Apple macOS Mojave: There's goth mode but developers will have to wait for the juicy stuff Apple takes great pride in shipping macOS annually, as regularly as clockwork. Only a few macOS updates have failed to arrive in the window between July and October each year – and those were a very long time ago. 10.4 Tiger, which followed its predecessor by 18 months, arrived while Microsoft was in the middle of its Longhorn …
Apple does indeed seem to have released Mojave for the sake of the deadline more than anything else. This is probably why it is only being promoted in the App Store instead of being the usual nagware. Don't think I'll look at this again before January.
Fortunately, I think it's been possible/legal for a few years to try more recent MacOS versions in a VM.
have gone on too, I think. I had a serious problem with a MacBookPro that shipped with Sierra. After I installed Silverlight (Virgin Media's streamed "To Go" service needed it and I wanted to watch something when I was away from home, otherwise I'd never touch it with a bargepole), it suddenly started going into panic restart mode and a roast-your-fingers overheat every 5 minutes. It was running the APFS and had File Vault turned on. Whatever the problem was, restoring the OS didn't solve it, nor did going to High Sierra, nor creating a new user, nor wiping the disk completely and restoring because as soon as I reconnected it to my iTunes account it f***ed up again within an hour. Took me 3 months and two trips to the service centre who couldn't do anything with it. File Vault and APFS made it a nightmare to work with - more than half of my toolkit didn't work with those on it. Anyway, the Mojave beta fixed it instantly; it's happy as Larry and runs much cooler.
An article by Mr O on Apple that does not use derogatory terms like 'Foxconn rebadger'!
I hope that this is a sign of things to come?... Or maybe not.
I've yet to put Mojave on my MBP so this article was very timely. I'll probably skip updating it until 10.14.1 is out and a few more of the rough edges are ironed out.
Thanks for a decent review Mr O.
much appreciated.
If you are on High Sierra I would definitely upgrade as you will have a much more bug free experience after doing so.
This is really bad advice. First of all, High Sierra isn't very buggy. But, more importantly, every MacOS upgrade over the last 10+ years has come with exciting new bugs and breakages and Mojave won't be any different. Particularly dropping 32-bit support is likely to cause some annoyance, even if it does make a lot of sense.
Mojave hasn't actually dropped 32bit app support yet but it is the supposedly the last macOS release that will support them When you run a 32bit app it pops up a warning that the app may affect your computers performance and needs updating but it does still run. The complete drop of 32bit apps from macOS is going to be in whatever california based codename Apple come up with for the 2019 macOS release.
Can't speak to other 32 bit apps but Mojave certainly has done something more than pop up a warning when it comes to discontinued, but still without a good replacement, 32-bit database app Bento.
When I type something in a field in Bento on Mojave, I have to wait 5-10 seconds for the characters to start to appear individually. Whatevers been done under the hood has totally ruined the app's performance.
Annoyingly, Apple has removed the ability to download a version of High Sierra and Sierre from Mojave so I can't build a seperate partition with High Sierra on.
I'm not against change but Apples refusal to let me get hold of High Sierra has me slightly miffed to say the least !
Annoyingly, Apple has removed the ability to download a version of High Sierra and Sierre from Mojave so I can't build a seperate partition with High Sierra on.
They've done this for years, and yes it's infuriating. The trick is to download each new version when it's released, and tuck it away somewhere for as-and-when you're ready to upgrade to it (not helpful in retrospect, of course!). Then, in a worst case scenario, you can always wipe the system drive and reinstall the OS of your (not Apple's) choice.
AFAIK, the OS downloads are keyed to your Apple ID, and so in theory should work on any Macs that are assigned to your Apple ID. However, this is only the case if you've owned the machine from new, and your Apple ID was the first one registered to it - to be on the safe side I tend to download the updaters to each of my macs.
Also in theory, downloading the installer should register the OS to your Apple account so that you can access it any time that you need to via the app store - in my experience this is a bit intermittent,,, perhaps you have to actually install the OS to register it to the account.
Of course, the best protection is to take an image of the system before updating the OS - SuperDuper is the tool you want for doing this (https://shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html)
Apple's Mac hardware went 64-bit at the end of 2006 with refinements in 2008. That we are a decade later and developers continue to drag their feet recompiling their applications as 64-bit is ridiculous. Adobe is the worst of all, as usual. They were also terrible foot draggers abandoning old Carbon coding in favor of Cocoa coding of their OS X apps. Lazy lazy lazy.
“‘If you are on High Sierra I would definitely upgrade as you will have a much more bug free experience after doing so.’
This is really bad advice. First of all, High Sierra isn't very buggy. But, more importantly, every MacOS upgrade over the last 10+ years has come with exciting new bugs and breakages and Mojave won't be any different. Particularly dropping 32-bit support is likely to cause some annoyance, even if it does make a lot of sense.”
I usually take the approach of upgrading to the previous OS version when the newest one goes GA. So that means our machines are all moving from Sierra to High Sierra at the moment.
Thanks for doing the beta testing for me :-)
"So that means our machines are all moving from Sierra to High Sierra at the moment."
Feel free to now enjoy what is widely considered the most bug ridden and least stable version of macOS in a decade. If you do insist on using High Sierra then make sure you stick to 10.13.4 because 10.13.5 and 10.13.6 have broken graphic drivers (which Apple has admitted is a known issue).
@DaveMcM
"The complete drop of 32bit apps from macOS is going to be in whatever california based codename Apple come up with for the 2019 macOS release."
Next years 10.15 will still have 32bit support, it's just that 10.14 is the last version to support 32bit "without compromises", 32bit support won't be dropped until 10.16 comes out in Q4 2020.
Feel free to now enjoy what is widely considered the most bug ridden and least stable version of macOS in a decade. If you do insist on using High Sierra then make sure you stick to 10.13.4 because 10.13.5 and 10.13.6 have broken graphic drivers (which Apple has admitted is a known issue).
Unfortunately some of us are stuck with the infuriating nonsense whereby Apple refuse to support allow the update to Mohave and so High Sierra is the latest release I can go to on my top of the line 2010 iMac. At least it will continue to get bug fixes for some time.
The computer may be 8 years old but the never ending need for compute power pretty much ended back then. I have absolutely no need for a new machine to replace this and Apple knows that which is why they spin the usual bullshit lines and discontinue support. My machine has an HD 5750 with 1GB RAM which, whilst it doesn't set the world on fire, matches the the GT cards that are supported on the base 2012 machines. These cards have 512MB RAM. If that's not a "fuck you buy our new hardware" then I don't know what is. They could easily discriminate machine support to those that can handle it rather than the half-arsed manner they chose.
Ironically I'll have no such issue updating my Hackintosh machine which is one reason why I built one, as I had no intention of burning $3k when Apple deemed fit to milk the consumer.
"If you are on High Sierra I would definitely upgrade as you will have a much more bug free experience after doing so."
I have been using High Sierra on my 2012 Mac Pro for quite some time now, and apart from the rocky release of the first maintenance release, it has been rock solid ever since.
This is not going to work at all unless Apple introduces some kind of Mac with touch support. Even then, I suspect it'll be like running iPhone apps on an iPad - functional, but not up to the aesthetic standards that mac users pretend are higher than other people's..
Anyone who's ever written a mobile app can tell you that operating a touch UI using a mouse or trackpad, as you do in the device simulator, is a horrible user experience - it's not the scrolling, but the layout of items that's a problem. Also, the "one fixed-size screen that's completely filled" nature of mobile apps allows designers much more leeway than a windowed environment does: there's precious little visual consistency between iOS apps , and that's something that will make a Mac desktop look just as messy as the bad old days of Windows 95, where every application producer insisted on using a custom window design because they could.
Apple surely must have been looking at what has been happening with Windows 10*, and how hard it has been for developers to design touch+desktop applications that work adequately for both platforms - and that's on an OS with a sizeable number of touch-screen devices already out there. The problem isn't a technical one, but rather a higher workload being placed on designers. iOS really doesn't ask much more of a designer than "draw nice screens in Sketch". Simply introducing resizeable windows destroys almost all of the design assumptions underpinning iOS apps, so dealing with such flexible layouts means raising the bar considerably. Then there's the problems of different viewing distances to consider: a layout that's clear and legible on a phone has far too much whitespace when viewed on a screen.. this is the persistent complaint against Windows "Metro" apps, but it's not caused by the framework, but by the designer simply settling to use a compromise layout and sizes that look equally not-good at both viewing distances, rather than designing a loose (tv, mobile) and tight (desktop monitor) one, and having the app dynamically choose at runtime.
I suspect the goal will be to allow direct code porting between iOS and macOS, rather than the more ambitious approach of a single executable that adapts its UI to suit the host's capabilities, as Microsoft took with UWP. While I think UWP's is the right approach, I also accept that few professional developers are given the planning time needed to do things right, as the mobile-app dev cycle is easily summed up as "screw the architecture, we need something running tomorrow".
(* ironically, the only significant UI change in this release, the light/dark UI switch with accent colour choices, is cribbed from Windows 10.)
I'll happily sing the praises of Qt for as long as you'll let me, but the existence of Qt doesn't do anything for the vast majority of iOS app developers whose codebase was created in XCode and so contains a mix of Objective-C, C++ and Swift, all running an Apple UIKit user interface that is largely set out in absolute "pixel" distances for a portrait-oriented screen (I blame the use of graphic tools like Sketch for this, as they guide developers towards directly copying dimensions out of a drawing to get a "pixel perfect" copy of the designer's UI concept, rather than thinking about how the UI is logically laid out).
Qt apps tend to work better because simply by choosing to use Qt in the first place, you've demonstrated an understanding that the world of application development is not limited to one maker of phones. Also, as the quickest develop/test cycle with Qt is to build your mobile app as a desktop Qt app (rather than deploying it to a device simulator or a real phone), you quickly get a feel for what would need work if you were targeting both desktop and mobile users.
Because it's an touchscreen app crowbarred onto a desktop OS.
So our choices are now Windows 10 which looks like a car crash, it's a mash up of TIFKAM/UWP/PWA/whatever it is this week with Win32 with light/dark with different icon sets through the ages, Linux is not there yet on the desktop (is it ever?), and finally the Mac keeling over and sinking into the mediocrity of a touchscreen UI swamp (one app put on the iOS store and ran through a converter and put on the macOS store is too much of a temptation for minimum-cost development).
Golf clap for all the UXers out there, it took about 15 years but you've finally got your special prize.
@Dan 55
Give Mint a try for the desktop. Newest 19 version fixed the text scaling issues that 18 had on smaller screens. Also seems that they have done some power management tweaks to get better battery life out of laptops.
Libre Office is fine for most use and is very polished. You'd still need a mail client if you are going thick, but most web mail interfaces get the job done these days.
And yeah, how they didn't learn a thing from the Windows 8 disaster is a mystery. Mobile OS does not belong on a desktop/laptop. Although, in the case of Mac OS, maybe it would be an improvement? I really can't stand the way it does stuff and how things are arranged. There is a reason every flavor of *nix, Windows has a basic start bar with organized shortcuts. It just works for humans.
"You'd still need a mail client if you are going thick, but most web mail interfaces get the job done these days."
Web mail just doesn't work well, from my point of view. Generally too inflexible, and no access to mail without a network connection, and no support for encryption - which really has to be end to end - so you need a client.
On the other hand, there are a number of good free mail clients. I've been using Thunderbird on Windows and Linux for a decade now, and it works very well.
I've been using Thunderbird on Windows and Linux for a decade now, and it works very well.
Whilst I also use Thunderbird, primarily from a cross platform availability perspective, it annoys me with its habit of habitually shitting itself at least once per week. I can guarantee unlocking the (OS X) machine once a week and seeing the "Thunderbird fell on its arse again" crash reporter. I tired of submitting reports. I do use it to enable local folder copies of server mail accounts using the useful "copy folder" add-on.
CRT's used to write green/orange depending on the phosphor. Fine for mononchrome. We didn't really get black on white until colour screens were developed. It's debatable* but I've always found black on white on colour easier to read. Except on my phones, where at least for OLED screens, using a dark theme makes sense because it saves a lot of power. Apple shoehorning this into MacOS might prelude some MacBooks with OLED screens next year.
* Apart from the subjective aspects, I think the issue is focussing on luminescent characters.
Yeah, in general dark characters on a light background are easier to read, though it depends on the font and weight. A serif based font in a light colour on a dark background is really stupid. The thin lines tend to disappear.
That said: for programming / work on the bash I do prefer light colors on a dark background (solarized under vim)
There is a reason it was green or amber on black, and not vice versa.
Yes, to prolong the life of the CRTs and reduce power consumption, but mainly to preserve the life of the tubes.
Secondarily to that, an full screen of "inverse" video on a terminal of that era will clearly show the scanlines that make up the display, which is visually distracting.
Whether text is more legible as black-on-white, or white-on-black depends mainly on how thick the strokes are: lighter typefaces work best as white-on-black; bolder ones work best as black-on white. As an example of this, the road signage used in the UK uses two weights of the same typeface (imaginatively called "Transport Medium" and "Transport Heavy"): the "Heavy" weight is used for black lettering on white-backed signage, and the "Medium" weight is used for white lettering on the green and brown-backed signs. Visually, it's hard to notice that there are two different weights used, which is precisely the point.
Many OSX applications - such as Adobe Lightroom and video editing and colour grading applications - have used a 'goth mode' for years. If you're working on a dark image or video, bright UI elements are distracting or glaring, especially on HDR displays.
One assumes this OS-wide goth mode is just make things less jarring when these users switch to another task.
Dark background emphasises colour which is why colour photos "pop" with a black boarder - no distracting bright white surround. Anecdotally I also find dark themed desktops easier on the eyes for prolonged use and tend to setup any apps offering it to default to it.
Yep - you beat me to it. Taking a slowly-slowly approach is not gonna catchee-monkey for Apple. If they say the desktop is legacy then that's the final nail in the coffin of my 20+ years as a Mac user. I can't do what I do with a tablet, and Apple is now treating desktop as legacy.
I don't want a mobile OS on my desktop. I don't want everything sandboxed and locked down, forcing me to jump through hoops, or to use clumsy drag-and-drop procedures to try to move something I'm working on from one application to another - I'm quite happy opening files from the filesystem, and having full access to that filesystem is fundamental to the way a pro uses a computer.
I mean, iOS is fine on a phone or tablet, but I'm trying to get shit done here, not look at videos and read faecesbook threads.
There's no Macintosh hardware at present that's worth buying - it's all either utterly out-of-date, stupidly impractical, or inexcusably expensive (or any combination thereof). Now, the only thing that keeps me with Apple - macOS - is being killed in favour of a toytown OS.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
> What the hell is wrong with these people?
They no longer have Steve Jobs, slapping them about and calling them out for stupidities, followed by making absolutely sure everything is exactly how he wants it, to the point of perfection?
Steve, like Linus, was apparently quite the abrasive character, but the results speak for themselves. Apple without him hasn't really blazed much of a trail anymore, nor do they seem to put the same effort and diligence into their work.
And I say this is a non mac user (the icon gives it away). I remember the old "Power Mac G5" towers, disassembled one that was being broken for spares. That was one of the most beautifully put together machines I had ever seen. The quality, the design, the thought put into almost everything to the detail. It blew away every other PC manufacturer, and was of a standard I expected in to see in industrial machinery (I was so impressed I actually kept the case, and retrofitted an ATX motherboard. I use it as my main PC to this day). I got the feeling that Apple hired the right people for the jobs that needed doing, then managed them to success. That is now gone, IMO.
Ran Mojave for a day and realised that iTunes was updated (and thus the loss of app control). Reinstalling the 12.6 image was prompted with 'not compatible' message. So back to High Sierra and iTunes 12.6.x. Nope, not gonna lose control of those apps, just yet...
Be warned that Mojave removes the "Use LCD font smoothing when available" option in the settings as it no longer supports subpixel antialiasing. That's fine if you're using a Retina screen or a 4/5K screen but on older MacBook Airs and lower resolution external displays that might be a problem for some. I know I could see a marked degradation in the sharpness of text, especially in Atom, on my external monitor.
Try disabling this setting in High Sierra (and reboot to make sure the change takes effect) and see what you think before you upgrade.
You can re-enable font smoothing in Mojave from the terminal, but since they've removed it from the GUI there's no guarantee how long it will stick around.
"This year's big-bang feature is the introduction of APIs bringing macOS and iOS closer together"
NO! A thousand times, NO!
I'm sick and tired of desktop software being dumbed down to suit the clumsy 'mobile' use case. I use a desktop where possible because I find it a far more useable environment than tablets and phones.
The only mobile apps that I use are those few which genuinely suit the mobile environment, such as navigation and checking email on the go. Pretty much everything else such as coding, writing documents, gaming I do on a decent desktop with a nice big screen, a proper keyboard, big speakers, powerful graphics card, wired high speed network connection and bucketloads of storage.
Please please please don't dumb down the desktop user interface ... pretty please, with sugar on top.
For a long time, I lauded Apple (no, really!) for not hopping the same crazy train that Microsoft and Canonical jumped on to try to create the One True User Experience that would work on two totally incompatible and disjoint platforms (phone and desktop). The landscape is still littered with the smoldering remnants of this matter-antimatter collision.
Alas. Apparently the same ADHD-addled Millennials that attempted to destroy Windows' and Linux's functionality have, after the implosion, crawled out from under the woodwork and found a home in the ear canals of the Apple OSX development team. So, one can be assured of approximately 2 years of disruption there before the adults are let back into the room to restore order.
I guess some folks just never learn. (Or, more accurately, their egos won't let them learn. We in the States have seen how well that works -- on several fronts.)
Oh, and BTW, Andrew is right, Qt FTW.
The Register: "But this year, I think it would have been smarter to wait, as the really big feature is not yet ready."
No, this is common among Apple operating systems. I'm grateful that Apple didn't wait. We have something fun and useful to look forward to in this year's updates.
Regarding 10.13 High Sierra, The Register: "...But we thought it was excellent work."
No it wasn't. High Sierra is the one version of macOS I've gladly skipped. The reason why is Apple's abysmal release of APFS. It wasn't finished. It was never finished in High Sierra. It never worked on either hard drive or fusion drive Macs, despite the fact that Apple continued to sell fusion drive Macs. Apple also never finished the documentation for APFS during the year of High Sierra. This forced third party developers of repair utilities to sit on their hands while users were stuck with meagre Disk Utility to fix their APFS drives. Then add to that Apple forcing all users with SSD drives to reformat their drives as APFS despite the fact that this created problems communicating with existing HFS+ formatted hard drives and fusion drives. I consider it Apple's biggest blundering in many years.
In contrast, at last APFS is now complete in 10.14 Mojave and there is no need for worry. This is the APFS release Apple should unquestionably have made in 2017. What a shame they couldn't wait, ending up hurting their users and developers instead.
Like the concept of a dark mode, especially when working in the wee hours.
Alas it's implementation is unusable as the applications are unoptimised at this moment. Take Mail for example; this fails in dark mode as it fails basic accessibility requirements for contrast, especially if different background/highlight colours are used to identify different email sources. Add to that the problems with rendering "rich text" emails which were designed for a specific colour, e.g. white backgrounds, it ends up as an unusable mess.
So 5 minutes seems to be about it for a feature that's been so pushed.
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