most developers will opt out soon enough though and who knows if it even works for Audio Units.
The Mac version being a plugin rather than an app makes a lot of difference, enough to make the price difference worth it, IMO.
They'll just disable downloading it on macOS.
I also have to think some apps just won't be nice to use without a touch interface
100% agree. We still need to know two important things:
- Notification system integration
- File management integration
I think if they get that right Apple does indeed have a game changer.
- Notification system integration
- File management integration
I think if they get that right Apple does indeed have a game changer.
Comparing Phone games to desktop ones is like comparing Modern art to finger painting. Sure, it kinda does look like Starry Night at first glance, but is it?
>Comparing Phone games to desktop ones
Yeah but where is the border? There are lot of games on iOS that are basically the same as on PC/consoles maybe with a different UI and lower graphics. But you get the same features and experience.
You can now play GTA San Andreas on your Mac cause it was released on iOS. And it's one of the best game ever https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas/i...
Genshin Impact which is currently one of the hottest game? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/genshin-impact/id1517783697
I see no difference really
Yeah but where is the border? There are lot of games on iOS that are basically the same as on PC/consoles maybe with a different UI and lower graphics. But you get the same features and experience.
You can now play GTA San Andreas on your Mac cause it was released on iOS. And it's one of the best game ever https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas/i...
Genshin Impact which is currently one of the hottest game? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/genshin-impact/id1517783697
I see no difference really
Oh come on. GTA San Andreas is a great game, but it also came out for Play Station 2, 16 years ago!
There is some hope with games made specifically for controllers that are not hobbled by on screen controls but still. Claims of “console level graphics” are only true because a PS3 is a console, which is about the level of graphics an iOS device can handle.
There is some hope with games made specifically for controllers that are not hobbled by on screen controls but still. Claims of “console level graphics” are only true because a PS3 is a console, which is about the level of graphics an iOS device can handle.
You can play PC GTA San Andreas at >60 fps on a 10 year old laptop pulled from a dumpster.
I played it on my 2008 MacBook with a Core Duo when I first got it
genshin impact basically sealed the deal for me
no point buying a nintendo switch much less a proper mac.
I can get by with non-apple silicon arm Chromebooks like the wonderful lenovo duet
no point buying a nintendo switch much less a proper mac.
I can get by with non-apple silicon arm Chromebooks like the wonderful lenovo duet
Seal the deal? It looks like a crappy pay-to-win mobile game.
pay to win what exactly? its a ripoff of breath of the wild, and doesn't seem to have a clear winning state especially in the free single player campaign.
macos probably runs this now given its pretty popular on iPad right now. Open world games usually only launch on consoles/PC but unreal engine allows games like this to arrive on mobile platforms as well.
mobile games need to lose some of the stigma when they keep gaining console like titles in the app stores
macos probably runs this now given its pretty popular on iPad right now. Open world games usually only launch on consoles/PC but unreal engine allows games like this to arrive on mobile platforms as well.
mobile games need to lose some of the stigma when they keep gaining console like titles in the app stores
I am wondering if this marks the death of Safari on the web tbh. That and most OS X apps.
If a user can download and run the Amazon Prime app, why bother supporting Safari? The App version supports detection of VPNs, supports analytics etc...
Same applies with Netflix, Disney+ etc...
Then there are the devs which have OS X and iOS apps. Why would they maintain two code bases when now they can just support the iOS app and work on both? The app itself will be more optimal because it's designed for ARM/mobile so is likely newer with a cleaner architecture.
If a user can download and run the Amazon Prime app, why bother supporting Safari? The App version supports detection of VPNs, supports analytics etc...
Same applies with Netflix, Disney+ etc...
Then there are the devs which have OS X and iOS apps. Why would they maintain two code bases when now they can just support the iOS app and work on both? The app itself will be more optimal because it's designed for ARM/mobile so is likely newer with a cleaner architecture.
People who develop actual macOS apps usually like the native look and feel. SwiftUI made it relatively easy to have a single code base for parts and still have separate and distinct programs for iOS and macOS. This however only applies to new stuff. I dread the idea that people will start ditching the electron apps in favour of desktop hostile iPad apps.
> If a user can download and run the Amazon Prime app, why bother supporting Safari? The App version supports detection of VPNs, supports analytics etc...
At least for me, to purchase books on Amazon for my kindle app. Can't do that in the kindle app or prime app.
At least for me, to purchase books on Amazon for my kindle app. Can't do that in the kindle app or prime app.
Apple will probably push to get a cut on every Mac transaction too at some point.
It is definitely a big part. Considering there are over 600 million desktop Android emulator install, all thanks to Gaming. If Apple could gain those players that is some massive IAP revenue increase.
80% of the App Store Revenue are Gaming on both iPhone and Android.
80% of the App Store Revenue are Gaming on both iPhone and Android.
Using apps designed for touch inputs without a touchscreen must be frustrating.
iOS 14 has improved controller support so I think it will translate to Mac as well when you play the game there. Fortnite switches automatically to controller mode when you connect one to your iOS device through bluetooth.
Fortnite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KsQ27Ddtyw
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hk2u622s
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10614/
Also I used the PS4 Remote Play with the Dualshock controller on Mac and it worked perfectly
https://remoteplay.dl.playstation.net/remoteplay/lang/en/ps4...
Fortnite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KsQ27Ddtyw
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hk2u622s
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10614/
Also I used the PS4 Remote Play with the Dualshock controller on Mac and it worked perfectly
https://remoteplay.dl.playstation.net/remoteplay/lang/en/ps4...
Couldn't agree more. If it goes right and works, the amount of functionality added is unreal
Do you have a m1 mac?? I thought they weren’t out yet, but you are talking like you are already running iOS apps on your m1??
A huge step forward into Apple’s prison complex maybe.
I’ll wait to use ARM on a desktop computer until an OS/platform with more freedom and a much better UI commonly runs on ARM. That will be Windows.
I’ll wait to use ARM on a desktop computer until an OS/platform with more freedom and a much better UI commonly runs on ARM. That will be Windows.
> That will be Windows.
The only operating system left that you still have to pay for and get third-party ads anyway, with ""telemetry"" you cannot permanently disable and an inconsistent Escheresque nightmare of a UI.
The only operating system left that you still have to pay for and get third-party ads anyway, with ""telemetry"" you cannot permanently disable and an inconsistent Escheresque nightmare of a UI.
Pffft. As if you’re not paying for macOS when they charge you $400 for an SSD you could get for $200. If you insist that it’s actually free, then you’re the product and a tool for Apple to use.
You can turn off all telemetry [0] in the Windows Enterprise edition which can be purchased by anyone if they bother looking. Even if you couldn’t, anything is better than Apple’s prison and their woefully inadequate UI that everybody here has to spend time and money buying 3rd party apps to fix.
Also, next time you open up the app store that you have no choice in using on one of your iDevices or soon on your Mac, think about all the third party ads you’re definitely not looking at and all the telemetry that is definitely not being collected there.
[0] and “ads” if that’s what you call a single icon for a 3rd party app which only appears once after installation.
You can turn off all telemetry [0] in the Windows Enterprise edition which can be purchased by anyone if they bother looking. Even if you couldn’t, anything is better than Apple’s prison and their woefully inadequate UI that everybody here has to spend time and money buying 3rd party apps to fix.
Also, next time you open up the app store that you have no choice in using on one of your iDevices or soon on your Mac, think about all the third party ads you’re definitely not looking at and all the telemetry that is definitely not being collected there.
[0] and “ads” if that’s what you call a single icon for a 3rd party app which only appears once after installation.
Just wanted to add the fact that Microsoft telemetry never stopped me from doing anything.
Meanwhile nobody can run any apps on their Macs right now because of Apple’s telemetry. Enjoy that!
Meanwhile nobody can run any apps on their Macs right now because of Apple’s telemetry. Enjoy that!
> that you still have to pay for
You think you don't pay for mac OS?
> get third-party ads anyway
Not getting any? On start bar? It can simply be resized to hide ads.
> an inconsistent Escheresque nightmare of a UI.
Some FUD spread by apple fans. Windows, GTK, and QT are all pretty good. There may be small problems but the look and feel of UI is not why I buy a computer.
You think you don't pay for mac OS?
> get third-party ads anyway
Not getting any? On start bar? It can simply be resized to hide ads.
> an inconsistent Escheresque nightmare of a UI.
Some FUD spread by apple fans. Windows, GTK, and QT are all pretty good. There may be small problems but the look and feel of UI is not why I buy a computer.
Man I still haven't even left Mojave for Catalina. I don't think I'm gonna be changing OSs until I buy a second or third generation ARM Air that comes with whatever they're calling the 2022 Mac OS.
I religiously upgraded every machine up until this same release. I never had issues, and my tenure began at Tiger. Everything was smooth sailing – perhaps because I made sure to take a backup before every upgrade which might have protected me from Murphy's law.
I am also sitting still on Mojave. In the past there were usually compelling reasons to upgrade - in terms of quality of life and performance. Catalina, in my use cases, doesn't really do a whole lot for me. I can't think of a single feature that I want aside from perhaps the standalone Podcasts app. But because of all the noise raised during the last upgrade season from Mojave to Catalina I decided that the juice definitely wasn't gonna be worth the squeeze.
So now I have pretty much decided to just cruise this 2018 MBP along on Mojave until I replace the machine entirely. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I am also sitting still on Mojave. In the past there were usually compelling reasons to upgrade - in terms of quality of life and performance. Catalina, in my use cases, doesn't really do a whole lot for me. I can't think of a single feature that I want aside from perhaps the standalone Podcasts app. But because of all the noise raised during the last upgrade season from Mojave to Catalina I decided that the juice definitely wasn't gonna be worth the squeeze.
So now I have pretty much decided to just cruise this 2018 MBP along on Mojave until I replace the machine entirely. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Might just be me, but the Podcasts app was actually pretty slow for me on a 2015 MBP, even though the phone version always worked great. I ended up switching to Spotify for my podcasts. No other benefits to upgrading I can remember. It makes your security settings a pain to deal with for a while after you upgrade. I didn’t have any 32-bit apps I’m missing so I wasn’t affected by that. The one cool thing about it is Sidecar if you have an iPad and Apple Pencil to use as a drawing tablet, but I don’t.
Problem is it's broken from a security POV. This Big Sur release of course has a bunch of security fixes and it's not clear when/if they'll get backported to previous versions.
Mojave still receives regular updates.
32-bit apps. I have 32-bit apps where the developer is either gone or will not update, thus if I wish to keep using these I have to stay on Mojava. This applies to four Macs which will likely never move away from Mojava.
One of my round tuit projects is to set up a Snow Leopard VM to run PowerPC apps. with Rosetta, and a Mojave VM to run 32-bit Intel apps.
For what it's worth, it's pretty easy to have a separate Mojave partition that you boot to when you need to use one particular app. That's what I do.
Out of curiosity, what apps are those?
Of the top of my head:
- software for a "smart pen" where the company went out of business
- some label printing software
- some Steam games
- some games from GOG
Even if I don't run these daily, I don't like to be cut off from my past.
- software for a "smart pen" where the company went out of business
- some label printing software
- some Steam games
- some games from GOG
Even if I don't run these daily, I don't like to be cut off from my past.
Ah. I forgot there are so many games still only built for 32bit. Is there any kind of workaround using qemu?
Not OP, but non-subscription Adobe.
We've got a old legacy multiplatform app that supported OS X for years. Looked at updating it for Catalina, was going to be a massive amount of work, since Apple also killed XWindows and updated OpenGL in some breaking way. Decided it wasn't worth spending months on it.
Still get a regular trickle of emails from schools complaining about it. I tell them to call Cupertino.
Still get a regular trickle of emails from schools complaining about it. I tell them to call Cupertino.
Catalina didn’t kill XQuartz, nor did Big Sur. It still works fine, though it hasn’t been updated in 4 years.
It also did not break OpenGL, only deprecate it. macOS is still stuck on a many-years-old version of OpenGL, but what worked in the past continues to work. Even Apple Silicon Macs will support it.
It also did not break OpenGL, only deprecate it. macOS is still stuck on a many-years-old version of OpenGL, but what worked in the past continues to work. Even Apple Silicon Macs will support it.
64-bits have been around for few years. This means developer did not have sustainable income or is not compatible due to missing API (old Carbon times). Sooner or later you will need to move on. I am also on Mojave but booting to Big Sur to build for M1 with Xcode 12 is pain in a.
Same but instead of Air I’ll get the 13” ARM Pro with sufficient RAM and hopefully more ports.
Mojave on my 13” MBP 2015 is still fantastic. Great OS, great keyboard, USB ports, MagSafe, etc.
Mojave on my 13” MBP 2015 is still fantastic. Great OS, great keyboard, USB ports, MagSafe, etc.
Same RAM, same ports.
> whatever they're calling the 2022 Mac OS.
My money's on "Sequoia".
My money's on "Sequoia".
Either that or “Alcatraz”
They’ve had almost as many California places as they had big cats, so it might be time for a new theme soon.
The jailbreak jokes will be great with that one.
> whatever they're calling the 2022 Mac OS.
Next up has got to be "Bigger Sur", then "Biggest Sur" is up after, and then they'll finally be done.
Next up has got to be "Bigger Sur", then "Biggest Sur" is up after, and then they'll finally be done.
Not a great download experience so far. It has already failed twice partway through (2nd time after 9.0 GB out of 12.0 GB). And since this is Apple, who has somehow never figured out how to implement resumable downloads, it just starts from scratch again.
Even worse, other stuff is breaking because Apple's infrastructure is on fire. Apps don't launch because signature checks are failing (ocsp.apple.com and crl.apple.com seem to be unreachable for me) and my Mac Pro hangs randomly for a few seconds every minute or so. It's quite ridiculous. :)
About 30 minutes ago I ended up restarting because my computer was unusable, only to find the exact same behavior after logging back in... It seems to be getting better now but wow, there was about 40 minute where I could essentially not use my computer because Apple's infra was getting hammered.
Good god, I thought I was losing my mind. I've been debugging those hangs, but hadn't made the connection with the OS launch. You have helped to preserve my remaining sanity.
Yeah, my mouse pointer was freezing for 90 seconds (and was jumpy at random times otherwise). If all of that was simply due to something being unable to phone home, then I think we have well surpassed any “benefits” of this “security” architecture.
Omg, I keep rebooting in the last 20 minutes for no obvious reasons. Activity monitor just shows most of the apps as not responding.
Could it be because of this?
Could it be because of this?
DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy shit I was losing my god damn mind. I thought my new mac was dead, i was trying to debug using console/activity monitor/disk debug and didnt see any problems. WOW thank god it was this
Mine resumed. My internet went down at 11.9 GB and when it came back up the download quickly finished.
An observation on this discussion so far:
A big news story of a major new version of a significant OS, and the entire front page is a discussion about the browser.
For those that want to discuss other features: https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur/features/
Or even more technically: https://developer.apple.com/macos/whats-new/
A big news story of a major new version of a significant OS, and the entire front page is a discussion about the browser.
For those that want to discuss other features: https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur/features/
Or even more technically: https://developer.apple.com/macos/whats-new/
The look and feel of Big Sur is like a breath of fresh air. It definitely feels related to iPadOS with the colors and buttons that seem destined for a touchscreen but as somebody who uses multiple Apple devices it was comforting rather than annoying.
There are ongoing issues with Apple locking down potential security problems and this makes some people unhappy. Carbon Copy Cloner didn't work with creating a bootable backup for a couple of months. Most people are happier with the increased security.
There are ongoing issues with Apple locking down potential security problems and this makes some people unhappy. Carbon Copy Cloner didn't work with creating a bootable backup for a couple of months. Most people are happier with the increased security.
The look of Big Sur could be better. Rounded text fields look exactly like buttons in the light mode, which is bad. They differ slightly in the dark mode, which is great because I'll be using the dark mode.
Also, I don't like how the buttons in the toolbar don't have any borders and have an annoying delayed hover background color effect.
Otherwise, the UI is quite usable.
Also, I don't like how the buttons in the toolbar don't have any borders and have an annoying delayed hover background color effect.
Otherwise, the UI is quite usable.
Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.23-b1 is available as a universal app and can make bootable backups on Big Sur as well: https://bombich.com/blog/2020/11/03/yes-you-can-have-bootabl...
> It definitely feels related to iPadOS with the colors and buttons that seem destined for a touchscreen
I wonder when a touchscreen mac will be ushered in by Apple. My kids always smudge up my laptop screen attempting to avoid the trackpad.
I wonder when a touchscreen mac will be ushered in by Apple. My kids always smudge up my laptop screen attempting to avoid the trackpad.
Apple is rumored to have fixed the ASR issues blocking bootable backups in the very last release candidate, though I don’t have a solid confirmation of that yet.
Is there a way to get those insane UI paddings smaller? I'm fine with the new styling except for that, but it's a big spoiler.
Apple UI used to be remarkably space-economical until Big Sur.
Apple UI used to be remarkably space-economical until Big Sur.
It reminds me of Ubuntu when Canonical decided to replace GTK2 with the Unity desktop environment. Maybe people disliked that update and I am sure some people will dislike Apple’s too but at the end of the year everyone will prize the new UI like they always do.
Unity was replaced 6 years later with Gnome/GTK3. Not saying that it was a failure, but they did eventually go back to using Gnome.
well still unity wasn't such a bad ui and probably better than gnome/gtk3 at the time. unfortunatly it failed because of several issues.
Mind telling me what those several issues where? In my view it was mostly that they got no buy in from the rest of the community and the flagship for unity/mir failed (ubuntu touch/phone). I have no idea if unity/mir had technical superiority or not over the other options, but it really does seem like one of those "canonical things" that never gets buy-in from any other distros.
Yes, and it's especially awkward on smaller screens (MacBook Air, Low DPI external monitors...). Doesn't seem like a great decision unless they have some plans on making the UI touch ready.
> Safari … the world’s fastest browser
I actually kind of like WebKit as an engine that so many small independent browsers can be based on, but to me this is an interesting example of just how grounded in reality this marketing copy is.
I actually kind of like WebKit as an engine that so many small independent browsers can be based on, but to me this is an interesting example of just how grounded in reality this marketing copy is.
That's great that it's fast, but do they have WebGL 2 support on by default yet? Six years and counting on the WebKit bug: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126404
WebGL 2 is required for MSAA-enabled offscreen framebuffers among other features that aren't available in WebGL 1 as extensions.
WebGL 2 is required for MSAA-enabled offscreen framebuffers among other features that aren't available in WebGL 1 as extensions.
Almost! WebGL 2 is now enabled by default in Safari Technology Preview, as of September. Please give it a try now before it goes out in a Safari release and file bugs if you see any issues.
I just tried it out with the rendering engine used on keep.google.com for drawing notes (among others) and it works flawlessly with WebGL 2.
Thanks for the hard work!
Looking forward to it rolling out on by default in Safari.
Thanks for the hard work!
Looking forward to it rolling out on by default in Safari.
Big Sur update has taken down developer.apple.com (along with the hash checker OCSP service). I will try again tomorrow.
I saw a commit go in for that: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216464. Not sure if they put that in the Safari build yet.
It's certainly the most battery efficient browser which suggests to me they are doing something right with performance.
A lot of this seems to involve how deep down browser specific behaviors the developer goes. I've seen a few pages that work better under Chrome than Safari. Even big Storybook sites seem to do better under Chrome.
A lot of this seems to involve how deep down browser specific behaviors the developer goes. I've seen a few pages that work better under Chrome than Safari. Even big Storybook sites seem to do better under Chrome.
The JetStream, MotionMark, and Speedometer benchmarks are fairly "grounded in reality", don't you think? That's where the speed claims come from on this page: https://www.apple.com/safari/
I have no expertise in this, but I think it’s a safe bet that every major vendor can find benchmarks that favor their particular browser. (Edit: and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073625 should make it quite easy for Apple)
Not in this case, especially when Apple calls out Chrome and Firefox and they haven't said otherwise.
These are the industry standard benchmarks, so there's that.
These are the industry standard benchmarks, so there's that.
Currently there is an outage preventing users from downloading the update - also experiencing extreme slowness on all macs after having selected the update for download - even though the download has failed. Not a good sign of things to come.
Potential fix for the slowness here: https://twitter.com/stauffermatt/status/1326996782665052162
This did help, thank you!
Ouch, maybe everyone rushed to download it. I've got an 11 hour download estimate.
Edit: Oh no, it just failed on me, too.
Edit: Oh no, it just failed on me, too.
Exactly the same. 15 Hours Remaining. And I have an 1Gbps Internet connection.
I dont understand why. It seems macOS update and iOS update dont share the same CDN infrastructure. Could someone comment on possible reasons why that is the case?
I dont understand why. It seems macOS update and iOS update dont share the same CDN infrastructure. Could someone comment on possible reasons why that is the case?
Apple uses Akamai for Apple Music, so I wonder why that doesn't work for macOS updates. I guess they never felt the need to invest in serious CDN infrastructure for Mac updates since it's a smaller user base?
They were on Akamai and Limestone before, but some years ago they began using their CDN for live event streaming and iOS App Downloads. ( They were very late to their own CDN when I was actively following it. ) Not sure if the three are kept intact.
Still no reason not to use their own CDN infrastructure of macOS. And 110M Mac users aren't exactly a small number either.
Still no reason not to use their own CDN infrastructure of macOS. And 110M Mac users aren't exactly a small number either.
If you're interested in knowing when this is going to be resolved, check out visualping.io or another website change detection service and set up a job for https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/ under "macOS Software Update - Issue."
Be nice though, and check infrequently.
Edit: This is now resolved.
Be nice though, and check infrequently.
Edit: This is now resolved.
It's been now 30 min https://developer.apple.com/news/releases/
is down.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna wait a few days on this one
I never installed Catalina on my Desktop Mac because the security processes crossed the line of usability (for me). But Apple's love for deprecation is eventually going to push me to later OS'es -- and those OS'es will be decreasingly interested in performing well on my Intel hardware.
Anybody know if this is still a problem with the new APIs?
https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/1318465421796782082
https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/1318465421796782082
Every MacOS upgrade for the last few years has made my computer less stable and required me to reboot more often. So I'm going to hold off as long as I can.
Just this moment my laptop's keyboard and mouse took well over a minute to work after coming back from sleep. Twice in a row so time to reboot I guess.
Just this moment my laptop's keyboard and mouse took well over a minute to work after coming back from sleep. Twice in a row so time to reboot I guess.
IIRC the T2 does a DNS resolution every wake, and until it gets a valid reply your keyboard won't work. I guess a workaround would be to enable airplane mode prior to every sleep...
Please tell me it is more stable than Catalina. I have to reboot my machine every day or two just to keep it going.
Please tell me it is more stable than Catalina.
Yes; absolutely.
The first couple of Catalina releases were a hot mess—my Apple USB keyboard refused to work reliably; I could only use the Bluetooth keyboard that came with the iMac.
By the time we got to 10.15.7, it was rock-solid.
I've been running the release version for a couple of days now and it's been rock-solid as well.
Yes; absolutely.
The first couple of Catalina releases were a hot mess—my Apple USB keyboard refused to work reliably; I could only use the Bluetooth keyboard that came with the iMac.
By the time we got to 10.15.7, it was rock-solid.
I've been running the release version for a couple of days now and it's been rock-solid as well.
that's pretty weird. I have catalina on my work machine and i haven't rebooted for weeks except for the most recent patch update
10.15.7 has been very stable for me, on my work laptop I reboot maybe once a week or so and a lot of the weird thunderbolt issues have been resolved (I think 10.15.5 or 10.15.6 IIRC).
Well, I've effectively bricked my brand-new MBP after installing it, so not really...
Obviously, I'm one person out of many, but a quick Google search indicates that I'm probably not the only one that felt stupid updating today.
Obviously, I'm one person out of many, but a quick Google search indicates that I'm probably not the only one that felt stupid updating today.
If you're running an external display alongside your primary display, that could be causing a graphics memory issue. I had to tweak some display settings and it went away. Most system crash messages are pretty-well documented online.
[deleted]
I'm still on Mojave, I dread upgrading to Catalina and watching the 125GB FREE disk space halve in a single installation. For the first time I am behind by 2 releases. Is Mojave the XP of MacOS installs ?
Reminder that with Big Sur, Apple is now bypassing Little Snitch and VPNs for their "services":
https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/1318437929497235457
https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/1318437929497235457
I believe you can still block the specific destination IPs with pf using murus if you want, but yes it's quite bothersome.
You can find the full list of apps that bypass it here: /System/Library/Frameworks/NetworkExtension.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Info.plist under ContentFilterExclusionList.
You can find the full list of apps that bypass it here: /System/Library/Frameworks/NetworkExtension.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Info.plist under ContentFilterExclusionList.
I haven't tested yet, but you can apparently also remove from their hidden traffic list via recovery mode:
https://tinyapps.org/blog/202010210700_whose_computer_is_it....
But regardless, it's absurd that they're doing this and opens up an opportunity for malware to bury themselves undetected in one of these processes.
https://tinyapps.org/blog/202010210700_whose_computer_is_it....
But regardless, it's absurd that they're doing this and opens up an opportunity for malware to bury themselves undetected in one of these processes.
Anyone figure out how to resolve this?: "An error occurred while installing the selected updates".
I got to 100% downloaded and it got stuck and now anytime I attempt to install it I get that error immediately.
I got to 100% downloaded and it got stuck and now anytime I attempt to install it I get that error immediately.
Problems with Apple's infrastructure: https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
Just a case of waiting unfortunately...
Just a case of waiting unfortunately...
Any updates to the firmware or drivers for bluetooth? My 2017 Mac has had many issues with bluetooth consistency. Keep on hoping they will announce performance improvements.
I've noticed this in the last month/two - on my 2018 MBP as well - my Logitech MX keys/mouse will both randomly disconnect for 5 seconds and then pair back, this wasn't happening before.
I don't use bluetooth input devides so can't comment on those, but I too noticed regressions in the last month or so with regards to AirPods.
They changed the firmware so that it can "seamlessly" move between devices but 1) it's not seamless at all - I actually disabled the new behavior and 2) I'm pretty sure something else changed regarding Bluetooth because switching between devices manually is slower and less reliable than it used to be before, and I bet this change is also responsible for the issue with input devices that you're seeing.
They changed the firmware so that it can "seamlessly" move between devices but 1) it's not seamless at all - I actually disabled the new behavior and 2) I'm pretty sure something else changed regarding Bluetooth because switching between devices manually is slower and less reliable than it used to be before, and I bet this change is also responsible for the issue with input devices that you're seeing.
When my iPhone 12 wakes it breaks the Bluetooth connection between my iMac and Beats earphones.
I thought I was losing my mind - I've been experiencing the exact same thing with the MX keys/mouse over the past few months, and no amount of fiddling or reinstalling has been able to fix it. My scroll wheel regularly gets "clogged up" too, becoming unresponsive for 5-10 seconds, then dumping out all of my buffered scroll data at once in a furious explosion of scrolling. It's quite frustrating, and I've been looking forward to a fresh install of Big Sur to hopefully flush out whatever gremlins have been gunking things up.
Happens with Apple standard keyboard and mouse too. Restarting the computer AND accessories fixes it.
Same... and then about every 2 weeks bluetooth just dies taking the whole OS with it.
are you using 2.4Ghz wifi? Bluetooth uses a similar range and it gets interfered. If you have 5Ghz wifi try it, it might solve your problem.
Same.-
Do you have any USB C accessories? There are a lot of issues with interference between these two. When I unplug my USB C disk I can use bluetooth across my whole flat, with USB C plugged in I can barely leave my table without running into issues.
Anecdotal: Before Catalina, I had constant BT issues with Logitech and Microsoft BT mice on my 2015 MBP.
After upgrading to Catalina ~10 months ago the MS mouse has been flawless in daily usage. I haven't gone back and tried my Logitech mice.
After upgrading to Catalina ~10 months ago the MS mouse has been flawless in daily usage. I haven't gone back and tried my Logitech mice.
I still have this issue on my MBP'15 and it drives me nuts (I use a headset daily that uses USB):
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/anvufc/psa_2018_macs...
It's basically not completely reproducible and is random.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/anvufc/psa_2018_macs...
It's basically not completely reproducible and is random.
Still wack. If my iPhone or iPad is between my mouse+keyboard and my 2019 mbp, Bluetooth shot to hell. Moving devices even a foot away helps dramatically though I still have to turn my mouse on and off every time I return from sleep. Happens with Logitech Mx, Matias keyboard, keychron mechanical keyboard. Maddening.
At this point, my 2015 Macbook Pro basically doesn't have bluetooth at all. Performance upgrades is truly all I desire
I doubt they'll ever update firmware on these older models :(
Given [1] I really hope they do.
[1] https://github.com/seemoo-lab/internalblue
[1] https://github.com/seemoo-lab/internalblue
My 2018 Mac Mini got a firmware update before it could run the installer.
Having said that I've got a USB key which if I use it everything on Bluetooth stops working.
Having said that I've got a USB key which if I use it everything on Bluetooth stops working.
I just updated and now everything feels quite a bit slower. I'm on a 2015 Macbook Pro with Retina display. Scrolling on site especially feels worse.
Spotlight no longer seems to autocomplete when I start typing anymore wither which I rely on heavily.
EDIT: Seems spotlight is just a matter of everything having to be re-indexed.
Spotlight no longer seems to autocomplete when I start typing anymore wither which I rely on heavily.
EDIT: Seems spotlight is just a matter of everything having to be re-indexed.
nervous about this as well, on a 2015 MBP with the dual-core. Already struggles with a 4k monitor plugged in, probably wont be upgrading from Mojave if performance is any worse.
I hold out hope during every release announcement that Apple will finally push out support DisplayPort MST[0], but they never do. It sucks when the hardware supports everything but MacOS is holding it back.
[0]: https://medium.com/@sebvance/everything-you-need-to-know-abo...
[0]: https://medium.com/@sebvance/everything-you-need-to-know-abo...
The best thing about this is being able to run natively iOS apps (with new chips). I'll probably never open another Electron app on desktop again.
Wonder how the file management works.
Wonder how the file management works.
Does that mean we can run Slack iOS app on Mac Silicon? That'll be great, if its possible. Slack Electron mac app consumed too much battery.
I was struggling to think of an actual use-case for running iOS apps on a Mac, but this is an interesting one
I predict with enough time this will become a standard practice. So much so that in enough time, many company's will stop supporting Intel on Mac entirely (aka, <2020 Macs)
Yes.
Isn’t Slack on iOS just a webview?
Nope, it's a native app. It used to look like one too before they ruined it.
This is only true for Apple Silicon Arm macs though.
electron -> react native ;) javascript is eating the world.
Eating the world’s ram, you mean.
Yep! But you know what I mean here instead.
Is the full screen behavior still the same? Is it possible to disable apps from expanding to full screen and instead only expand to maximum size?
The top menu bar is also hidden when apps go full screen.
I think the only alternative is to hold down option key when expanding the window.
The top menu bar is also hidden when apps go full screen.
I think the only alternative is to hold down option key when expanding the window.
Since that feature was introduced I think I only ever used it by mistake. I think it would make a lot more sense if pressing alt would allow for fullscreen and normal click would be maximize.
If you double click the top bar (or use one of the many window management tools), you can maximize the window without going full screen.
Save yourself the headache, use a third-party window manager. I've been using this one for six years with no complaints: https://folivora.ai/
Beyond giving you basics like Windows-style "snapping", it's highly customizable with keyboard and even trackpad and touch bar shortcuts
Beyond giving you basics like Windows-style "snapping", it's highly customizable with keyboard and even trackpad and touch bar shortcuts
Hold down opt when you click the maximize button and it'll do what you want instead, and resize to cover all the area between dock and menu.
Assuming you have "zoom" set in System Preferences | Dock, double-clicking the title bar does that too, I believe.
Assuming you have "zoom" set in System Preferences | Dock, double-clicking the title bar does that too, I believe.
> resize to cover all the area between dock and menu
That is usually not what people want; they want it to cover the screen.
That is usually not what people want; they want it to cover the screen.
What I'm describing as the "opt" behavior is the classic maximizing behavior on both Mac and Windows (except Windows doesn't have a top bar).
If you don't hide the dock/start bar it maxes to its limit, if you hide it goes to the bottom. Maybe it was unclear when I didn't mention it'll max side to side too if the bar is on the bottom. If bar is on the side it'll leave a gutter on the side.
TL;DR it's a normal maximize--doesn't cover the doc or menu bar and you can float windows in front of it since it's not full screen mode.
If you don't hide the dock/start bar it maxes to its limit, if you hide it goes to the bottom. Maybe it was unclear when I didn't mention it'll max side to side too if the bar is on the bottom. If bar is on the side it'll leave a gutter on the side.
TL;DR it's a normal maximize--doesn't cover the doc or menu bar and you can float windows in front of it since it's not full screen mode.
I just did that on the Safari window I was using to type the comment and it just went tall. That is not what I would call "maximize".
It's been like that for ages, isn't that typical macOS behavior?
Note that I hate that behavior as well :) I fixed it first with a hotkey and a little Lua hacking within Hammerspoon. Now I just use Amethyst.
Note that I hate that behavior as well :) I fixed it first with a hotkey and a little Lua hacking within Hammerspoon. Now I just use Amethyst.
Yes, it is. I think most people hate it ;)
I tested it on a few apps before I posted (and after you replied) and it looks app-specific.
Finder actually fills the screen (the Apple app I did originally test since it used to represent reference windowing behavior) but only in list mode, which happened to be my default. In icon mode it does the old school top-to-bottom thing, as I found out after the replies.
But Chrome fills the screen, OmniFocus fills, Keyboard Maestro's editor fills, Firefox fills, etc. I think a lot of third party apps will fill the screen since it seems to come down to whether the dev gives it a different aspect ratio than native to "show all content." Most stuff seems not to do so anymore, presumably because that behavior is weird.
But to your point, apparently Safari was a huge oversight on my part and it's definitely not as consistent as I thought it was. Sorry if I got hopes up.
That said, to the extent an app will do that at all, opt-click-max or title bar double-click is the way to do it. Otherwise you're stuck with one of the screen snap apps that can also redefine the buttons for you.
Finder actually fills the screen (the Apple app I did originally test since it used to represent reference windowing behavior) but only in list mode, which happened to be my default. In icon mode it does the old school top-to-bottom thing, as I found out after the replies.
But Chrome fills the screen, OmniFocus fills, Keyboard Maestro's editor fills, Firefox fills, etc. I think a lot of third party apps will fill the screen since it seems to come down to whether the dev gives it a different aspect ratio than native to "show all content." Most stuff seems not to do so anymore, presumably because that behavior is weird.
But to your point, apparently Safari was a huge oversight on my part and it's definitely not as consistent as I thought it was. Sorry if I got hopes up.
That said, to the extent an app will do that at all, opt-click-max or title bar double-click is the way to do it. Otherwise you're stuck with one of the screen snap apps that can also redefine the buttons for you.
https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle
Great for short cuts to resizing your screens better then the OS Version I was using before.
Great for short cuts to resizing your screens better then the OS Version I was using before.
Spectacle is no longer maintained (it may matter with Big Sur release). Rectangle is based on Spectacle and is actively developed: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
Ahh thanks. While it may no longer be maintained it still works perfectly. Fingers crossed it keeps going that way or will get rectangle.
I can't believe they're still not giving us an option to toggle this behavior.
This is the biggest mistake in macOS.
This is the biggest mistake in macOS.
> Big Sur delivers a spacious new design that makes navigation easier, while putting more controls at users’ fingertips.
First step forward a touch enabled/optimized MacOS? From screenshots many UI elements looks like iOS/iPadOS now.
First step forward a touch enabled/optimized MacOS? From screenshots many UI elements looks like iOS/iPadOS now.
[deleted]
If you are using gatsby, please be prepared before upgrading. I had lots of problems using it. I couldn't run "gastby build" successfully in big sur. I tried much but couldn't solve it. Also, i had problems with webpacker as well. So, i downgraded it. I was using beta big sur but i'm not totaly sure it is fixed by now. Please do a research and if you do, please let me now.
This also applies to Homebrew and anything else in the “third-party command line tooling for macOS” category. It may take a few weeks for everything to be stabilized by the third party volunteers.
As of now it says the issue is 'resolved' for users failing update, but none of my macs attempting to upgrade agree with that status.
Likewise. I get an Installation failed error when trying to download it, with this helpful explanation: An error occurred while installing the selected updates.
Same, yet Apple's System Status still has marked the software update issue as resolved
I wonder if them releasing it today is affecting developer.apple.com as it's timing out for me. Unfortunately, that means I can't be quite as productive as I'd to be right now.
I don't think I will give this a shot anytime soon. I'm still unhappy about upgrading 2012 Macbook Air to 2019 Macboook Pro. The main reason for that is that audio setup seems much less stable; there are glitches when I play on output speakers half the time and the audio inteface I use for recording also stopped being reliable. There's also a bug when laptop resets itself in sleep mode unless it's connected power charger. And there's also all 32 bit VSTs I cannot use anymore. I'm really tired of this, I've paying premium for Apple stuff years ago so I don't have to mess around with small issues like that (which occurred all the time on my linux machine), but now this experience is gone. I'm slowly leaning to agree with my linux/windows friends that I've wasted money.
I still use an old 17 in Macbook Pro 2011. The keyboard is like butter compared to the garbage we have now. That Apple backlight is just awesome. It just works.
The only thing that keeps me is MacOS, but even that's going down the tube. I don't want new features for the Macbooks every year on schedule. I just want the thing "to work".
I've been slowly moving back to Windows because if I'm unhappy with a computer, I might as well pay less for it.
The only thing that keeps me is MacOS, but even that's going down the tube. I don't want new features for the Macbooks every year on schedule. I just want the thing "to work".
I've been slowly moving back to Windows because if I'm unhappy with a computer, I might as well pay less for it.
I hope they provided with this update a way to examine the Others category that usually takes up so much space in our Mac devices. I've emptied my documents, removed as much possible clutter I can see and still, that Others space is taking 60% of my storage.
I’m a longtime and happy user of DaisyDisk for investigating this kind of thing.
If you want something friendlier than running du in Terminal, OmniDiskSweeper is free: https://www.omnigroup.com/more
My go to disk space inspector has always been the free Grand Perspective, such a useful and clever way to show disk usage graphically.
You’ll be able to quickly see what folders are taking up space and more so easily see what folders and files in those folders are taking up the most space.
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
You’ll be able to quickly see what folders are taking up space and more so easily see what folders and files in those folders are taking up the most space.
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
+1 for Grand Perspective, already helped me lots of times
This is the sort of app I hope we won't lose as part of the transition to Apple Silicon.
._DS_Store folders take up a huge amount of space.
Anyone installing it on older Macs? Catalina had an improved performance compared with Mojave on my MBA 2013, but I'm hesitant about Big Sur.
My personal rule is to never install a new version of macOS until it hits the first point version, so 10.16.1 in this case, that usually resolves the very worst bugs it ships with.
It's 11.0, and the initial release is actually 11.0.1, so there's that!
Ha, good point - so maybe I'd counsel waiting for 11.1.1...
11.1, you mean.
Runs outstanding on both of my Broadwell based devices.
MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015) and iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2015).
MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015) and iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2015).
It's fine on a 2015 13" MBP. Compared to recent ones, the beta was pretty uneventful.
2014 MBP user here. Didn't notice much difference performance-wise.
"Use font smoothing when available" is no longer available in System Preferences / General. Text looks blurry and kinda bold on my 27" 2560x1440 screen. Especially in Safari. Anyone has a magic command line?
https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/
give it some time and you'll never want to turn it on again.
give it some time and you'll never want to turn it on again.
Haven't tried it on Big Sur, but maybe `defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 1` does the trick?
Are their update servers being slashdoted? Pardon for archaic language.
According to Squid logs the updater tries to pull from http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/50/49/001-79699-A_9... but a 403 (forbidden) error is returned and the following message appears on Software Update:
"An error occurred while installing the selected updates."
EDIT: as of now apparently there is an issue with the software update server.
According to Squid logs the updater tries to pull from http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/50/49/001-79699-A_9... but a 403 (forbidden) error is returned and the following message appears on Software Update:
"An error occurred while installing the selected updates."
EDIT: as of now apparently there is an issue with the software update server.
I’m quite sad about the decrease in information density in the UI. :/
My preference is to able to fit many apps side by side, and bigger fonts and spacing between elements (e.g., in the menu bar) goes against that goal.
I haven’t actually tried it yet so I could be mistaken or get used to it. However, I’ve experienced this before when going from Windows XP to Vista or 7. That change in information density made my 2560x1600 screen worse at fitting many windows without overlapping.
I’m curious how others feel about this topic.
My preference is to able to fit many apps side by side, and bigger fonts and spacing between elements (e.g., in the menu bar) goes against that goal.
I haven’t actually tried it yet so I could be mistaken or get used to it. However, I’ve experienced this before when going from Windows XP to Vista or 7. That change in information density made my 2560x1600 screen worse at fitting many windows without overlapping.
I’m curious how others feel about this topic.
> Big Sur delivers a spacious new design
Spacious... Please, no.
> that makes navigation easier
Typically this looks like as if the OS has been made for to be used with a touchscreen, God how much I hate that. Why does my desktop OS look like it has been made for a tablet?! Heh, not really though, I do not use Windows, nor will I use macOS Big Sur, but honestly, this is just kind of a shitty direction from their part, IMO.
Spacious... Please, no.
> that makes navigation easier
Typically this looks like as if the OS has been made for to be used with a touchscreen, God how much I hate that. Why does my desktop OS look like it has been made for a tablet?! Heh, not really though, I do not use Windows, nor will I use macOS Big Sur, but honestly, this is just kind of a shitty direction from their part, IMO.
> “Big Sur has been engineered, down to its core, to take full advantage of all the power of the M1 chip”
Does that mean that all of the OS code has been recompiled for Apple Silicon / ARM? And if so, does that mean Big Sur has two binaries: 1 for ARM (new M1 Macs) and 1 for Intel (existing supported Mac devices) and there is a flag at boot-time to determine which mode it runs in?
Does that mean that all of the OS code has been recompiled for Apple Silicon / ARM? And if so, does that mean Big Sur has two binaries: 1 for ARM (new M1 Macs) and 1 for Intel (existing supported Mac devices) and there is a flag at boot-time to determine which mode it runs in?
Not sure about the OS, but they introduced Universal 2 at WWDC 2020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary#Universal_2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary#Universal_2
The OS is compiled as Universal 2.
Does this mean that after two years, Apple won't support Intel processors anymore? I just bought a 10-core iMac so really hoping that's not the case. My I'm misunderstanding.
They will likely support that for a couple years at least.
more than that. They reiterated that they will continue to sell Intel Macs for the next few years. I reckon we'll get another decade at least
*Maybe I'm misunderstanding
> all OS code recompiled for Apple Silicon / ARM?
Yes, of course.
> two binaries
Yes and no. Technically, they are single binaries. The Mach-O binary format has supported the concept of a "fat binary" at least since NeXTStep was ported to Intel. So it's a single file, a single "binary", but with different sections for different architectures. Kernel selects the right bits of the binary to executer when loading.
> flag at boot-time
Nope. On an ARM Mac, ARM code will run natively, Intel code will run via Rosetta. On an Intel code, Intel code runs natively and ARM code does not run. This is done transparently for each binary.
Yes, of course.
> two binaries
Yes and no. Technically, they are single binaries. The Mach-O binary format has supported the concept of a "fat binary" at least since NeXTStep was ported to Intel. So it's a single file, a single "binary", but with different sections for different architectures. Kernel selects the right bits of the binary to executer when loading.
> flag at boot-time
Nope. On an ARM Mac, ARM code will run natively, Intel code will run via Rosetta. On an Intel code, Intel code runs natively and ARM code does not run. This is done transparently for each binary.
Why would there be a runtime flag and not just the appropriate binary installed?
One might want to install it on an external disk that you move between machines and use as boot device.
I think that’s quite a corner-case.
I think that’s quite a corner-case.
One might want to install it on an external disk that you move between machines and use as boot device.
I think that’s quite a corner-case.
Not at all; did all the time when the PowerPC to Intel transition happened.
If you have an Intel Mac and wanted to use your universal apps on a friend’s M1 Mac mini with your operating system configured the way you like it, that's by far the easiest way to go.
I upgrade to the universal versions of Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher earlier today; if I had to do something complex and could use an M1 Mac, that's exactly what I'd do.
Not at all; did all the time when the PowerPC to Intel transition happened.
If you have an Intel Mac and wanted to use your universal apps on a friend’s M1 Mac mini with your operating system configured the way you like it, that's by far the easiest way to go.
I upgrade to the universal versions of Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher earlier today; if I had to do something complex and could use an M1 Mac, that's exactly what I'd do.
I did that, 10.5 IIRC. For some reason, I could only install on my Intel iMac, but I wanted to resurrect a PPC mini that had died.
Oddly, the imac is long gone, but the mini can still run ubuntu, and is still (somewhat) useful for testing bigendian bugs. It's slower than a raspberry pi of a few years back.
Oddly, the imac is long gone, but the mini can still run ubuntu, and is still (somewhat) useful for testing bigendian bugs. It's slower than a raspberry pi of a few years back.
I was thinking of the case where only some of the core companion OS apps (Preview, TextEdit, Messages, etc) had been updated to ARM, so the OS would need to check if they are to be run as native (ARM) or Universal (Intel). But assumably Apple has updated all of these apps to be ARM native on ARM OS binary installs?
update: clarified sentence
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but why would there be a boot time flag instead of just having two versions, seeing as a particular CPU could only run one version?
You may want to boot an M1 or a Intel Mac from a external hard drive. Universal apps will run on either one.
I don't know if it's still the case, and probably won't if you switch architectures, but it used to be possible to move the system disk to another computer (or make a copy) and it worked.
Rosetta isn't even installed by default. You get prompted to install it the first time when you launch an x86_64 app.
In the PPC - x86 transition the binaries were all ‘universal’, with code for both platforms.
While the system provided apps were, you could strip one platform or the other out of apps to use less disk space
Yeah fat binaries use twice as much disk space
They did not use twice as much and if it really bothers you there are/were tools that can “clean” the other architecture binaries off the disk.
The resources (images, videos etc) take up the most space, and should be shared. It’s just the code that’s taking up extra space, and there’ll be a way to thin the binary if you want (there was last time anyway).
Of course it's cross-compiled. As far as I know, they use Rosetta only for third-party software.
that seems like more of an app level compromise. I'm guessing on the OS itself they don't include the unneeded binary data.
* I'm guessing on the OS itself they don't include the unneeded binary data.*
The operating system can on both M1 and Intel Macs; therefore, the OS has binaries for both.
Wouldn't be much of an operating system if the frameworks and APIs weren't available for applications regardless of which architecture they're running on.
The operating system can on both M1 and Intel Macs; therefore, the OS has binaries for both.
Wouldn't be much of an operating system if the frameworks and APIs weren't available for applications regardless of which architecture they're running on.
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why would a mac with an intel processor need OS binary code for an arm processor?
I can understand apps having both, because the app needs to run on M1 or intel. But having both OS binaries is just dead disk space.
I can understand apps having both, because the app needs to run on M1 or intel. But having both OS binaries is just dead disk space.
I mean, it wouldn't but that is the way it works. Ex:
$ file /usr/bin/ssh
/usr/bin/ssh: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e]
$ file /Applications/Numbers.app/Contents/MacOS/Numbers
/Applications/Numbers.app/Contents/MacOS/Numbers: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64]
why would a mac with an intel processor need OS binary code for an arm processor?
Remember that all of the resources—images, text, icons, etc.—are shared between the Intel and ARM binaries.
There are a few use cases:
• For troubleshooting, you can have one external hard drive/SSD that can boot both Intel and M1 Macs. This is very handy; this was pretty common back in the PowerPC to Intel days.
• Same thing with running certain apps. You're doing some video rendering on an Intel Mac. Your buddy has an M1 Mac. You can boot his Mac with your external drive containing your Big Sur and your apps and you'll get the 3x speed up on your renders by using their M1 Mac mini or whatever. Back in the day, you could put an Intel Mac into Target Disk Mode where it would act as an external hard drive and boot a PowerPC from it.
• When Intel Mac users running Big Sur buy M1 Macs, they can use Apple's Migration Assistant which will transfer all of their settings, apps, etc. from the Intel Mac to the M1 Mac. No need to re-install the apps—they'll just work on the M1 Mac. The Universal apps will run natively and the Intel-only apps will run using Rosetta 2.
These Universal apps (or fat binaries as they were known back in the day, going back to NeXTStep in 1989 or 1990) aren't just a Mac-thing. When Apple transitioned iOS from 32-bit ARM to 64-bit ARM, apps contained the binaries for both. They later updated the OS to only download the version for your particular device, which made sense, since iOS devices then had far less storage than today's devices have.
Remember that all of the resources—images, text, icons, etc.—are shared between the Intel and ARM binaries.
There are a few use cases:
• For troubleshooting, you can have one external hard drive/SSD that can boot both Intel and M1 Macs. This is very handy; this was pretty common back in the PowerPC to Intel days.
• Same thing with running certain apps. You're doing some video rendering on an Intel Mac. Your buddy has an M1 Mac. You can boot his Mac with your external drive containing your Big Sur and your apps and you'll get the 3x speed up on your renders by using their M1 Mac mini or whatever. Back in the day, you could put an Intel Mac into Target Disk Mode where it would act as an external hard drive and boot a PowerPC from it.
• When Intel Mac users running Big Sur buy M1 Macs, they can use Apple's Migration Assistant which will transfer all of their settings, apps, etc. from the Intel Mac to the M1 Mac. No need to re-install the apps—they'll just work on the M1 Mac. The Universal apps will run natively and the Intel-only apps will run using Rosetta 2.
These Universal apps (or fat binaries as they were known back in the day, going back to NeXTStep in 1989 or 1990) aren't just a Mac-thing. When Apple transitioned iOS from 32-bit ARM to 64-bit ARM, apps contained the binaries for both. They later updated the OS to only download the version for your particular device, which made sense, since iOS devices then had far less storage than today's devices have.
- Yes it makes sense that apple might make such a boot tool that has both versions on it. I don't think it helps anything to have m1 macOS binaries on my intel mbp.
- again, yes it would make sense to have this if you're booting from an external drive. Should be optional to have both binaries though.
- yes, the apps themselves will have binaries for both. That makes sense to me since you want one download link for an app and a lot of users don't want to think about what kind of mac they have.
the OS update tool should be smart enough to just get the OS binaries I need. Unless it's some kind of external boot disk like you mentioned, but that seems like a special case to me.
- again, yes it would make sense to have this if you're booting from an external drive. Should be optional to have both binaries though.
- yes, the apps themselves will have binaries for both. That makes sense to me since you want one download link for an app and a lot of users don't want to think about what kind of mac they have.
the OS update tool should be smart enough to just get the OS binaries I need. Unless it's some kind of external boot disk like you mentioned, but that seems like a special case to me.
There were utilities back in the day that stripped out the PowerPC code from fat binaries; I'm sure they'll return for this generation. There's probably a way to do it now from the command line.
Drives were much smaller and slower back then; getting rid of a few megabytes of unused across a bunch of apps could make a difference then.
The first Intel Mac mini in 2006 [1] started with a 60GB, 5400 RPM hard drive, so yeah optimizing space was a big deal back then.
There will come a time when macOS will only be updated for M1 Macs and there won't be a need to ship Intel code any longer. But that's at least 3-4 years away.
[1]: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac_mini_c...
Drives were much smaller and slower back then; getting rid of a few megabytes of unused across a bunch of apps could make a difference then.
The first Intel Mac mini in 2006 [1] started with a 60GB, 5400 RPM hard drive, so yeah optimizing space was a big deal back then.
There will come a time when macOS will only be updated for M1 Macs and there won't be a need to ship Intel code any longer. But that's at least 3-4 years away.
[1]: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac_mini_c...
I have Catalina on my work machine and Sierra on my personal one. Using Catalina at work hasn't really shown me any compelling reason to upgrade my personal machine, but it has given me several reasons not too (general stability, poor handling of external monitors, lack of forwards compatibility for apps I care about, etc)
Definitely added some stability problems for me.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that skeuomorphism is back, baby! Updated icons for things like the iSuite apps are a step backwards, the old design was more coherent visually across the suite. Maybe we'll fully return to simulated woodgrain and rich Corinthian leather in macOS 12...
Skeuomorphism is always on macOS and it's just getting worse in Big Sur in my opinion. They forced every icon to be a rounded rectangle which comparing to previous versions with free contour, does not present the beauty of skeuomorphism. Also the shadow on the message and app store icon is just visually horrifying and irredeemable. Apple moved to flat design years ago, now they are starting to move to no design. As one stated in a comment above, the new visuals there's no cohesive design language.
I have not even upgraded to Catalina yet, fearing all the breaking stuff I've heard of on HN.
I'm just so frustrated about upgrade process, 90% of the time it won't work first time and will break my Windows partition in some way. Why can't it be like upgrading bunch of packages with `pacman -Syu`...
I'm just so frustrated about upgrade process, 90% of the time it won't work first time and will break my Windows partition in some way. Why can't it be like upgrading bunch of packages with `pacman -Syu`...
Catalina's okay. I have a work Mac that came with it and it only kernel panics about once a week. Which is pretty good for Apple these days.
I still have a bunch of Macs at home running El Capitan and Sierra because they work and because I don't have two weeks to screw around moving each one over to Catalina. When they die I'll probably just move the whole house over to Linux because Apple has so completely lost the plot on what personal computing means.
I still have a bunch of Macs at home running El Capitan and Sierra because they work and because I don't have two weeks to screw around moving each one over to Catalina. When they die I'll probably just move the whole house over to Linux because Apple has so completely lost the plot on what personal computing means.
> kernel panics about once a week
> Which is pretty good for Apple these days.
sad and funny feelings at the same time :)
My old macbook air (2011) is on high sierra, I'm still working on it and it's perfect!
sad and funny feelings at the same time :)
My old macbook air (2011) is on high sierra, I'm still working on it and it's perfect!
Catalina is quite stable at this point. You do lose support for 32-bit apps, but at this point that is mostly games.
I see, thanks. I don't recall using any 32bit programs recently so perhaps I should give it a try
There is a problem with Drobo Devices connected via Thunderbolt and Mac OS Big Sur RC2 (and probably Big Sur Release). Their Customer Support page says:
"NOTE: Drobo Thunderbolt had been working properly up to RC2 posted on Nov. 11. If your Drobo has a USB port, use this. In the interim we are looking into the issue. "
My experience is a combination of kernel panics on startup, volumes not mounted, and not showing a filesystem in the Disk Utility. I was worried I'd lost all my data until I ran across this and was able to plug one device in via USB. Unfortunately, my Drobo 8D doesn't have a USB port, so I'll have to wait for a software solution.
"NOTE: Drobo Thunderbolt had been working properly up to RC2 posted on Nov. 11. If your Drobo has a USB port, use this. In the interim we are looking into the issue. "
My experience is a combination of kernel panics on startup, volumes not mounted, and not showing a filesystem in the Disk Utility. I was worried I'd lost all my data until I ran across this and was able to plug one device in via USB. Unfortunately, my Drobo 8D doesn't have a USB port, so I'll have to wait for a software solution.
I’m on Mojave still, are you able to move or hide the FaceTime dialog that appears in the upper right when making or answering a FaceTime audio call so it doesn’t block whatever is behind it such as the taskbar ?
I'll be curious to know if virtualizing Windows on an M1 will be faster than running native on my iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) in Big Sur.
If so, I guess I'll only be missing eGPU capabilities.
If so, I guess I'll only be missing eGPU capabilities.
You'll first need to get an arm version of Windows for that.
Windows and Office have existed in ARM versions since 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT
Windows 10: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/
Windows IoT Core for Raspberry Pi: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=550...
Not to say they'll run on Apple Silicon, mind, but it's not like Windows is x86/AMD64 only.
Windows 10: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/
Windows IoT Core for Raspberry Pi: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=550...
Not to say they'll run on Apple Silicon, mind, but it's not like Windows is x86/AMD64 only.
But as of now Microsoft only licenses Windows 10 for ARM to OEMs, so as an end-user it's not possible to have a legal copy running in a VM.
The link for running Windows on Arm on a VM (VHDX image): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsins...
That's pretty much targeted towards end users, albeit those in the Windows Insider Program for now.
That's pretty much targeted towards end users, albeit those in the Windows Insider Program for now.
I've learned the hard way not to jump on new macOS versions. I've found it's safer to wait at least 6 months, if not one year.
Thank god I don't use Xcode or do iOS/Mac dev anymore.
Thank god I don't use Xcode or do iOS/Mac dev anymore.
It's not a coincidence this version called "Big Sur".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25078034
Will iTunes disappear in Big Sur - is the alternative equally good? I originally put off installing Catalina because I didn't want to lose iTunes.
Retroactive will allow you to run iTunes on Catalina or Big Sur: https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive
(caveat: I have not personally tested it on Big Sur, but it's been working well for me on Catalina)
(caveat: I have not personally tested it on Big Sur, but it's been working well for me on Catalina)
It is already gone since Catalina. It was replaces by the Music, Podcast, TV apps. iPhone management happens in finder.
How does it work out?
I have been reluctant to upgrade to even Catalina for this reason too. I still have an Ipod mini, and I'm worried it's gonna get orphaned.
I have been reluctant to upgrade to even Catalina for this reason too. I still have an Ipod mini, and I'm worried it's gonna get orphaned.
It's ok, seems like the same ui view just jammed into a finder window that sometimes doesn't work right.
Thanks. Hardly a ringing endorsement, but I guess at least it works.
I'd be devestated if I upgraded and couldn't sync my over 10 year old iPad mini anymore. I guess that time will probably come eventually.
I'd be devestated if I upgraded and couldn't sync my over 10 year old iPad mini anymore. I guess that time will probably come eventually.
It is already gone since Catalina
That's what he meant by "I originally put off installing Catalina because I didn't want to lose iTunes."
That's what he meant by "I originally put off installing Catalina because I didn't want to lose iTunes."
Apple Music the service is fine. Apple Music the macOS app is shamefully bad. Never in my life have I used a piece of software from a major tech company that's so totally bug-ridden. It's shocking.
Honestly, this may be an excellent use-case for the ability to run native iOS apps :P
Honestly, this may be an excellent use-case for the ability to run native iOS apps :P
The big memory leak where https://sb.music.apple.com (the web frame part of the Apple Music desktop app) would use multiple gigabytes of memory seems to have been fixed, either in 10.15.7 or the following Supplemental Update. That was my primary issue with it.
Still, the iOS app is way smoother. I would appreciate if they would bring the iPad version to the Mac and add Genius Playlists.
Still, the iOS app is way smoother. I would appreciate if they would bring the iPad version to the Mac and add Genius Playlists.
I've had consistent UX bugs in the past with very basic pieces of functionality, like "search won't show any results until you do it twice" or "Play Later actually does the same thing as Play Next". Core functionality, trivially reproducible, really inexcusable.
The first issue I've definitely seen (I think it's because it's secretly loading a webpage in the background with your search results) and I haven't seen the second issue (except when playing a radio station, in which case Play Later and Play Next are both broken). But I'll trust you—I've seen lots of similar problems with it.
Urf that was terrible in Catalina. I didn't have it in the dock. Just used my iPhone.
I believe it's called Music and a lot of the functionality has been stripped out to other apps like Finder.
And the Music app appears to be a "Catalyst" one, i.e. a port from the iPad.
(This is a potential thread hijack, but if there is anyone here who can point me to the difference in drag-and-drop protocols between Catalyst apps, e.g. Music, and traditional Mac ones, e.g. iTunes, I would really appreciate it. I have an app that is often expected to open audio files by dragging them from iTunes, but it doesn't work at all from Music - nothing in the drop handler logic ever gets activated, even though the user is hanging over the app with the new extra-big drop icon.
This seems like something that should be well-known, but I've had terrible trouble trying to find any documentation for it. I am something of an imposter Mac developer, so maybe I just don't know the right people to ask.)
(This is a potential thread hijack, but if there is anyone here who can point me to the difference in drag-and-drop protocols between Catalyst apps, e.g. Music, and traditional Mac ones, e.g. iTunes, I would really appreciate it. I have an app that is often expected to open audio files by dragging them from iTunes, but it doesn't work at all from Music - nothing in the drop handler logic ever gets activated, even though the user is hanging over the app with the new extra-big drop icon.
This seems like something that should be well-known, but I've had terrible trouble trying to find any documentation for it. I am something of an imposter Mac developer, so maybe I just don't know the right people to ask.)
I'm pretty sure that Music is not a Catalyst app, although Podcasts is. If somebody has other information, I'd be happy to be corrected. Stocks and News were the first-generation Catalyst apps, and those have very different UIs and fuzzy text due to how scaling works.
There's clearly something weird because I've found Big Sur's catalyst Messages app is lacking a lot of stuff.
Which part of iTunes are you talking about? The device management is now in Finder, music is now in Music, etc.
I mostly just use the music part to organize my MP3's and other formats that I play. Also I have the podcasts there and a bunch of playlists. Let's hope it converts those during the upgrade.
iTunes disappeared in Catalina, replaced by Music. For all of my uses it's functionally equivalent.
iPod sycing moved to Finder, but other than that it's not very different.
iPod sycing moved to Finder, but other than that it's not very different.
I've been trying to update and it keeps failing. Now my Mac won't open apps despite restarting multiple times.
Happening to other people too: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/macos-big-sur-download-...
Happening to other people too: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/macos-big-sur-download-...
I'm seeing a new system snapshot in disk utility for 2 of my upgraded machines, with names like com.apple.os.update-somebiglongUUID. Does anyone know what these are (I assume for installs being interrupted) or how to delete them? tmutil doesn't see this as a "local" snapshop.
Ok, looks like this is how the new Signed System Volume feature works. Wasn't successful in searching for anything with "com.apple.os.update". Deets here: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=3xpv8r2m#:~:text=Signed....
If anyone is having trouble downloading the installer, check out this tool: https://github.com/corpnewt/gibMacOS
It's command line driven and will download a full installer.
It's command line driven and will download a full installer.
I tried downloading with wget and still had the same issues, so I think it's because Apple's CDN is having trouble. https://developer.apple.com is also down.
Edit: here's my wget command line:
Edit: here's my wget command line:
wget --continue http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/50/49/001-79699-A_93OMDU5KFG/dkjnjkq9eax1n2wpf8rik5agns2z43ikqu/InstallAssistant.pkgDoes newest VirtualBox work for Linux guests on Big Sur? I heard there were issues in the past...
Installing failed three times in a row (2/12, 6/12, 9/12gb). Still on latest Catalina but most apps don't load after restart. Every other minute my Mac stops working for a few seconds. Guess will stop work and check back tomorrow morning.
It shows up for me in the App Store but Software Update doesn’t find it for some reason.
Go to Software Update, click on the text area and press Command+R to force a refresh. That did it for me.
But, the download speed is very slow (it says "About 2 days remaining" for me). So, it doesn't matter if you can't see the update..
But, the download speed is very slow (it says "About 2 days remaining" for me). So, it doesn't matter if you can't see the update..
I'm downloading via Terminal now:
% softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer
More info:
https://osxdaily.com/2020/04/13/how-download-full-macos-inst...
% softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer
More info:
https://osxdaily.com/2020/04/13/how-download-full-macos-inst...
Might depend on the OS version; in the past App Store had all the “big” updates and System Preferences only handled the minor ones. Now it handles all of them.
On Catalina, you can find it in the App Store (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-big-sur/id1526878132?mt=...) but when you click 'Get' it moves over to Software Update. I got the download started after a few tries but it is crawwwllling.
You can force a check in terminal with
softwareupdate -lI was waiting for the AirPod Switching to work once I'd upgraded to Big Sur. Strangely, it doesn't work at the moment. Anyone else experience the same issue?
Edit: Turns out, unpairing and connecting again made it work!
Edit: Turns out, unpairing and connecting again made it work!
Sadly, I can't update because of problems with system update.
https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
So far so good; I had to clear some of the NVRAM in order to upgrade and install an RC Command Lines Tools to make Homebrew work. Meanwhile, from what I've tried, only Viber doesn't work.
I rolled back from Big Sur beta to Catalina purely as the kext blocks killed my Docker, Vagrant and virtual box.
Is it better now?
Big Sur looks pretty but under the hood much change there is.
My Early 2013 MacBook Pro 15 just old enough to not get this update.
Once your Apple Silicon Mac is too old to receive an update, you can't just install anything else on it because it's boot process is completely locked down.
This is a shame, and for me the most relevant complaint I’ve read in this whole thread.
I presume the official Apple answer is “trade it in and we’ll recycle it for you”. I think this is probably a win in environmental terms, and a loss in individual economics terms.
I presume the official Apple answer is “trade it in and we’ll recycle it for you”. I think this is probably a win in environmental terms, and a loss in individual economics terms.
At least once I feel that the MacOs version on my MBP is too old to risk putting it online I can just replace the OS with Windows 10 and get a few more years out of it.
So who else has updated and experienced serious latency?
I feel like I traded my "MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017) 16GB RAM 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5" for one 3 years older.
I feel like I traded my "MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017) 16GB RAM 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5" for one 3 years older.
I use my machine for work, and although I am interested in this release, I cannot afford having downtime because any of my crucial apps could break. Will wait a few months.
I'm still getting used to Catalina (and not happy with some changes from the prior version). Catalina may be my last major version upgrade for a few years.
Still rocking a late 2014 13" MBP, so I'll wait and let the eager beavers try it out first. Don't really want to take a performance hit.
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Are there any news about Apple programs circumventing most (if not all) Firewall applications?
And potential ways to mitigate that without disabling SIP?
And potential ways to mitigate that without disabling SIP?
[deleted]
I've been holding off upgrading because I didn't want to let go of Adobe Fireworks :(
I guess it's time to upgrade to Catalina.
I guess it's time to upgrade to Catalina.
I've got my MBA to install Bug Sur successfully. It took about 45 minutes. So far so good.
Is there an iPad app that you are looking forward to use on the new M1 processors with Big Sur?
I’m actually looking forward to the opposite: better iPad apps now that developers can expect them to work on Mac too. Maybe we can get iPad apps that actually work with a mouse and keyboard.
I hope this update doesnt slow my 2014 macbook pro to a crawl. Anyone update yet?
It seems that most users including myself get error while trying to update.
It seems that most users cannot update and get error while trying to do so.
I have the beta version but the GM doesn't show up in Software Update
If you upgraded to the latest RC2 a few days ago, it was the same as today's release build so you won't see any update.
Apparently the build number is different.
Apple always seems to update the build by one, this one is 20B29 instead of 20B28. I can't imagine the difference are all that severe, Apple isn't pushing an update.
Usually the last build seeded to developers is what goes out to the public.
I think you need to leave the beta program to be able to use the stable build. Also, it might be in the App Store.
Is the move to Big Sur only worth it if you have an M1 chip?
Besides Safari, anything else that people like about Big Sur?
Trying it out and not actually that much revolutionary! Sorry but it's just UI change mostly (80%) and some features to old apps, some performance to safari and ... NOT MUCH BASICALLY
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Is it just me that was immediately put off by looking at the first screenshot? The UI is so unappealing, way too many colors, its kind of a plastic junk...
Download says “about 2 days demaining”…
Same here on a gigabit connection. Usually Apple update downloads are pretty snappy, so it seems like their CDN isn't working as it should.
Still waiting for someone to reinvent the general purpose computer UX. Like, around search, history and relatedness, probably.
Did they make it so my USB mouse and keyboard will work again cause Catalina really screwed those up
> Maps: Discover the Next Adventure
Seems a bit tone deaf given our current situation.
Seems a bit tone deaf given our current situation.
Count me out of Safari until it has world class dev tools
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Full recompile for ARM. Interesting.
Since so much of the OS is shared with iOS -- kernel, most base libraries, etc. -- there's probably not much code that hasn't already been running on ARM for years.
I wonder how it performs on Intel hardware.
Confetti in Messages? Branded guides in Maps? This is for a .. (checks notes) “OS upgrade”? I guess updating Misson Control is good but other than that (and the M1 chip itself of course which seems quite impressive) who really gets excited about stuff like this?
No thanks. Don’t want it, don’t need it. Given all the pain that was involved with Catalina I’m holding off for a bit.
No thanks. Don’t want it, don’t need it. Given all the pain that was involved with Catalina I’m holding off for a bit.
Confetti in Messages?
This has been a thing for years.
This is for a .. (checks notes) “OS upgrade”?
This is for consumers. Average consumers. The people that Apple is targeting. Not the L337 haxxors posturing on HN.
Don’t want it, don’t need it.
No problem. Don't upgrade. I have a computer still running Snow Leopard. Apple doesn't come to your house and force you to install its newest operating system at gunpoint.
Given all the pain that was involved with Catalina I’m holding off for a bit.
For me, the Catalina upgrade was flawless, even on a 2012 Air.
This has been a thing for years.
This is for a .. (checks notes) “OS upgrade”?
This is for consumers. Average consumers. The people that Apple is targeting. Not the L337 haxxors posturing on HN.
Don’t want it, don’t need it.
No problem. Don't upgrade. I have a computer still running Snow Leopard. Apple doesn't come to your house and force you to install its newest operating system at gunpoint.
Given all the pain that was involved with Catalina I’m holding off for a bit.
For me, the Catalina upgrade was flawless, even on a 2012 Air.
Honestly, you’re right, but why should your good experience outweigh my bad one? I want a good developer experience is all. I’ve almost 100% switched back to Windows at this point and will never bother developing on a Mac again if I can help it.
EDIT: And to your point about not being forced to upgrade — that’s true, nobody’s forcing anybody to do anything. But you can’t just stay on Snow Leopard forever either ...
EDIT: And to your point about not being forced to upgrade — that’s true, nobody’s forcing anybody to do anything. But you can’t just stay on Snow Leopard forever either ...
why should your good experience outweigh my bad one?
I never said it did. I think your anecdote and my anecdote cancel each other out. But in a larger view of things, are both irrelevant to the conversation.
I’ve almost 100% switched back to Windows at this point and will never bother developing on a Mac again if I can help it.
So why are you even bothering to comment?
But you can’t just stay on Snow Leopard forever either
I can if it's the highest version of the operating system that particular machine can handle.
I never said it did. I think your anecdote and my anecdote cancel each other out. But in a larger view of things, are both irrelevant to the conversation.
I’ve almost 100% switched back to Windows at this point and will never bother developing on a Mac again if I can help it.
So why are you even bothering to comment?
But you can’t just stay on Snow Leopard forever either
I can if it's the highest version of the operating system that particular machine can handle.
I’m “bothering to comment” because I used to love using Macs and I’m disappointed at the sluggish pace of improvement or even regressions we’ve seen since Catalina.
For context, I switched from Linux somewhere back around Tiger and at that time it was like a breath of fresh air — all the benefits of a Linux machine without the stuffy hardware tweaks. But lately it’s been a struggle. I’ve asked myself, why am I still using this OS, which is basically just a pretty skin on top of a bunch of stuff (Mail, Mission Control, Messages ...) that I barely use? The dev experience keeps getting worse, I can’t run 32 bit apps anymore (goodbye, SNESx), system stability after upgrades is not as rock-solid it once was, and meanwhile they keep adding stuff I don’t need or want.
There was a thread here the other day about the lack of documentation for SwiftUI that resonated with me along the same lines. Why bother buying this hardware and developing on/for it, if the company is just moving further away from the stuff I like to use?
For context, I switched from Linux somewhere back around Tiger and at that time it was like a breath of fresh air — all the benefits of a Linux machine without the stuffy hardware tweaks. But lately it’s been a struggle. I’ve asked myself, why am I still using this OS, which is basically just a pretty skin on top of a bunch of stuff (Mail, Mission Control, Messages ...) that I barely use? The dev experience keeps getting worse, I can’t run 32 bit apps anymore (goodbye, SNESx), system stability after upgrades is not as rock-solid it once was, and meanwhile they keep adding stuff I don’t need or want.
There was a thread here the other day about the lack of documentation for SwiftUI that resonated with me along the same lines. Why bother buying this hardware and developing on/for it, if the company is just moving further away from the stuff I like to use?
I am in a similar boat. I’m not so worried about them dropping legacy support for things, and I’m also fairly positive about where they are going with Swift etc, but it does feel like the benefits for professional use are narrow.
Having said that, I have moved back to Linux for some things recently, and it feels like time has simply stood still or regressed.
Having said that, I have moved back to Linux for some things recently, and it feels like time has simply stood still or regressed.
- Battery life is fantastic compared to Chrome/FF
- Privacy seems to be top-notch
- The tab ordering situation is now chrome-like (my biggest gripe in older versions of safari)
- Experimental features are 1 click away, easily enable/disable WebGL2
- Support for the WebExtensions standard means addons are trickling back into the ecosystem - I'm happy with my AdBlocker and Nightmode extensions
- Actually decent dev tools (used to be terrible)
- Native support for keychain + fingerprint
I've been using it for the past year after being on Chrome, and it's really impressive how much work they've put into not only catching up, but in many regards, jumping ahead.