The IT Nerd

Apple releases a new operating system every year. Sometimes the company makes massive changes. Other times it’s bug fixing and performance tweaking with only a handful of changes. macOS High Sierra is the latter. At least, that’s what Apple would have you believe. The fact is, that there are significant changes under the hood that make this worth installing.

The first reason to install macOS High Sierra is the new APFS (Apple File System) file system. It replaces the 20 or so year old HFS+ (Hierarchical File System) file system by bringing the following to the table:

• Built-in encryption and support for full disk encryption
• Snapshots, which used to record the state of your storage device based on points in time, helpful for backups
• Space sharing, which makes it easier to resize and mange different partitions
• Faster performance
• The ability to better manage very large storage capacities and files

Here’s the catch. At present you need an SSD installed to leverage this feature (though support for Fusion Drives and spinning disks will be coming at some point in the future). And as I have noted previously, you’re going to get this new filesystem on your SSD whether you want it or not. Apple also says that the time to convert to APFS may vary based on the size and speed of your disk, the speed of your Mac, how much free space you have, and whether the volume is encrypted or not. In my case the total time to upgrade to High Sierra took almost five hours. Now I did check to see if I had any pre-existing issues with the SSD in my MacBook Pro which had about 230GB of data on it, or the OS, and there were none. Thus I am unable to explain this result. I will be running an upgrade on my wife’s MacBook Pro this weekend so I will get a chance to see if this was a fluke and I will update this post with the results. Once it was installed, here’s what I noticed:

• I got 2.1GB in disk space back.
• Opening applications felt a touch faster

So on the surface it seems that APFS does make a difference. Your mileage may vary.

The next difference that you’ll see is in Apple’s Safari web browser. It now stops videos from auto playing. Something I know that annoys a lot of you who are reading this. Second, is Intelligent Tracking Prevention. This stops sites from tracking you and displaying ads based on where you’ve been on the web. While advertisers won’t like this, you will. There’s a bunch of performance and functionality improvements that are along for the ride as well that make this a better browser overall.

Photos is the one app in High Sierra that gets the most changes. For starters it’s a better organization tool via tweaks to the sidebar and toolbar, drag-and-drop organization, imports history, improved accuracy with the People album, and more. The Edit mode is redesigned with better access to tools, Live Photo support, and there are also new filters. Photos also has new Project Extensions, so you can use third-party services to create websites, books, etc. There’s so many changes with Photos that I could do a separate review on Photos alone. So I will simply say that you should try it and I think you’ll love it.

There are other features that make this a worthwhile upgrade:

• High Sierra now has support for VR headsets
• Apple’s new Metal 2 API has support for external GPU hardware, which could mean you can boost your MacBook’s graphics performance by using Thunderbolt to hook up an external box with a top-end graphics card. Something that’s popular on the PC side of the fence. There’s also support for machine learning which should help Siri be a better virtual assistant.
• Two new file formats that are now supported in High Sierra are High Efficiency Video Encoding (HEVC) for video and High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) for photos. In fact, an iPhone that is on the same iCloud account as a Mac running High Sierra will automatically use the latter by default.
• Siri gets a new voice and some more intelligence.
• There are tweaks to iCloud to support the new Family Sharing feature as well as sharing files to non-iCloud users. Something that iCloud desperately needed to compete against services like DropBox.

So is there a reason that you shouldn’t upgrade to High Sierra? Frankly, other than this security hole, if your Mac support High Sierra (which any Mac that ran Sierra will), then this is a worthwhile upgrade. Just take my advice on what to do before you upgrade and you too can leverage the performance tweaks that High Sierra brings to the table.

UPDATE: I installed macOS Sierra on my wife’s MacBook Pro which also has a Samsung SSD in it. While I did get it to install, it took three hours and the installer crashed right at the very end. That forced me to reboot it a couple of times to bring it back to life. That’s not something that I recommend, but I was left with very little choice. Everything worked properly and I will keep an eye on it over the next few days.

The Apple Watch has only been out since 2015, but the OS that powers it is now on its fourth iteration. The changes are significant and help to make the Apple Watch more usable for most people. Here’s the things that jumped out at me:

• Immediately switch to List View for your apps: One of the things that I always hated about the Apple Watch is the grid view for apps as I found that to be difficult to navigate. Thankfully, Apple has come up with List View which displays your apps in alphabetical order in a list that scrolls up and down. You can switch to the list view with a hard-press on your watch’s app screen, then select List View. This is a way easier way to navigate your apps. Especially if you have a lot of them.
• The Dock mimics List View: Instead of scrolling from left to right, app previews are stacked vertically. just like list view which makes using the dock easier.
• The Heart Rate app is more useful: Previous versions of watchOS simply gave you what your current heart rate is. watchOS 4 gives you way more data such as resting rate and walking average. It will also detect when your heart rate increases when you are not exercising as that may be a sign of a heart issue.
• There’s now a flashlight: In a pinch if you need a flashlight, your Apple Watch can help you with that. If you swipe up to bring up Control Center, you’ll see the flashlight icon. You get a bright white setting, an alternating option and a bright red screen. It’s not the brightest, but in my testing it worked well enough in a dark room.
• The Music app has been heavily reworked… Perhaps not for the better: One huge change is found in the Music app. You can now only browse music that is on the Apple Watch itself and not the iPhone. Though you can still control an iPhone that is playing music using the Apple Watch. Other changes to the Music app in watchOS 4 include the ability to automatically add songs that are in a listener’s “heavy rotation.” Users can also manually select multiple playlists to sync to the watch, though it is limited to 2 gigabytes of storage. Now, there are going to be some who are not going to be happy about this. I personally am mixed and I will have to use this for a while to get a sense if this is good or bad for Apple Watch Users.
• Fitness fans will like watchOS 4: For starters the Workout app can switch between multiple activity types in a single workout and offers quick start workouts and pairing with gym equipment. Apple has also added greatly enhanced swim tracking. Finally he activity app now has coaching. So if you’re close to closing an activity ring, you’ll get a suggestion as to how you can do it.
• New watch faces: You get three new watch faces: Kaleidoscope, Toy Story, and Siri. The latter is potentially the most interesting. This watch face is made up of a series of cards stacked on top of each other, and scrolling the Digital Crown or swiping on the screen will navigate the list up or down. The info it provides is contextual. For example, if I was near a Starbucks, that would be displayed and I would have ready access to my Starbucks card. This is similar to the iPhone would do. But the iPhone will do this for built in and third party apps. watchOS only does this for built in apps. That limits how useful it could be. If Apple improves that, this could be a key feature. Also, with this watch face you get quick access to Siri, but pressing and holding the digital crown is just as quick for me. Thus I am not sure how useful this watch face is.
• The Phone app has a keypad: If you really want to live the Dick Tracy life, you’ll be happy to know that watchOS 4 has a keypad. This is likely a nod to the Series 3 Apple Watch with LTE, but it’s still useful for other Apple Watch users….. If you want to use your Apple Watch as a phone.
• The Camera app has more features: Beyond simply mirroring what the camera on your iPhone sees, the Camera app has some new features. You can now Force Touch the screen to flip between the front and rear cameras on your iPhone, activate or deactivate the flash, enable or disable HDR mode, and enable or disable Live Photos. You can also switch modes (say from photos to video) on your iPhone and have that reflected on the Camera app.
• Performance improvements exist: Apple claimed that they got a 70% speed boost from watchOS 4. I can’t say if that’s true or not. But I can say that my Series 2 Apple Watch does perform better. There were times with watchOS 3 when it felt sluggish. I am unable to find any such behavior now. That alone made the 2.5 hours that it took to install watchOS 4 worth it.

Here’s the bottom line. There’s more than enough here to make watchOS 4 a worthwhile jump. Besides the performance improvements, the changes to the apps are all largely positive. Though the jury is still out in terms of the music app. Be that as it may, Apple Watch owners should have no fear in terms of upgrading to watchOS 4.

UPDATE: I got my facts about performance slightly wrong. I crossed out the incorrect parts.

Yesterday, iOS 11 hit the streets and it’s a safe bet that within a couple of weeks, something like 80% of iPhones will have it installed. Frankly, if you’re on the fence about installing iOS 11, you shouldn’t be. I installed it on my iPhone 7 Plus seconds after it became available to the public and after the install I found it to be smooth and fluid in every aspect. But there are a number of things that stood out to me:

• The Control Center can be customized: Control Center which you get to by swiping up from the bottom of the screen is now a single screen affair rather than the three screens in the past. But you can now customize what appears there in the Settings app. That way it is truly useful to you.
• The Camera app works better: Apple has made a bunch of changes to the Camera app. Portrait mode now supports  flash and image stabilization. That will make that feature way more useful. Live Photos gets three new effects: loop, bounce and long exposure. Memories which auto generates albums works smarter, which means it might actually be useful because it wasn’t before.
• Siri is more useful: First off, Siri sounds less robotic and way more natural. Second, it can translate languages. English to Mandarin, Spanish, French, German, or Italian are supported at present. Though I had to change my iPhone 7 Plus from Canadian English to US English to make that work. But once I did, it worked fine.
• You can now browse the filesystem of an iOS device…. Sort of: Apple for whatever reason was dead set against introducing any sort of file management in iOS. But now iOS 11 has Files which allows you to browse and access files on your iOS device. But not everything. I guess Apple fully doesn’t trust users yet. You should also note that Files hooks into third-party storage services like Google Drive, Box and Dropbox.
• Messages works better: Messages in iOS 10 sucked as the interface was a bit of a disaster. In iOS 11 it lets you easily scroll through your apps on the bottom of the screen. That’s a big improvement.
• Multitasking looks different: When you switch apps, it now looks card like. That’s more cosmetic than anything else, but it is worth mentioning. \
• Text is sharper: Apple clearly tweaked how text looks on my iPhone 7 Plus as it is sharper and clearer. You’re going to notice this the second you install iOS 11.
• Notifications work differently: The biggest change is going to be how notifications work. In short,  the Notification Center of iOS 10 has been replaced with a screen that looks visually just like your lock screen. If you’re on the lock screen, you swipe up to see notifications. On any one notification, swipe left-to-right to open it directly. Or swipe right-to-left to “view” or “clear” it. If you’ve unlocked your phone. This will take some getting used to and I am not sure if this change was for the better.
• Taking screenshots is more useful: iOS 11 makes taking screenshots useful. You now get editing tools via a new mini app. This is useful for people like me who use screenshots to do “how to’s” for people.
• The SOS feature makes it way to iOS: Something that I enabled on my Series 2 Apple Watch was the SOS feature. On the Apple Watch you press and hold the side button and it will reach out to your iPhone to dial emergency services as well as a contact that you specify. That feature is now on iOS. Press the sleep/wake button 5 times and your iPhone will do the same thing. It’s a handy feature for peace of mind.
• The iPad gets a bunch of unique changes: iOS 11 delivers some unique changes for iPad users. The dock which is a staple on macOS makes an appearance. It replaces the bottom row of shortcuts that you’re used to on the home screen. The big difference now is that you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen in any app to make the dock reappear. That lets you easily jump between your shortcuts and running apps. A longer swipe brings up windows showing off all of your apps, along with the Control Center on the right side of the screen. The virtual keyboard has been redesigned to make it easier to type on. Finally, Apple Pencil support will make using the stylus feel more natural. All of this makes the iPad more like a fully fledged computer than a tablet.

One thing that I didn’t get a chance to test is augmented reality or “AR” as I didn’t have apps that supported that feature. But apps are starting to appear and it should be interesting to see how that feature is used.

So, here’s the bottom line with iOS 11. You’re going to upgrade to it if you have an iOS device. That’s a given seeing as roughly 80% of iOS users run the latest OS from Apple at any given time. But these upgrades are worth it. Though I am not yet sold on how notifications work. If you’re hesitant, you might want to wait until the first update comes out in a couple of weeks or so. But I wouldn’t be as there’s more than enough here to dive right in now.