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Why should I "upgrade" to Sierra?
- Thread starter kattskrall
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[doublepost=1478797363][/doublepost]Thank you so much for you detailed comments regarding why you should upgrade to Sierra. I agree with you completely. Apple has in the last few years introduced "features" that are just junk without the options to disable or delete them. Their application upgrades need to be able to 'revert to classic" or something like that to make it look and feel like the previous version(s). iTunes is a great example. Not everyone uses iTunes the same way. What is a wonderful experience for one user is an undesirable "feature" to others. Their operating systems, while still the best on the market, continue to be bloated with stuff many of us just don't want or need. Come on Apple, give us the option to delete these unwanted "features". Apple Pay, Apple Watch, Emojis and the decision to remove various ports is just insulting. None of us know where you are heading but it is not in the right direction. Why not keep Max OS just that a desktop OS and let IOS take care to the phones, watches and iPads. If I didn't have such a sizable investment in Apple equipment I would not put my money into Apple equipment now. The only good thing going for Apple is it is based on Unix. There are other GUIs out there that work quite well on Unix/Linux systems and for a fraction of the investment needed for Apple hardware.
So the two main points of upgrading is security and tabs then I guess
Really? Folks, context is everything. It seems obvious to me that Sierra is/will be more useful to some people than to others. That goes for every OS upgrade, Mac, Windows, Linux and what-have-you. Everyone must determine for themselves which new features, including enhanced security, seem worthwhile. One size most certainly does not fit all. Tens of millions of people have iPhones and iPads for which integration with the macOS can be useful. I'm not one of them, but I have no trouble understanding where other people might need Sierra more than I do.
One example: Adobe Photoshop has had window tabs since CS5. I happen to like using them. But I have a friend who prefers the floating window mode of earlier versions. I showed him how to turn that on in Photoshop CS6, after which he was a happy camper. He also preferres the old light gray interface (I like the dark gray one), so I set that up for him, too. Fortunately Photoshop and other Adobe apps have plenty of interface options to choose from—far more than Apple ever has.
Another: The Finder has had tabs for years now. Most people don't know they exist. Even when they do they are rarely willing to adjust their work habits to utilize them. Tabs in the Apple apps are hardly an innovation. Some people will appreciate them and others won't. If you customarily have more than one document open at a time, tabs can be a real help. Otherwise, they're invisible and hardly worth an OS upgrade. But if your work habits change, or you simply like having the option available, then upgrading to Sierra may be worth the effort.
Sadly, if you visit a forum like this one for advice, you're going to get more heat than light. Which is fine if you enjoy the byplay as, apparently, many people do. And some of us cannot resist adding our two cents. As always, caveat emptor.
Do or don't. At some point you'll need to upgrade because something was only made with Sierra in mind. Do you want to wait for that day to make sure your setup is all compatible? I'd find a few days where there isn't any mission critical work that needs to be delivered and get it out of the way.
1. Siri: neat at best. Google already has this.
2. Copy paste on other devices: Pretty much useless, and I test on 5 devices daily and pass info between.
4. Access documents on all your apple devices: ClusterF**k
5. pay: This machine is just a payment gateway as far as they are concerned. It can also run photoshop.
6. Optimized storage: This is actually really cool. It showed me what I wasn't used and I was able to delete all sorts of stuff that I wouldn't have been confident about before.
7. New iPhoto: This app has always been a nightmare
8. Emojis: Mindnumbing + unimportant
9. New iTunes: This app has been a trainwreck for the last 5+ years. I can't barely use it and I'm a software developer.
10: Tabs in finder: I'm pretty sure that this is in Yosemite or El Capitan. Just open a finder window and push command t. You see a useless tab that is really worse than opening 2 finder windows because you can't see them both at the same time. I use transmit for this / which it's not even really made for.
11: Picture in picture: Just another thing that adds to the complexity and makes your computer slower
I'd say over all, it's free - and you should stay updated. Let's not be jerks, it's probably a much better operating system in all the ways that we can't see. Many of us consider snow-leopard the hight point of OSX, and I've heard people say that this is a step back toward that. I can't say I see it myself. Check your driver compatibility if you use hardware. My audio interface drivers did not work after the update and it's been a few weeks. I think they have recently resolved it, but I wasn't able to record audio, which could ruin your life if that's your job.-
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Is this a question?
That is most certainly true. The macOS, which used to be so cheerful and upbeat, now looks like gray death. Usability has gone downhill since OS X 10.7 Lion bleached all the color out of the Finder window sidebar. I've been using a hack that restores color and custom icons to the sidebar, but it doesn't work past OS X 10.10 Yosemite. As for Yosemite itself, while it had a bunch of fancy new features, Apple messed with the networking infrastructure and it took them almost a year to figure out that that "improvement" was the source of most of the problems with the OS. They eventually reverted to the old frameworks.
Some changes, like the security improvements in OS X 10.11 El Capitan, involve tradeoffs. Most of the apps I use have been updated for El Cap, but some never will be. No more color in my sidebar. As for Sierra, it's more stable than Yosemite was out of the gate, but I won't be using it until it gets a few more fixes. El Capitan topped out, to date, at version 10.11.6. Sierra only recently had its 10.12.1 update.
Unless you're desperate to use Siri or something, it won't hurt to wait awhile to upgrade. In my case, since Apple only provides security and other updates for two versions behind the current system, I will soon have to move from Mavericks to Yosemite. I'll put off El Capitan and Sierra as long as possible. They don't have anything I cannot live without. YMMV.
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I am using Yosemite on my mid-2010 MacBook Pro. I have not updated because I fear that my old Canon printer (PIXMA IP4000), my even older Harmon-Karden speakers, and my equally old Scanner will not work if I do. None of them was "supposed"to work with Yosemite, but they all do. When I called Apple and asked if I should chance it with El Capitan, he suggested not to. After reading this thread, I am still not sure. Has Apple stopped supporting Yosemite?
Does any one out there have any suggestions for me?
Does any one out there have any suggestions for me?
Don't, there are lots of printer, scanner and photography related apps/equipment that are not yet compatible with Sierra. Canon has produced a list. Check with the manufacturer of your scanner and speakers.
OP You probably already have Finder tabs. It's there at least since ElCap, maybe even earlier.
Thank you for the suggestion. Both the scanner and printer manufacturers told me they did not support Yosemite, but I updated to it anyway. Canon told me no to El Capitan, and my scanner is so old no one could tell me anything. Harmon Kardon doesn't even admit they made my speakers - they are ancient, having come on my Win95 computer! Everything works fine with Yosemite. Iam justvafraid to push my luck with El Capitan or Sierra.
It seems to me that every new OS brings more features, none of which I want, and makes ordinary things harder to do. My first computer was a Kaypro 2X running CP/M. Then I got an 80286 PC-AT clone running DOS. Then I went to Windows and went through several versions. Each of these OSs was worse than the one before except for Windows XP, which was an improvement over whatever Windows I had before it.
Moving to Mac OS X was a tremendous improvement over Windows, but then the pattern resumed, with each successive OS X being worse than the one before it as far as having new features I didn't want and a more difficult UI. I was on OS X 10.6.8 for a long time because my old iMac would not run the newer OSs, but eventually had to get a new iMac because of too many incompatibilities. Now I'm running El Capitan. (I liked the names better when they named them after big cats. I like cats.)
So why do I keep upgrading? Because I'm concerned about security. Yes, the Mac OSs are much more secure than Windows, but there are still concerns.
Siri IMO is a joke. On the iPhone Siri is useful for opening apps when I'm having trouble finding them, but otherwise the only thing it's good for is to see what silly answers it will give to silly questions. The rest of the listed features seem either useless or downright annoying, other than share to other devices, but I already have that: If I will want to share a document to another device, I store it in my iCloud drive. And my calendar is shared on the cloud. I don't need a special feature for this.
But I suppose I will upgrade for the added security. I wish they'd offer the option of keeping the old UI and features while getting the latest security. But I suppose that's as hopeless as wishing I could buy the same model of jogging shoes I got 2 years ago that work so well for me. Change can be progress, but usually it's not. Sigh!
Moving to Mac OS X was a tremendous improvement over Windows, but then the pattern resumed, with each successive OS X being worse than the one before it as far as having new features I didn't want and a more difficult UI. I was on OS X 10.6.8 for a long time because my old iMac would not run the newer OSs, but eventually had to get a new iMac because of too many incompatibilities. Now I'm running El Capitan. (I liked the names better when they named them after big cats. I like cats.)
So why do I keep upgrading? Because I'm concerned about security. Yes, the Mac OSs are much more secure than Windows, but there are still concerns.
Siri IMO is a joke. On the iPhone Siri is useful for opening apps when I'm having trouble finding them, but otherwise the only thing it's good for is to see what silly answers it will give to silly questions. The rest of the listed features seem either useless or downright annoying, other than share to other devices, but I already have that: If I will want to share a document to another device, I store it in my iCloud drive. And my calendar is shared on the cloud. I don't need a special feature for this.
But I suppose I will upgrade for the added security. I wish they'd offer the option of keeping the old UI and features while getting the latest security. But I suppose that's as hopeless as wishing I could buy the same model of jogging shoes I got 2 years ago that work so well for me. Change can be progress, but usually it's not. Sigh!
I hadn't thought of that, but having to shell out another $50 or $60 for a Parallels upgrade doesn't work for me either. Though I usually wait for an upgrade sale, it's still an annoying expense. The upshot is that Apple's free OS upgrade isn't really free. The more software you have to upgrade or replace, the more expensive Sierra will be. While it's not an uncommon issue with operating system upgrades, it's still a very good reason for not upgrading macOS any time soon. El Capitan will be supported for two more years so that's a safe place to rest.
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The way to test for your issues is to clone your system to an external hard drive and upgrade that clone. Boot from the clone and see what does and does not work. I have even older speakers that work just fine on my El Cap and Sierra test partitions. But I haven't tested for everything. I suggest this procedure for anyone concerned about compatibility issues, and even for people who are not. There's an old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I don't understand why more people are not more cautious, but every OS X upgrade brings out a slew of disappointed early adopters who took no precautions. A Time Machine backup and/or a recent system clone will provide you with a path back if something goes wrong.
Also run Disk Utility to check your system for directory problems before you upgrade. Running an upgrade on a damaged system can really mess things up. Just because your computer seems to be running OK doesn't mean there are no problems hiding in the woodwork. Since El Capitan you can no longer repair permissions; fortunately every OS upgrade and update now checks the system files and repairs any problems it finds. Of course, since El Cap those files are cordoned off from user interference so permissions are not the problem they once were.
IMO Sierra is no more impressive than El Cap... Unless u like Siri (which I hate), I'd suggest u stick w/ El Cap.
While I understand why so many people love Snow Leopard, there are plenty of reasons to upgrade. Your situation is your situation. This is a problem many people have—they think what works for them should work for everyone. That's vanity, not logic.
Among the reasons to upgrade beyond OS X 10.6.8 are, of course, security issues, not only in the OS but in any web browsers you use which cannot be upgraded to more secure versions. These include, now, Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. In fact they all now require a minimum of OS X 10.9, Mavericks. This goes for Flash, too, if you use it, and Adobe Reader as well. Old versions of Apple Mail are also vulnerable.
Newer versions of software, including Apple software, are mostly not compatible with Snow Leopard. If you are content with the versions you have, then this is unlikely to be a problem for you. But most people use modern apps that require newer versions of OS X. As far as Apple is concerned, Yosemite is now the minimum OS they will support. I will soon, reluctantly, have to upgrade from Mavericks to Yosemite—because I take security seriously. In the brave new world we live in, macOS is no longer an obscure target for hackers. Which is why Apple has been progressively battening down the hatches. They are blasé about security no longer. If security does not concern you, you're living in a fool's paradise.
agree, Mac OS Sierra features or new features are jokes, they are simply 'toppings' without any real effect on one's productivity or work flow, gimmicks at best to pretend that a new os has been released called sierra. slowly and slowly apple goes in the wrong direction, i hope this doesn't continue. I am sticking with El Capitan and may not even upgrade to Sierra's successor, unless, for ex, Sierra's successor comes with those administrator changes that make it more secure, now that's something real and significant, not this fake optimized storage thing, which only exacerbates problems, or SIRI - no thank you SIRI i can open safari and search faster for things, I have enough calories to conduct searches myself.
There have always been critics like you who find OS upgrades to be a nuisance, not to say a pain. No doubt that will never change. You may be chapped off because Apple couldn't care less about the opinions of people like you (or me, for that matter). There's an expression in business that they no doubt take seriously: If you're not growing, you're dying. If you are willing to be left behind, that's your choice to make. But you can't expect Apple to cater to you. For them it's a losing proposition.
Optimized storage is aimed at people with small or relatively small SSDs in their mac laptops, the kind used in most Macs these days. Many people won't want to pay a premium for a big SSD (1TB + $400, 2TB + $1,200) in a new MacBook Pro. Though the high-end 15" MacBook Pro comes with a 512GB SSD, which might be enough for some people; it'll only set you back $2,799 for the base model. ;-)
Tabs in applications besides the Finder are one of those things that will be useful to some people and not to others. But that's usually the case with new features. Few people will need or want to use them all. But if you work on multipole documents at the same time in Pages, for example, or in Numbers, tabs may be a real boon—as they are for me in Photoshop and InDesign. It's a professional feature; if it's a joke to you, chances are you don't use Apple's apps at a professional level, nor have you any ambition to do so. Which is OK—for you.
The same goes for Siri on the Mac. It may seem like a toy to skeptics, but artificial intelligence is a going concern and, sooner or later, Siri will be truly useful. AI on our computers has been a long time coming, but it has to start somewhere. Siri in the macOS is that start (as is Cortana in Windows). Apple has to keep up with the competition, despite some users' misgivings. Learning to use Siri efficiently, well, that actually takes a little effort. And changing work habits to take advantage of new features is a challenge for everyone. It requires curiosity, initiative and at least a little ambition.
The thing that bothers me about new features in the macOS is not what they are or who will use them. What bothers me is when Apple does a poor job of implementing them, as they did in Yosemite with changes in networking protocols that turned out to be a disaster. And, of course, there's iTunes, which has only gotten worse through successive updates. Many of the services in iCloud work poorly, when they work at all. Some of the basic features, on the other hand, work fine: Syncing calendars, contacts and bookmarks across devices—and even platforms, for instance.
In the meantime, I don't hold Apple's new ideas against them. The real problem is with quality control, which has fallen off dramatically in recent years. Which is why most people would be well advised to wait awhile before upgrading to Sierra, to give Apple time to get their act together.
It's also the case that the pace of change is often intimidating. This has only gotten worse since Apple moved to an annual upgrade schedule for their various operating systems. Once upon a time the interval between upgrades was roughly 18 months. And even that sometimes seemed precipitous. Though it did give Apple more time to fix their mistakes, as evidenced by the higher versions numbers for older versions like OS X 10.4.11, OS X 10.5.8 and OS X 10.6.8.
But time doesn't stand still. Stasis is dangerous and often deadly. That's a law of nature. And for all it's apparent alienation, technology cannot escape the laws of nature, any more than we can ourselves. If you're not growing, you're dying.
Yep (I forgot the '?' but you seem smart enough to work that out), if the main reason given is security, how bad is it really for older versions? I've had no concern when being a version or two behind, nor anyone else that I've heard of.
The "serious online shopping" and the new funny emojs are really tempting me. Why still use computers to do some work or be creative, when you can purchase something or send funny faces to other brainless users?
Hi whitedog, I think I agree with you on some fundamentals, but not on other points you make.
First, in general, yes, part of my beef is that the so called new features such as SIRI are a joke - they are even a joke in the Iphone - much more planning and work is needed, much more testing. Developing a SIRI like system or as it called Google Voice in google's phones is more complex than creating self-driving cars if it's going to acrtually be useful and do complex tasks, but even with basic tasks SIRI suffers from multiple points, whether it is security, voice recognition, or its ability to actually be useful and make one's life really simple. So yes that's where my beef with this AI comes, this is a gimmick at this point, god knows how many people use it extensively, and if it can even be used 'extensively'.
Second, re optimized storage, I haven't actually looked deeply into it. But I bet the serious people had already figured out a viable solution WAY before Apple integrated optimized storage, so this is not really a significant breakthrough at all. Rather, I think it can at this time appease people who fill up their drive and don't bother cleaning it up at all, and in this sense, optimized storage is a bandage solution, catering to people's lack of knowledge and organizational skills, this can only multiply the problem, it will not solve it.
TABS ok..but this exists from way before.
The problem requires the opposite solution: coming up with less features; keeping going with what worked and only introducing new things when they are more or less ready. However, what you didn't touch on is we live in a system where people want to continuously consume, they can't seem to have leisure other ways - hence companies are forced to introduce gimmicks to differentiate themselves from competition, and apple unfoprutnaley falls into this trap. I mean I am all for consuming if it actually helps me, but not if it doesn't or if it slows me down (which by consequence these gimmicks as taken apple from where it really helps, a stable OS with traditional features that can still really improve people's productivity). However, we don't live in that world anymore it seems; but I am afraid Apple will slowly lose its uniqueness if it forgets what made it succesfull: new features that were well tested and useful. I look for productivity, not gimmicks, and I welcome SIRI and other things when they are powerful enough, when they have been tested outside the 'public' realm long enough. I mean what about native window management that works so I don't have to use bettersnaptoolz even though it works great. I hope this makes some sort of sense. I like to consume for the sake of productivity and good leisure, not really consumption itself. Meh this is getting philosophical so I peace out. If I get left behind in this sense, it's fine by me, I will be able to stay more in connection with 'reality'.
But ya, hence, why I don't upgrade to SIERRA.
Uninstall and then reinstall adobe, make sure you have java legacy installed, I'm running sierra all the way back to cs2
Apple provides security and other updates for OS versions up to two behind the current one. In this case, for El Capitan and Yosemite. Mavericks is no longer supported, except, I've noticed, with iTunes updates, which have actually been redundant lately due to some bug in the App Store.
That's not to say that the security features in Sierra, El Cap and Yosemite are equivalent. Each version of OS X has had unique upgrades of their own. But we should be relatively safe in the specified older versions of OS X. Apropos of which, I'm soon going to have to upgrade from Mavericks to Yosemite. I'll hold back on the others because they kill features, and software, that I like.
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You seem to recognize that other people use computers differently than you do, but you don't really appear to accept it. You keep coming back to what *you* want. Apple isn't designing their stuff for you or me or any other individual user. They are designing, to use current terminology, for the crowd. Which means putting in a variety of features that they think will appeal to a variety of users. All squeezed into their own software and hardware paradigms, some of which can be hard to take from time to time. Hence their reputation for being heavy handed. As often as not they give us what they want, not what we want.
Still, it's perfectly easy to use Sierra without Siri, application tabs (and Finder tabs), Optimized Storage or any other feature you don't like. Most of them can be turned off or customized in system preferences. I almost never use Notification Center, for instance, in any version of the macOS.
The biggest issue with Sierra, as with any OS upgrade, is whether it will break some application that you use regularly. There is a wiki on this web site keeping track of compatible and incompatible apps: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sierra-10-12-compatible-apps.1977335/. The information is not entirely consistent—which is in the nature of a wiki with input from multiple sources. The way to deal with this is to install Sierra on a cloned backup of your system and test your stuff there. At the same time you can learn to customize it for your purposes. If you don't like the results, avoid upgrading your main system for a year or two. As I've said before, it will do no harm to wait till Apple has debugged it further.
i dont think you realized what i was trying to say - sierra's new features don't increase productivity for anyone - SIRI is very weak sauce, and optimized storage - people with storage issues have alternative more effective ways of dealing with that
These are currently considered gimmicks at best because they appear to demonstrate a concept, but do so very poorly; until they are really ready they should not be released other wise as I clearly said I'd love to use them. Furthermore, and again, apple needs to stick with basics that have been missing such as what you can do with Better Snap Tools, and etc; Windows 10 already does that and there is a reason: they have realized that *everyone* needs it, its a basic feature. SIRI and Optimized Storage however, they really are gimmicks in this day and age, both for the novices and the advanced users, plain and simple. It's when fans like yourself reject reality that a company goes down: just say it SIRI is crap; Optimized Storage usefulness at this point is questionable
I'm still running yosemite, only upgraded at 10.10.5, it seem better than mavericks in many ways, and not so in other ways. Only real annoyance I've found is swiping between desktops sometimes sticks between screens rather than jumping to next desktop. Finder is a bit more vibrant , and the flat icon do grow on you after a bit.
[doublepost=1479110590][/doublepost]The big question is what next from yosemite, el captain, sierra, or wait again.