macOS Monterey(apple.com)
apple.com
macOS Monterey
https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/
646 comments
> I just upgraded to Monterey
> I started to panic and figure out how I was going to back everything up.
Upgrading to a new OS on release day without a prior backup. You like to live dangerously, do you?
Upgrading to a new OS on release day without a prior backup. You like to live dangerously, do you?
This isn't Arch Linux we're talking about, it's the presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world. I'm not saying you shouldn't back up your stuff but your expectation on user behavior is unrealistic to put it mildly.
I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release, which is an absolute disagrace given the fact that Apple can actually test their stuff on every single hardware model it is supposed to run.
And no, my experience on general user behaviour is to expect no backup, but this isn't Auntie Ednas crocheting Facebook group, but Hacker News :)
And no, my experience on general user behaviour is to expect no backup, but this isn't Auntie Ednas crocheting Facebook group, but Hacker News :)
> I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release
I used Arch briefly and this was not my experience, but at least in that community it's kind of expected that you understand this is a possibility and a tradeoff of running the OS.
I used Arch briefly and this was not my experience, but at least in that community it's kind of expected that you understand this is a possibility and a tradeoff of running the OS.
Use Manjaro then. It's a polished and reasonably tested Arch (roughly saying kind of like what Ubuntu is to Debian). Never had a single problem with it.
Ubuntu… polished? Ha!
There always is a huge room for subjectivity, edge cases and other critique in this. But generally saying I'd say yes. My experience mostly is about desktop/laptop (non-gaming, on-board video only) though.
Same. The Ubuntu long term support releases are quite conservative.
I did find the Unity interface more polished however.
It seemed like Canonical did a lot of UX research, to make things like the "power off" button adjoin the corner of the screen, so you could imprecisely flick the cursor and know it has hit the target. It also worked a lot better under old hardware.
I still use Unity with community support. It's a shame, I think as I remembered seeing the Unity interface at work sometimes and thinking that Ubuntu was making inroads.
I did find the Unity interface more polished however.
It seemed like Canonical did a lot of UX research, to make things like the "power off" button adjoin the corner of the screen, so you could imprecisely flick the cursor and know it has hit the target. It also worked a lot better under old hardware.
I still use Unity with community support. It's a shame, I think as I remembered seeing the Unity interface at work sometimes and thinking that Ubuntu was making inroads.
>I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable
It is only an impressions, Arch fanboyus will quietly try to fix the mess and blame themselves for the bugs, only some honest users will tell you straight in the face "never update Arch without first reading some news page and never update if you don't hve the time to rollback and fix shit".
It is only an impressions, Arch fanboyus will quietly try to fix the mess and blame themselves for the bugs, only some honest users will tell you straight in the face "never update Arch without first reading some news page and never update if you don't hve the time to rollback and fix shit".
Both things are true.
Arch is, in my experience, much more stable, and yet you should glance at the news page and run full system upgrades when you could spare some downtime if you had to.
Arch is, in my experience, much more stable, and yet you should glance at the news page and run full system upgrades when you could spare some downtime if you had to.
I would only call it a disgrace if the issue did not appear in testing yet appeared for a large number of users or if Apple released and update where problems appeared during testing.
Keep in mind these upgrades are being done to an OS that has a unique history based upon how the computer was used in the past. Issues that did not appear in testing are going to come up after release. Then there is the potential defects in the manufacture of a particular unit or due to how it was handled. In other words, it is legitimate to miss an uncommon fault.
As for Arch, I understand why the warnings exist. That being said, I have found it to be very reliable. I typically attribute it to changes being incremental, meaning that problems are less likely to arise; and due to development being done in the open, resulting in a larger pool of testers before it even hits rolling distributions like Arch (never mind distributions that do their own testing).
Keep in mind these upgrades are being done to an OS that has a unique history based upon how the computer was used in the past. Issues that did not appear in testing are going to come up after release. Then there is the potential defects in the manufacture of a particular unit or due to how it was handled. In other words, it is legitimate to miss an uncommon fault.
As for Arch, I understand why the warnings exist. That being said, I have found it to be very reliable. I typically attribute it to changes being incremental, meaning that problems are less likely to arise; and due to development being done in the open, resulting in a larger pool of testers before it even hits rolling distributions like Arch (never mind distributions that do their own testing).
I think the notable difference is that macOS has a standard release cycle of about a year, whereas Arch has a rolling release cycle. This why there's more possibility for breakage, as many of the core libraries or other software are likely having their versions bumped. This is based on my knowledge of how most standard release distros function and which I assume is Apple's update policy for software they ship.
Even assuming this is the case, it still doesn't excuse how they weren't able to uncover this in their testing, since they only have to test against their own set of hardware.
Even assuming this is the case, it still doesn't excuse how they weren't able to uncover this in their testing, since they only have to test against their own set of hardware.
Imagine the hardware that arch has to support vs the hardware configurations that arch has to support.
Makes you think on the QE that goes into the release.
Makes you think on the QE that goes into the release.
Honestly, this is some FUD; I've used Arch for 10 years; upgrading at least once a week, and the only time an upgrade has really messed things up was when they switched to systemd.
Also used Macbooks at work for 10 years, and I'm far more wary of apple upgrades.
Also used Macbooks at work for 10 years, and I'm far more wary of apple upgrades.
My expectation for user behaviour is that users, regardless of self-identified tech competency, shouldn't upgrade their OS on the first day of a new release. I find that there's nothing that one can miss out on with a new release.
what's the point of a release date if it's not ready?
os upgrades do fail, and you better backup before you upgrade, but if it's released, than it means it's ready
Conversely, I’ve been looking at release notes and — with the exception of security patches and needing the latest version of Xcode for my job — I’ve not actually seen any positive benefit to upgrading since the versions were named after cats rather than places.
On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0
On the down side, the latest security update decided to spontaneously start playing the YouTube video in the front tab of Chrome about 15 minutes ago when my laptop went into screensaver…
On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0
On the down side, the latest security update decided to spontaneously start playing the YouTube video in the front tab of Chrome about 15 minutes ago when my laptop went into screensaver…
> On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0
I had a similar problem, but with resuming from hibernation after the battery goes to 0. When you have FileVault on, that brings you back to the login screen; but Chrome videos started playing instantly. A horrific bug since you can't pause or mute it for a good 10 seconds until you get back to your desktop. Many people have probably been harmed by this bug, depending on what video they were watching last.
I had a similar problem, but with resuming from hibernation after the battery goes to 0. When you have FileVault on, that brings you back to the login screen; but Chrome videos started playing instantly. A horrific bug since you can't pause or mute it for a good 10 seconds until you get back to your desktop. Many people have probably been harmed by this bug, depending on what video they were watching last.
Could you share if FileVault was active when this happened to you? I believe the disk is supposed to remain encrypted before you log in, so I can't see how this would have happened on a reboot (or update install) without FileVault being off.
FileVault was inactive at the time I recorded that, though I still don’t expect this behaviour regardless of file system encryption.
From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs — which aren’t uncommon. They have, especially with Apple, fewer configurations to test.
But the probability that they got a good enough sample for system upgrade is very small. Systems that have been in use— especially for a few years — tend to diverge widely.
The users who upgrade should wait unless they are willing to risk the small but not negligible probability that the upgrade will Bork their system.
But the probability that they got a good enough sample for system upgrade is very small. Systems that have been in use— especially for a few years — tend to diverge widely.
The users who upgrade should wait unless they are willing to risk the small but not negligible probability that the upgrade will Bork their system.
That used to be the case before everything was connected to the internet: devs would agonize about making sure there were no bugs, because once it was out it was out of their hands.
Games were especially nerve-wracking because a single show-stopping bug could bankrupt the entire company, but I digress.
Now, it’s “Get enough working code out the door so that we can sell copies! We can patch it if we need to!”
Games were especially nerve-wracking because a single show-stopping bug could bankrupt the entire company, but I digress.
Now, it’s “Get enough working code out the door so that we can sell copies! We can patch it if we need to!”
Software is never ready. It just has some local minimum of known issues.
I've been using Macs since about 2000 and that was my reaction too; I remember being very glad I waited a bit after one release that deleted some user's entire iTunes libraries.
You’ve gotten a lot of pushback on this.
Rightly so, I’d say.
As someone who has used and managed all types of Apple products all the way back to Mac OS 7, it is not just my direct experience here but also countless discussions with peers: Every major update has teething pains.
It feels like Apple engineers test only on fresh machines from the factory. The first week is the “release client” test. New OS’, new products, new components (eg: butterfly keyboard), etc. Nothing is immune.
Yes, the marketing says that every detail of every Apple product is flawless however the core DNA of Apple drives them to innovate and you cannot innovate without breaking things. Their white glove motto is “bring it in, we’ll replace it”.
Rightly so, I’d say.
As someone who has used and managed all types of Apple products all the way back to Mac OS 7, it is not just my direct experience here but also countless discussions with peers: Every major update has teething pains.
It feels like Apple engineers test only on fresh machines from the factory. The first week is the “release client” test. New OS’, new products, new components (eg: butterfly keyboard), etc. Nothing is immune.
Yes, the marketing says that every detail of every Apple product is flawless however the core DNA of Apple drives them to innovate and you cannot innovate without breaking things. Their white glove motto is “bring it in, we’ll replace it”.
Personally, I really didn't regret waiting for 11.1 back then... unfortunately this wasn't the first bugged major release.
While Apple's hardware and product interop is still top notch, I feel way less safe about their grip on low-level and OS technology. For me, the (lack of) handling of their bug bounty program speaks volumes towards their priorities and I'm actively looking for the next platform that I can trust my data to that works out of the box and I don't have to babysit or debug.
While Apple's hardware and product interop is still top notch, I feel way less safe about their grip on low-level and OS technology. For me, the (lack of) handling of their bug bounty program speaks volumes towards their priorities and I'm actively looking for the next platform that I can trust my data to that works out of the box and I don't have to babysit or debug.
You don't update OSX before March in my experience. There are always teething issues.
At least on linux you can have /home as a separate partition, which should reduce the risk of losing user data. Unless I'm completely wrong and this doesn't really matter that much during updates.
At what point do we start to hold software and software providers to a higher standard?
A multi-trillion dollar company releases an upgrade to its flagship operating system and "anyone who knows anything" smiles and nods because we understand that actually USING the upgrade runs a high enough chance to brick your device that doing so without a backup is a rube cliche.
I get it. But my question stands.
A multi-trillion dollar company releases an upgrade to its flagship operating system and "anyone who knows anything" smiles and nods because we understand that actually USING the upgrade runs a high enough chance to brick your device that doing so without a backup is a rube cliche.
I get it. But my question stands.
And it's not like it's under Linux or Windows where target hardware configuration is more or less unknown. Building both software and hardware by Apple supposed to be advantage of Macs.
I absolute agree with you, it's an absolute disgrace and while I am all in on holding Apple, MS or Google responsible for their shit, any law in that regard would most likely only affect the livelihood of your friendly neighborhood OS developer, but not actually Apple & Co.
We do hold them accountable ... by using Apple :( It's not like Linux or Windows upgrades are drastically smoother. In fact right now I have a Windows VM that tells me "This PC doesn't meet the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11" in the upgrade screen, and their health check app tells me "This PC meets the requirements". Probably something got cached somewhere, as I had to add a virtual TPM just now. But still. This kind of experience is routine, with Windows. Like, why is the health check app not built in? Why is there a separate tool to begin with? Why doesn't it use their latest app packaging and distribution system instead of a sucky old MSI file? It constantly feels like there's nobody at the head of the ship with Windows.
NixOS updates are drastically smoother, if default option to boot into any of previous updates is enough to never overthink it
I don't think a platform that requires you to learn a custom functional programming language can be described as having smoother updates, really.
Haiku [operating system], while not ready for most people to use ar a daily driver, also has this ability to boot into prior state. Updated an app, or the whole system, and now something's gone pear-shaped? Reboot with the magic key held down and choose a previous config by date-time.
I do!
Actually I never upgraded to Catalina and waited until Big Sur seemed stable enough to upgrade to and it upgraded from Mojave without a hitch. I had been following the beta releases of Monterey and it seemed pretty solid, so I figured what the heck, let’s live dangerously baby!
As for not having a recent backup it’s just something that always gets put the back burner. That’s my failing. But to be honest, I wouldn’t have really lost anything of worth, everything important is in version control. Maybe I would have lost a few dot files, some configs, some PoCs, the grooves in my couch. Those grooves that I’ve cultivated wouldn’t cost me much time and honestly sometimes it’s good to get a fresh couch and re-evaluate the grooves of the past.
With all of that said, despite the inconvenience of the upgrade, I would love to give a shout out to Apple support. It’s these moments that you get to appreciate the fact that you can pick up the phone and talk to someone who has some outstanding fault finding and problem solving abilities, leagues ahead of any other provider I have ever had experience with.
Actually I never upgraded to Catalina and waited until Big Sur seemed stable enough to upgrade to and it upgraded from Mojave without a hitch. I had been following the beta releases of Monterey and it seemed pretty solid, so I figured what the heck, let’s live dangerously baby!
As for not having a recent backup it’s just something that always gets put the back burner. That’s my failing. But to be honest, I wouldn’t have really lost anything of worth, everything important is in version control. Maybe I would have lost a few dot files, some configs, some PoCs, the grooves in my couch. Those grooves that I’ve cultivated wouldn’t cost me much time and honestly sometimes it’s good to get a fresh couch and re-evaluate the grooves of the past.
With all of that said, despite the inconvenience of the upgrade, I would love to give a shout out to Apple support. It’s these moments that you get to appreciate the fact that you can pick up the phone and talk to someone who has some outstanding fault finding and problem solving abilities, leagues ahead of any other provider I have ever had experience with.
I never had to worry about making a backup before upgrading Linux distros. I mean, what's the worst that could happen when your /home lives on a different partition?
I doubt anyone backs up their data with mac oses since they feel so much like generic updates.
The T2 chips were a bold move and probably necessary for Apple as a transition plan. Imagine all the features it provides (Touch ID, secure boot, disk encryption) arriving only with the M1 Macs? Firmware and software needed to see the light of day and be put to test by the millions.
Thanks everyone that ever owned Intel Macs with T2 chips. I am so glad I never owned anything from that generation, and I appreciate your sacrifice. <3
Thanks everyone that ever owned Intel Macs with T2 chips. I am so glad I never owned anything from that generation, and I appreciate your sacrifice. <3
I think in most regards, they were actually a lot better than the Intel-only Macs - including on stability etc.
As the T2 chip was the primary thing controlling the computer, effectively they were M1 machines, up until the point where the full x86 OS was being loaded.
So for a problem like this - with the SMC, ports, etc. - there's no distinction between the T2 Macs and the M1 Macs, they're the same thing and run the same fundamental software (which does get updated)
As the T2 chip was the primary thing controlling the computer, effectively they were M1 machines, up until the point where the full x86 OS was being loaded.
So for a problem like this - with the SMC, ports, etc. - there's no distinction between the T2 Macs and the M1 Macs, they're the same thing and run the same fundamental software (which does get updated)
Good example of why I usually wait for a few dot releases before upgrading MacOS.
I thank you and other early adopters (AKA QA testers) for your service.
I thank you and other early adopters (AKA QA testers) for your service.
But this kind of thing described by the parent (SMC data corruption) is usually caused by a local condition on the device rather than specifically buggy code. Waiting for a later version would not help in that case.
Not saying that there aren’t sometimes bugs in initial version released and it’s perfectly rational to wait to hear about any fire alarms going off, but the example given is not really a case in point.
Not saying that there aren’t sometimes bugs in initial version released and it’s perfectly rational to wait to hear about any fire alarms going off, but the example given is not really a case in point.
I haven’t seen this anywhere when I’ve looked, so I’ll ask here on the slim chance maybe they really added something I badly want and somebody knows…
Is there any application forced sandboxing feature yet?
Something users can control to forcibly stop bad behavior from certain “must have” apps. Chrome, for example, has been caught doing entire drive scans on Windows, and I’m not sure I entirely trust Zoom either. So I’d like to lock down what they can access in terms of files, paths, devices and so on and be fully confident that even if my employer demands I run some software installer provided by their “partners” that it hasn’t installed some creepy daemon and configured launchd to keep it running after I kill the app or even kill -9 the process.
Yes we can use VMs for this, but Mac laptops aren’t generally beefy machines, so that’s not an optimal solution.
There used to be sandbox_exec, but I’ve heard they removed it entirely from this version. We’re now supposed to get things from the (cr)App Store, which guarantees the app will only have entitlements that Apple approves. But vendors are abandoning the App Store in droves for many good reasons, and after recent events I don’t totally trust Apple to prevent malicious use piggybacking on top of a legit entitlement.
Is there any application forced sandboxing feature yet?
Something users can control to forcibly stop bad behavior from certain “must have” apps. Chrome, for example, has been caught doing entire drive scans on Windows, and I’m not sure I entirely trust Zoom either. So I’d like to lock down what they can access in terms of files, paths, devices and so on and be fully confident that even if my employer demands I run some software installer provided by their “partners” that it hasn’t installed some creepy daemon and configured launchd to keep it running after I kill the app or even kill -9 the process.
Yes we can use VMs for this, but Mac laptops aren’t generally beefy machines, so that’s not an optimal solution.
There used to be sandbox_exec, but I’ve heard they removed it entirely from this version. We’re now supposed to get things from the (cr)App Store, which guarantees the app will only have entitlements that Apple approves. But vendors are abandoning the App Store in droves for many good reasons, and after recent events I don’t totally trust Apple to prevent malicious use piggybacking on top of a legit entitlement.
I need this so badly. True story:
I've been eagerly awaiting a new Macbook to completely rid myself of Adobe software.
Over the past decade I've considered installing Adobe software but always held back because of how intrusive and shady the software is (I checked on friends' computers). I've been able to work around having to edit PDFs and used Figma in place of Photoshop for my very basic graphical needs.
Well a few months ago I needed to fill out customs form 5106. This form uses some kind of proprietary Adobe PDF form creation software thing. In order to do anything with it I need Adobe Acrobat. At least that's how far my research took me before I buckled and purchased Adobe Acrobat. I was extremely busy that week and didn't have time to figure out a hacky alternative.
After having installed Creative Cloud all I can say is... it's straight up malware. I doubt I'd be able to get rid of all the junk it installs even if I wanted to. And what's worse is the products are extremely buggy. It's just a mess!
I just checked and Adobe has TWENTY EIGHT processes running in the background. A lot of them are running as root. And of course two of them are NodeJS servers.
These processes are constantly phoning home at such a ridiculous rate that it's impossible to know what to block and what not to. Looking at Little Snitch right now, there are 13 distinct Adobe applications that have been making HTTP requests since I booted my laptop 30 minutes ago. I haven't used a single Adobe product since boot.
I wasn't surprised when, after installing Creative Cloud and restarting my computer, next time I launched Chrome I got a popup telling me that Adobe installed an extension. THANK YOU GOOGLE for taking the time to alert me about this. At no point during the installation process was it clear to me that Adobe would be hijacking my browser too.
I was going to do a fresh wipe to get rid of this junk for good but I wanted to wait until the Macbook was released. Once that laptop arrives I'm never touching Adobe software ever again unless there's a way to completely sandbox it.
I've been eagerly awaiting a new Macbook to completely rid myself of Adobe software.
Over the past decade I've considered installing Adobe software but always held back because of how intrusive and shady the software is (I checked on friends' computers). I've been able to work around having to edit PDFs and used Figma in place of Photoshop for my very basic graphical needs.
Well a few months ago I needed to fill out customs form 5106. This form uses some kind of proprietary Adobe PDF form creation software thing. In order to do anything with it I need Adobe Acrobat. At least that's how far my research took me before I buckled and purchased Adobe Acrobat. I was extremely busy that week and didn't have time to figure out a hacky alternative.
After having installed Creative Cloud all I can say is... it's straight up malware. I doubt I'd be able to get rid of all the junk it installs even if I wanted to. And what's worse is the products are extremely buggy. It's just a mess!
I just checked and Adobe has TWENTY EIGHT processes running in the background. A lot of them are running as root. And of course two of them are NodeJS servers.
These processes are constantly phoning home at such a ridiculous rate that it's impossible to know what to block and what not to. Looking at Little Snitch right now, there are 13 distinct Adobe applications that have been making HTTP requests since I booted my laptop 30 minutes ago. I haven't used a single Adobe product since boot.
I wasn't surprised when, after installing Creative Cloud and restarting my computer, next time I launched Chrome I got a popup telling me that Adobe installed an extension. THANK YOU GOOGLE for taking the time to alert me about this. At no point during the installation process was it clear to me that Adobe would be hijacking my browser too.
I was going to do a fresh wipe to get rid of this junk for good but I wanted to wait until the Macbook was released. Once that laptop arrives I'm never touching Adobe software ever again unless there's a way to completely sandbox it.
> Well a few months ago I needed to fill out customs form 5106. This form uses some kind of proprietary Adobe PDF form creation software thing
PSA in case anyone doesn't know this: the built-in Preview app on MacOS can be used to fill in any PDF form. You can type into text boxes on some forms. But even if they're not there, you can add text anywhere on a pdf. You just have to drag your own text boxes to wherever you want to type. It also supports signatures and various shapes.
The options are sort of hidden - View -> "Show Annotation Toolbar" or Tools -> Annotate -> Text.
You shouldn't ever need adobe acrobat.
PSA in case anyone doesn't know this: the built-in Preview app on MacOS can be used to fill in any PDF form. You can type into text boxes on some forms. But even if they're not there, you can add text anywhere on a pdf. You just have to drag your own text boxes to wherever you want to type. It also supports signatures and various shapes.
The options are sort of hidden - View -> "Show Annotation Toolbar" or Tools -> Annotate -> Text.
You shouldn't ever need adobe acrobat.
That’s not entirely true. Some government forms where I live are shared in a PDF format but are only downloaded and displayed properly when they are opened in Acrobat, and otherwise display a page telling you to download acrobat.
I suspect this allows the form to be updated, and see why it might be done, but I still find it very annoying.
I've never seen this before, and I've been using the Preview method described above for 15+ years. I have also never installed an Adobe product on a mac, ever. Do you have a link to a file that can produce this error in Mac Preview? It would be fun to learn how to bypass that.
Here's an example of a file that won't load properly in Preview and requires Acrobat: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/englis...
You can use Firefox to fill that in.
It does get by the "Please wait..." that you get in Preview or Chrome but Firefox 93.0 doesn't actually load the form properly (e.g. it's 6 pages in Acrobat but only 3 pages in Firefox and those 3 pages aren't even rendered properly).
Which version? For me 90.0 shows the "Please wait" message which some JavaScript or something is supposed to replace, and 93.0 force downloads it, even when I try to open it from a local file.
As of Firefox 93.0
From the release notes: "Firefox PDF viewer now supports filling more forms (XFA-based forms, used by multiple governments and banks)."
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-pdf-files-firefox-...
From the release notes: "Firefox PDF viewer now supports filling more forms (XFA-based forms, used by multiple governments and banks)."
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-pdf-files-firefox-...
Thanks!
All / most PDF forms used by the Australian Defence Force are like this - I suspect it’s because it’s all tied into the identity / ability to digitally sign the forms.
It’s very frustrating when you send someone (externally) a PDF and it required them to install Acrobat.
Or maybe it’s just Adobe trying to take the P out of PDF…
It’s very frustrating when you send someone (externally) a PDF and it required them to install Acrobat.
Or maybe it’s just Adobe trying to take the P out of PDF…
The PDF format supports all sorts of insane extensions only implemented in Acrobat and only used by governments and large enterprises.
When I get forms like this I just dump them to jpg, fill them in an a paint program and zip them back up and send them as static images.
That doesn't work. You can't even view the PDF without Acrobat. (There's an example linked elsewhere in this thread.)
They may not be accepted by the form issuer if they have a process to pull the text out of specific fields in the PDF. I have run into that before. They are not just looking at the document but processing it.
You might try filing you FBAR, which if you get wrong results in criminal penalties, and which (practically) every American living overseas needs to complete each year:
https://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/NoRegFBARFiler.html
then press the 'prepare' button to trigger the download servelet to get the PDF.
Preview cannot even open the file, let alone allow you to digitally sign it in the manner approved by the Treas Dept.
https://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/NoRegFBARFiler.html
then press the 'prepare' button to trigger the download servelet to get the PDF.
Preview cannot even open the file, let alone allow you to digitally sign it in the manner approved by the Treas Dept.
My employer uses a training and document system (third party) that requires the use of Acrobat to view PDFs. I never have to fill out forms within the PDFs; I simply can't open the files via Preview (or Firefox). Apparently the provider inserts JavaScript into the published documents (which, I assume, track document usage, since it is a training system).
Also, I can't post a link to the document, since it contains proprietary training materials.
Also, I can't post a link to the document, since it contains proprietary training materials.
Yes, I've had to fill out similar forms for submitting a manuscript to Nature Publishing Group journals. It seemed to me like the entire PDF was being dynamically generated via JS code or something. E.g. I would check a box for human subjects research and it would just add the relevant section to the form, re-adjusting the pagination on the fly.
Yes, the US polar programs physical qualification forms are like this, making me either use a VM or use my wife's laptop (since no supported acrobat for Linux).
Some of the, especially government, form utilize what I think is some kind of Acrobat Forms QR code generation to create a machine-readable representation of the form. This isn't supported in Preview.
Further, PDF is a monstrous format which includes its own variant of ECMA script built in. I think its pretty unrealistic to expect Apple to cleanroom the whole "standard" so I'm not too upset. They've got probably 90% of the way there, but it's unfortunately not every form.
For Canadians, PPT-054 is a good example [1] - notice $Form$054 and so on in the upper right corner. I can't remember which off hand but either the US I-131 or I-765 has one, too. Unfortunately I-131 isn't even loading in Safari for me at the moment.
[1] https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/englis...
Further, PDF is a monstrous format which includes its own variant of ECMA script built in. I think its pretty unrealistic to expect Apple to cleanroom the whole "standard" so I'm not too upset. They've got probably 90% of the way there, but it's unfortunately not every form.
For Canadians, PPT-054 is a good example [1] - notice $Form$054 and so on in the upper right corner. I can't remember which off hand but either the US I-131 or I-765 has one, too. Unfortunately I-131 isn't even loading in Safari for me at the moment.
[1] https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/englis...
Unfortunately, this is incorrect.
I have seen weird pdfs that only display “help” messages when opened in preview… you have to follow a link and then open it in actual acrobat.
I have seen weird pdfs that only display “help” messages when opened in preview… you have to follow a link and then open it in actual acrobat.
Yep, this has been my experience too. I remember having such a hard time trying to fill out a form I-9 for starting a new job last year that I had to not only download Acrobat, but for reasons I no longer recall I had to BUY A NEW PRINTER and PRINT the damn thing on paper to fill it out by hand! Absolutely batshit crazy nonsense!
People need to be very careful with this, because not only are there some PDF formats that only work with Acrobat, but I've encountered issues where the PDF opens correctly in Preview, and you can fill them just fine, but if you save it and send it, and the person opens your filled PDF in Acrobat, the text you entered will be completely jumbled.
If a PDF is meant to be printed, who cares, but if you're sending it to someone, make sure to open it in Acrobat and check if it's formatted correctly; ideally, make it in Acrobat.
If a PDF is meant to be printed, who cares, but if you're sending it to someone, make sure to open it in Acrobat and check if it's formatted correctly; ideally, make it in Acrobat.
I've seen government forms that run some JavaScript or something to hide the actual contents of the form unless you open it in Acrobat reader.
For Wimdows/Linux users LibreOffice Draw also mostly works for this. Its clunkey, and there are exceptions, but generally you can drop a textbox wherever you need, then re-export as a pdf when you're done.
You can do this with Inkscape also.
Xournal is great for this
Sadly, I had to install Adobe Acrobat reader last week to print a tiled PDF. The PDF itself was poster sized, but I needed to print it out on a normal 8.5x11” printer. Preview didn’t support doing that, but Reader did.
This works to make a form that looks okay on your screen or when printed. It will not make a form that works correctly if the recipient wants to process it using proprietary Acrobat features.
Yes, Adobe is bad.
The way I got around this problem was to:
1. Download a Windows 10 virtual machine. It's free.
2. Download Acrobat Pro 2020 Trial for Windows. It has a full installation kit.
3. Install the virtual machine. But don't give it an internet connection.
4. Copy the Acrobat kit to the virtual machine and install it.
5. Make a snapshot of the virtual machine. When the trial expires restore the virtual machine.
It will cost you 30GB of space and 1 hour or so, but Adobe will be contained at least.
The way I got around this problem was to:
1. Download a Windows 10 virtual machine. It's free.
2. Download Acrobat Pro 2020 Trial for Windows. It has a full installation kit.
3. Install the virtual machine. But don't give it an internet connection.
4. Copy the Acrobat kit to the virtual machine and install it.
5. Make a snapshot of the virtual machine. When the trial expires restore the virtual machine.
It will cost you 30GB of space and 1 hour or so, but Adobe will be contained at least.
I use Photoshop for art. Unfortunately, all other desktop software just isn't good, but thankfully Procreate is absolutely amazing software that I can use on my iPad (if you're reading this, devs, please port it to macOS. There are countless artists that'll pay to switch to a non-subscription based, non-Adobe piece of software that doesn't suck). But for desktop, I really have no choice but to buy into the Adobe scheme.
But yes, Creative Cloud is seriously completely fucking nuts. It's shit I do not and will not ever need or want for any reason and exists just to burn through my electric bill and contribute to climate change. Trying to find ways to disable it gives you cheeky employees who post marketing fluff about how it enables consumer whatever BS, but nobody can explain what those 8 dozen background tasks are doing or why we can't disable it.
I resorted to just deleting parts of the software package one by one. Most background tasks are gone. I made the mistake of updating one (1) time and the number of background tasks doubled. Absolute insanity. Nearly gigabytes of memory swallowed and CPU cycles wasted doing nothing. For all I know, it's nothing but crypto mining processes--and honestly, it probably is since Adobe has shown themselves to be money hungry and absolutely nobody can or will say what those processes are.
But yes, Creative Cloud is seriously completely fucking nuts. It's shit I do not and will not ever need or want for any reason and exists just to burn through my electric bill and contribute to climate change. Trying to find ways to disable it gives you cheeky employees who post marketing fluff about how it enables consumer whatever BS, but nobody can explain what those 8 dozen background tasks are doing or why we can't disable it.
I resorted to just deleting parts of the software package one by one. Most background tasks are gone. I made the mistake of updating one (1) time and the number of background tasks doubled. Absolute insanity. Nearly gigabytes of memory swallowed and CPU cycles wasted doing nothing. For all I know, it's nothing but crypto mining processes--and honestly, it probably is since Adobe has shown themselves to be money hungry and absolutely nobody can or will say what those processes are.
> I use Photoshop for art. Unfortunately, all other desktop software just isn't good
I see this "I've tried one solution and I'm all out of ideas" approach a lot. I used Photoshop for many years. Pixelmator is hands down better than Photoshop in every regard and much cheaper.
I see this "I've tried one solution and I'm all out of ideas" approach a lot. I used Photoshop for many years. Pixelmator is hands down better than Photoshop in every regard and much cheaper.
> I see this "I've tried one solution and I'm all out of ideas" approach a lot.
Not sure where you've seen it, because it sure wasn't in my post.
I've tried the alternatives. I once (regretfully) paid for Pixelmator. I tried Krita. I suffered through GIMP. I've fiddled with Clip Studio Paint.
Photoshop is quite simply better, more full-featured, and stable. Pixelmator would crash fairly often and I'd lose progress. The others just don't have good UI, and in GIMP's case, it's outright user-hostile.
I've managed to switch most of my software to free/cheaper alternatives (Blender has improved a lot lately and I was glad to leave Maya), but when it comes to 2D art on desktops, Photoshop is unfortunately still the best.
Not sure where you've seen it, because it sure wasn't in my post.
I've tried the alternatives. I once (regretfully) paid for Pixelmator. I tried Krita. I suffered through GIMP. I've fiddled with Clip Studio Paint.
Photoshop is quite simply better, more full-featured, and stable. Pixelmator would crash fairly often and I'd lose progress. The others just don't have good UI, and in GIMP's case, it's outright user-hostile.
I've managed to switch most of my software to free/cheaper alternatives (Blender has improved a lot lately and I was glad to leave Maya), but when it comes to 2D art on desktops, Photoshop is unfortunately still the best.
Affinity Photo is pretty good though it may not suit your needs. I know you already tried it but Clip Studio is very powerful if you stick with it (possibly depending on what art you’re making)
I agree that Pixelmator Pro is fantastic. However, I'm not an advanced photoshop(-like) user or photographer in the slightest, so there may be some advanced features in modern versions of Photoshop that Pixelmator, being a product from a much smaller company, just can't ship as fast or as well. I'm not outright saying there absolutely are, just saying that's possible.
As for other alternatives, I've had good experiences with Affinity Design for vector work. Sketch is a favorite with many designers as well (although I personally am not fond of its workflow/concepts but that's just me, clearly it works for most folks). GIMP, while venerable, is aptly named because it's so butt-ugly nobody with any actual artistic talent cares to use it. Seriously, never have I seen anything created with GIMP that looks, aesthetically, competitive with designs created with commercial tools (this isn't the fault of the functionality within GIMP, just an unfortunate side effect of having engineers do art; we suck at that). I've heard good things about Krita but haven't used it seriously because the other tools here do a great job so I've never had to bother.
It's a damn shame Photoshop and other Adobe tools are essntially malware these days. They used to be fantastic back in the day.
I swear I still have left-hand muscle memory for Photoshop editing baked into my hand even now, 20 years since I last used it routinely. ESC, hold space, click + drag, V, hover, click to select layer...
As for other alternatives, I've had good experiences with Affinity Design for vector work. Sketch is a favorite with many designers as well (although I personally am not fond of its workflow/concepts but that's just me, clearly it works for most folks). GIMP, while venerable, is aptly named because it's so butt-ugly nobody with any actual artistic talent cares to use it. Seriously, never have I seen anything created with GIMP that looks, aesthetically, competitive with designs created with commercial tools (this isn't the fault of the functionality within GIMP, just an unfortunate side effect of having engineers do art; we suck at that). I've heard good things about Krita but haven't used it seriously because the other tools here do a great job so I've never had to bother.
It's a damn shame Photoshop and other Adobe tools are essntially malware these days. They used to be fantastic back in the day.
I swear I still have left-hand muscle memory for Photoshop editing baked into my hand even now, 20 years since I last used it routinely. ESC, hold space, click + drag, V, hover, click to select layer...
I have it installed on my work machine. Only for the pdf reader.. and it won’t uninstall because of that..
For what it’s worth, a few artist friends of mine are using Krita for drawing, to good effect. (Those not on tablets..)
https://krita.org/en/features/highlights/
For what it’s worth, a few artist friends of mine are using Krita for drawing, to good effect. (Those not on tablets..)
https://krita.org/en/features/highlights/
>but thankfully Procreate is absolutely amazing software that I can use on my iPad
There seems to be a recurring praise for ProCreate. At least every time Photoshop comes up ProCreate is mentioned. ( I even have to search they are not coming from the same user )
I guess I will have to add it to list of research topics.
There seems to be a recurring praise for ProCreate. At least every time Photoshop comes up ProCreate is mentioned. ( I even have to search they are not coming from the same user )
I guess I will have to add it to list of research topics.
It is great but iPad only. I wish it had a macos version.
Try Affinity Photo. It works for me as a Photoshop alternative. (Sorry if you tried already.)
Question from someone who doesn't know about this stuff - If I need photoshop can I get away with an old version pre creative cloud - cs5 or 6 or something?
I think on a Mac you'd struggle to get anything to pre-creative cloud to execute. Windows might be a different story?
If you are doing basic PS work - the open source alternatives are more than capable. Some non-adobe applications can open PSD files in a reasonably sane fashion.
If you are doing basic PS work - the open source alternatives are more than capable. Some non-adobe applications can open PSD files in a reasonably sane fashion.
The Photoshop 7 Educational version I bought in college still works on Windows 11.
This is absolutely my experience of Adobe software too. Terribly engineered with priorities weighted for the board rather than users.
I’ve been a designer for +20 years and sans-Adobe for five, I absolutely recommend any young designers to avoid the Adobe workflow. You don’t need it.
Photoshop = Pixelmator (Kitura is also very good) Illustrator/Indesign = Affinity Designer
Highly precise vectors I draw in Glyphs/Fontlab.
I’ve been a designer for +20 years and sans-Adobe for five, I absolutely recommend any young designers to avoid the Adobe workflow. You don’t need it.
Photoshop = Pixelmator (Kitura is also very good) Illustrator/Indesign = Affinity Designer
Highly precise vectors I draw in Glyphs/Fontlab.
Just to add to this list:
Gravit Designer is quite good for small vector projects, though it is a subscription.
Adobe Lightroom (the new one) and possibly more can be installed from the App Store without all the Creative Cloud bloat.
Gravit Designer is quite good for small vector projects, though it is a subscription.
Adobe Lightroom (the new one) and possibly more can be installed from the App Store without all the Creative Cloud bloat.
Gravit is new on me. I'm bias against web apps, but it's very cool a someone is playing in that space. Thanks!
It's beautiful to see that inside a decade we've gone from having a monoculture of Illustrator as the sole vector app (post freehand) to having multiple very capable competitors on all platforms.
It's beautiful to see that inside a decade we've gone from having a monoculture of Illustrator as the sole vector app (post freehand) to having multiple very capable competitors on all platforms.
Totally agree, Creative Cloud by now is really one of the worst pieces of software ever created.
Because we are on this topic - what is a great alternative to Photoshop that uses mostly similar concepts?
I’ve tried Affinity Photo but simply doing some photo cropping worked completely differently than PS and took me a long time to figure out.
My main use case is having a photo, doing a selection overlay and running „cut via copy“, then deleting the underlying layer, nothing too complicated :)
Because we are on this topic - what is a great alternative to Photoshop that uses mostly similar concepts?
I’ve tried Affinity Photo but simply doing some photo cropping worked completely differently than PS and took me a long time to figure out.
My main use case is having a photo, doing a selection overlay and running „cut via copy“, then deleting the underlying layer, nothing too complicated :)
Photopea is an excellent, free web app photoshop clone that is worth a try.
https://www.photopea.com/
https://www.photopea.com/
Pixelmator Pro is good. Prefer it over Affinity Photo. It’s lightweight and powerful with lots of smart ML-assisted features.
Have you tried digiKam and/or darktable ?
Yeah, Office got a lot better, but Adobe is still plain malware.
Here is one way to work around it:
- Create a new partition, install macOS and have each bootable partition have its own different FileVault password for encryption. - You can have a Adobe + other nononsencial software partition, and you can bail from typing your real partition encryption key, so your main data is secured from Adobe
I am not a security expert, but I did this for a while and it works well. It is annoying, but I felt my privacy was not at risk while I was booted on the "dirty partition".
Edit: I did it to use Premiere. PDF might be doable without that hassle as others pointed out.
Here is one way to work around it:
- Create a new partition, install macOS and have each bootable partition have its own different FileVault password for encryption. - You can have a Adobe + other nononsencial software partition, and you can bail from typing your real partition encryption key, so your main data is secured from Adobe
I am not a security expert, but I did this for a while and it works well. It is annoying, but I felt my privacy was not at risk while I was booted on the "dirty partition".
Edit: I did it to use Premiere. PDF might be doable without that hassle as others pointed out.
I don't know how Adobe could fall that deep. Their sales probably still don't reflect that because they have a lot of momentum but I hear our designers really getting angry.
It’s absolute cancer. My favorite part is the creative cloud app randomly taking up 4gb+ of ram doing literally nothing.
I just force killed an Adobe installer running as root in the background. I don't know what it was installing or why.
It'll be back. I spent an half an hour figuring out how to stop all these processes from re-spawning once and then in the next update they came back.
I have Adobe's stuff mostly neutered on my Windows installation. No Adobe stuff is running unless I open an application. The worst is that Photoshop leaves a bunch of random crap running after closing and I have to manually kill each process.
> I'm never touching Adobe software ever again unless there's a way to completely sandbox it.
At this point I’m going to recommend a virtual machine.
At this point I’m going to recommend a virtual machine.
I could, but I think it would take considerable effort on my part. You know how it is. You end up with a long tail of little things that don't quite work properly.
Eventually I could get it to work but I'm so upset with Adobe that I'm straight up boycotting their software.
I'm ashamed of this but I've fantasized about berating Adobe executives/engineers to their face if I ever met them in real life. Of course I'd never ever do that but even fantasizing about berating someone felt dirty. That's how much time and sense of security this company has sucked from my life.
I still haven't had to go through the process of cancelling my Creative Cloud subscription. I'm sooo hoping they didn't throw in a bunch of dark patterns in there as well but I have feeling they will.
Eventually I could get it to work but I'm so upset with Adobe that I'm straight up boycotting their software.
I'm ashamed of this but I've fantasized about berating Adobe executives/engineers to their face if I ever met them in real life. Of course I'd never ever do that but even fantasizing about berating someone felt dirty. That's how much time and sense of security this company has sucked from my life.
I still haven't had to go through the process of cancelling my Creative Cloud subscription. I'm sooo hoping they didn't throw in a bunch of dark patterns in there as well but I have feeling they will.
> I still haven't had to go through the process of cancelling my Creative Cloud subscription. I'm sooo hoping they didn't throw in a bunch of dark patterns in there as well but I have feeling they will.
Their gotcha that I know about is that their advertised price per month is actually a year subscription / 12, with the true monthly subscription hidden. When you cancel they’ll try to get you to pay out the remaining months of the year.
Their gotcha that I know about is that their advertised price per month is actually a year subscription / 12, with the true monthly subscription hidden. When you cancel they’ll try to get you to pay out the remaining months of the year.
I still haven't had to go through the process of cancelling my Creative Cloud subscription. I'm sooo hoping they didn't throw in a bunch of dark patterns in there as well but I have feeling they will.
I dumped CC two months ago and was bracing for all kinds of shenanigans. But I was really surprised. Not only did it cancel immediately with no dark patterns, but I got a refund for the partially used month.
I was only a month-to-month Photoshop subscriber ($13/month), so maybe it was easy for Adobe to let me go. Perhaps it's harder for higher value hostages... er... customers.
I dumped CC two months ago and was bracing for all kinds of shenanigans. But I was really surprised. Not only did it cancel immediately with no dark patterns, but I got a refund for the partially used month.
I was only a month-to-month Photoshop subscriber ($13/month), so maybe it was easy for Adobe to let me go. Perhaps it's harder for higher value hostages... er... customers.
ohh they def will. https://growth.design/case-studies/adobe-cancel-subscription
This is really frustrating for me as well, I've been manually killing CC processes for so long that it became a usual task in my workflow, a daily habit. Adobe is one of the companies I hate soo much for this shady moves, and I'm stuck with its softwares involuntarily.
But decision is made, I'm upgrading to a new macbook pro soon and will change my design tools. At least I'll try hard before installing creative cloud.
But decision is made, I'm upgrading to a new macbook pro soon and will change my design tools. At least I'll try hard before installing creative cloud.
>Once that laptop arrives I'm never touching Adobe software ever again unless there's a way to completely sandbox it.
If the ipad versions of illustrator and photoshop have the features you need that's the only way you can avoid all the nagware. I only need to do the occasional edit to a logo or photo so the ipad pro versions are enough and I prefer the pen to a mouse. I've stopped using them on desktop and use https://smallpdf.com for editing and signing pdfs.
If the ipad versions of illustrator and photoshop have the features you need that's the only way you can avoid all the nagware. I only need to do the occasional edit to a logo or photo so the ipad pro versions are enough and I prefer the pen to a mouse. I've stopped using them on desktop and use https://smallpdf.com for editing and signing pdfs.
This is an excellent Mac PDF editing tool. I'm not affiliated, just a user.
https://pdfexpert.com
I was editing pdf drafts from a publisher and just couldn't stand another minute of dealing with Acrobat. Found this, removed all vestiges of Adobe, and haven't looked back.
I've used Preview a lot, but it just isn't reliable (for me). Apple seems to muck around with the code every couple of versions and break things. Odd.
https://pdfexpert.com
I was editing pdf drafts from a publisher and just couldn't stand another minute of dealing with Acrobat. Found this, removed all vestiges of Adobe, and haven't looked back.
I've used Preview a lot, but it just isn't reliable (for me). Apple seems to muck around with the code every couple of versions and break things. Odd.
Noped out.
1) Defaulted to setting PDFExpert as my PDF viewer,
2) followed with a survey I could not close out,
3) required an account to begin.
I'm happy it works for you but I'm tired of the modern software that wants accounts, your data....
1) Defaulted to setting PDFExpert as my PDF viewer,
2) followed with a survey I could not close out,
3) required an account to begin.
I'm happy it works for you but I'm tired of the modern software that wants accounts, your data....
I'm not surprised by this.
Readdle's apps, namely 'Documents', have always been my go-to on iOS for editing PDFs and transferring files[1].
But they went and added a useless VPN to Documents, then released a 're-design' which cuts functionality (and from the reviews is quite buggy). It's sad to see a quality app degrade as the developer adds bloat and new 'features'.
1: For example, Documents (which edits PDFs as well) has a built-in WebDav server that is super useful for getting files between an iPhone and a Linux machine over Wifi.
Readdle's apps, namely 'Documents', have always been my go-to on iOS for editing PDFs and transferring files[1].
But they went and added a useless VPN to Documents, then released a 're-design' which cuts functionality (and from the reviews is quite buggy). It's sad to see a quality app degrade as the developer adds bloat and new 'features'.
1: For example, Documents (which edits PDFs as well) has a built-in WebDav server that is super useful for getting files between an iPhone and a Linux machine over Wifi.
I’ve been usding PDFpen pro for years. It is pricey, but I have used it enough for it to be worth the expense. It was recently sold off to a different company, though. Hopefully without ill effects.
I only install Adobe stuff on iOS. I can be reasonably sure they won't do shady stuff there. Their Acrobat PDF thing works on iOS as well as on Mac.
I'm thinking if, for these "one-off" tasks doable only with very special SW, we could utilize that APFS snapshoting feature of macOS filesystem.
1. Create snapshot 2. Install obtrusive SW, finish task 3. Restore snapshot.
Any sources for this kinds of workflow?
1. Create snapshot 2. Install obtrusive SW, finish task 3. Restore snapshot.
Any sources for this kinds of workflow?
LibreOffice has Draw which can handle PDF files. It can edit and modify them and save them. The price is free https://www.libreoffice.org/
This is what I use when I need to edit PDFs. Works a treat.
> two of them are NodeJS servers.
At least they're not Java Spring servers. That's the software I had to install to fill my tax form in my country.
I suggest you to use virtual machines for those kinds of tasks. That's what I'm doing.
At least they're not Java Spring servers. That's the software I had to install to fill my tax form in my country.
I suggest you to use virtual machines for those kinds of tasks. That's what I'm doing.
I know this may seem extreme, but you could always run Adobe in a separate MacOS user login to keep it sandboxed. When you don’t need Adobe, just log that user out…
If some processes are running as root, there's no guarantee that they won't fork+daemonize and still be running when you login with your regular user. On Windows, it's become a habit for some apps to install their own "Update Service" as part of the regular app installation.
This won’t really help against the numerous background processes that run as root (as mentioned above).
For natural media, Corel Painter, not getting much mention these days?
/usr/bin/sandbox-exec is still on macOS Monterey. It's not pretty, but you should still be able to roll your own sandbox rules and run any arbitrary app with it:
https://mybyways.com/blog/creating-a-macos-sandbox-to-run-ko...
https://mybyways.com/blog/creating-a-macos-sandbox-to-run-ko...
It's going away though and is less functional than in previous versions of the system. Basically a waste of time trying to build rules for it right now.
No, still no user-facing method for that. There have also been no apparent improvements to the Catalina permission dialogues (for Documents, Desktop, Downloads), but keep watching https://eclecticlight.co/ over the next few weeks, if there have been any improvements he'll probably talk about it.
> Is there any application forced sandboxing feature yet?
Yes it's been there for a while. But like flatpak and all other attempts to sandbox applications they tend to ask for coarse permissions like Home Directory and once you give that, it can read everything important.
Yes it's been there for a while. But like flatpak and all other attempts to sandbox applications they tend to ask for coarse permissions like Home Directory and once you give that, it can read everything important.
It shouldn't matter what permissions an application asks for. It is up to the user to decide to grant the app access to a system, or to a mock system.
The "sandboxing" model of flatpack and the like is completely backwards. I'd even say it's user-hostile.
The "sandboxing" model of flatpack and the like is completely backwards. I'd even say it's user-hostile.
> Yes we can use VMs for this, but Mac laptops aren’t generally beefy machines
The newest ones with M1/M1 Pro are actually pretty beefy, and even the Macbook Air has benchmarks that beat literally everything else in the Apple lineup except the iMac Pros and the new-model Mac Pros.
This doesn't help much with current equipment, but it should make future planning easier.
The newest ones with M1/M1 Pro are actually pretty beefy, and even the Macbook Air has benchmarks that beat literally everything else in the Apple lineup except the iMac Pros and the new-model Mac Pros.
This doesn't help much with current equipment, but it should make future planning easier.
What they really need is something powerful and open along the lines of QEMU/KVM. HyperKit is dead-last when it comes the virtualization race, and it's one of the technologies I'm rooting for Apple to scrap altogether. MacOS needs either a thinner hypervisor or a lower-level virtualization solution, either of which I see as equally unlikely from Apple.
They added a framework specifically for Linux in Big Sur. Also QEMU runs on MacOS lol
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization
Pretty happy with Parallels performance on my M1 Mac tbh.
My belief is that Apple will eventually try to lock down macOS entirely or move to something similar to iOS sandboxing. This would more or less solve your problem and not hurt the majority of people’s experience. However, to make the OS good enough for software development, Apple will make it easy to create virtualized environments. This to me seems like the correct trade off and might actually be a net win for most. I have never understood why it’s a good idea to mess with your core OS to get some code to compile - use something where you don’t have to worry every time there is an OS upgrade.
> My belief is that Apple will eventually try to lock down macOS entirely or move to something similar to iOS sandboxing. This would more or less solve your problem and not hurt the majority of people’s experience.
Strict file-level-granularity sandboxing breaks all kinds of multi-file formats [1], because users will want to simply open the respective main file just as usual (especially if launching the file from the desktop or a file explorer window) and then expect that the program of course should be able to access not just that particular file itself, but any associated files, too.
The OS however cannot be expected to know the peculiarities of each and every file format, so how is this supposed to work without either degrading the user experience or else weakening the sandbox up to a point where it is possibly almost pointless?
Plus it also makes editing file paths in programs more annoying, because you can no longer directly edit a path (or paste it in from elsewhere) if it's displayed in a text input and instead always have to spend a few additional clicks because you must go through the OS file picker. (Though admittedly this latter issue might be more of a power user problem)
[1] Multi-part archives, multi-part video files, playlists, videos with separate subtitle files, HTML documents containing links to other local HTML documents or referencing various sub-resources (images/videos/audio/style sheets/scripts/...), Audacity projects, images with metadata in external sidecar files, ditto for georeferenced images, QGIS projects, ...
Strict file-level-granularity sandboxing breaks all kinds of multi-file formats [1], because users will want to simply open the respective main file just as usual (especially if launching the file from the desktop or a file explorer window) and then expect that the program of course should be able to access not just that particular file itself, but any associated files, too.
The OS however cannot be expected to know the peculiarities of each and every file format, so how is this supposed to work without either degrading the user experience or else weakening the sandbox up to a point where it is possibly almost pointless?
Plus it also makes editing file paths in programs more annoying, because you can no longer directly edit a path (or paste it in from elsewhere) if it's displayed in a text input and instead always have to spend a few additional clicks because you must go through the OS file picker. (Though admittedly this latter issue might be more of a power user problem)
[1] Multi-part archives, multi-part video files, playlists, videos with separate subtitle files, HTML documents containing links to other local HTML documents or referencing various sub-resources (images/videos/audio/style sheets/scripts/...), Audacity projects, images with metadata in external sidecar files, ditto for georeferenced images, QGIS projects, ...
Regarding filepicker and path editing…
So, regression to several systems ago? Maybe System 7, or MacOS 8, or 9? If so, we'll need a new thing like Super Boomerang…except with all the modern security, it'd practic'ly have to come from Apple as some kind of option. )*:
So, regression to several systems ago? Maybe System 7, or MacOS 8, or 9? If so, we'll need a new thing like Super Boomerang…except with all the modern security, it'd practic'ly have to come from Apple as some kind of option. )*:
Well... you could create a new user profile, install the apps to that user's profile, give their group access to the folders you want the browser to be able to get to (Downloads folder, whatever), then lock them out of anything else....then run the browser as that user only. aka (sudo -u Bob /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/Firefox )
OS perms should do the rest. I don't know if OSX has a firejail equivalent but that would be nice too.
OS perms should do the rest. I don't know if OSX has a firejail equivalent but that would be nice too.
> Something users can control to forcibly stop bad behavior from certain “must have” apps. Chrome, for example, has been caught doing entire drive scans on Windows, and I’m not sure I entirely trust Zoom either.
I just upgraded to Monterey and OneDrive asked for permissions to a bunch of folders it didn’t need. I denied them. I doubt it’s bad behavior, probably just lazy permissions requests, but I’m glad I had the option.
I just upgraded to Monterey and OneDrive asked for permissions to a bunch of folders it didn’t need. I denied them. I doubt it’s bad behavior, probably just lazy permissions requests, but I’m glad I had the option.
Is it possible to add entitlements to an already compiled app dowloaded from a random place? A mac app installer could run any scripts, so we need to sandbox the installer, if it's possible.
I just watched the "What's new" thing. There is a new grid view in Facetime. Some improvements in the notification centre. Not sure if that warrants a risky 12 Gb OS update.
This is so critical, we've been scrutinising permissions on smartphones for so long & yet we have like an unlimited buffet for consumer desktop applications this entire time.
Sandboxing is one of the benefits that Apple taunts with apps deployed in the App Store. You have to explicitly give access to app for a range of locations. This is one reason that some publishers refuse to distribute their apps in the App Store.
Such a feature would be useless in practice, unless the sandbox could present convincing fake data. Without that, all of the evil apps you mention would just show a message box at startup saying "unsandbox me or I refuse to run".
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> Is there any application forced sandboxing feature yet?
On Linux you can use flatpak where you can manually limit the permissions on a per application basis.
On Linux you can use flatpak where you can manually limit the permissions on a per application basis.
SharePlay to Mac (I tested audio) is utterly broken. Shockingly so. I just tried it again, and my music isn't paused, yet is stuck at 0:02. Pausing and unpausing it, and the song starts ticking, 0:03, 0:04, and so on, but you can't hear any audio. Pause it again. It goes back to 0:02. Now try this with AirPods connected to your Mac. Connect your iPhone's Apple Music to AirPlay to Mac. The YouTube video you had playing on your Mac gets paused, for no reason. But at least you hear your iPhone's audio on your Mac. Now pickup your iPhone. Your AirPods have now switched to your iPhone, that's still AirPlaying to Mac. You can't hear your music anymore. You reconnect the AirPods to your Mac. You can hear your iPhone music for a few minutes. Suddenly you can't hear anything. Pick up your phone, the volume slider in the Music app went all the way to the left. You can't move the volume slider to the right, like it's frozen; but the song is still playing. You go to Control Center, and finally manage to increase the volume. A minute later, the volume goes to zero again. If you were hoping to compensate for Spotify Connect not being on Apple Music, you'll be disappointed.
Also, Safari has a bug that ignores your setting to not reopen non-private windows, and reopens them anyway, so if that's important to you, you may want to temporarily switch to another browser.
And yes, it still has the "occasionally laggy trackpad cursor" bug on M1 for me.
But other than that, it seems quite a bit faster than Big Sur, and so far (past 2 weeks), very stable on the core stuff.
Also, Safari has a bug that ignores your setting to not reopen non-private windows, and reopens them anyway, so if that's important to you, you may want to temporarily switch to another browser.
And yes, it still has the "occasionally laggy trackpad cursor" bug on M1 for me.
But other than that, it seems quite a bit faster than Big Sur, and so far (past 2 weeks), very stable on the core stuff.
The easiest way to avoid “surprises” when installing a Mac OS update is to wait a few months and let early adopters be the gunnies pigs.
Yep, solid advice. Just went from Catalina to big sur a few days ago based on this principle.
How's it been? I'd still been holding out, but I've been thinking about finally moving up to Big Sur this week.
You get no new advantages, can keep doing the same things (such as using the newest XCode) and all new disadvantages, like the Messages pop up in the upper right now takes 3 clicks to reply to because they collapsed the menu into “more” drop down. Now just extrapolate that to every pop up.
I got forced to upgrade to Big Sur recently and it’s working okay. The Lock Screen is my only issue. It flashes several times and makes me re-enter my password halfway through typing it
BTW, I can't edit my comment anymore, but I meant "AirPlay to Mac"
This is a bit off topic, but moving up to an M1 macbook pro has been an unmitigated disaster for me, as far as AirPlay goes. (But I am very happy with it otherwise.)
I play my music though an Airport Express at home. It has always been a bit flaky at times, but most of the time, it worked fine. With my M1 mac, though, it pretty much stopped working. If I try, the airplay icon in the Music app turns from blue to black with some sort of error indicator on it. I have gotten it to work a few times, but mostly after a reboot of both the mac and the airport express. And, ironically, once when I wanted to listen to music through headphones, and it played on the airport express instead.
My current solution is to play music from an old iphone 6s, sharing music from the Mac. But it often loses its authorization to share music from the mac, so I have to restart the app and reconnect. This takes time, as it seems to need to download all the metadata from my music library each time. Also, sometimes the volume drops to zero and cannot be moved. This is cured by switching output to the iphone speakers and back to airplay. Not at all a great experience. So now I am looking for a non-apple way to play music at home. Most likely a raspberry pi or something like that.
I play my music though an Airport Express at home. It has always been a bit flaky at times, but most of the time, it worked fine. With my M1 mac, though, it pretty much stopped working. If I try, the airplay icon in the Music app turns from blue to black with some sort of error indicator on it. I have gotten it to work a few times, but mostly after a reboot of both the mac and the airport express. And, ironically, once when I wanted to listen to music through headphones, and it played on the airport express instead.
My current solution is to play music from an old iphone 6s, sharing music from the Mac. But it often loses its authorization to share music from the mac, so I have to restart the app and reconnect. This takes time, as it seems to need to download all the metadata from my music library each time. Also, sometimes the volume drops to zero and cannot be moved. This is cured by switching output to the iphone speakers and back to airplay. Not at all a great experience. So now I am looking for a non-apple way to play music at home. Most likely a raspberry pi or something like that.
Seeing the same problem with my M1 Air and Airport. It works from boot until the first time I put the computer to sleep.
Please consider filing a bug report with Apple via Feedback Assistant referencing my feedback FB9723470. Maybe they can figure something out from the logs.
Please consider filing a bug report with Apple via Feedback Assistant referencing my feedback FB9723470. Maybe they can figure something out from the logs.
I’ve noticed the cursor on M1 goes really laggy and buggy when you drain the battery to 0% (so it hibernates-ish) and then plug the laptop back in (waking it).
I’ve had these audio issues at least since I got my AirPods Pro around 18 months ago. This might be worse in Monterey, it just isn’t new.
I've been away from MacOS for about 10 years. Big Sur now. Kinda hate it. I keep accidentally invoking extra layers of UI everywhere. That's fine I guess.
But what I ran into that I LOVE is making EVERY app full-screen, pretending there is no desktop or window management, and just swiping right/left among them.
I wish there was a way to smooth out the UX so that this feels first-class and I stop accidentally breaking this illusion at times.
But what I ran into that I LOVE is making EVERY app full-screen, pretending there is no desktop or window management, and just swiping right/left among them.
I wish there was a way to smooth out the UX so that this feels first-class and I stop accidentally breaking this illusion at times.
Honestly sounds like you might want an iPad.
I recently got one to use as a secondary display just for Slack /Discord/etc, but after connecting a trackpad & keyboard I totally fell in love. It's a very simplistic environment, but it's actually quite nice as an alternative to the full-blown macOS.
I recently got one to use as a secondary display just for Slack /Discord/etc, but after connecting a trackpad & keyboard I totally fell in love. It's a very simplistic environment, but it's actually quite nice as an alternative to the full-blown macOS.
People say this, and then when you say “sure but one of my full screen apps is VS Code and another one is the Terminal, how do I get that on an iPad?” they go “Honestly sounds like you might want a Mac.”
I really hate how Apple shaped a whole new ecosystem that made it specially hard to run open source and unixy stuff.
It feels like the Disney moment where a company thriving from an abundant shared resource turns around to poison the well to keep their lead.
I love my iPad but really wish that’s not the future waiting for us.
It feels like the Disney moment where a company thriving from an abundant shared resource turns around to poison the well to keep their lead.
I love my iPad but really wish that’s not the future waiting for us.
You can get some stuff running on an iPad using iSH [0], but compatibility is iffy and performance even moreso. At one point, I tried bringing a RPi4 along with me to act as a mobile dev server (it'd serve an instance of VSCode over ethernet via a USB-C/ethernet adapter on the iPad, and the iPad would share its Wifi connection to the RPi), but it was clunky to bring two devices with me. Nowadays, I use Blink Shell [1] as a mosh terminal to a remote dev server.
[0]: https://ish.app [1]: https://blink.sh
[0]: https://ish.app [1]: https://blink.sh
Vs code with terminal in codespaces via a browser is most impressive.
I still prefer local, but I was blown awat
I still prefer local, but I was blown awat
You can also connect iPad to your Mac as a second display, and put terminal there :)
There is now a web version of vscode and you can ssh into your environment.
Hmm. Not a crazy idea. simplification is appealing to me. But I’m guessing it’s still not really a computer? Can I get iterm2 with bash and vscode and rust?
> Can I get iterm2 with bash and vscode and rust?
Not really. The best dev experience I have with the iPad is using Blink to mosh into (the mobility mosh offers over SSH is key for me) a server, which lets me run whatever I want on it. But if you're developing GUI applications, it's not really that great.
You can use something like Working Copy for git and Textastic for editing programs on the iPad, but it's not really a proper IDE (even a light IDE) just a syntax aware editor. If I'm not using emacs on the server, I use those for my code editing purposes.
Not really. The best dev experience I have with the iPad is using Blink to mosh into (the mobility mosh offers over SSH is key for me) a server, which lets me run whatever I want on it. But if you're developing GUI applications, it's not really that great.
You can use something like Working Copy for git and Textastic for editing programs on the iPad, but it's not really a proper IDE (even a light IDE) just a syntax aware editor. If I'm not using emacs on the server, I use those for my code editing purposes.
You can run VS Code in the browser: https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2021/10/20/vscode-dev
One of their listed use-cases is exactly this:
> Develop on your iPad. You can upload/download files (and even store them in the cloud using the Files app), as well as open repositories remotely with the built-in GitHub Repositories extension.
One of their listed use-cases is exactly this:
> Develop on your iPad. You can upload/download files (and even store them in the cloud using the Files app), as well as open repositories remotely with the built-in GitHub Repositories extension.
> For example, the terminal and debugger are not available, which makes sense since you can't compile, run, and debug a Rust or Go application within the browser sandbox
Direct quote
Direct quote
Ugh, that's pretty limiting. I wasn't aware of that.
Perhaps one of the self-hosted VS Code solutions out there would work?
Perhaps one of the self-hosted VS Code solutions out there would work?
Have you found a consistent way to get color schemes working for vim/tmux when running over mosh?
Haven’t tried mosh in a while but this was my biggest gripe, over what is otherwise an amazing mobile experience.
Haven’t tried mosh in a while but this was my biggest gripe, over what is otherwise an amazing mobile experience.
Honestly sounds like you might want a tiling window manager
Most of the time a workspace only has a single app in it and when I want a terminal side-by-side it's just one button press away.
Most of the time a workspace only has a single app in it and when I want a terminal side-by-side it's just one button press away.
I think window management in Mac leaves much to be desired (hot key and snapping floating windows). But associate fullscreeen window/split with a new workspace is actually one thing it does right. I installed an addon on Gnome just to emulate that.
Split is kind of useless with an ultrawide monitor though, I wish it was 3 columns
Split is kind of useless with an ultrawide monitor though, I wish it was 3 columns
If you're looking for a good OSX window manager, Yabai [1] is excellent. If you're willing and allowed too you can get greater control by disabling SIP. However even with system integrity enabled (which bars access to certain WindowServer APIs - space control, removing shadows, multi-monitor integrations) Yabai functions great.
It uses a messaging passing API to interface with a local service, so it's completely programmable and can be integrated with something like skhd [2]
1: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
2: https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd
My skhdrc setup: https://pastebin.com/5GT8yiGK
It uses a messaging passing API to interface with a local service, so it's completely programmable and can be integrated with something like skhd [2]
1: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
2: https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd
My skhdrc setup: https://pastebin.com/5GT8yiGK
Amethyst is another option, but doesn't require disabling SIP: https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst. Does require accessibility permissions though.
> binary space partitioning
instant put off
seriously why is this a thing? Who looks at their messy desktop and think to themselves: "man it would be nice to have all of this organized... with binary partitioning algorithm"?
I tried amethyst as well as i3 on linux, gave up on tilling. I prefer to do it myself according to the need at the time. Just need hot keys.
instant put off
seriously why is this a thing? Who looks at their messy desktop and think to themselves: "man it would be nice to have all of this organized... with binary partitioning algorithm"?
I tried amethyst as well as i3 on linux, gave up on tilling. I prefer to do it myself according to the need at the time. Just need hot keys.
Look into Rectangle if you just want the snapping resize ability or BetterSnapTool as a more advanced utility. In BetterSnapTool you can define custom snap areas and associate just specific apps with them, specifying window sizes and positioning per snap area. I’ve tried binary tilers and it only really works on text heavy workloads for me.
hey forgot to say thanks for the recommendation and I'm giving yabai another try. I think just ignore the binary stuff it's pretty neat and mouse-friendly. One downside is there is no indicator on menubar.
Your config is a great starting point
Your config is a great starting point
One free option for Mac: https://rectangleapp.com/
Ooh! Now all I need is a replacement for Better Touch Tool.* Anyone know of anything?
* which I use almost exclusively as open/close new tabs in Safari and Finder with the top right and left corners of the trackpad respectively; plus three-finger-swipe left/right gestures to move between tabs
* which I use almost exclusively as open/close new tabs in Safari and Finder with the top right and left corners of the trackpad respectively; plus three-finger-swipe left/right gestures to move between tabs
Forewarning that there are loads of apps that the hotkeys just don’t work on. FaceTime, Steam, etc. I’m not sure why, generally the issues get closed with, “this is limitation of macOS,” but Spectacle didn’t have the same issues
Ooh I am liking some of the things this has over ShiftIt. Discover a new one of these window managers every few months.
I use it, not the point though, should be built-in.
I don't think expecting Apple to implement every single pet feature of every single power user is something that is reasonable.
Aranging windows is not a "power user feature". It's a basic thing that all other desktop OSes have. If you think hotkeys are "power user" things then replace them with gestures. Mac has none.
They actually do have windows splits, it's just unfortunate that they force a workspace onto them.
If anything workspace is a power user feature. Many including myself rarely use it. I could not if I wanted to because it looks so stupid on an ultrawide monitor.
To me the fact that 2 basic things: window snap and window switch hot keys (dont tell me you can switch apps, then swicth windows, it's retarded), don't exist, and I need at least 2 other apps to make my computer bearable, is ridiculous.
It's luckly that the apps happen to be free no thanks to Apple.
They actually do have windows splits, it's just unfortunate that they force a workspace onto them.
If anything workspace is a power user feature. Many including myself rarely use it. I could not if I wanted to because it looks so stupid on an ultrawide monitor.
To me the fact that 2 basic things: window snap and window switch hot keys (dont tell me you can switch apps, then swicth windows, it's retarded), don't exist, and I need at least 2 other apps to make my computer bearable, is ridiculous.
It's luckly that the apps happen to be free no thanks to Apple.
You’re mad that Apple didn’t design their operating system around your personal preferences. Personally, I’m accustomed to the way the Apple does things and personally feel the Windows way of doing do things very annoying to use (I end up needing to use Windows a few times per week). So I guess we cancel each other out :) Linux desktops have every feature under the sun but they have so many other problems I find them utterly unusable. That is why I use Mac, perhaps you would be better suited with a different platform if it annoys you so much. Sounds like you just prefer the Windows workflow ergonomic to me.
Also, FYI, you can split left and right on mac by hovering over full-screen button while holding the option key: https://imgur.com/a/VNSQR8l
It's not a hotkey, but it gets the job done.
Also, FYI, you can split left and right on mac by hovering over full-screen button while holding the option key: https://imgur.com/a/VNSQR8l
It's not a hotkey, but it gets the job done.
No that's not the case, linux and windows both seem to have the basic set of features right.
I think each OS has the part they do right. Windows has the taskbar, Linux has the customization, Mac has spotlight and full screen spaces.
Many of us are forced to use a Mac at work btw.
I think each OS has the part they do right. Windows has the taskbar, Linux has the customization, Mac has spotlight and full screen spaces.
Many of us are forced to use a Mac at work btw.
What app do you use to get a normal alt+tab on mac?
It's literally called AltTab
Thanks!
I'm using Hammerspoon to implement manual tiling and pretend to have old Spaces (spaces arranged in a grid with instant transitions), but it's not my favorite thing ever.
I'm using Hammerspoon to implement manual tiling and pretend to have old Spaces (spaces arranged in a grid with instant transitions), but it's not my favorite thing ever.
But they can support like two features for every single power user: hotkeys for managing windows and snapping to windows when you push it against the border.
but...why? just install Rectangle and forget about it why does it matter so much if it's "built-in" or not..? It's like complaining that Apple doesn't make Alfred built in because you don't like Spotlight.
In all seriousness, there is an app for macOS window management. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=...
What Gnome extension was that? Sounds interesting, so I'd like to give it a try.
Install ShiftIt - customisable shortcut keys for almost all window layout options.
>I wish there was a way to smooth out the UX so that this feels first-class and I stop accidentally breaking this illusion at times.
This is probably not what you meant by "smooth out the UX", but I like to enable "reduce motion" under System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display. It means when you move between apps, the sideways pan is replaced by a fade, which is nice if you do this a lot.
This is probably not what you meant by "smooth out the UX", but I like to enable "reduce motion" under System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display. It means when you move between apps, the sideways pan is replaced by a fade, which is nice if you do this a lot.
I have been using Macs daily for a decade. Big Sur is a big reversion in usability. Easily the worst MacOS update I can recall. The UI is a lot clunkier and slower and just harder to make sense of. They will throw it all out in 2-4 years and start over, that's about how long the UI stays stable.
I think the obsession with making everything white, with no clear distinction between window contents and window chrome makes it quite confusing. I'm hoping they revert this. Not everything has to be flat.
Yeah, modern UX designers need to come down out of the clouds and pay attention to how people actually do work. It isn't just Apple either. Mozilla is doing the same thing with Firefox. The entire industry seems to have their heads screwed on backwards. Second to HR they are the people I trust the least.
I can recall either maverick or yosemite (the ones after 10.7) but yeah, recently I had a chance to “use” big sur and it deserves that name.
Funny, I hate that aspect
Behold why UIs get super bloated over time. Users can want entirely different things. =)
Same. I never use spaces or apps in fullscreen (except when watching videos).
I find it way easier to do CMD + TAB to switch between apps, than having to switch between spaces until I get to where I want to be.
I find it way easier to do CMD + TAB to switch between apps, than having to switch between spaces until I get to where I want to be.
I use full screen when I am working just in the MacBook and no other screens attached. It’s simpler to swipe between desktops. It’s annoying when I use my external monitors.
Multiple desktops/spaces, with my mainstay apps each assigned to one desktop, fullscreened with BetterSnapTool, and helper apps like notes, terminal, calendar & mail assigned to all desktops then just swap between apps/spaces either by pressing the dock icon, by four-finger swipe (very quick if switching between adjacent spaces), or four-finger swipe up to open app expose and switch between apps or spaces. I love this setup, and whenever I'm forced to use Windows, I'm incredibly frustrated by its comparably terrible window & desktop management
cmd+tab does search across spaces though, doesn't it?
For me, it depends whether I’m using a laptop or proper size monitor.
I've always enjoyed the spaces feature. Tried to get into it as my main way of interacting with apps, but it never fully stuck. That might be because I'm often using preview windows and everything is chaos.
I never used it until I started working at a job where I find myself juggling multiple tickets at once on the regular. Now I make a Space for each ticket (browser window with the ticket and branch open, editor opened to the project directory, etc), and when I context-switch my computer context-switches with me. It's been great
I’ll open a second desktop if I need to look up something in a new browser window, but have work open and windows arranged a certain way.
iPadOS 15 handles full screen apps so much better than macOS. I hope Apple eventually ports the iPads full screen multitasking model to the Mac (while also keeping regular windowed multitasking, of course)
If any apple product managers are reading this, the biggest thing holding MacOS back is that it global searches when you search a folder. I know there's a config setting for it, but dammit I want the default to be local file name search and full text search should be an off-by-default option, and search the whole hard drive should be a different also off by default option.
This is the _biggest_ thing holding MacOS back?
Reboot for an upgrade happens by holding a spin lock until it overheats and reboots. This happens every time on multiple computers so I think it's intentional(?) but the crash reports are pretty wild.
No official package manager.
The Macbook cases ground through the user when they're on an insulated surface (there is no ground pin on the Macbook power adapters).
Audio crackles when the machine grounds through the user. Makes speakers hum.
I guess some of these are hardware issues.
No official package manager.
The Macbook cases ground through the user when they're on an insulated surface (there is no ground pin on the Macbook power adapters).
Audio crackles when the machine grounds through the user. Makes speakers hum.
I guess some of these are hardware issues.
They are grounded if you use the "power adapter extension cable" (not shipped with the unit): https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/MK122LL/A/power-adapte...
Why don't Apple offer grounded duckheads? For that matter, why haven't any third parties made grounded duckheads? This has been irritating me for the past decade or more.
The ground connection, where available, occurs through the metal stud which the duckhead slides into. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the UK (Type G) duckhead doesn't connect ground even though the physical ground pin is mandatory.
I know that most DC adapters are unearthed, but my lived experience is that you can often feel electrovibration in the aluminium Macbook chassis when ungrounded and it goes away when the Apple DC adapter is grounded.
The ground connection, where available, occurs through the metal stud which the duckhead slides into. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the UK (Type G) duckhead doesn't connect ground even though the physical ground pin is mandatory.
I know that most DC adapters are unearthed, but my lived experience is that you can often feel electrovibration in the aluminium Macbook chassis when ungrounded and it goes away when the Apple DC adapter is grounded.
It's not just your experience. When using the Apple-supplied charger, the surface of the macbook feels slightly fuzzy, and even delivers minor shocks.
getting zapped by ~50/100v (depending on what voltage your country uses) through the x rated capacitor, at a very low current. I don't use macbooks, but tried very hard to find a usb charger that actually has a ground prong for the same reason, and they seem to straight up not exist.
It's also weird to me, since they have exposed metal and a transformer winding shorting could lead to passing through line voltage to the usb port/your phone chassis. So how does it count as double insulated?
It's also weird to me, since they have exposed metal and a transformer winding shorting could lead to passing through line voltage to the usb port/your phone chassis. So how does it count as double insulated?
I'm so glad you mentioned this. I thought it was just me!
The UK/Ireland 3 prong duckhead is grounded. I have no idea why third parties haven't produced grounded versions, other than the obvious (no demand and anyone who cares has a solution, use the extension cable).
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Replacement-Adapter-Duckhead-Universa...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Replacement-Adapter-Duckhead-Universa...
It is most certainly not. The ground is done over the round pin that slides into the duckhead. If you check the rail where the pin slides in, it's all plastic.
The extension cable is the only one that's grounded.
The extension cable is the only one that's grounded.
They used to, in Australia at least. I can't remember if it came with my iBook G4 or one of the Intels soon afterward, but out of the box I got both a two-prong stub that attaches directly to the brick and a ~1.5m cable that goes to a three-prong plug. I sold the original laptop long ago but kept the old grounded cable all the way up to my current work MBP. Personally the buzzing drives me nuts.
The first time I noticed it I was a bit worried about it all. I had a volt stick from work (a safety device to identify live wiring) and surprisingly it illuminated when I brought it near the metal chassis of my macbook. Some further tests with an oscilloscope showed that it was floating a good couple of hundred volts, but the capacitance was so low that the energy payload was never going to do any harm to a human. I don't care, I still just ground the thing.
The first time I noticed it I was a bit worried about it all. I had a volt stick from work (a safety device to identify live wiring) and surprisingly it illuminated when I brought it near the metal chassis of my macbook. Some further tests with an oscilloscope showed that it was floating a good couple of hundred volts, but the capacitance was so low that the energy payload was never going to do any harm to a human. I don't care, I still just ground the thing.
The no-longer-standard extension cable is properly grounded, the duckhead (what you called a "stub") has never been. This is the case in all countries including Australia, where I live.
It’s kind of interesting that it’s not a code requirement. I presume that the power charger is double insulated, hence the option for 2 prongs, but the laptops sure aren’t double insulated.
I feel so stupid that I was chasing down audio hum issues for a while and even though I knew it was ground related I didn’t even clue in to use the 3 prong adapter.
This is Emporers new clothes territory. How can a >2k EUR machine ground through the user unless they purchase extra add-ons. I don't know why there's not a class action law suit on this.
It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I never noticed any issues when using the ungrounded adapter. I think it is pretty conventional for most modern electronics to use a floating ground.
> Reboot for an upgrade happens by holding a spin lock until it overheats and reboots. This happens every time on multiple computers so I think it's intentional(?) but the crash reports are pretty wild.
That's a watchdog kernel panic (maybe). Shouldn't be seeing that unless you have misbehaving NFS mounts or something.
That's a watchdog kernel panic (maybe). Shouldn't be seeing that unless you have misbehaving NFS mounts or something.
Yes, it's a watchdog kernel panic which takes place after the fans spin up. No NFS mounts here.
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I’m not sure if you’re describing the same issue I had, but whenever my MBP (15”, 2018) would restart during an update (and sometimes just a regular restart), I would get the progress bar after entering my password. The fans would then spin up, the machine would get ridiculously hot, and the machine would restart. It was an endless loop.
Usually, I was able to get it to complete whatever it was trying to do and log me in by holding it directly in front of my air conditioning unit (this was as ridiculous as it sounds), but a few weeks ago even that didn’t work. I had to completely wipe the machine and reinstall macOS. It’s been fine so far.
Usually, I was able to get it to complete whatever it was trying to do and log me in by holding it directly in front of my air conditioning unit (this was as ridiculous as it sounds), but a few weeks ago even that didn’t work. I had to completely wipe the machine and reinstall macOS. It’s been fine so far.
I just had a similar endless loop on update (Catalina to Big Sur) last week. Apple guided me to do a T2 firmware update which bricked the machine. Sent it in for service.
Logic board was replaced "under warranty" (it's a 3 year old machine with no Apple Care!).
Logic board was replaced "under warranty" (it's a 3 year old machine with no Apple Care!).
> The Macbook cases ground through the user when they're on an insulated surface (there is no ground pin on the Macbook power adapters).
Oooh, I had fun with this one on an airplane. Kept getting shocks to my funny bone.
Oooh, I had fun with this one on an airplane. Kept getting shocks to my funny bone.
Woah is that why it feels like my MacBook is humming sometimes when I touch it? Wondered this for years.
Yes! I've been wondering what was up with that since forever! Weird that they say the power adapter doesn't have a ground pin though because the one of my 2019 MBP does in Switzerland.
Not sure how the charger looks in Switzerland, but if it's modular (you can swap the plug), does it have a third connection where it attaches to the brick? The ones in UK have 3 prongs but only 2 connections.
> No official package manager.
That's the app store. It just needs to be extended to deliver a wider range of things like CLIs or system extensions.
That's the app store. It just needs to be extended to deliver a wider range of things like CLIs or system extensions.
What do you want from an ‘official’ package manager?
For one, it would at least solve the issue of MacOS' coreutils being perpetually outdated. Secondly, it would be a nice way for developers to skip the burning dumpster fire otherwise known as the App Store when distributing basic apps, without having to download untrusted third-party software.
As for specific features, I'd really like to see a list of all the different MacOS components so I can remove the things I don't care about (iMessages, Photos, Facetime, etc.) like I can do on all my Linux boxes. It would be nice to have integration with MacOS' various distribution formats too, and while we're asking I'd love to see a declarative approach like NixOS, that would really put MacOS head-and-shoulders above your average Linux distro.
As for specific features, I'd really like to see a list of all the different MacOS components so I can remove the things I don't care about (iMessages, Photos, Facetime, etc.) like I can do on all my Linux boxes. It would be nice to have integration with MacOS' various distribution formats too, and while we're asking I'd love to see a declarative approach like NixOS, that would really put MacOS head-and-shoulders above your average Linux distro.
How would a official package manager solve packages being out of date? Apple has a means to deliver those updates already. If they had an interest in doing so, they'd update them.
So it stands to reason it would be up to the community to deal with this, as it does now.
A real uninstall capability would be a basic starting point.
You aren’t the person I asked. From your previous comments, it’s obvious that you want MacOS to be more like Linux. I was curious if there are other reasons someone might have.
Annoint brew. It feels like a total hack that you need an open source project which gets meagre funding (I tishinkbthey donate some hardware) is the only way to get a >2k machine to be useful for development.
Not the person above, but I just want it to be official/blessed. Same as with winget vs chocolatey. Same as with netflix vs torrents. I want one and only one main place to look. The other options might be "better" in some aspect, but being standard/official/"the one" is a huge benefit.
Every other OS, be it windows, android, ios, linux, *bsd,... has a package manager included. Mac is the only hold out.
Every other OS, be it windows, android, ios, linux, *bsd,... has a package manager included. Mac is the only hold out.
[deleted]
It may sound insignificant, but quality-of-life issues like these feel incredibly frustrating, and build the feeling that your computer is working against you, rather than with you (or at the very least at cross purposes to you). Friction is a big deal. It doesn't feel like your tool when it keeps doing things you don't want it to do.
It was exactly this issue that made me finally dump Gnome.
It was exactly this issue that made me finally dump Gnome.
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Yes
For those who are wondering what the config setting is:
Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced -> When performing search: Search the current folder
Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced -> When performing search: Search the current folder
Thank you.
Thank You. This really should be the default settings.
Thank you
Thank you
If this is the biggest thing holding their operating system back, Apple must be doing okay.
Almost everything else I do in an application, so the most I interact with the OS is when I clumsily look around for a file. I've started using fzf (you can install it with brew) and open but I shouldn't have to. QOL would be on par with Windows and Linux if not for this type of issue.
I dunno if this is “the biggest thing” but I will concur that it is really annoying. I almost always want to search for a file name, somewhere in the folder I’m looking at or it’s sub folders. I wish I could change the default to be that.
Finder Preferences → Advanced → When performing search: Search the Current Folder.
oh awesome, thanks! Now if only there was a way to also make it default to searching for filenames instead of text contents.
That feature exists as well. Press ⌃⇧⌘F in the Finder to activate File > “Find by Name…”.
You could even swap the key bindings to make it the default, by going to System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
I do this to swap the shortcuts Reply and Reply All in Mail.app as well, so that I always reply everyone when pressing ⌘R.
See https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp2271/mac
I do this to swap the shortcuts Reply and Reply All in Mail.app as well, so that I always reply everyone when pressing ⌘R.
See https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp2271/mac
I didn’t know this was a feature. No matter how many modifier keys I press with the File menu open, “Find” never changes to “Find by name”. (Searching the menu options through the Help menu does find the function, though.) Wonder why? (Edit: Never mind, BetterTouchTool was blocking it somehow!)
What any the fact that Spotlight is terrible at finding files and is now just trying to be a bad version of Google?
seriously, why is spotlight still so bad at finding files?
I recently found Go-to-file[0], which is suspiciously obscure, but actually very good. It's a Spotlight-like search bar with fuzzy finding capabilities and it's a godsend after fighting with Spotlight for years.
[0] https://www.soma-zone.com/GoToFile/
[0] https://www.soma-zone.com/GoToFile/
Oh you don't want every search to find every python bytecode file on your whole system every time?
the one that does my head in is you can search for a file with spotlight but then the only thing you can do with the result is open it; you can't see what folder it's in or open the folder.
you can't see what folder it's in
Hold down Command (or maybe Option), and it shows you the full file path in the bottom of the preview pane.
Hold down Command (or maybe Option), and it shows you the full file path in the bottom of the preview pane.
and unfortunately cuts the path off when it is too long, as happens far too often for me
Press tab to bring up the preview pane in spotlight, then holding CMD brings up the folder it's in near the bottom. CMD+double click opens it in it's enclosing folder.
In finder,
View > Show Status Bar
You can click on any of the folders to go there.
In spotlight, cmd click on the file to show it in the finder.
View > Show Status Bar
You can click on any of the folders to go there.
In spotlight, cmd click on the file to show it in the finder.
I also prefer search by folder as default and always have to look for that Finder setting to flip. We already have Command–Space bar for quick access to global search.
type name:nameoffileIwant or just start typing and press down arrow then enter to select and search the Name matches:blah blah option that appears usually straight away.
That's an easy fix: https://www.techrepublic.com/a/hub/i/r/2020/07/10/22bb5b3d-c...
Meh. It’s only slightly annoying. It global searches by default but all you have to do is click your folder name at the top of the search
Yeh? Just opened a folder in Finder and clicked search in the window - it defaulted to searching that folder.
I personally prefer the global search, I think the consistent behavior is good.
but it's not consistent with Mail for example :/
The Macbook Pro 16" thermal throttling problems with external monitors [1] finally seems to be fixed with Monterey by enabling low power mode. (At least with 16:9 60Hz monitors).
I've been dealing with `kernel_task` hitting 900% CPU usage and the entire window server running at 2 FPS when using external monitors since I got the mbp 16" a year ago. Good riddance.
[1]: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...
I've been dealing with `kernel_task` hitting 900% CPU usage and the entire window server running at 2 FPS when using external monitors since I got the mbp 16" a year ago. Good riddance.
[1]: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...
It's not fixed though, it simply cripples the CPU in order to keep it cooler. This was already achievable by disabling Turbo Boost [0]. I can't tell which solution works better but before switching to an M1 Air I was running TBS on my 16" and it made things more acceptable.
[0] https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher
[0] https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher
No idea if this is a hardware issue, but this approach (underclocking and permanent low power modes) is historically how Apple have "fixed" other hardware flaws - cough - nvidia - cough - After you've experienced it you tend to not buy macs any more.
Some reports in the MacRumors thread [0] suggest the problem doesn't happen on Windows, which suggests a driver issue. I haven't tested that myself though.
[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...
[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...
The GPU is exceptionally bad about certain things - probably in the driver - but turning off texture animations in Minecraft cooled the computer down tremendously.
All that legacy bs crutchy stuff is the reason they are doing their own silicon. I am super stoked about the performance of my M1. Combine my experience w/ this machine + Apple's latest turnaround w/ the Macbook Pro's - my faith is restored. If I needed a new rig I would not hesitate to pick one of these up.
> All that legacy bs crutchy stuff is the reason they are doing their own silicon
I don't deny there are some genuinely interesting tech coming out of Apple (I wish I could buy an M1 without all the Apple baggage), but the problem is not crusty old tech, there will always be flaws and technical issues... the problem is this persistent attitude of covering shit up and flat out lying to customers faces, especially when they have spent so much fricking money on a premium product.
I can't buy from a company who deeply disrespects their customers in this way. This will sound like an extreme reaction to anyone who hasn't experienced this side of Apple yet - but just wait until you experience it first hand.
I don't deny there are some genuinely interesting tech coming out of Apple (I wish I could buy an M1 without all the Apple baggage), but the problem is not crusty old tech, there will always be flaws and technical issues... the problem is this persistent attitude of covering shit up and flat out lying to customers faces, especially when they have spent so much fricking money on a premium product.
I can't buy from a company who deeply disrespects their customers in this way. This will sound like an extreme reaction to anyone who hasn't experienced this side of Apple yet - but just wait until you experience it first hand.
You're being overdramatic. They responded to the criticism of the pro community with the new Macbook Pro which has been unanimously seen as an olive branch.
My “fix” for this issue was to sell the damned thing and buy an M1 MacBook Air instead. Can’t have fan noise if the computer doesn’t have a fan.
I still to this day can’t believe it was never brought up in any reviews of that machine. Connecting to any external monitor causes the slightest stress to have the fans absolutely screaming.
I still to this day can’t believe it was never brought up in any reviews of that machine. Connecting to any external monitor causes the slightest stress to have the fans absolutely screaming.
I ended up getting tired of this fight and built a windows box. I've recently tried to migrate back to the mac but it's just terrible with another monitor. Crazy that this is still a thing.
Try VRM thermal pad mod.
100% It actually let the fans spin down when plugged into a monitor.
Any link to what exactly you mean?
I experienced this and found that switching to connecting via the right side USB C ports rather than the left side fixes thermal issues. It’s explained a bit more in this SO post: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/363933
While the right side power thing is still an actual bizarre issue, I've been running the exact same "B state" where the power is on the right side and usb-c hub and usb-c to DP cables are on the left since the beginning, and it nothing for me. So whether this helps or not really comes down to your luck in peripherals combination.
My MBP 16" used to be so throttled sometimes that Google Meet would freeze up and disconnect me when it was the only thing I had open. This was after I tried cleaning the fans out by blowing some compressed air in the vents.
I had a computer shop clean the inside of my laptop in August and haven't seen kernel_task ever since.
I had a computer shop clean the inside of my laptop in August and haven't seen kernel_task ever since.
The irony is that I would like low power mode on the go but certainly not when docked(with an external monitor).
If you want to solve your problem do the VRM mod. And use a small desk fan. It’s easy and reversible.
how about a cooling pad
I've found a laptop cooling pad works wonders, even without the fan on. Just letting ambient air reach the laptop bottom was enough passive cooling to keep the laptop fans off most of the time. But if the bottom of the laptop is touching any surface for extended periods of time, it got so hot that it couldn't even keep the battery charged without thermal throttling while the laptop was essentially idle.
Is this a thing on the smaller ones?
Sort of a mini review. Using it at home on my MacBook Pro 2015 Intel Machine.
Big Sur on M1 was fine ( if not great ), mostly because M1 is extremely fast. But Big Sir on x86 was slow, really slow. I am in the group that reported Big Sur was slower than Catalina, and Catalina was slower than Mojave. That is with both the OS itself and Safari. So Big Sur was not a smooth experience for me.
Monterey so far brings back the speed / snappiness of Mojave. Safari feels so much more responsive under normal use and under heavy tab usage. Lots micro-pause ( Jank ) and lag are gone. As if they put back all the optimisation for x86 previously left out.
Far less Kernel_Task CPU usage and stupid disk write for whatever reason. My guess this is mostly a Safari problem given they have implemented Tab Groups they have at least taken into account of heavy tab usage in mind. This is also apparent when they fix the long standing Tab Overview bug, where it will load ( and reload ) every single Tabs you have trying to generate thumbnail. Imagine you accidentally press the Tab Overview button in the tool bar, or three finger swap in Safari when you have hundreds of tabs. You will instantly get a few hundreds GB of Disk Write paging trying load everything. It is literally a feature that kills your SSD. I have reported this bug for over three years, it is finally fixed. Cloudd and Bookmark / History / Tab Sync pause / Jank is still not fix though. That is 3 years+ and counting.
Still wish they do a list of tabs like Chrome instead of Thumbnails when it is over certain Tabs Number. It is easier to track when you have lots of Tabs. Easier to do Manual Garbage Collection of Tabs.
Bug that causes IINA to crash when viewing video in portrait mode is gone. One of the biggest complain when updating to Big Sur.
WindowsServer also uses far less CPU. It used to hover over 30% for no apparent reason. Now it is back to a normal 5-15% in most cases.
Safari "classic" tabs are back. Along with a very long list of webkit improvement. Far from perfect but at least things are moving.
I am also feeling Apps that are using Swift and SwiftUI are snappier than before and uses less memory. An observation mostly from using Stocks App.
Many other minor details, may be worth reading Ars' review [1]. It is solid release, which along with M1 MacBook Pro sadly dampens my motivation to move away from Apple.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/macos-12-monterey-th...
Big Sur on M1 was fine ( if not great ), mostly because M1 is extremely fast. But Big Sir on x86 was slow, really slow. I am in the group that reported Big Sur was slower than Catalina, and Catalina was slower than Mojave. That is with both the OS itself and Safari. So Big Sur was not a smooth experience for me.
Monterey so far brings back the speed / snappiness of Mojave. Safari feels so much more responsive under normal use and under heavy tab usage. Lots micro-pause ( Jank ) and lag are gone. As if they put back all the optimisation for x86 previously left out.
Far less Kernel_Task CPU usage and stupid disk write for whatever reason. My guess this is mostly a Safari problem given they have implemented Tab Groups they have at least taken into account of heavy tab usage in mind. This is also apparent when they fix the long standing Tab Overview bug, where it will load ( and reload ) every single Tabs you have trying to generate thumbnail. Imagine you accidentally press the Tab Overview button in the tool bar, or three finger swap in Safari when you have hundreds of tabs. You will instantly get a few hundreds GB of Disk Write paging trying load everything. It is literally a feature that kills your SSD. I have reported this bug for over three years, it is finally fixed. Cloudd and Bookmark / History / Tab Sync pause / Jank is still not fix though. That is 3 years+ and counting.
Still wish they do a list of tabs like Chrome instead of Thumbnails when it is over certain Tabs Number. It is easier to track when you have lots of Tabs. Easier to do Manual Garbage Collection of Tabs.
Bug that causes IINA to crash when viewing video in portrait mode is gone. One of the biggest complain when updating to Big Sur.
WindowsServer also uses far less CPU. It used to hover over 30% for no apparent reason. Now it is back to a normal 5-15% in most cases.
Safari "classic" tabs are back. Along with a very long list of webkit improvement. Far from perfect but at least things are moving.
I am also feeling Apps that are using Swift and SwiftUI are snappier than before and uses less memory. An observation mostly from using Stocks App.
Many other minor details, may be worth reading Ars' review [1]. It is solid release, which along with M1 MacBook Pro sadly dampens my motivation to move away from Apple.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/macos-12-monterey-th...
that's great to hear
i have a MacBook Pro with Intel as well
Big Sur feels sluggish, it's not that it's slow, but it feels slow. I don't remember what OS my MacBook came with, but every update made it slower, especially Mail.app, which takes good 10 seconds to launch. Downloading Monterey now, hopefully will see improvements!
edit: but my biggest macOS complaint yet has to be the space used by "Other", which at the moment is about 50GB and 70GB at times
i have a MacBook Pro with Intel as well
Big Sur feels sluggish, it's not that it's slow, but it feels slow. I don't remember what OS my MacBook came with, but every update made it slower, especially Mail.app, which takes good 10 seconds to launch. Downloading Monterey now, hopefully will see improvements!
edit: but my biggest macOS complaint yet has to be the space used by "Other", which at the moment is about 50GB and 70GB at times
I was just helping a family member with this same issue (large amount of “Other” space) and turns out it was some unmounted volumes that had somehow been created. We couldn’t track down what was on them in the time period I had to help, but doing a clean wipe cleared it all up. Not the best answer to the problem.
"Other" may be some local Time Machine snapshots, which are purgeable.
It may also be an APFS snapshot, which is _not_ purgeable (indeed macOS boots of signed snapshots now)
It may also be an APFS snapshot, which is _not_ purgeable (indeed macOS boots of signed snapshots now)
tmutil listlocalsnapshots / is your friend here. You can delete snapshots at will, and that usually clears up a few gigs of space.
I'm actually surprised by how much snappier it feels. I'm on an i7 2018 mac mini.
[deleted]
> Far less Kernel_Task CPU usage
This typically means the machine is thermally throttled, not that the kernel is actually using the CPU.
This typically means the machine is thermally throttled, not that the kernel is actually using the CPU.
Doesn't have to be. Doing canvas work in a web worker in Chrome caused the kernel_task to skyrocket. It's fine in the main thread:
https://video-canvas-worker-4k.netlify.app/
https://video-canvas-worker-4k.netlify.app/
Contrary to popular belief, kernel_task actually has things it needs to do, and sometimes those use CPU time. It's not "typically" thermal throttling.
I heard the same from a friend. But my 2012 Air won’t get it. So I’m stuck on Catalina, as I can’t downgrade to Mojave.
This option lets you downgrade to the OS your Mac came with: “ Reinstall your computer’s original version of macOS (including available updates): Option-Shift-Command-R.” https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/reinstall-macos-mch...
You can download the Mojave image from here afterwards: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Backup your data before doing a clean install.
You can download the Mojave image from here afterwards: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Backup your data before doing a clean install.
I take a full disk image before every major OS upgrade for this reason.
Any of the awful UX functions been rolled back? Notifications and the bluetooth menus are an abomination.
Just having functional bluetooth would be nice? Bluetooth on my MBP recently decided to turn "off", and clicking/sliding the on/off slider just does nothing. The slider doesn't move to "on", and I get no feedback, errors, information or anything about why I can't re-enable it.
Prior to that BT devices would just drop the connection, AFAICT.
Bi-directional file transfer has never worked properly.
And that's only BT…
IDK what's actually that bad about the BT menu UI though? The recent UX changes on notifications have been bad, though. Especially where sometimes clicking the X doesn't dismiss the notification. (There's some bait&switch b/c there's like multiple notifications stacked up… or something.) And that (for a while now) Calendar hasn't reliably notified me, which has been great, as it results in lateness to meetings, since there's no longer an office mate to say "hey, it's time".
Prior to that BT devices would just drop the connection, AFAICT.
Bi-directional file transfer has never worked properly.
And that's only BT…
IDK what's actually that bad about the BT menu UI though? The recent UX changes on notifications have been bad, though. Especially where sometimes clicking the X doesn't dismiss the notification. (There's some bait&switch b/c there's like multiple notifications stacked up… or something.) And that (for a while now) Calendar hasn't reliably notified me, which has been great, as it results in lateness to meetings, since there's no longer an office mate to say "hey, it's time".
BT is broken everywhere. I daily-drive MacOS, Windows 10, and PopOS, all on pretty solid hardware. All 3 have countless issues with BT stuff, whether it's UI and issues with connecting/remembering, or dropouts, or it just failing to work on random days, or audio glitches, or not finding some generic peripherals that the other OSes do find, etc etc.
I use BT a lot, half a dozen devices I use every single day, and I have issues with every single peripheral on at least 1 (usually 2) of the 3 OSes I use.
BT itself seems like such a simple thing to get right too... not sure what I'm missing about it that makes it so technically hard to just work as expected.
I use BT a lot, half a dozen devices I use every single day, and I have issues with every single peripheral on at least 1 (usually 2) of the 3 OSes I use.
BT itself seems like such a simple thing to get right too... not sure what I'm missing about it that makes it so technically hard to just work as expected.
> BT itself seems like such a simple thing to get right too...
good hn thread from 2017:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14752719
Do you have an 16" Macbook Pro?
There is a hardware bug where plugging in external bluetooth kills the internal bluetooth.
That’s a thing on 13” MBP as well, it happened to me. I needed to use some super antiquated BT USB adapter and provide the digital equivalent of an indigenous rain dance in order to revive it. Apparently Apple was just straight up replacing motherboards because of it but I really didn’t want to be without my machine for a week plus during peak COVID.
No. It is all still the same dumpster fire. I think they may have actually made it worse.
I got a calendar notification of a cancelled event. The notification itself had no buttons to interact with. A hover where the close button would be (top left of the nmotification) causes it to appear and also causes a "delete" button to appear in the bottom right. But if I move my mouse off the "close" button to click "delete" both the close and delete buttons disappear. The only way to delete it is to click it (opening the calendar) wait for the calendar to open (5-10s on a 2019 i7 MBP) then open the event itself to delete it.
I got a calendar notification of a cancelled event. The notification itself had no buttons to interact with. A hover where the close button would be (top left of the nmotification) causes it to appear and also causes a "delete" button to appear in the bottom right. But if I move my mouse off the "close" button to click "delete" both the close and delete buttons disappear. The only way to delete it is to click it (opening the calendar) wait for the calendar to open (5-10s on a 2019 i7 MBP) then open the event itself to delete it.
The hidden close button is so dumb. Why make it so small and make it hide if I go 5 pixels away from the notification?
It’s one of the least user friendly patterns in the OS that I can think of off hand, yet one that I have to interact with dozens of times per day. It’s bizarre.
I just realized that the button is impossible to interact with on Monterey. The only way to get the "options" drop down (something that used to be individual buttons on the notification) to appear is to hover over the "X" but if you move the mouse away from that the options drop down disappears. There's actually no way to do something like snooze a notification from the notification itself.
It's an astonishing regression in functionality, even for Apple. And with Apple's recent UI "improvements" I'm not sure if it is a bug or deliberate. I'm probably holding it wrong but I can't figure out the combination of interactions to get that button to persist.
It's an astonishing regression in functionality, even for Apple. And with Apple's recent UI "improvements" I'm not sure if it is a bug or deliberate. I'm probably holding it wrong but I can't figure out the combination of interactions to get that button to persist.
I was hoping someone would mention this.
Shoving everything into a sub-menu made device statuses invisible and involved extra clicks to interact with them. It's user-hostile design.
Shoving everything into a sub-menu made device statuses invisible and involved extra clicks to interact with them. It's user-hostile design.
Did you know you can drag the controls out onto the menu bar?
"show bluetooth in menubar" checkbox in bluetooth prefs also works as it always has.
No, I did not.
It's in the macOS User Guide. Here's the link for the Monterey version:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-center-mchl...
(Note the Tip sentence.)
Always read, or at least browse, the macOS and iOS/iPadOS User Guide. Even advanced users will learn a thing or few.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-center-mchl...
(Note the Tip sentence.)
Always read, or at least browse, the macOS and iOS/iPadOS User Guide. Even advanced users will learn a thing or few.
Not to be rude, but this has been a thing for some time now.
> rude
to Apple?
Why can't this be a predictable hold and drag, like everything else?
They expect users to... what read a manual?
There is an alternative, make it so that users can intuitively discover features by playing around. I believe Steve Jobs told some pretentious story along that line when he launched the iPad.
to Apple?
Why can't this be a predictable hold and drag, like everything else?
They expect users to... what read a manual?
There is an alternative, make it so that users can intuitively discover features by playing around. I believe Steve Jobs told some pretentious story along that line when he launched the iPad.
> There is an alternative, make it so that users can intuitively discover features by playing around. I believe Steve Jobs told some pretentious story along that line when he launched the iPad.
And of course the technology hasn't evolved since then. Society hasn't gotten more complex. The problems we're solving are the same. Nothing has changed and people aren't asking for new things and demanding more convenience.
Everything is static.
?
And of course the technology hasn't evolved since then. Society hasn't gotten more complex. The problems we're solving are the same. Nothing has changed and people aren't asking for new things and demanding more convenience.
Everything is static.
?
> technology hasn't evolved since then... everything is static.
Maybe read again, no one said that. If anything it used to be the norm to have clunky products that require a manual. Many products these days don't need manuals.
I mentioned Steve Jobs to say he was full of shit, I don't believe for a second that Apple did actually pursuit that philosophy, let alone that they should stay doing it
Maybe read again, no one said that. If anything it used to be the norm to have clunky products that require a manual. Many products these days don't need manuals.
I mentioned Steve Jobs to say he was full of shit, I don't believe for a second that Apple did actually pursuit that philosophy, let alone that they should stay doing it
You just blew my mind. Thank you!
This just saved me several minutes every day. Thank you!
holy shit
Bluetooth menu structure is god-tier compared to how it used to be, what do you mean "abomination"?
Apple took away a key feature, where you pressed a key combo (shift+alt) and clicked on the Bluetooth menu bar item, and you'd get an option to reset Bluetooth; this helped for the inevitable case where people have bugs and devices won't connect, or Bluetooth just won't work.
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/reset-mac-bluetooth-module/
That no longer exists on Monterey.
They might be referencing Control Center, though.
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/reset-mac-bluetooth-module/
That no longer exists on Monterey.
They might be referencing Control Center, though.
...are you sure? When bluetooth was broken as all hell in the Monterey betas I believe that the reset trick was the go-to for people to get it to reconnect to devices properly.
Unless they removed it entirely in a later beta and I'm simply unaware.
Unless they removed it entirely in a later beta and I'm simply unaware.
I can only confirm that it's gone from Monterey RC1 and RC2 (& therefore the release build).
How are secret features better than the now-discoverable option of simply shutting it off and turning it back on? It's an all-time computing classic and now it's using the UI classic toggle language. This seems superb to me.
Turning bluetooth on and off doesn't reset anything, so it doesn't help when people have deeper problems with their Mac's bluetooth.
Ok, I understand. That is a regression. The UI piece as a whole is still superior in my opinion, wrt UX at least, even if this is a regression in functionality
been using since first public betas months ago. hated this for a couple weeks, but then once I realized it how it unified everything in one place, now I love it. It took a while for me to adjust to though.
the notifications change makes me actively angry
I'm sitting on catalina for as long as possible on my non-work laptop
I'm sitting on catalina for as long as possible on my non-work laptop
I still don’t understand why clicking the menu date/time opens the notifications? Someone at Apple was paid $million/year to implement that? It still trips me up once a day.
This.
The Bluetooth menu icon used to change if a device was connected. Also devices under the Bluetooth menu used to say connected, and not just turn a light-blue shade.
No joke I could not actually work out how to change the audio device on my mac the other day. Took a while to realise it's hidden in the little menu.
Exactly, thank you! At least they should implement some easy cli commands for those who don't want to deal with the awful UX.
blueutil. I connect my bluetooth headphones to macOS by issuing ‘hp’ in iTerm2 which is an alias to blueutil to connect to my headphones by ID number
I've been enjoying Safari's tab group feature quite a lot. It's helped me wrangle the usual set of 5+ windows of tabs related to various tasks down into a single window, with the groups lined up neatly in a side list and auto-sleeping tabs.
For me at least it's much better than the implementation Chrome has gone for which tries to shoehorn groups into an already overburdened tab bar.
For me at least it's much better than the implementation Chrome has gone for which tries to shoehorn groups into an already overburdened tab bar.
Is there a way to force apps or links to open in the current tab group?
I often find myself clicking links from apps (e.g. Slack), then keep working and loading project related sites. After a while I suddenly have 12 tabs open in the default tab group that all should have been in the project tab group.
It’s not very visible which group you’re currently in. When it switches group from under your feet I often miss that and keep thinking I’m in the old group.
I often find myself clicking links from apps (e.g. Slack), then keep working and loading project related sites. After a while I suddenly have 12 tabs open in the default tab group that all should have been in the project tab group.
It’s not very visible which group you’re currently in. When it switches group from under your feet I often miss that and keep thinking I’m in the old group.
Are all features available on all recent Macs (Intel + M1)? iirc there were some features that there were some exclusive M1 features to come, but also overheard rumors that they'd still roll out on "old" Intel Macs.
Edit: Apparently some features are indeed M1 only. Those features are
- portrait mode in FaceTime
- apparently the new Apple Maps design
- the interactive globe
Seems like the most important features (for me it's livetext) are available on both architectures.
Edit: Apparently some features are indeed M1 only. Those features are
- portrait mode in FaceTime
- apparently the new Apple Maps design
- the interactive globe
Seems like the most important features (for me it's livetext) are available on both architectures.
So Private Relay is available on both iOS and macOS stable releases now.
Have there been expert opinions about how private this is? I understand they built a Tor-light, by hopping through one Apple server, then one external server, with some sort of anonymisation between the two?
Have there been expert opinions about how private this is? I understand they built a Tor-light, by hopping through one Apple server, then one external server, with some sort of anonymisation between the two?
The external servers are like cloudflare and fastly. Private relay doesn’t make any claims to be as private or anonymous as tor. It’s designed more to keep ISPs less aware of your browsing history and prevent websites from tracking you with IP.
In my experience so far, Private Relay just turns off and back on randomly. There’s no safari indicator that private relay is off, just push notifications to inform you of the status. Private relay and mail privacy protection also completely disable when using another VPN. That said I’m very happy to get private relay with iCloud+ as it means phone is approaching the point where carrier can’t associate me with browsing history for to sell to whatever creepy business offers them money.
In my experience so far, Private Relay just turns off and back on randomly. There’s no safari indicator that private relay is off, just push notifications to inform you of the status. Private relay and mail privacy protection also completely disable when using another VPN. That said I’m very happy to get private relay with iCloud+ as it means phone is approaching the point where carrier can’t associate me with browsing history for to sell to whatever creepy business offers them money.
Am I the only one that's really excited about Universal Control? If nothing else, it's extremely impressive from an engineering perspective (if it works as seamlessly as they make it seem). To be able to take your work from your iPad to your iMac like that would be pretty incredible.
It doesn't work very well in office environments unfortunately. I gave it a try with my work MBP and Mac Pro, and the amount of cursor judder / keyboard lag was wild. It'd also just plain not work at times. I think things are better when the environment is less busy and devices can talk to eachother over the same WiFi network (instead of WiFi direct), but it has proven to be unusable in the one scenario where I'd have liked to use it.
Thanks for sharing your experience. That's what I was afraid of when I saw this first advertised. It's a bummer, because it's a feature I could see being useful in a lot of different (ad hoc) scenarios.
I think quite a lot of that has been available by copy/paste over Handoff, it seems like the major change here is that it's available with a shared pointing device. Still impressive!
Agreed, but that one change instantly takes it from "occasionally useful" to "hot damn that's so cool".
I’m a weirdo who does ~1/3 of my device time on my phone so I’ve probably just been using this feature more than most people already :)
A lot of these changes seem to be pandemic-driven, which makes sense, but it's telling that smaller competitors hacked together all these same features within weeks of WFH and the largest and most advanced company in the world is finally here 18 months later.
> hacked together
That’s the thing. Apple doesn’t want a feature to look like a hack, and they also have to consider how every feature plays with everything else in their OS and ecosystem.
That’s the thing. Apple doesn’t want a feature to look like a hack, and they also have to consider how every feature plays with everything else in their OS and ecosystem.
That's what they want, but if you read the rest of the thread and the common comments on Big sur, that's not how it seems to be.
> Apple doesn’t want a feature to look like a hack
Tell that to the Messages team.
Tell that to the Messages team.
> Apple doesn’t want a feature to look like a hack
That means they care about their reputation more than actually helping user. I don't think feedback is valued (more than their designers' opinions), so no reason to ship fast.
That means they care about their reputation more than actually helping user. I don't think feedback is valued (more than their designers' opinions), so no reason to ship fast.
Shipping so fast you end up delivering a bad user experience doesn't actually help the user.
I feel like this needs to be strongly emphasized for the agile crowd that knows what speed is but sometimes forgets what quality is.
I feel like this needs to be strongly emphasized for the agile crowd that knows what speed is but sometimes forgets what quality is.
no one said that speed is the end goal. I said if you don't need to collect feedback, there is no need to ship fast. Of course the outcome is that you have a product with ideas pulled out of your arse instead of responding to users' voices. Having said it could still be good
[deleted]
There seems to be some kind of a negative space exponential law. Margins and paddings increase with every release because designers can’t resist minimalism over density and usefulness.
I'm not sure which specific elements you're referring to, but it very well could be in your head. I remember everyone complaining about the wasted space in the latest Safari tab redesign, until a designer showed that there is actually less wasted space in the new design than there was before. It just didn't look it.
Not saying it's like this in every case. Just something to consider.
Not saying it's like this in every case. Just something to consider.
Literally the only interesting feature, to me, is Low Power Mode
My PowerPC G4 PowerBooks have that.
I wonder what the battery life on M1 pro is with Low power mode compared to m1
How stable is Monterey for those that have been using it?
Ironically I just upgraded to Big Sur yesterday from Catalina. I think I'll probably wait again to let 3rd-party apps catch up.
Ironically I just upgraded to Big Sur yesterday from Catalina. I think I'll probably wait again to let 3rd-party apps catch up.
That's exactly what I do each autumn: Update to the macOS version from autumn last year.
So far I was fine with it though of course sometimes it's annoying to get the latest XCode (and iOS sdk) version for development, so I have to resort to a VM from time to time.
Helpful website: https://xcodereleases.com/
So far I was fine with it though of course sometimes it's annoying to get the latest XCode (and iOS sdk) version for development, so I have to resort to a VM from time to time.
Helpful website: https://xcodereleases.com/
I've kind of indirect experience: my girlfriend is an iOS developer, and has been using it on her only Mac for a while.
In the beginning it was awful for her. A lot of failures. However, after a couple of months it became quite stable, and she stopped complaining. The only thing that was kind of a nightmare was Xcode.
I'm updating it, and if I were you, I'd update right away too. There are many improvements.
In the beginning it was awful for her. A lot of failures. However, after a couple of months it became quite stable, and she stopped complaining. The only thing that was kind of a nightmare was Xcode.
I'm updating it, and if I were you, I'd update right away too. There are many improvements.
What improvements in your girlfriend's daily workflow would she say are most notable, did she mention?
Performance-wise is much better. Animations are smooth, and even AirPlay seems to work better.
Safari is also slightly better, although she dislikes the new way it organizes tabs.
That said, the thing she told me she liked the most, feature-wise related to her daily workflow, is the new Shortcuts app.
Safari is also slightly better, although she dislikes the new way it organizes tabs.
That said, the thing she told me she liked the most, feature-wise related to her daily workflow, is the new Shortcuts app.
Been better than Big Sur so far for me, on 16". Have had temperature issues with Big Sur, resulting in decreased perf due to clocking down (even with TG Pro). Now consistently 5-10 degrees cooler and less fan noise. Using "Intel Power gadget" to see the CPU frequency.
EDIT: I did not install it until the RC.
EDIT: I did not install it until the RC.
> Ironically I just upgraded to Big Sur yesterday from Catalina.
I intended to do the same this morning and literally witnessed the "Upgrade Now" change from Big Sur to Monterey as I was about to click it. Took me a while to find the appropriate link for Big Sur in the Mac App Store.
I intended to do the same this morning and literally witnessed the "Upgrade Now" change from Big Sur to Monterey as I was about to click it. Took me a while to find the appropriate link for Big Sur in the Mac App Store.
The beta was terrible, up to memory leaks in applications in the latest release candidate. As a new user I under-estimated the amount of irritating bugs they would ship. I sure hope the release is better.
It's been pretty good, although it still has some strange bugs, but those might be a me problem. Namely, Mission Control crashes on me about 15 times a day. I have to 'killall Dock' to bring it back. Also, using Cmd-Space to launch apps is janky -- if I type say Saf, it will say "Safari.app" for about .7 seconds and then the autocomplete goes away. So I have to enter in those .7 seconds.
Other than those two things, it's been pretty solid lately.
Other than those two things, it's been pretty solid lately.
SharePlay to Mac is utterly broken, see my other comment.
Other than that, it seems more stable and faster than Big Sur, and that's without a clean install. Notes used to take 4 bounces to open on M1, now opens instantly. Haven't seen any crashing. No broken features that aren't brand new. I've only found one bug: Safari reopens private windows even if you turn that off. But no problem if you don't use Safari.
Other than that, it seems more stable and faster than Big Sur, and that's without a clean install. Notes used to take 4 bounces to open on M1, now opens instantly. Haven't seen any crashing. No broken features that aren't brand new. I've only found one bug: Safari reopens private windows even if you turn that off. But no problem if you don't use Safari.
This extremely aggravating Bluetooth issue is driving me insane: https://reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/q1trtn/bluetooth_con...
I’m running out of ideas on how to fix this.
I’m running out of ideas on how to fix this.
11.6.1 (the latest Big Sur) was out this morning, so you may have to check for updates again.
If it is your work machine than you probably shouldn't upgrade right away, give it a week or two (esp. if you work with old/outdated dependencies or packages). For personal machines I would be less cautious.
Have been using since June and haven't ran into any bugs/issues that prevents me from doing work. Unlike previous macOS betas were often there was at least one or two that would break things.
I've been using it since a few betas in on all my devices, with zero issues. Anecdata and my work is mostly Chrome(/ium) and Android Studio.
Okay macOS, if you’re gonna deprecate kexts, please give us a VFS API that fulfills the role of macFUSE, not the syncthing-esque API of FileProvider.
Are there any api changes? I’d love to see a new version moving to feature parity with vulkan.
Given how stable Big Sur was until 11.15.6 I don't think I'll be hastily upgrading!
[Edited]
I think you mean Catalina? That was 10.15. Big Sur was 11.
Oops. Typo, meant 11. Edited.
That Focus mode would be killer if it integrated some sort of pomodoro / calendar integration.
There are people that do some wild things with shortcuts, I wouldn't be surprised if someone has already done the work with that.
Edit: It looks like shortcuts won't be able to set (or clear) focus modes, so that'll have to wait. Bummer.
Edit: It looks like shortcuts won't be able to set (or clear) focus modes, so that'll have to wait. Bummer.
That’s unfortunate, you can set focus modes from shortcuts on ios.
When i turn on my Bluetooth speaker in the shower room it goes into a focus mode that diverts all calls for 15 mins and resumes my podcasts. I thought the experience on macos was supposed to be a superset of the ios one. Really poor decision by apple then.
When i turn on my Bluetooth speaker in the shower room it goes into a focus mode that diverts all calls for 15 mins and resumes my podcasts. I thought the experience on macos was supposed to be a superset of the ios one. Really poor decision by apple then.
I’m totally stealing this idea.
Shortcuts on iPadOS and whatever beta of Monterey I'm running on this computer can both set and clear focus modes. I use that on my iPad to set a focus mode, which also updates my home screens, and launch AudioBus in one go by running my shortcut. Weirdly it can't check what the current focus mode is.
Check out Cold Turkey.
Yet another release that misses a crucial feature.
With the recent years push to store "everything in the cloud", macOS sorely needs a way to backup cloud content. Currently the only way to do so, is to create a "server" machine that pulls everything from the cloud and stores it locally, which you can then backup.
Since most modern computers are sold with harddrives size equivalent of a USB Stick, and cloud storage is typically 2-10 times larger, this means you need to add even more hardware just to hold the data you just want to backup.
Considering that Apple is pretty vague with regards to exactly how protected your iCloud data is, and they themselves strongly recommend that you backup your iCloud data, i find it an odd omision that the only way to do it is part manual process, part synchronize stuff locally before backing it up.
All it would take (on the UI end) was an option in Time Machine to include "mac optimized storage". Third party support gets a bit more complicated. Where Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox all use placeholder files, iCloud placeholders apparently only exists inside "Finder", so most third party backup software won't be able to see these files.
With the recent years push to store "everything in the cloud", macOS sorely needs a way to backup cloud content. Currently the only way to do so, is to create a "server" machine that pulls everything from the cloud and stores it locally, which you can then backup.
Since most modern computers are sold with harddrives size equivalent of a USB Stick, and cloud storage is typically 2-10 times larger, this means you need to add even more hardware just to hold the data you just want to backup.
Considering that Apple is pretty vague with regards to exactly how protected your iCloud data is, and they themselves strongly recommend that you backup your iCloud data, i find it an odd omision that the only way to do it is part manual process, part synchronize stuff locally before backing it up.
All it would take (on the UI end) was an option in Time Machine to include "mac optimized storage". Third party support gets a bit more complicated. Where Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox all use placeholder files, iCloud placeholders apparently only exists inside "Finder", so most third party backup software won't be able to see these files.
If you own an apple computer that has just dropped support, try the open core legcy patcher (https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/) after doing a backup(always!). I just upgraded my dear MacBook Air 11 from 2014 to Monterey and it just runs ... so 3 more years of patches for this machine :-D.
> What is OpenCore?
> This is a sophisticated boot loader used to inject and patch data in memory, instead of on disk.
I suppose that works because old MacBooks didn't have signed bootloaders?
> This is a sophisticated boot loader used to inject and patch data in memory, instead of on disk.
I suppose that works because old MacBooks didn't have signed bootloaders?
mid-2012 MBP 13 inch, used OCLP and Monterey works at least as well as Catalina (better in many respects)
I bought a 2019 iMac with a Fusion drive.
In the next major update (High Sierra), Apple switched to APFS, which has issues with Fusion drives.
It often shows as having no empty space, even with 40% empty.
Much, much worse, it stops writing to disk without giving any indication (the non written items show in finder, etc.) - for some ten hours or more - and then suddenly crashes and you find that the entire days worth of work is completely gone. Not on disk, not on external backup, not in Time Machine.
This happens EVERY DAY, at least once a day, when using heavy programs such as Photoshop.
There are many threads about the issue, and the only solution is to get a new non-Fusion drive and copy over everything. Much easier said than done.
I cannot even begin to describe how much aggravation Apple has caused, and how little faith I have in them testing their upgrades.
And of course, the whole play with searching my hard drive for something their algorithm thinks goes against my local government [which plays for keeps, thank you] - doesn't help.
In the next major update (High Sierra), Apple switched to APFS, which has issues with Fusion drives.
It often shows as having no empty space, even with 40% empty.
Much, much worse, it stops writing to disk without giving any indication (the non written items show in finder, etc.) - for some ten hours or more - and then suddenly crashes and you find that the entire days worth of work is completely gone. Not on disk, not on external backup, not in Time Machine.
This happens EVERY DAY, at least once a day, when using heavy programs such as Photoshop.
There are many threads about the issue, and the only solution is to get a new non-Fusion drive and copy over everything. Much easier said than done.
I cannot even begin to describe how much aggravation Apple has caused, and how little faith I have in them testing their upgrades.
And of course, the whole play with searching my hard drive for something their algorithm thinks goes against my local government [which plays for keeps, thank you] - doesn't help.
Contact AppleCare, immediately ask for a Tier 2 advisor, and insist they file an RTA (Request for Technical Assistance). RTAs go to engineering directly.
I 100% agree though, as someone who supports a wide range of macs, APFS can absolutely cripple anything with a fusion drive / hard drive, and it's particularly infuriating because Apple sold models with JUST spinning rust for wayyyyy too long.
I 100% agree though, as someone who supports a wide range of macs, APFS can absolutely cripple anything with a fusion drive / hard drive, and it's particularly infuriating because Apple sold models with JUST spinning rust for wayyyyy too long.
Sorry to hear about your problems.
But what does it have to do with the topic at hand: the new version of macOS?
But what does it have to do with the topic at hand: the new version of macOS?
is CSAM scanning included?
Yes. If you use iCloud Photo Library then CSAM is scanned server-side.
Same it has always been and no different to every other service.
Same it has always been and no different to every other service.
I am referring to the on device flavor - if it does not apply to macOS that is great.
The server-side version is strictly less private.
Only if the client-side scanning includes end-to-end encryption, which was never part of the deal. It was a possible future feature. Also, only if the-client side scanning only scans images being uploaded to iCloud and not literally everything.
Also any kind of content scanning is always strictly worse than no scanning at all.
Also any kind of content scanning is always strictly worse than no scanning at all.
The proposal was of course to check only images being uploaded to iCloud.
Nope - not client-side, but server-side, it's been there for, like, half a decade.
Untill os source code is closed you can't be Shure that they're not do scanning.
Why would they do it in secret? It's a "feature" they really want to use as a PR opportunity. They just messed up the first announcement.
One thing that was slightly confusing in the initial announcement was that it was said to be released on a day when no OS update was happening[0]. I've been unable to find details of how the rollout was supposed to happen, but if no OS update was needed the code would have had to already be deployed in a previous update before it was officially disclosed by Apple, wouldn't it? I don't know of any sources that show it was present and if so whether it has been verified that it was removed, but if such sources exist I would appreciate references.
EDIT: This announcement from Apple says it was to be included in an iOS 15 update when ready [1] so unlikely it was just dormant in some previous update.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741 [1]: https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
EDIT: This announcement from Apple says it was to be included in an iOS 15 update when ready [1] so unlikely it was just dormant in some previous update.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741 [1]: https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
Note that Apple never included macOS in the initial announcement. They just included it for the Siri changes, and possibly the Messages changes.
after a quick re-read I see what you are saying, it initially seemed like Monterrey was included with the on-device scanning but good news if not.
Wait. Is this normal cross platform FaceTime? Or is this like a different FaceTime because FaceTime is awesome.
There's a web client. Non-apple devices can join calls but can't initiate them.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212619
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212619
If you're on iOS/macOS, you can send someone a web link to join a FaceTime call with you. Not sure how the browser support is offhand. There's no client for anything else and others can't initiate calls.
I believe it's web based for cross platform. So equivalent to Google Meet and with similar UX limitations.
Everyone can initiate a call in Google Meet. Only Apple customers can initiate a call in FaceTime. So, they're not exactly equivalent.
Big Sur is the first macOS since I have been using macOS (I distinctly recall being extremely excited to install System 7) where the next major version (Monterey) came out before I had installed it onto any of my daily driver systems.
I'm not really sure what this says about macOS product management decisions, but I don't think it's a good thing.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/fucking-apple-4/
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/can-light-gray-text-on-ligh...
I'm not really sure what this says about macOS product management decisions, but I don't think it's a good thing.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/fucking-apple-4/
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/can-light-gray-text-on-ligh...
I'm still on Mojave. Is it possible to jump versions, or must I upgrade incrementally?
Note that macOS versions beyond Mojave drop support for 32-bit binaries.
That's why I've held on so long. I'd have to say goodbye forever to Adobe Fireworks, the best web design tool ever developed.
Why fix what's not broke?
Betting that the next incremental update will be named macOS Carmel.
Nah, too close, they will go farther north, I think.
Point Reyes is my bet.
Point Reyes is my bet.
Closeness is the point. They did do Yosemite/El Capitan and Sierra/High Sierra, after all.
Humboldt
Ventana
Private replay in macOS Monterey is not compatible with content restrictions in screen time. If you use screen time to block some websites, private relay won’t work.
Has Anyone found a solution yet?
Has Anyone found a solution yet?
Macbook Pro 2020 13-inch doesn't turn on after this actions:
1) Downloaded Monterey update. In the end appeared error message that some package with strange name can't be unpacked
2) Downloaded Big Sur 1.16.1 update, because information about Monterey disappeared and there were not any button to install new OS.
3) System was automatically rebooted after 2), started update screen in few minutes and macbook completely turned off with no signs of power.
Resseting SMC, NVRAM didn't help. Battery was 73% when started updates.
1) Downloaded Monterey update. In the end appeared error message that some package with strange name can't be unpacked
2) Downloaded Big Sur 1.16.1 update, because information about Monterey disappeared and there were not any button to install new OS.
3) System was automatically rebooted after 2), started update screen in few minutes and macbook completely turned off with no signs of power.
Resseting SMC, NVRAM didn't help. Battery was 73% when started updates.
Did they fix the misplaced keyboard focus and missing tab order when you mistype a password on the lock screen?
That's been making me crazy for the last few macOS releases.
That's been making me crazy for the last few macOS releases.
Not advertised. But with the new 16 in MBP and “M1 Max” CPU, it supports up to 3 6K displays - https://support.apple.com/guide/macbook-pro/use-an-external-.... There must be at least one reviewer out there with 3 of the pro xdr displays.
(this is roughly $28K by the way)
(this is roughly $28K by the way)
I hope Apple will add an accessibility option to disable temporal dithering in the OS.
It causes a minority of people eyestrain, vertigo and migraines. See LEDstrain.org.
It causes a minority of people eyestrain, vertigo and migraines. See LEDstrain.org.
I tend to just surf through MacOS releases. It's mostly just updates to the native apps which I don't use anyways, so I'm rarely affected neither positively nor negatively. Well, Big Sur made the notification widget/area worse for me, but other than that I can't remember any significant changes in the past 5 years since I've been using Mac.
Have they finally fixed the issue of when you click something, and it suddenly changes, you end up clicking the wrong thing?
Monterey seems to have fixed audio stutter I was constantly experiencing on Bluetooth headphones (AKG Y500). On BigSur every time the headphones reconnected I had to reset the Bluetooth module - btw, the reset option seems to be missing in Monterey.
So that's a big improvement in my book.
So that's a big improvement in my book.
While connected to 2.4Ghz wifi?
Any word on the fate of OpenGL?
Yes, it was deprecated ages ago in favor of Metal, but Apple still shipped an OpenGL implementation. However, I read some rumors that in Monterey they have finally ripped it out.
Can anyone confirm or deny?
Yes, it was deprecated ages ago in favor of Metal, but Apple still shipped an OpenGL implementation. However, I read some rumors that in Monterey they have finally ripped it out.
Can anyone confirm or deny?
Looks like a lot of great upgrades to apps I've never used.
The most infuriating bug for me is that Preview opens each PDF in a new window instead of tabs (even with 'Prefer tabs always' selected in Sys Pref).
It is frustrating to see how stagnant desktop OS's have become. Both macOS and Windows 11 have added incremental features that are surely nice to have, but no one dares to improve on the human-computer-interaction which has remained the same for decades now.
With the advances in AI and the ridiculous compute power of modern CPUs, we should be able to have OSs that are Digital Assistants.
Just one example:
- file management: Why even? Why expose most regular users to this metaphor in the first place. Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail. If I write a lot of documents and need to come up with names for them, I expect that to be sufficient. My Assistant will sort/group/maintain them for me and if I want to open the "status report to vendor X from last week", then that should be enough. Make sure my documents are safely stored, encrypted and all that jazz. Don't make me pick between "iCloud" or "OneDrive" or "C:\" or "Document" or "Desktop". Index all the content I'm producing semantically. Just DoWhatIMean? (tm) Have this be consistent throughout the applications I'm using - including web apps. (And why even make that distinction. Who here doesn't have relatives who have trouble understanding the differences between locally installed applications, apps on their phone and web apps in the browser?)
Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
"Do you want to change the extension to .doc or change it to .txt"? What?!? "Do you want to overwrite file "xyz.xls"? Overwriting sounds bad, what happens if I say no though?
That is just the tip of the iceberg where we are somehow tied to ideas of HCI that are rooted in the 70s/80s.
I do appreciate being able to tell my phone "Set a timer for 10 minutes", but where is "Plan a trip to Dallas for next week Friday" - and the Digital Assistant knowing exactly what to do (since that ain't its first rodeo)?
With the advances in AI and the ridiculous compute power of modern CPUs, we should be able to have OSs that are Digital Assistants.
Just one example:
- file management: Why even? Why expose most regular users to this metaphor in the first place. Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail. If I write a lot of documents and need to come up with names for them, I expect that to be sufficient. My Assistant will sort/group/maintain them for me and if I want to open the "status report to vendor X from last week", then that should be enough. Make sure my documents are safely stored, encrypted and all that jazz. Don't make me pick between "iCloud" or "OneDrive" or "C:\" or "Document" or "Desktop". Index all the content I'm producing semantically. Just DoWhatIMean? (tm) Have this be consistent throughout the applications I'm using - including web apps. (And why even make that distinction. Who here doesn't have relatives who have trouble understanding the differences between locally installed applications, apps on their phone and web apps in the browser?)
Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
"Do you want to change the extension to .doc or change it to .txt"? What?!? "Do you want to overwrite file "xyz.xls"? Overwriting sounds bad, what happens if I say no though?
That is just the tip of the iceberg where we are somehow tied to ideas of HCI that are rooted in the 70s/80s.
I do appreciate being able to tell my phone "Set a timer for 10 minutes", but where is "Plan a trip to Dallas for next week Friday" - and the Digital Assistant knowing exactly what to do (since that ain't its first rodeo)?
> Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
This is revisionist computing history of a sort that is becoming more common these days as certain people retire.
The concept of files predates the concept of "a desktop" by decades. There is a much deeper metaphor to "files" than there is to "files on a desktop", and one that is hard to dispense with even if you have extraordinarily smart search available.
> Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail.
Almost entirely by shrinking the scope of what can be done to a point that would be useless for what is currently understod as a desktop computer. You want that model? Get a big, powerful tablet.
This is revisionist computing history of a sort that is becoming more common these days as certain people retire.
The concept of files predates the concept of "a desktop" by decades. There is a much deeper metaphor to "files" than there is to "files on a desktop", and one that is hard to dispense with even if you have extraordinarily smart search available.
> Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail.
Almost entirely by shrinking the scope of what can be done to a point that would be useless for what is currently understod as a desktop computer. You want that model? Get a big, powerful tablet.
I don't like hero worship, but I happened to hear a Steve Jobs clip the other day, where he said: a great idea is only 10% what you think it's worth; the 90% is the implementation details and craftsmanship that goes into it.
I don't want an OS that "doesn't make me pick between iCloud or ~/Documents". That just means turning macOS into ChromeOS. An OS with just a search bar would break a ridiculous amount of uses, from shared computers or cloud drives where everyone knows to put the files in the right folder, but your colleagues have weird naming conventions, so you can't search by name, but if the files were side-by-side it would be common sense which one you want; to the dangers of ambiguity between cloud and local storage; to the reality that many use personal computers for work and would get fired if certain personal files/media showed up in a File Search for work documents. You imply that iOS-style file management is easier for average users, but at a previous workplace, there was a central Mac that had important text files with .odt extensions, all organised on the desktop, that opened in TextEdit since LibreOffice/OpenOffice was for some reason never installed. How would TextEdit show those files if all you had was the Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion-esque TextEdit iCloud open box? The documents wouldn't show up, since it would only show TextEdit documents, i.e. rich text files (.rtd). If it makes sense to keep multiple types of files together, like text files and spreadsheets, you'd have to put them in a folder, not app-specific storage. But that sounds identical to what we have now. How would I open any random local text file in Google Docs? Wouldn't that be a huge privacy flaw, that Apple would never build into Safari anyway? You'd just end up with silos within each app, with no idea how to move things around, since I think the iOS metaphor is actually less intuitive than putting folders on your desktop with things inside them.
Everyone likes imagining better ways to manage files, but no one has been able to come up with one that's intuitive, not even Apple with iOS. The only reason they get away with it, is very few people actually ever interact with files on iOS. Instagram, Snapchat, Reminders, Clock, Safari don't involve documents, and for many people, that's what they use their phone for, period. Google Docs are in the app; how would they open in any other app anyway? As for iPad users, people might create something in ProCreate, and then export it. I don't think iPads are used as file storage devices, just as inputs to bring somewhere else.
I don't want an OS that "doesn't make me pick between iCloud or ~/Documents". That just means turning macOS into ChromeOS. An OS with just a search bar would break a ridiculous amount of uses, from shared computers or cloud drives where everyone knows to put the files in the right folder, but your colleagues have weird naming conventions, so you can't search by name, but if the files were side-by-side it would be common sense which one you want; to the dangers of ambiguity between cloud and local storage; to the reality that many use personal computers for work and would get fired if certain personal files/media showed up in a File Search for work documents. You imply that iOS-style file management is easier for average users, but at a previous workplace, there was a central Mac that had important text files with .odt extensions, all organised on the desktop, that opened in TextEdit since LibreOffice/OpenOffice was for some reason never installed. How would TextEdit show those files if all you had was the Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion-esque TextEdit iCloud open box? The documents wouldn't show up, since it would only show TextEdit documents, i.e. rich text files (.rtd). If it makes sense to keep multiple types of files together, like text files and spreadsheets, you'd have to put them in a folder, not app-specific storage. But that sounds identical to what we have now. How would I open any random local text file in Google Docs? Wouldn't that be a huge privacy flaw, that Apple would never build into Safari anyway? You'd just end up with silos within each app, with no idea how to move things around, since I think the iOS metaphor is actually less intuitive than putting folders on your desktop with things inside them.
Everyone likes imagining better ways to manage files, but no one has been able to come up with one that's intuitive, not even Apple with iOS. The only reason they get away with it, is very few people actually ever interact with files on iOS. Instagram, Snapchat, Reminders, Clock, Safari don't involve documents, and for many people, that's what they use their phone for, period. Google Docs are in the app; how would they open in any other app anyway? As for iPad users, people might create something in ProCreate, and then export it. I don't think iPads are used as file storage devices, just as inputs to bring somewhere else.
It's hilarious, so many people seem to want to get rid of files and folders, but every single development team I've ever been on has a ton of documentation, working documents, prototypes, etc. organized in... get this: a hierarchical structure. Files within folders within other folders, and so on. Whether literal filesystem or web-based interface or whatever. I've never once seen a project of any sort happen without some kind of structure and hierarchy in the data that everyone is working within. Even all the cloud stuff implements these paradigms (is there any that doesn't?)...
For working on computers, "getting rid of the concept of files" is just not a realistic idea whatsoever. It's no surprise the metaphor has worked for 50+ years.
For working on computers, "getting rid of the concept of files" is just not a realistic idea whatsoever. It's no surprise the metaphor has worked for 50+ years.
Yeah I agree. I mean what other option is there? A flat space where you search for everything and hope you remember the right words for it?
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IMO, probably the best replacement for deeply nested folder would be tags.
> I happened to hear a Steve Jobs clip the other day, where he said: a great idea is only 10% what you think it's worth; the 90% is the implementation details and craftsmanship that goes into it.
I like your comment, and I would LOVE a source on the quote!
I like your comment, and I would LOVE a source on the quote!
https://vimeo.com/475108226 at 35:30
>Mobile OSs have been rather successful in getting rid of this implementation detail.
Dear God, the lack of proper file management on mobile is absolutely awful and makes so many things harder than they need to be. I really hope desktop OSes don't go down that path.
Dear God, the lack of proper file management on mobile is absolutely awful and makes so many things harder than they need to be. I really hope desktop OSes don't go down that path.
>we should be able to have OSs that are Digital Assistants.
Please don't touch my OS.
>Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
I'm going to make argument that regular users are struggling with directory structures because of how OSes are increasingly "helpful". In DOS 2.0, it was simple: each physical disk has filesystem with tree structure, no shortcuts, no symlinks. I doubt anybody was confused by that. But let's pretend I don't know about usual quirks and see how that goes in Windows: where the hell is "Desktop"? Does everything is contained inside it? After all, "My Computer" icon is there, and clicking "dir up" in My Computer goes back to Desktop! But then, Desktop itself is contained in My Computer, so hmm... And why on Desktop there are shortcuts there that.. doesn't seem to be in Desktop directory? Ah, because they are in some magic place "C:/Users/Public/Desktop". And by the way, why it is usually called "Pulpit" (localized name in my language), but when in path it's not localized and just "Desktop"? Where my browser stores browsing history? Surely it must be in some file? Right, probably in user directory... wait, how do I open user directory? Documents folder surely must be stored inside it, so let's click "dir up" there. Uh, it went back to dreaded My Computer. Fine, I will go there manually through C:/Users/. So the browser files will be in AppData.. but it isn't here.. ah right, it is hidden for some reason. But there's still something fishy about the Documents, it doesn't behave like a normal directory. Let's see in Properties dialog, there's Location tab, so it looks like it works like shortcut to it, simple enough. Uh.. actually no, because it is part of "Libraries" mechanism, and is actually configured in AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Libraries. Documents (and other libraries) might be actually configured to squash multiple directories in their virtual view. Now, why OneDrive is another special directory, and even worse, MS Office seems to have special relationship with it? And so on and so on...
Really, it's no wonder that most regular people are confused about it.
Please don't touch my OS.
>Regular users are consistently struggling with low-level concepts like 'files' and similar remnants of trying to emulate desktop metaphors from the workplaces of the 80ies.
I'm going to make argument that regular users are struggling with directory structures because of how OSes are increasingly "helpful". In DOS 2.0, it was simple: each physical disk has filesystem with tree structure, no shortcuts, no symlinks. I doubt anybody was confused by that. But let's pretend I don't know about usual quirks and see how that goes in Windows: where the hell is "Desktop"? Does everything is contained inside it? After all, "My Computer" icon is there, and clicking "dir up" in My Computer goes back to Desktop! But then, Desktop itself is contained in My Computer, so hmm... And why on Desktop there are shortcuts there that.. doesn't seem to be in Desktop directory? Ah, because they are in some magic place "C:/Users/Public/Desktop". And by the way, why it is usually called "Pulpit" (localized name in my language), but when in path it's not localized and just "Desktop"? Where my browser stores browsing history? Surely it must be in some file? Right, probably in user directory... wait, how do I open user directory? Documents folder surely must be stored inside it, so let's click "dir up" there. Uh, it went back to dreaded My Computer. Fine, I will go there manually through C:/Users/. So the browser files will be in AppData.. but it isn't here.. ah right, it is hidden for some reason. But there's still something fishy about the Documents, it doesn't behave like a normal directory. Let's see in Properties dialog, there's Location tab, so it looks like it works like shortcut to it, simple enough. Uh.. actually no, because it is part of "Libraries" mechanism, and is actually configured in AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Libraries. Documents (and other libraries) might be actually configured to squash multiple directories in their virtual view. Now, why OneDrive is another special directory, and even worse, MS Office seems to have special relationship with it? And so on and so on...
Really, it's no wonder that most regular people are confused about it.
You can have my thoughtfully organized directories of hundreds of files made by multiple programs that have no idea they’re all part of a single project when you can pry them from my cold dead hands.
A human assistant would have endless trouble with that “plan a trip to Dallas” request. When/why? For how long? What kind of accommodation? Your preferences may vary a lot depending on the purpose of the trip, budget, and so on. It’s a pipe dream.
On not having files, you may not remember that iOS did go that route until ~2018, and it was terrible. Tying documents to a single app, proprietary formats and awkward sharing facilities made for a very poor experience. I’m glad they returned to sanity and introduced the Files app.
As others have mentioned, a lot of these concepts predate modern OSes and are tied to universal HCI principles. Some of the best work in the area was done in the 60s.
On not having files, you may not remember that iOS did go that route until ~2018, and it was terrible. Tying documents to a single app, proprietary formats and awkward sharing facilities made for a very poor experience. I’m glad they returned to sanity and introduced the Files app.
As others have mentioned, a lot of these concepts predate modern OSes and are tied to universal HCI principles. Some of the best work in the area was done in the 60s.
As you say, we're getting exactly these advances with phone and tablet OSs. iPads are becoming a dream appliance in the ways you mention and capture 90% of the average person's computing needs.
Regular computers have to maintain some backward compatibility and it's nice for power users to still be allowed to fiddle with file extensions and system internals.
Regular computers have to maintain some backward compatibility and it's nice for power users to still be allowed to fiddle with file extensions and system internals.
But no one uses tablets in practices. Everyone I know who bought an iPad or iPad pro use it for a bit and then it just takes dust.
Correct. Or they become Netflix viewers, or are used to doodle in Procreate or something. I am yet to meet a person who uses the OS (as opposed to specific apps) for something complicated. Apple loves to show how easy it is to drag an image from Email in to Pages. But nobody uses an iPad for Pages. And even that simple interaction is still somehow easier on a Mac.
The latest MacBook gives me hope that post-Ive Apple is serious about giving their customers what they want. I would love to see an iPadOS for people who do actual work one day.
Note: I'm trying to make a distinction between iPadOS and the apps on an iPad. Plenty of apps are useful for actual work. However the OS itself is very much a hinderance.
The latest MacBook gives me hope that post-Ive Apple is serious about giving their customers what they want. I would love to see an iPadOS for people who do actual work one day.
Note: I'm trying to make a distinction between iPadOS and the apps on an iPad. Plenty of apps are useful for actual work. However the OS itself is very much a hinderance.
People who want to use Pages in iPad... for the sake of your life, please don't do it. It is quite... aggravating trying to move that freaking table from few cm across and it ended up 3 inches away. My forehead vein was ready to burst that day. It is not worth the experience to use it on the iPad unless for a simple essay or letter which should be fine. But if you try to go beyond that, make sure you remember to go to your happy place so often when you try.
"OS, not apps" is a kind of weird distinction for a lot of users, though. I used an iPad as my only portable computer for a bit over a year, so I get what you're saying -- there were definitely things that were easier to do on macOS than iOS, and those things tended to revolve around system-level features that were present in AppKit but not UIKit. But it was also surprising to me how little there was that I couldn't do on the iPad.
HN users tend to understandably be focused on development tools, where iOS really is pretty handicapped. (I suspect this is only going to change through moving development environments fully into the cloud. But there are an awful lot of people who use computers for an awful lot of things who probably could replace those computers with iPads already. (Do keep in mind that one user's "doodle in Procreate" is another user's "bring in several thousand a month on an art Patreon.")
HN users tend to understandably be focused on development tools, where iOS really is pretty handicapped. (I suspect this is only going to change through moving development environments fully into the cloud. But there are an awful lot of people who use computers for an awful lot of things who probably could replace those computers with iPads already. (Do keep in mind that one user's "doodle in Procreate" is another user's "bring in several thousand a month on an art Patreon.")
Perhaps I am the only one who use iPad daily. I uses it for work and video streaming from my PC folder share. Still using it for 4 years and onward.
It would be good to have a really solid answer about why that happens.
I had an android tablet at some point and... it was nice to read comic books on it I guess ? But whenever I wanted to do something a bit productive - I remember trying to do mindmaps, bibliography work and similar research-ey stuff it was painful and I ended redoing everything on a computer with keyboard shortcuts. On the other hand my Remarkable is seeing a great deal of work... Drawing little schemas on it is incredible.
> "iCloud" or "OneDrive" or "C:\" or "Document" or "Desktop".
Desktops have been slowly edging in that direction, but I don't think it helps. I guess it depends on what kind of brain you have, but I can't do this. I need something spatial, a quite rigid structure. I use shallow hierarchies (folders!).
Desktops have been slowly edging in that direction, but I don't think it helps. I guess it depends on what kind of brain you have, but I can't do this. I need something spatial, a quite rigid structure. I use shallow hierarchies (folders!).
If you're too dumb to understand a fundamental concept like file extensions, which has been around for decades, and remains at the core of desktop computing, you should not be allowed near computers, and you definitely have no say in what computers are, should do, or should work like.
This is an elitist view and there is nothing wrong with that. Don't dumb down desktop computers for those of us who like and understand them as they are. Everyone else can use an iPad.
I can imagine a few reasons for such stagnation:
- Business: there isn't a strong business need to re-think the desktop UI. There are needs on mobile and the web, but improving the classic desktop doesn't give a competitive advantage (unless you can combine it with the web and mobile, which is exactly what Apple, Google, and MS are trying to do).
- Developers: you need to attract developers to your platform too. Devs will ignore your unique features if they are not attractive enough to justify the change, and they are not cross-platform. Examples:
Maybe the next generation "desktop" is not a classic desktop but an evolution of the web browser. The sad part is that all the new environments (iOS, iPadOS, Android, ChromeOS, SaaS apps) are extremely closed and hostile to tinker with the system.
- Business: there isn't a strong business need to re-think the desktop UI. There are needs on mobile and the web, but improving the classic desktop doesn't give a competitive advantage (unless you can combine it with the web and mobile, which is exactly what Apple, Google, and MS are trying to do).
- Developers: you need to attract developers to your platform too. Devs will ignore your unique features if they are not attractive enough to justify the change, and they are not cross-platform. Examples:
- Smalltalk envs are like an extremely hackable Desktop OS (eg. Squeak or Pharo). They don't use the files as the storage unit, and the technology to scale the object image existed for a long time (eg. GemStone/St). The first complaint that you'll hear about St is: "where are my files and version control?". There is no interest in the dev community to make files go away because it breaks the tools that you use every day.
- macOS has features to support version history, or conveniently handle files (eg. auto-save, rename in place, cloud support). But, those features are not cross-platform, and they are ignored by the cross-platform "pro" software: VSCode, JetBrains IDEs, Adobe Products, Figma.
Maybe the next generation "desktop" is not a classic desktop but an evolution of the web browser. The sad part is that all the new environments (iOS, iPadOS, Android, ChromeOS, SaaS apps) are extremely closed and hostile to tinker with the system.
> The first complaint that you'll hear about St is: "where are my files and version control?"
More like "Where's the program?"
Early '80s Smalltalk did use change-sets in files.
p462 "Smalltalk-80 The Interactive Programming Environment"
https://rmod-files.lille.inria.fr/FreeBooks/TheInteractivePr...
----
You're right, Smalltalk is about "modifying objects that represent classes and methods" rather than editing files.
So versioning means fine-grained "classes and methods" rather than versioning files.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mastering_ENVY_Develope...
----
You're right, we know what we like - we like what we know.
So (Pharo) "Manage Your Code with Git and Iceberg"
https://books.pharo.org/booklet-ManageCode/pdf/2020-05-12-Ma...
More like "Where's the program?"
Early '80s Smalltalk did use change-sets in files.
p462 "Smalltalk-80 The Interactive Programming Environment"
https://rmod-files.lille.inria.fr/FreeBooks/TheInteractivePr...
----
You're right, Smalltalk is about "modifying objects that represent classes and methods" rather than editing files.
So versioning means fine-grained "classes and methods" rather than versioning files.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mastering_ENVY_Develope...
----
You're right, we know what we like - we like what we know.
So (Pharo) "Manage Your Code with Git and Iceberg"
https://books.pharo.org/booklet-ManageCode/pdf/2020-05-12-Ma...
This wasn’t a critique to Pharo. Don’t get me wrong I worked using Smalltalk professionally for 3 years, and I contributed a small library to Squeak and Pharo.
My comment was about how difficult is to innovate in areas like the file system.
Pharo had to use git because is popular, not because is the best way to handle object versioning (eg Envy was much better at handling the history of your classes)
My comment was about how difficult is to innovate in areas like the file system.
Pharo had to use git because is popular, not because is the best way to handle object versioning (eg Envy was much better at handling the history of your classes)
I understood that the Smalltalk remarks were kind-of incidental to the point you wished to make.
So just some clarification for readers stuck at the big-blob Smalltalk no-version-control meme.
So just some clarification for readers stuck at the big-blob Smalltalk no-version-control meme.
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It doesn't help that outside of computer use, file means a collection of documents (e.g., a case file).
Sounds you should try using a meme computer called iPad
Write a spec and seek funding :)
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That might be true on iOS, but on android we actually have a file system and it's great, it's one of the primary reasons I have preferred android for years.
Huh. I don't use Apple apps, looks pretty similar to me. Nice and snappy. Good job Apple. Late 2020 Macbook Air M1.
Look Around (Apple's version of Street View) is amazing.
i wonder how apple used ai on the os keen to know more
> Grid view shows people on your FaceTime call in the same‑size tiles, so you can have better conversations with a large group. The speaker is automatically highlighted so you always know who’s talking.
Is none at Apple actually using FaceTime? I remember seeing group FaceTime for the first time approx a year ago. It looked like a 90' screen saver. I was completely astonished. Like 10 years ago was late for this kind of update.
Is none at Apple actually using FaceTime? I remember seeing group FaceTime for the first time approx a year ago. It looked like a 90' screen saver. I was completely astonished. Like 10 years ago was late for this kind of update.
Still can't stream fitness+ to a mac?
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It runs really well on my 2012 Macbook Pro thanks to OCLP. Better even than Big Sur so far.
How did you get it to run on a 2021 MBP, since macOS Monterey drops support even for the 2013 and some 2014 models?
I think OP is referring to this when they say OCLP: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
Thank you!
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Upgraded M1. No issues, super snappy, looks great.
Doesn't work on iMac 5k from late 2014.
any news on whether we can control external monitor brightness with lunar on Monterey with M1? I miss that feature
I beleive there was a software update for that
I'm not sure I need yet another macOS version, feels like they've opted for a more frequent release cycle. I (genuinely) wonder why...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history#Releases
They've been released pretty close to every 11-13 months since 10.7, which was nearly 2 years after 10.6. That happened a decade ago now, so it's not something that's changed recently.
They've been released pretty close to every 11-13 months since 10.7, which was nearly 2 years after 10.6. That happened a decade ago now, so it's not something that's changed recently.
Oh man, I should have looked this up before commenting. Really feels shorter, but yeah the data is right there.
> feels like they've opted for a more frequent release cycle
Their OS releases have been yearly for about the past decade I think.
Their OS releases have been yearly for about the past decade I think.
Still no MST.
Is this a hardware or software limitation?
Is this a hardware or software limitation?
Could you tell us what MST stands for? I doubt you mean “mountain standard time” :-)
Multi-stream transport.
If you have a dock with say, HDMI and DisplayPort and have both plugged in, with a mac you can't use a single dock for multiple displays in this way. You'd have to use DisplayLink.
If you have a dock with say, HDMI and DisplayPort and have both plugged in, with a mac you can't use a single dock for multiple displays in this way. You'd have to use DisplayLink.
Software. My 2012 MBP can do MST fine in Boot Camp, but the feature isn't implemented in the macOS drivers.
Apple's canonical answer is "use Thunderbolt". It will never be implemented.
Surprised they are opening the Walled Garden™ to allow FaceTime from Windows and Android.
Wasn't that promised with the initial release of FaceTime?
Oh, the things I'd give for an LTS version of Mojave...
High Sierra for me, since it's the latest that would've been able to run any recent NVIDIA GPUs (assuming NVIDIA stayed dedicated to releasing Web Drivers).
The lack of Nvidia support is a major bummer. My KDE desktop at home is configured to look identical to Mojave (albeit with a different color palette and a dock integrated with the menubar), just so I can pretend like I'm living my dream...
Same here. Most things still work well for me, so my plan is to stick with Mojave until I get an M2 MacBook Air or similar next year.
Me three. And I can't jump ship to Apple's arm chips until they permit x86 virtualisation/emulation sensibly.
Me too. I'm still running Mojave on my 2014 iMac 5k!
Focus …. by adding gazillions of notification options, and also get more notifications for "weekly screen time"… yeah, I really needed even more useless information to process instead of living my life. If i want time off i’ll just put the device down, what a concept :/
They’ve got it completely backwards.
They’ve got it completely backwards.
I don't think it's as complicated as you make it out to be. It's just adding to the "Do not disturb" option that's been there for ages. You can still use that indiscriminate DND option and ignore the rest.
But some of us do want certain messages to breach while we're working.
But some of us do want certain messages to breach while we're working.
I don't know how Monterey differs from iOS, but while I initially dismissed the new focus features as irrelevant, I quickly realized how useful they can be. Specifically I blocked all work-related notifications when I was on vacation.
Allowing for one-time customizations doesn't add to my ongoing "useless information to process" queue.
Allowing for one-time customizations doesn't add to my ongoing "useless information to process" queue.
It's just another means to an end that isn't much harder than what you could do before. I'm on mojave and ios 13 and I do the same by going to system preferences and hitting the checkboxes in my work account section.
It’s ok it doesn’t work for you. But for some of us it provides isolation between various aspects of our life.
More importantly, it gives us granular isolation and automated ways of activating them, rather than just having a single Do Not Disturb option that does all-or-nothing. It’s a feature that I have really come to like during the betas and definitely helps me to stay on top of information overload, allowing notifications from certain apps at certain times of day (e.g. work hours, sleep hours) or places (e.g. gym).
Agreed, though I really wish it would let me pick which Slacks or Mail servers get through in different modes.
Finally! :)
Funny that they used a very clunky looking Windows laptop and a pretty dated looking Android phone to show off Facetime.
What do you think the average Windows laptop and Android phone look like?
Many popular Windows laptops e.g. Thinkpad look like that.
And since they are targeting younger people for Facetime maybe not surprising they didn't choose the most expensive, flagship phone.
And since they are targeting younger people for Facetime maybe not surprising they didn't choose the most expensive, flagship phone.
And yet iPhones are flagship phones...
Taste is subjective. Anyone arguing that the MBP is objectively better than, say, https://icdn.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/dell-xps-...
is just expressing their preferences. And I say that as someone who is waiting on delivery of the 14" MBP.
Taste is subjective. Anyone arguing that the MBP is objectively better than, say, https://icdn.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/dell-xps-...
is just expressing their preferences. And I say that as someone who is waiting on delivery of the 14" MBP.
M1 Pro/Max destroys the competition by every definition.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc...
So taste maybe subjective. But there is simply no argument that if you care about performance or battery life then the MacBook Pro is objectively better.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc...
So taste maybe subjective. But there is simply no argument that if you care about performance or battery life then the MacBook Pro is objectively better.
How does it fare in price/performance? I'd wager that's what will matter more than performance/watt to 90% of customers.
90% of customers only need MacBook airs, which have been at the top of price/performance for a decade.
Really? I'd love to see a source for how the $900 Intel MBAs stacked up against equivalently priced laptop hardware.
Right. I just ordered the M1 Max, for similar reasons. Even against my mid 2019 MBP.
The iPhone / Android objection still stands.
The iPhone / Android objection still stands.
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I get that you want to show your own products in their best light, but this is just petty and beneath them.
This is the same company that displays Windows machines it finds on the network with a Blue Screen of Death. You have to really zoom in on that icon to see it, but it's there. As a Certified Apple Fanboi(tm), such pettiness bothers me. I'd go as far as to call it unprofessional. But macOS rules and Windoze droolz, amirite?
This comes from the company that still shows non-Mac PCs in the network as CRT monitors, showing a blue screen of death.
Only if you have no sense of humor :).
Reminds me of how hugely offended some people were that the icon for a Windows PC in Mac OS X’s network browser was a blue screened monitor.
Reminds me of how hugely offended some people were that the icon for a Windows PC in Mac OS X’s network browser was a blue screened monitor.
It's just annoying when they don't have a sense of humor about their products but have a negative sense of humor about other's.
I can be not offended and still feel it to be petty.
I found it absolutely hilarious when it was done about 15 years ago. That was when we Apple users were pretty much the underdogs and expected the platform to die any day.
But now that Windows users feel threatened by Apple and are sensitive about this, it should probably be changed. Although it's a fun relic of the olden times.
But now that Windows users feel threatened by Apple and are sensitive about this, it should probably be changed. Although it's a fun relic of the olden times.
About showing their products in the best light, it seems they also chose to limit the view of the notch of their brand new MBP to one (kind of small) picture... among pictures of 30 devices.
The macOS Finder still displays Windows machines on the network as CRT monitors showing the BSOD I believe. I’m not in front of my Mac now so can’t check.
Looks about like the hardware you'd get for a N2040 laptop or a prepaid unlocked phone. Half of the stuff on the shelf at Walmart looks like this today. Just because Apple doesn't make entry-level hardware doesn't mean they're under any obligation to pretend that other companies don't. I think the image illustrates quite well what this update means -- FaceTime isn't just a rich-kid platform anymore.
So I just took a few minutes to lookup for the picture of an "N2040" (or various random low cost laptops, N4020 seems more likely if it's about a Celeron CPU, but I actually found one laptop model named "N2040") and they have bezels clearly thinner than what Apple shows for the laptop PC picture.
Ironically, during my research I also found this marvelous few years old MacBook Air https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/offer/buy/2076960204/portabl... , which is not too far.
So I'm not really convinced that attempt of an excuse makes any sense...
Ironically, during my research I also found this marvelous few years old MacBook Air https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/offer/buy/2076960204/portabl... , which is not too far.
So I'm not really convinced that attempt of an excuse makes any sense...
If they used an XPS people might accidentally realize that you don't need a notch to put a camera at the top of your screen.
But then they'd have to show the corresponding person in the video call as being nothing but a floating nose.
The XPS line fixed that last year. It's at the top of the screen in a super thing bezel.
The new XPS has windows hello AND a super thin bezel. Imagine that.
Dell uses a low quality 720p camera on their XPS line.
And the notch gives them room for a future FaceID sensor stack.
And the notch gives them room for a future FaceID sensor stack.
> And the notch gives them room for a future FaceID sensor stack
If that's really the reason, why not just delay putting the notch on until they're actually doing that?
If that's really the reason, why not just delay putting the notch on until they're actually doing that?
And Apple only just with the new MBPs upgraded to 1080p.
And Dell supports Windows Hello 3D face recognition without a notch.
It's not quite as unbalanced as you imply.
And Dell supports Windows Hello 3D face recognition without a notch.
It's not quite as unbalanced as you imply.
And the notch was only just introduced. Not sure what your point is here.
The initial implication, "Dell's webcam implementation sucks. Apple's is better because of the resolution and position, which allows facial recognition".
Apple's resolution was equally as bad as Dell's until eight days ago.
Dell's position allows facial recognition without cutting into the screen.
So my point is that contrary to several comments implying how "obvious" it is that Apple's webcam implementation is superior, it's not necessarily obvious, nor superior.
Apple's resolution was equally as bad as Dell's until eight days ago.
Dell's position allows facial recognition without cutting into the screen.
So my point is that contrary to several comments implying how "obvious" it is that Apple's webcam implementation is superior, it's not necessarily obvious, nor superior.
Why can't the most valuable company in the world just engineer a solution? Dell was able to fit infrared facial unlock inside that tiny bezel too, so I don't really buy the "it's for faceID" argument (especially since they didn't include the hardware this time). It's a ridiculous decision by a company that deserves to be ridiculed for cutting corners on a professional device.
Man. The screen was not cut by a notch, rather it grow to envelope the camera.
Compare the top bezel in a pre-notch mac book and you will see that the camera is basically on the same place as before, but the bezel is now smaller.
Compare the top bezel in a pre-notch mac book and you will see that the camera is basically on the same place as before, but the bezel is now smaller.
The function row wasn't replaced by the touch bar, the screen just grew to envelop the keyboard!
Finally, you can FaceTime with poor people!
obligatory: why not tabs on the side?
For the Focus feature, I find it a bit unexpected that someone messaging me can tell if I'm Driving, Sleeping, Coding, or Reading, etc. Does anyone else find this a bit strange/awkward? I know you can turn it off (and I did) within iMessage, but it seems a bit poorly considered. Curious if people like that aspect of the feature!
I thought it was only letting them know that you were currently unavailable, not the specific Focus type you are currently in.
Ah wonderful. I misunderstood "focus status" to mean the actual name of your focus was displayed, rather the generic "Evan has notifications silenced" message. Thank you for the clarification!
As to what notifications have been helpful: I ended up making Reading and Listening focuses to make personal stuff like reading and podcasting more enjoyable. Then for work I separated out Communicating (email, slack, asana, collaborative docs) from Coding (everything off) as it seemed those had quite different notification needs.
As to what notifications have been helpful: I ended up making Reading and Listening focuses to make personal stuff like reading and podcasting more enjoyable. Then for work I separated out Communicating (email, slack, asana, collaborative docs) from Coding (everything off) as it seemed those had quite different notification needs.
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The first time i opened Messages on iOS 15 is prompted me for if I wanted to alert contacts when i'm on do not disturb, and there's an option in settings to toggle it as well.
you can toggle it per contact so I have it on for my wife but no one else.
It will show your contact that you have notifications silenced, not which Focus mode you activated.
It certainly CAN show that though. "Would you like your contacts to know you are driving and unavailable?"
I wonder how many people will use joke statuses. Hopefully they will add an "exclusion list" in the future.
edit: nvm, it just shows a generic status message for all people. it does not display the exact status to that person.
edit: nvm, it just shows a generic status message for all people. it does not display the exact status to that person.
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>Pick from a list of suggested Focus options or create your own.
MacOS major version release are so underwhelming to me. They're not so much OS updates as they're updates to built-in apps I don't use or use at a very surface level: Safari, Facetime, Apple Maps, Messages, etc.
I'm not really sure what I'd want out of a new MacOS, though. It's been stable and (for my purposes) feature-complete for many years now. I don't remember the last time a MacOS upgrade added a feature I wanted but didn't yet have, nor the last time they added a feature I didn't realize I wanted because I'd never imagined it. The latter used to be what made Apple products stand out to me.
I'm not really sure what I'd want out of a new MacOS, though. It's been stable and (for my purposes) feature-complete for many years now. I don't remember the last time a MacOS upgrade added a feature I wanted but didn't yet have, nor the last time they added a feature I didn't realize I wanted because I'd never imagined it. The latter used to be what made Apple products stand out to me.
I'm impressed. People really will never be satisfied.
A relatively low-key, under-the-hood Mac release? "Man I miss when the Mac was innovative. These releases are a snooze fest."
A big release, packed with features? "Man I miss when Apple cared about their OS stability. We need a new zero features snooze fest like 10.6. Take me back to Snow Leopard :("
Only HN can pull off such astounding mood swings. I know this site isn't a monolith of opinions, but come on.
A relatively low-key, under-the-hood Mac release? "Man I miss when the Mac was innovative. These releases are a snooze fest."
A big release, packed with features? "Man I miss when Apple cared about their OS stability. We need a new zero features snooze fest like 10.6. Take me back to Snow Leopard :("
Only HN can pull off such astounding mood swings. I know this site isn't a monolith of opinions, but come on.
This reminds me of a conversation I heard once in London.
I was in a line for some food at a Puppet (the config management tool) conference and two guys in front of me were chatting about their Puppet runs.
One turned to the other and said, "My Puppet runs are really slow. It takes 10-15 minutes for it to run and apply state to all 15,000 servers."
I couldn't believe it. The guy was complaining about having to wait 15 minutes to apply state to 15,000 operating systems.
What is wrong with people? You haven't got to go back far to take all of this innovation away and still people aren't pleased.
I was in a line for some food at a Puppet (the config management tool) conference and two guys in front of me were chatting about their Puppet runs.
One turned to the other and said, "My Puppet runs are really slow. It takes 10-15 minutes for it to run and apply state to all 15,000 servers."
I couldn't believe it. The guy was complaining about having to wait 15 minutes to apply state to 15,000 operating systems.
What is wrong with people? You haven't got to go back far to take all of this innovation away and still people aren't pleased.
These releases offer me nothing, take a big chunk of time to operate, and break my old software and device.
And bugs linger for years and never get fixed.
I think it's very reasonable to complain.
And bugs linger for years and never get fixed.
I think it's very reasonable to complain.
You can do both things at the same time, add new features that don't alienate their powerusers while also having a stable OS. Maybe if Apple delivered on both counts more in recent years people wouldn't feel the need to complain so much. It was complaining after all that got them to wake up and kill the touchbar and that butterfly keyboard.
Wow it's almost as if multiple people comment on things here and they have different opinions!
I know, it's just a caricature at this point. Common, everyday tropes in HN.
I would love a more detailed change log of the actual OS level changes because sometimes there’s useful tidbits but you often have to be watching the WWDC content in order to see what will be in the upcoming OS. There have been some under the hood things like the APFS switch, Rosetta, and other under the hood changes that can significantly impact the OS. In this release I saw that there is a new copy mechanism in the finder which seems pretty significant but there isn’t a lot of detail about the technology behind it. I am also interested in the universal control and the ability to use your mac as an airplay device so now you can stream another Mac which used to be some thing then I did using a lunar display adapter. I also saw there’s a built in TOTP feature now which might be handy. I agree though most changes seem like app changes and services that could be decoupled from an OS update.
I personally prefer the incremental yearly updates to huge changes on a longer timeframe. I'm pretty excited about Live Text, personally. I've been getting a lot of great use out of it on iOS.
If we're talking about other recent releases, ARM (/iOS app interoperability) support was definitely a huge change :)
If we're talking about other recent releases, ARM (/iOS app interoperability) support was definitely a huge change :)
Every time I hold on a pic on my iPhone to preview it it highlights the text in there instead.
At least they've managed to optimize and make the OS faster. Mojave feels faster on my 2014 MPB than previous installations did. Would wish they would focus on the apps and not revamping the system each time they do an update.
I find them worse than underwhelming. Generally, the thing that usually pushes me to upgrade is EOL of the OS I'm on, or escaping some abomination perpetrated by the OS I'm on. It's almost never a compelling feature, because I need an OS to run applications, mostly.
The abomination that would get me off of Big Sur is the ridiculously low contrast difference for titlebars between foreground and background apps. Turning on the contrast accessibility option looks horrible. However, it's looking like thanks to HazeOver, this is a wait-for-EOL cycle.
The abomination that would get me off of Big Sur is the ridiculously low contrast difference for titlebars between foreground and background apps. Turning on the contrast accessibility option looks horrible. However, it's looking like thanks to HazeOver, this is a wait-for-EOL cycle.
Same here. Looking through recent release highlights, Mojave adding Dark Mode is the mot recent stand-out I spotted, and even that I don't really care about all that much.
Universal Control has potential to be valuable.
Universal Control has potential to be valuable.
I have my pet peeves I would love to change. But they are mostly not close to kernel or "OS" level; rather they are UI quirks.
Underwhelming updates are good, that way corporate IT doesn't take 3 years to approve updating company computers.
Article reads like an ad.
It is an ad. It's on Apple's website advertising their new OS release.
lol
Has anyone shorted Zoom yet? Believe ticker is ZM.
This is so limited. Where is the boldness? Five years ago I thought we would be at MaciOS by now. Precision with a gestural capability.
>Stream movies and TV shows while on a FaceTime call with friends. With synced playback and controls, you’ll see everyone laugh, jump, and react to the same moments at the same time. And the volume automatically adjusts, so you can keep talking while you watch.
Pretty sure this is illegal.
Pretty sure this is illegal.
The feature that line refers to is called "shareplay".
Read the info here: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
I'll quote a few things:
> While sharing media during a FaceTime call, each participant views the content within your app running on their device
> if people must log in, download content, or make a payment before they can participate, display views that help them perform these tasks before showing the activity UI
> providing a free trial or special offer lets people sample your content during a group activity
As you can see, it requires everyone to own the content, and it also requires the other apps (like the netflix, youtube, HBO, or whatever app) to opt in to supporting it. I don't see any way this could be illegal.
Read the info here: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
I'll quote a few things:
> While sharing media during a FaceTime call, each participant views the content within your app running on their device
> if people must log in, download content, or make a payment before they can participate, display views that help them perform these tasks before showing the activity UI
> providing a free trial or special offer lets people sample your content during a group activity
As you can see, it requires everyone to own the content, and it also requires the other apps (like the netflix, youtube, HBO, or whatever app) to opt in to supporting it. I don't see any way this could be illegal.
Is it illegal to invite friends over to watch a movie?
maybe only works with "apple tv", and they have the license for it?
It works with several streaming providers. The API is opt in though (Coordinated Media Playback), so the providers need to implement some hooks to make it work, meaning they've decided they have the rights.
Notably, Netflix doesn't allow it, but Disney+, Huly and HBO Max do.
Notably, Netflix doesn't allow it, but Disney+, Huly and HBO Max do.
the best OS if you are fed up with windoze bloatware and are too lazy to setup a working desktop environment that suits you on linux
it has native unix environment, is fast and efficient
it has native unix environment, is fast and efficient
I've come to the discovery that I'm a deeply anti social being. Watching a TV show "together", remotely, sounds like the stuff of nightmares to me.
If you insist, we can do a 2 min review after the show. During the show, you stay quiet. Don't ask questions, I didn't see the show either. You're allowed a laugh, a silent tear or a brief "wow", keep deeper reflections on how the footage makes you feel to yourself.
When you watch, you pay full attention, or leave the room.
It would be factually incorrect to say "I must be fun at parties" due to a lack of data.
If you insist, we can do a 2 min review after the show. During the show, you stay quiet. Don't ask questions, I didn't see the show either. You're allowed a laugh, a silent tear or a brief "wow", keep deeper reflections on how the footage makes you feel to yourself.
When you watch, you pay full attention, or leave the room.
It would be factually incorrect to say "I must be fun at parties" due to a lack of data.
Dear Apple,
I have no interest in using your locked down operating systems. On the other hand, your M1 based hardware is excellent. Please open up your drivers so I can run Linux on it at full performance (instead of using reverse engineered drivers which will probably never reach the performance levels of the proprietary drivers).
Thank You
I have no interest in using your locked down operating systems. On the other hand, your M1 based hardware is excellent. Please open up your drivers so I can run Linux on it at full performance (instead of using reverse engineered drivers which will probably never reach the performance levels of the proprietary drivers).
Thank You
After panicking, the 3rd Apple Support Representative and I endeavoured to try and reset the System Management Controller (SMC) [1] once again. At this point I had realised that the first few times that I tried this with a previous support representative would not have worked, as I was holding shift on the left-hand side of the keyboard (the previous support representative did not specify) and not the right-hand side as outlined in the support article for Macs with the T2 chip.
Good luck!
1. https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201295