Sonoma is crazy fast...

[fisherking]

You guys got me so excited, this is first ever mention of "performance increase" for any macOS released!

hardly. we've seen these things go up & down forever, and ppl on different macs & different configurations often have contradictory experiences.

sonoma does feel 'lighter', faster than vemtura, but... we'll see where we are when the offiical release happens.

 

[calvinchan.hkg]

Does anybody install Sonoma beta on Intel MAC?
I have an iMac 2019 27" with Big Sur. May I know about Sonoma beta's performace? is it smooth enough?

 

[notgonna]

I'm still on Monterey with my intel iMac. Been waiting for Ventura 13.5 but maybe I should skip it altogether?

I'm wondering the same. You go first? I'm not having any issues with 12.6.7, so I should probably be patient and just wait until a November 14.0.1

 

[hoodafoo]

I'm wondering the same. You go first? I'm not having any issues with 12.6.7, so I should probably be patient and just wait until a November 14.0.1

Test driving it is not that hard.. just download the image onto a thumb drive, plug in a usb external drive, boot to it and install to usb drive. Doesn't touch your existing setup

 

[eoblaed]

Test driving it is not that hard.. just download the image onto a thumb drive, plug in a usb external drive, boot to it and install to usb drive. Doesn't touch your existing setup

Since their question is around performance, that may not give them the experience they're looking for. Might be better to create an APFS volume to install it in to so they're operating off their local HDD/SSD rather than an external drive over USB.

 

[hoodafoo]

Since their question is around performance, that may not give them the experience they're looking for. Might be better to create an APFS volume to install it in to so they're operating off their local HDD/SSD rather than an external drive over USB.

Oh, good point, though a bit more involved. I tried to download Sonoma but found out it's still in Dev Beta. With all the ppl commenting, I just assumed it was Public already. But then earlier around the WWDC, there was mention that Apple did away with needing a dev account to download early betas, so I'm really confused! 🥴

 

[fisherking]

Oh, good point, though a bit more involved. I tried to download Sonoma but found out it's still in Dev Beta. With all the ppl commenting, I just assumed it was Public already. But then earlier around the WWDC, there was mention that Apple did away with needing a dev account to download early betas, so I'm really confused! 🥴

people formerly on the public betas only can now download the developer betas; it's a choice. and the final release is a long way off, we're only at developer beta 2...

 

[richmond62]

Not noticeably any faster on my 2018 Intel Mac Mini than MacOS 13: not, frankly, that that fusses me.

 

[dgdosen]

FYI - I accidentally upgraded a mac studio and it was not faster... some things seemed to hang for a sub-second - so that it was choppy. It was not a pleasant experience.

YMMV

 

[eoblaed]

FYI - I accidentally upgraded a mac studio and it was not faster... some things seemed to hang for a sub-second - so that it was choppy. It was not a pleasant experience.

YMMV

Remember to give it a day or so before making any judgements.

 

[WilliApple]

Ok, guess it's was just me, but besides the minor Safari bugs I have been facing, a ton of issues are now fixed as of Beta 2.

Apples new update model seems to be really good! iOS 17 just has a few minor visual issues and feels faster than iOS 16 (probably cause a lot of its bugs are fixed)

 

[Eithanius]

I understand that macOS was made compatible for Apple Silicon, but could the performance improvements relate to it finally being free of Intel-era code?

Finally...!!? Snow Leopard of the Silicon age...!!!

 

[Earl Urley]

I remember one of the things about Snow Leopard was that it was the first macOS to support 64-bit code, but it had to be a non-GUI application because they hadn't redone the GUIs in 64-bit..

Anyway I am sure that speedups will be given and taken away as development progresses, so I probably won't post any more benchmarks as it'll be pointless until final RC.

 

[Icelus]

I remember one of the things about Snow Leopard was that it was the first macOS to support 64-bit code, but it had to be a non-GUI application because they hadn't redone the GUIs in 64-bit..

Anyway I am sure that speedups will be given and taken away as development progresses, so I probably won't post any more benchmarks as it'll be pointless until final RC.

I thought Leopard already had 64-bit GUI support?

Tiger / Leopard / Snow Leopard

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review

No new features.

arstechnica.com

 

[Earl Urley]

Right, sorry, my own faulty memory is to blame.. clearly Tiger was the first one that had 64-bit support for non GUI apps.

 

[Moka Akashiya]

I just remember similar threads about "how Monterey beta is same as Big Sur but faster", or how "Ventura beta is just stablier than actual Monterey 12.5", and then release happens... With threads about broken trackpads for thousands of posts, finder memory leaks and kernel panics.
Also, code will not run faster on arm macs, if you remove x64 code from universal binaries. I also don't understand what can be faster in OS for people, all i want is to get mission control animation speed command back to terminal, and to not get system freeze for 1 second in browsers, when you open "browse file" finder window. Probably not gonna happen soon anyway.

 

[fisherking]

who knows where we'll be by the official OS release? but my M2 air is definitely 'lighter' in general, and most noticeable in safari. will enjoy it (at least while it lasts)

 

[Wolf1701]

Also, code will not run faster on arm macs, if you remove x64 code from universal binaries. I also don't understand what can be faster in OS for people, all i want is to get mission control animation speed command back to terminal, and to not get system freeze for 1 second in browsers, when you open "browse file" finder window. Probably not gonna happen soon anyway.

Removing x86 code should free up resources to focus on optimizations for new ARM releases. As far as speed is concerned, I agree that it must be understood in a broader sense: a bug fix here and a bug fix there can lead to the impression of greater responsiveness and greater user enjoyment.

 

[gank41]

I'm wondering the same. You go first? I'm not having any issues with 12.6.7, so I should probably be patient and just wait until a November 14.0.1

By November, I’d assume we’d be seeing macOS 14.1

 

[gank41]

Finally...!!? Snow Leopard of the Silicon age...!!!

From what I could gather during everyone’s comments during WWDC23, with macOS 14 this year, there’s a bunch of underlying code at the base level that’s been replaced with SwiftUI code, and that means there’s less coding in place with more apps able to take advantage of any of the available API’s in a more consistent and reliable way. That, to me, sounds like a “Snow Leopard” release.

 

[SRLMJ23]

When I watched WWDC and saw the presentation on macOS Sonoma, I thought to myself this might be more of a performance macOS update, such as Snow Leopard was, because the new features of Sonoma that were added were nothing that major.

So here is to hoping that this is the Snow Leopard version of the Apple Silicon era.

I just got my MacBook Air 15" 16/512, and to me Ventura is flying...so now I am tempted to try Sonoma, but I think I will wait it out a couple more releases.

 

[shenfrey]

When I watched WWDC and saw the presentation on macOS Sonoma, I thought to myself this might be more of a performance macOS update, such as Snow Leopard was, because the new features of Sonoma that were added were nothing that major.

So here is to hoping that this is the Snow Leopard version of the Apple Silicon era.

I just got my MacBook Air 15" 16/512, and to me Ventura is flying...so now I am tempted to try Sonoma, but I think I will wait it out a couple more releases.

What are you afraid of?

 

[eoblaed]

What are you afraid of?

It's never recommended to run beta operating systems on your daily drivers. Catastrophic failures have occurred in the past and will likely occur in the future. And the earlier the beta, the less confident people should be about the systems robustness and safety.

@SRLMJ23 is simply exercising prudent caution. I'm willing to take the risk, but I will always recommend people wait until launch before installing on their systems.

 

[shenfrey]

It's never recommended to run beta operating systems on your daily drivers. Catastrophic failures have occurred in the past and will likely occur in the future. And the earlier the beta, the less confident people should be about the systems robustness and safety.

@SRLMJ23 is simply exercising prudent caution. I'm willing to take the risk, but I will always recommend people wait until launch before installing on their systems.

Oh I was misunderstood. I thought they were referring to a couple more full OS releases. Not beta updates.

 

[SRLMJ23]

It's never recommended to run beta operating systems on your daily drivers. Catastrophic failures have occurred in the past and will likely occur in the future. And the earlier the beta, the less confident people should be about the systems robustness and safety.

@SRLMJ23 is simply exercising prudent caution. I'm willing to take the risk, but I will always recommend people wait until launch before installing on their systems.

Exactly, thank you explaining why I am waiting a few more releases to put it on one of MacBook Pro's/Air's.

I literally just got my 15" MacBook Air 16/512 on Thursday and I want to enjoy it with the default version of macOS Ventura that came on it, since honestly, this will probably be my main MacBook, as in taking it on the road/work and what not vs. one of my MacBook Pro's. I cannot take the chance that something crazy happens with a release of macOS Sonoma and my Air potentially stops working correctly at an OS level, or certain apps I need for work will no longer work.

Now, putting macOS Sonoma on one of my MacBook Pro's that are basically like desktops in a way (95% of the time on the desk) is not a huge deal since I have another MBP I could use while I restore macOS Ventura on said MBP, if something did hypothetically happen.

Side Note: Absolutely loving the 15" MacBook Air!!! Amazing machine, highly recommended to anyone on the fence about getting one vs. the 13" Air or Pro, or someone who is coming from an Intel Mac! Do not let the "Air" in MacBook Air scare you (it is no slouch) as I ran a little Final Cut Pro export test with a 16 and half minute video with four layers of 4K video and audio tracks and the M2 chip tore threw it in 1:56 (ProRes 422) thanks in large part to the M2's Dedicated Media Engine. I know that was only a 16 minute export, but still, that is impressive.

Here is a video from Marques Brownlee where he mentions an Adobe Premier video export project that Brian Tong did (skip ahead to 7:55 in the video if you want to just see the part on the Adobe Premier Export) that was 45 minutes with "20 video track, 20 audio track, 4K export" to see the difference between the M2 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro, and it ended up being an 11 minute difference, and the M2 MBP has active cooling. I know it says M2 MacBook Air 2022, but same machine/chip just the 15" obviously is larger.

Super impressive, the M2 is an absolute BEAST! The Liquid Retina Screen is much more gorgeous/impressive than I thought it would be coming from the MacBook Pro’s. The newly designed six-speaker system is very impressive as well. Overall, 100% one of the best MacBooks Apple has ever made!