Bournemouth — Oct 17th 2017
In their determination to keep to the release schedule, it seems that High Sierra was released with a few fairly serious issues. Most have been fixed through a couple of updates, although XProtect (the built-in virus protector) still has problems (uses old virus data) [UPDATE: Looks like this has been fixed now]. Apple has not changed the version number with these fixes and Tony’s advice, as always, is to wait for the 10.13.1 release.
The good news is that, although it needs about 1.5GB more memory, any Mac running Sierra can run High Sierra. Apple has given notice though that this will be the last OS to support 32 bit apps "without compromise" - users of old applications, take note!
The biggest feature of High Sierra is the introduction of a new filing system - APFS. At the moment only SSD drives will be updated as part of the OS installation, although it is possible, via Disk Utility, to re-format a spinning drive to APFS.
Full details of the new features can be found at: https://www.apple.com/uk/macos/high-sierra/ and include:
Photos - has some new features, including an improved Edit Pane and some intelligent search features.
Safari 11 (also released for Sierra & El Capitan) - allows website-specific settings, inhibition of auto-playing videos and can limit ad tracking via third party cookies.
Siri - sounds more natural.
Some of the less visible features include support for multi-speaker operation in Airplay 2 and for new image and video formats. The full benefit of these will only be felt on recent Macs with the appropriate hardware.
The system will now apparently regularly check on your machine’s firmware and update it if necessary.
Under the hood, there are many new features for app developers, so third party apps hopefully will begin to exploit these in due course.
Tony then went on to describe the difference in principle of operation between APFS and its predecessor HFS+. Because APFS stores data once only, copies of files don’t take additional space. When you modify one of the files, the changes are stored as ‘deltas’, again avoiding the need to duplicate the rest of the file so saving space.
After the tea break, Euan described his experiences with High Sierra and in particular APFS.
In a quest to tighten up security, it is no longer possible to just drop a file onto an APFS partition. You are expected to keep all your files in your user folder. No problem for most of us, but Euan may need emotional support in changing the habits of a lifetime!
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Drew McFarlane said…
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