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Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

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Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#91
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should be legally required to maintain the same level of functionality as before then.

I don't agree with that but they shouldn't be allowed to stop signing the old versions. People should be able to downgrade if they have a need or desire to do so.

There has to be a middle ground. If I want to run iOS 10, I should get a set number of years (3? I'd be happy with 3) Apple will back port security fixes to it instead of being forced to run the dumpster fire that is iOS 11. Simply continuing to sign old versions or make them available isn't enough.

Hopefully the EU takes this up, as they’re far more pro consumer than the US.

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#92
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. Microsoft used underhand tactics to force Windows 10 on users, where at one point closing the upgrade prompt window by clicking the X at the top-right was taken as permission to install. The difference between Windows 8.1 and 10 was marked, particularly because when Windows 10 was first released it was extremely buggy, and the in-place installation broke swathes of drivers, programs and lost settings…

I understand that you have never used Windows, but the x at the top right means close that particular window and not yes or no.

>Last week, Microsoft silently changed Get Windows 10 yet again. And this time, it has gone beyond the social engineering scheme that has been fooling people into inadvertently upgrading to Windows 10 for months. This time, it actually changed the behavior of the window that appears so that if you click the “Close” window box, you are actually agreeing to the upgrade. Without you knowing what just happened.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/67367/upgradegat...

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#93
post #74
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You intend to use your phone for a year without installing any security updates? Some people like living dangerously, I guess. For the rest, it's a good thing iOS strongly encourages people to keep up to date.

I have a 6s and regret upgrading to 11. Slow and unstable. Frankly I don’t do enough sketchy crap on the phone to care about security updates as much as I’m supposed to.

It always amazes me how subjective adjectives like "slow" and "unstable" are when referring to software. I too have a 6s (plus), and iOS 11 has been just as fast and stable as iOS 10 in my experience.

This kind of disparity makes a lot of sense in the PC world, where everyone has slightly different hardware. I can't quite figure out why it's still common on a platform where there is relatively no hardware variation.

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#94
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the pattern Apple is using there. But comparing it with Microsoft?!? Microsoft was a lot more aggressive and shady, and used a bunch of evil UI patterns, like installing it by clicking "Cancel" button. Or displaying a second start button that opens the shady installer instead of the start menu. macOS auto downloading is not right, but it is whole level below that. If you look at OS charts like on Steam,…

No, it’s the same really. Automatically downloading I’ve 5GB of data in the background without permission is some incredibly shady shit. There are people in Australia with data plans that this would literally still cost hundreds of dollars.

The difference is that the App Store Control Panel on the Mac allows the user to make the decision that updates should or should not be downloaded in advance of the decision to install the update.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207251

With the Windows 10 update, Microsoft was actively using dark patterns to circumvent their user's wishes.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/67367/upgradegat...

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do for their own good? I see this as for the collective good, as most of the people hurt by unpatched software are NOT microsoft but people, small businesses, and the victims of the resulting botnets. Obviously if you know what this is you can turn it off.

The issue with having an off switch is that non-tech-savvy people will blindly follow some instructions to disable it and will get caught by a major security vuln. Case in point: when Chrome throws a TLS error, you could type "danger" to bypass it, but they had to change it because businesses started teaching users to bypass errors blindly. Not exactly apples to apples, but similar enough in my mind. If users blindly…

A good reminder that if a software company is given enough trust to auto update, keeping that trust us important. Seems the big boys have been breaching that trust a lot lately.

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#96
post #15

It is a shame to see Apple using the same tactics as iOS with macOS, which in my opinion a different beast when it comes to upgrades. I really regret upgrading to High Sierra, because — thanks to a still unfixed graphics driver issue, my 2014 rMBP reboots/lags/breaks when using the GPU. Fortunately, I managed to remedy it with a beta Nvidia driver; without a pro-user mindset, I can only imagine how many people are fr…

After all the trouble you went through, would you really call your experience an "upgrade"? It sounds like you are barely tolerating upgrades. In terms of user experience, Apple has terrible UX because they impose on their users so much. There is no justification for what Apple is doing. They are downgrading and arguably damaging your computer, because 1) they are too lazy to support more than one operating system, 2…

I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple employees tended to test on the newer Apple gear, and older models sat somewhere as part of a bulk testing unit, meaning they don't personally experience the same slowdowns as you.

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#97
post #15

It is a shame to see Apple using the same tactics as iOS with macOS, which in my opinion a different beast when it comes to upgrades. I really regret upgrading to High Sierra, because — thanks to a still unfixed graphics driver issue, my 2014 rMBP reboots/lags/breaks when using the GPU. Fortunately, I managed to remedy it with a beta Nvidia driver; without a pro-user mindset, I can only imagine how many people are fr…

I'm having significant problems with High Sierra on MBPR 2013. WindowServer memory usage can get up to 5-8 GB before it starts to consume insane amounts of CPU and the system basically locks up and I need to reboot the system. Also simple application drawing starts to fail too, I've encountered visual errors like this https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Sep-2... in multiple applications, Xcode's co…

It sounds like this has been pretty consistent, but I haven't had one problem since upgrading my late 2013 MBP. It's an i5 2.4Ghz, with 8G mem. Onboard 1500MB for graphics, no GPU.

Right now my WindowServer is only around 240 MB and I haven't rebooted in a couple of weeks. Not one visual error either.

(Memory is looking like:

    app mem:        1.6G
    wired mem:      1.9G
    compressed mem: 1.8G
    file cache:     1.0G
    free:           2.5G
) And I'm running a long-open instance of Chrome, Hyper term (Electron-based terminal emu), Itunes, Mail, Keybase, XCode, and Atom.

Each time I open one of those I see a memory drop of about 1G, but I run Memory Cleaner to keep an eye on it, and running a quick flush clears up about a gig with no performance drops.

That visual issue looks extreme! I've not had a single problem besides the odd program needing updated to be able to run.

I did wait until the first official release to upgrade the OS, though. I didn't grab the beta.

Did you guys install the beta first?

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#98
post #15

It is a shame to see Apple using the same tactics as iOS with macOS, which in my opinion a different beast when it comes to upgrades. I really regret upgrading to High Sierra, because — thanks to a still unfixed graphics driver issue, my 2014 rMBP reboots/lags/breaks when using the GPU. Fortunately, I managed to remedy it with a beta Nvidia driver; without a pro-user mindset, I can only imagine how many people are fr…

> High Sierra has the same lack of 'internal polish' as iOS 11, and as a result, it's going to leave a lot of users scratching their heads in anger.

I've avoided upgrading to macOS High Sierra just to wait and see how it turns out. I'm less cautious with iOS, and am currently frustrated by two things in iOS 11:

1. The WiFi/Bluetooth radio behavior in Control Center (to compensate I use Siri to turn those off, but that's cumbersome too). The recent beta of 11.2 has a popup announcing the new behavior, and that sounds like a terrible idea by itself. Instead of giving more control to the users, Apple, for my needs, has made a terrible decision on this one. (Of course, I have read comments from other people who actually like this new behavior).

2. The bloat in the OS, which causes terrible lag in different screens (including Settings) when it's running on last year's device (an iPhone 7). I don't play games or do video editing and other activities that might need more RAM. My usage has been the same as it was on iOS 10, but the device is sometimes a pain to use. I'd expect such slowness in a device that's three or four years old, since Apple doesn't seem to optimize for older devices, but last year's device??? I've restarted the phone, reset it, updated to the latest .x version as soon as it's been released, but nothing has helped (my flash storage is less than half used - so it's not that either).

Overall, I guess I'm just echoing what some others have said over the last few years - the software quality and "it just works" mantra that Apple used to take pride in is gone. If anyone in Apple were to ask me what it should focus on, I'd suggest something like two releases on the lines of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which was primarily under-the-hood changes to optimize things and make it better and faster. I'm certain iOS needs this kind of effort badly.

FWIW, I've also provided this feedback to Apple at apple.com/feedback and I'd suggest others who're concerned or have issues do the same.

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#99
post #90

I feel like I'm seeing a trend here. An OS reaches a very stable point where users are happy. But the company needs to keep pushing updates to stay relevant and generally makes things worse. I think it's why people were stuck on Windows XP for so long, and now Windows 7 will be the one people hold onto as long as possible (if they weren't automatically upgraded). The most recent versions of iOS and macOS are in the s…

> the company needs to keep pushing updates to stay relevant and generally makes things worse

It isn't the company that feels the need to stay relevant, it's the UI designers & developers. They have to keep changing thins to justify their existence.

Re: Apple Begins High Sierra Automatic Rollout

#100
post #90

I feel like I'm seeing a trend here. An OS reaches a very stable point where users are happy. But the company needs to keep pushing updates to stay relevant and generally makes things worse. I think it's why people were stuck on Windows XP for so long, and now Windows 7 will be the one people hold onto as long as possible (if they weren't automatically upgraded). The most recent versions of iOS and macOS are in the s…

There's this other item currently on the front page, which is also relevant --- some users seem to want updates, regardless of whether it actually fixes thing for them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15727749

Personally, I abhor this continuous churn too; I'm a developer myself, but I'd rather spend the time to fix small things and in general drive towards that asymptotic stability than attempt huge breaking changes in the fashionistic sense.

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