macOS Sierra (OS X 10.12)

[Eug]

macOS Sierra system requirements:

MacBook - Late 2009 and later
iMac - Late 2009 and later
MacBook Air - 2010 and later
MacBook Pro -2010 and later
Mac Mini - 2010 and later
Mac Pro - 2010 and later

I'm so far OK with my mid-2010 27" iMac Core i7 870, but will be upgrading in a couple of years. The main problem with it is it has a platter drive, so I've been running it off a Firewire SSD. Not ideal, but it should keep me going for a year or two.

My MacBook Pro is a mid-2009 13" Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz, so I'm due for an update.

For both, I'm waiting for Kaby Lake or Cannonlake. Need 10-bit 4K HEVC decode support built-in and would prefer to have 5K video support over Thunderbolt. The former is in Kaby Lake, but the latter would likely require Cannonlake in 2017 with DisplayPort 1.3.

 

[Koing]

No new hardware

It'll be interesting to see how the rMBP13 goes.

No magsafe is a DEAL breaker and a huge step backwards IMO.

Koing

 

[Eug]

Hmmm... The late 2009 unibody white plastic MacBook is essentially the same thing internally as my mid-2009 aluminum 13" MacBook Pro.

However, the late 2009 plastic MacBook gets the macOS Sierra love, but the MacBook Pro doesn't. WTF?!? I would have predicted neither would get it, but this seems odd.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...nibody-late-2009-mid-2009-macbook-pro-13.html

 

[Koing]

Hmmm... The late 2009 unibody white plastic MacBook is essentially the same thing internally as my mid-2009 aluminum 13" MacBook Pro.

However, the late 2009 plastic MacBook gets the macOS Sierra love, but the MacBook Pro doesn't. WTF?!? I would have predicted neither would get it, but this seems odd.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...nibody-late-2009-mid-2009-macbook-pro-13.html

Random

Thats like the 2012 Mac Mini being quad core and the later generations dropping off quad core and being much less user replaceable. I believe the 2012 Mac Mini you could have 16GB of ram, SSD and an HDD!

Koing

 

[TheStu]

No new hardware

It'll be interesting to see how the rMBP13 goes.

No magsafe is a DEAL breaker and a huge step backwards IMO.

Koing

I've been seeing that a lot lately, and I'm a little confused by it...

All of their current portables are rated at 9 hours of battery or more. Plug it in at night, use it during the day.

Also, Griffin makes an aftermarket USB-C magnetic breakaway connector if it's super important to you.

 

[Eug]

Oooohhhh... This is big!

Goodbye HFS+, and hello to APFS!

https://developer.apple.com/library...f/doc/uid/TP40016999-CH1-DontLinkElementID_27

Apple File System is a new, modern file system for iOS, OS X, tvOS and watchOS. It is optimized for Flash/SSD storage and features strong encryption, copy-on-write metadata, space sharing, cloning for files and directories, snapshots, fast directory sizing, atomic safe-save primitives, and improved file system fundamentals.

Actually it looks like it won't be the default with macOS Sierra at launch though, since it doesn't officially ship until 2017.

APFS is released as a Developer Preview in OS X 10.12, and is scheduled to ship in 2017.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I've been seeing that a lot lately, and I'm a little confused by it...

Most of the noise is just people pissed off about the 12" rMB, hoping that the next round of rMBPs doesn't get rid of DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, etc.

FUD, in other words. Although if Apple did that, it wouldn't be the first horrifyingly stupid thing they've done.

All of their current portables are rated at 9 hours of battery or more. Plug it in at night, use it during the day.

Also, Griffin makes an aftermarket USB-C magnetic breakaway connector if it's super important to you.

Rating, schmating. I can run my 15" rMBP down in <2 hours if I'm actually doing anything awesome with it.

Busted power connectors are easily the most common damage I've seen in laptops, and the Magsafe connection is probably the main reason there are still so many well-loved 5-10 year old Macbooks out there chugging along.

 

[Glo.]

Not only new filesystem is huge. Metal for macOS now brings Direct3D12 and HLSL to Apple platform.

First glimpse is that Metal now uses Resource Heaps. A feature that came with Direct3D 12.

So now it directly is competing with Windows 10 as a gaming platform.

 

[Commodus]

Not only new filesystem is huge. Metal for macOS now brings Direct3D12 and HLSL to Apple platform.

First glimpse is that Metal now uses Resource Heaps. A feature that came with Direct3D 12.

So now it directly is competing with Windows 10 as a gaming platform.

Well, it would if Apple built affordable systems with high-end consumer graphics (you have to buy a 5K iMac to get something that's genuinely solid). I'm not knocking Macs as they are, but you'd need a rethink of Apple's hardware strategy before you start seeing all the big PC games hitting the Mac in a timely fashion.

 

[Koing]

Most of the noise is just people pissed off about the 12" rMB, hoping that the next round of rMBPs doesn't get rid of DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, etc.

FUD, in other words. Although if Apple did that, it wouldn't be the first horrifyingly stupid thing they've done.



Rating, schmating. I can run my 15" rMBP down in <2 hours if I'm actually doing anything awesome with it.

Busted power connectors are easily the most common damage I've seen in laptops, and the Magsafe connection is probably the main reason there are still so many well-loved 5-10 year old Macbooks out there chugging along.

This.

It's less about using the rMBP without it connected to the mains, but having the magsafe snap away safely so it doesn't snag and jar the power connection. I had my first laptop a Sony R500 or R505 back in 2000 go bad after 3-4yrs like that . That thing cost like £1.5k back in 2000! My dads dell went bad due to the power connector as well. It's such an awesome feature.

That griffin thing looks interesting. But spending upwards of £1.5k on your laptop and having to buy a basic adapter is a bit of a kick in the gonads IMO.

Koing

 

[phillyTIM]

Whew, that Sierra upgrade support list is getting close to the heels of my MBPro 2011...I've been planning to go at least a few more years with it, hopefully.

 

[TheStu]

This.

It's less about using the rMBP without it connected to the mains, but having the magsafe snap away safely so it doesn't snag and jar the power connection. I had my first laptop a Sony R500 or R505 back in 2000 go bad after 3-4yrs like that . That thing cost like £1.5k back in 2000! My dads dell went bad due to the power connector as well. It's such an awesome feature.

That griffin thing looks interesting. But spending upwards of £1.5k on your laptop and having to buy a basic adapter is a bit of a kick in the gonads IMO.

Koing

I guess the other side of the thing is, talking about you in particular (but I've seen others say very similar things) was you said it was a deal breaker.

Ok, then you can buy another laptop with a magnetic power connector. Oh wait.

I'm just saying, back with my OG MacBook and MBA11, the MagSafe was a nice extra feature because what I cared about more was the trackpad, the keyboard, and OS X, so I wasn't going to get a PC laptop.

 

[SearchMaster]

I already had to replace my first power adapter on my 2011 MBP because it developed a short near the connector, but MagSafe saves me regularly. I put my MBP on the floor next to my recliner very often, and my puppies chase each other around and pull it loose daily (the damaged adapter was pre-puppies). MagSafe is one of my favorite Mac features (my wife's last laptop had a damaged power connector inside the machine and was impossible for me to fix and not worth hiring someone else fix).

 

[Eug]

I wouldn't be surprised to see the new MacBook Pros keep MagSafe. They'll keep a bunch of different ports so they may as well keep MagSafe. And they have bigger batteries, although technically you can put 100W through a USB C port I believe.

I'd hope only the MacBooks lose MagSafe... as they've lost almost every other port.

 

[rugby]

No new hardware

It'll be interesting to see how the rMBP13 goes.

No magsafe is a DEAL breaker and a huge step backwards IMO.

Koing

They don't do hardware at WWDC. Wait a month or so.

 

[TheStu]

I already had to replace my first power adapter on my 2011 MBP because it developed a short near the connector, but MagSafe saves me regularly. I put my MBP on the floor next to my recliner very often, and my puppies chase each other around and pull it loose daily (the damaged adapter was pre-puppies). MagSafe is one of my favorite Mac features (my wife's last laptop had a damaged power connector inside the machine and was impossible for me to fix and not worth hiring someone else fix).

Incidentally, the power ports on Apple portables are almost separate boards, and therefore much cheaper to replace. Whether you have to remove 87 screws and basically disassemble the whole system to get at it is another story but... it's removable.

They don't do hardware at WWDC. Wait a month or so.

They have done hardware at WWDC, just not regularly. I want to say the New Mac Pro was announced at WWDC. Shame they let it languish.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Ok, then you can buy another laptop with a magnetic power connector. Oh wait.

I could have sworn that either Dell or Microsoft (Surface) were using breakaway/magnetic connectors for power now? (At least on some models.)

Or did I hallucinate that?

 

[purbeast0]

i wonder if xcode is going to be complete crap in this OSX version or if they will finally fix some bugs.

 

[manly]

Busted power connectors are easily the most common damage I've seen in laptops, and the Magsafe connection is probably the main reason there are still so many well-loved 5-10 year old Macbooks out there chugging along.

definitely a killer feature. Maybe some bean counter proved to Tim Cook that MagSafe costs Apple sales by saving many MacBooks from accidental damage?

They have done hardware at WWDC, just not regularly. I want to say the New Mac Pro was announced at WWDC. Shame they let it languish.

I believe rMBP was also introduced at WWDC? A lot of lifelong Mac-heads are getting pretty bitter, and hope that Apple just spins off the Mac business to an executive team that actually cares about it. Not gonna happen but they arguably have a point.

i wonder if xcode is going to be complete crap in this OSX version or if they will finally fix some bugs.

Why ruin a "good" thing?

 

[TheStu]

I could have sworn that either Dell or Microsoft (Surface) were using breakaway/magnetic connectors for power now? (At least on some models.)

Or did I hallucinate that?

You may be right, but I want to say that they actually redesigned it due to the difficulty that users had in getting it to connect properly. The new connector may also be magnetic, but it's not designed like a MagSafe anymore, it honestly looks like cross between lightning and a 30pin connector (so wide, flat, and contacts on the outside).

 

[v-600]

I've been seeing that a lot lately, and I'm a little confused by it...

All of their current portables are rated at 9 hours of battery or more. Plug it in at night, use it during the day.

Key word. Rated. The 13" rMPB gets 2-4 hours of battery in my day to day experience. The rating they claim doesn't really help extend the useful time the device on, a good charging system does.

USB C has the potential to be a great system, plug the charger into any free port and charge, universal chargers for any USB system. Its still not perfect, and still a compromise (some things better and some worse than magsafe).

I guess though if you provide a data cable for power you can't have it with an easy break in the line, or risk data loss as you snag it and corrupt whatever file you're transferring to your external HD (for example).

 

[Kaido]

Well, it would if Apple built affordable systems with high-end consumer graphics (you have to buy a 5K iMac to get something that's genuinely solid). I'm not knocking Macs as they are, but you'd need a rethink of Apple's hardware strategy before you start seeing all the big PC games hitting the Mac in a timely fashion.

I honestly wouldn't mind if Apple went the Razer Core route with an external GPU box. Then you could buy whatever machine you wanted - a Mac Mini, an iMac, a Macbook - and add on game-playing functionality as desired. I think that would be a really smart move on Apple's part & I wonder if that's why there wasn't any new hardware announced at WWDC. Stick an NVMe drive in everything, add in an eGPU-capable Thunderbolt port, and I'd be willing to jump back to official Apple hardware from my Hackintosh :thumbsup:

 

[Commodus]

I honestly wouldn't mind if Apple went the Razer Core route with an external GPU box. Then you could buy whatever machine you wanted - a Mac Mini, an iMac, a Macbook - and add on game-playing functionality as desired. I think that would be a really smart move on Apple's part & I wonder if that's why there wasn't any new hardware announced at WWDC. Stick an NVMe drive in everything, add in an eGPU-capable Thunderbolt port, and I'd be willing to jump back to official Apple hardware from my Hackintosh :thumbsup:

The absence of Macs at WWDC is almost exclusively down to the timing for Kaby Lake and new Xeon chips. It'd be too late to offer Skylake on the MBP and Mac mini, and Apple likely wants designs that are all about Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 going forward. I suspect it updated the MacBook with Skylake simply because there's not much benefit to going TB3 with it, at least not in this generation.

 

[TheStu]

I honestly wouldn't mind if Apple went the Razer Core route with an external GPU box. Then you could buy whatever machine you wanted - a Mac Mini, an iMac, a Macbook - and add on game-playing functionality as desired. I think that would be a really smart move on Apple's part & I wonder if that's why there wasn't any new hardware announced at WWDC. Stick an NVMe drive in everything, add in an eGPU-capable Thunderbolt port, and I'd be willing to jump back to official Apple hardware from my Hackintosh :thumbsup:

Yea, Apple releasing their own eGPU, particularly one that is user upgradeable, is basically NEVER going to happen.

Being able to take a Mac with TB3, and either from macOS or Windows, connect to, and utilize an eGPU? 100% certainty.

Having that eGPU power the internal display?? That's the dream right there.

If the rMBP13 refresh gets TB3
And if people show that (at least in Windows), it can connect to the Razer Core or similar
Then I'll almost certainly sell my Mac Pro & MacBook, and get that setup.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Yea, Apple releasing their own eGPU, particularly one that is user upgradeable, is basically NEVER going to happen.

Being able to take a Mac with TB3, and either from macOS or Windows, connect to, and utilize an eGPU? 100% certainty.

Having that eGPU power the internal display?? That's the dream right there.

If the rMBP13 refresh gets TB3
And if people show that (at least in Windows), it can connect to the Razer Core or similar
Then I'll almost certainly sell my Mac Pro & MacBook, and get that setup.

Already possible.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOPKd-YBX_s