OS Mojave for Apple Mac...

[dave2010]

Yeah, the Retina displays are fantastic, which Mojave makes the most of, and the one on my Macbook Pro is a 15-incher... AoS has never looked so good, lol

Had this lappy now, from new, for nearly 4 years, and it's not lost a beat - never had a moment's trouble. I find with computers that you usually get what you pay for.

Not had a problem so far with Siri understanding me - perhaps my Scottish accent is softening?

Marco.

I am now hankering after an iMac Pro - saw one the other day - really nice. I could spend up to £11k quite easily - though the basic Pro model is a tad under £5k. Having said that, the new iMacs are really quite good. I have a few of the older ones, but they're not really good enough for video editing. My MBP will do the job, but perhaps I bought too early - it only has a 250 Gbyte SSD, though it's pretty fast. I did get the version with the i7 maxed out processor.

I'm still on High Sierra - and until I've backed off the files on this one to create more spare space, I can't do the Mojave download and install.
However, just got a new SSD to put in an enclosure from MyMemory - about £28 for 240 Gbytes, and an enclosure from Amazon for about £8, so should be able to sort out the files fairly soon.

https://www.mymemory.co.uk/integral-...e-560mb-s.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[YNWaN]

No doubt the Pro is faster, wouldn’t call my Vaio slow though, i5 quad core with 6 gb RAM, which was pretty much the dog’s danglies when it came out. I had the 17” version, shame Apple no longer make one, would of had that as I like the larger screen.

Vaio's are still made, just not by Sony. That part of the company was bought out by the management and still produces high-end laptops in the same vein as when they were owned by Sony.

That spec aint nothing though - my laptop has an i7 with 16GB of super fast Ram, 500G of SSD and a terabyte of normal HD. It's not for playing music through though.

[struth]

Vaio's are still made, just not by Sony. That part of the company was bought out by the management and still produces high-end laptops in the same vein as when they were owned by Sony.

That spec aint nothing though - my laptop has an i7 with 16GB of super fast Ram, 500G of SSD and a terabyte of normal HD. It's not for playing music through though.

Similar to my spec. Except I've a 250gb ss. Not currently got the hdd fitted. Little zbook

[Ali Tait]

Vaio's are still made, just not by Sony. That part of the company was bought out by the management and still produces high-end laptops in the same vein as when they were owned by Sony.

That spec aint nothing though - my laptop has an i7 with 16GB of super fast Ram, 500G of SSD and a terabyte of normal HD. It's not for playing music through though.

Aint nothing now, was when the Vaio was new though. :-)

Yep my MacBook Pro is i7 with 16gb RAM and the faster processor, it’s notably faster than the Vaio which is a bit long in the tooth now. Any links to the new Vaio laptops?

[mikmas]

Finally got around to trying Mojave ... and hated it pretty much instantly.
Major beef was the lack of an opt-out for APFS which is complete pants and makes it unworkable for me.

And as to the ludicrous 'Dark Mode' - just more faux-chique retro bullshit .. (from the masters of bullshit hype in Apple Marketing)


Immediately deleted.

[dave2010]

Finally got around to trying Mojave ... and hated it pretty much instantly.
Major beef was the lack of an opt-out for APFS which is complete pants and makes it unworkable for me.

And as to the ludicrous 'Dark Mode' - just more faux-chique retro bullshit .. (from the masters of bullshit hype in Apple Marketing)

Immediately deleted.

So I shouldn’t rush to install it, then. Thanks for the hint - though I might eventually. I was thinking of doing that having just completed the latest upgrades/updates.

What did APFS do to you that didn’t work for you? I haven’t noticed it being such a problem. I can imagine that if you use memory sticks to transfer data to Windoze it might get in the way, but there’s always a difficulty with file systems for compatibility nowadays - FAT seems to be the only file scheme which works, and even then there can be issues.

[Marco]

Finally got around to trying Mojave ... and hated it pretty much instantly.
Major beef was the lack of an opt-out for APFS which is complete pants and makes it unworkable for me.

And as to the ludicrous 'Dark Mode' - just more faux-chique retro bullshit .. (from the masters of bullshit hype in Apple Marketing)

Ha - I don't even have a scooby what that is, to have a "major beef", or not, over its omission! So what's an "opt-out for APFS" when it's at home?

I love dark mode, as it gives a nicer 'feel', warmer, less glaring, to the appearance of the display, which also seems to add greater definition to colours.

I also like the addition of Siri, plus when I'm confident all will be ok downloading and installing the new software (no major bugs reported, etc) I like to keep my Mac always updated with the latest OS, as I find things run smoother that way and I don't want anything becoming obsolete.

But then I don't use my laptop for work (heaven forbid), but simply for posting here and using the Internet in general, buying stuff, and emails, so just like something that looks and feels 'nice' in use, and that's built well and reliable

What is that graphic meant to represent? It looks like something you used to get on BBC Ceefax

Marco.

[AJSki2fly]

I have been using the Mac for over 10 years now and my experience downloading their new OSX operating systems has not always been good. When there is a bug it can be very annoying if you loose info or something gets corrupted. I found on an older Mac it was happy with Yosemite but constantly crashed with El Capitan. You may find in later years some operating systems seem happier on your laptop but as Apple move toward the future newer systems maybe more tricky.

Your Mac I believe is fairly new Marco so should be a breeze installing next few years of updates.


Quote Marco;

Interesting, Jim. Had no problem either installing OSX, from whatever OS came before that (I forget now). Unlike Mike, I have no other 'tech devices' to consider at home, which the Mac has struggled to be compatible with. I always like to keep what I've got though, as updated as possible, and that includes the 'smart' devices in my AV system [TV, amp and Blu-ray player].

As soon as a software update becomes available, I download and install it immediately.

Marco.

From a fruity technical insider. In my experience most issues related to upgrades are one of four things. Firstly corrupted downloads due to using poor wifi connections and as a result breaks in connectivity causing data loss during download and corrupted update package, and before you say it can't happen it definitely does. Secondly, a hard drive on the computer/device receiving the upgrade/update having issues, in other words the drive is failing. Thirdly the current installation of the OS has got corruptions, either through bad update downloads or hard drive issues. Finally elements of the hardware has a fault developing, for example Wifi/Airport card/chip, display, USB serial bus on the main logic board and so on. If I remember correctly Apple recommend taking a full Time Machine backup before updates/upgrades to OS in case of issues. I am aware of one or two issues in the OS that have gone from version to version, but do not see these occurring very often.

You need to remember that Mac OS X as you know it has been around since Jan 2000, 18 years, and has gone through 15 levels of release. Up until 10.6 Snow Leopard both Intel and Power PC was supported. Each major release as with any operating system is not necessarily a re-write of it but involves adding and improving functionality, mainly to offer users a better experience but also to be able to support new hardware and in some case software development tools that deliver new or improved applications. This is a very tricky and complex thing to do, which the general public do not and should not need to understand. To go from one release to another involves many, many days of development and testing just to get to a stable version that can go to Beta testing prior to general release.

In my past I used to work for a major bank as a Test Manager on the Streamline credit card system used by most of the major banks. It ran/runs on many hardware/software platforms and architectures, with some of the back office systems on Windows NT. When Windows was introduced in the early 90's, I experienced first hand along with several hundred other developers just how complex and difficult it is to ensure that any system is bug free, and I am not only talking about Windows or other OS but also end user in house developed software. We would spend thousands of man days on every release running, every type of test you could think of to ensure reliability, module testing, unique system testing, end to end testing - system to system, regression testing (manual and automated), integration testing and inter-operability tests between member banks. I could go on and on. Suffice to say it is not a simple task and takes a great deal of dedication and skill to get it right, but it is not fool proof. When testing anything a simple assumption or mis-understanding can cause major issues. After all up until very recently it has all been done by human beings, some of this work is now far more automated and has a far greater scope to improve quality.

IMHO Mac OS X is and has been one of the most reliable operating system that I have used since the early 80's, although I do know that pure Unix is also a very stable environment. If you compare it to Windows and the problems that Microsoft went through with their versions in the late 80's and 90's then it has been far more stable IMO.
Having said that I suspect that the time is fast approaching for a complete re-right from scratch of the Mac OS platform. Like all operating systems built on the Object Oriented paradigm they inherit functionality from what was built at day one, and if aspects of this was flawed at the start then work arounds, patches and new code to overcome or manage these flaws will eventually become too complex to manage. In fact it can ultimately hinder new functionality being supported as what is now required was never originally envisioned.

I hope this might help put things into perspective a little.

[Marco]

A superb and very informative post, Adrian, which even someone non-technical, such as me [and why should anyone who doesn't work in that field, or have any interest in computers, beyond being a tool for work or pleasure, be technical?] could easily understand and digest, so thanks for taking the time to write it!

I'm a very happy and satisfied Mac user, and don't foresee ever using anything else. I'm also delighted with the upgrades that Mojave has given me, and which have significantly enhanced my user experience

Marco.

[AJSki2fly]

A superb and very informative post, Adrian, which even someone non-technical, such as me [and why should anyone who doesn't work in that field, or have any interest in computers, beyond being a tool for work or pleasure, be technical?] could easily understand and digest, so thanks for taking the time to write it!

I'm a very happy and satisfied Mac user, and don't foresee ever using anything else. I'm also delighted with the upgrades that Mojave has given me, and which have significantly enhanced my user experience

Marco.

Thank you Marco. I tried to be informative and allow people to think just how complex this stuff is. After all you could take virtually any modern mobile phone nowadays and launch a Saturn 5 rocket and do a moon landing with it, and still have processing power beyond what was available in computers used in the 60's space launches.