Apple Releases OS X 10.11 El Capitan With Improved Spotlight Search, Enhanced Performance, and Revamped Apps

[SeaFox]

Who in the world uses spotlight search. If you don't know where things are on your mac, give up.

Apple has "hidden" the Network Utility in a folder buried on the hard drive verses having it in the actual Utilities folder you can access from the Go menu starting with Yosemite. Combine this with the hard drive no longer automatically appearing on the desktop and you make a nice problem for people trying to do tech support and walk something through pingtesting. Spotlight is the only easy way to get it now.

 

[jwdsail]

Is there a reason you're not still using Aperture, since it does what you want?

Never updated to 10.10 on my daily driver Mac, was busy w/ work/life, then when I did, realized too late that Apple had pulled to 10.10 update for Aperture. Needed 10.10 for other software/work needs, sadly, so downgrading to 10.9 on that Mac isn't the best option.

Still have an i7 iMac running 10.9 and Aperture, but would be nice, since the 3.6 update is now back in the update list, if I could update my 10.10 Macs.. or 10.11....

As I said, I'd settle for an Apple Photos extension or something from a 3rd party, that made Photos.. useful.. tolerable..

It's not a huge issue, just one of those, it'd be nice to have options, I like options, things...

 

[Choctaw]

As a fun user of Apple computers I know little about all the technical things you have referenced. However I accept your thoughts and plan on keeping Mavericks on my computer at this time.

I find it sad that the creators of so many wonderful gadgets find it unsatisfactory to keep something that is working well and seem to develop a need to fiddle with it until things we like are removed, and things we don't need are added, and most disappointingly that new toy comes with broken parts that need fixing. Will it ever end? Thank you for your opinions on EC at this time.

 

[Bahamut Eos]

Adobe is warning people that Premiere doesn't play well with 10.11 right now, just a heads up.

 

[Eric5h5]

Not a good comparison. "OS X" used to be a number. It only became a brand later once they removed Mac from Mac OS X. OS X (10) came after OS 9 which came after OS 8 and so on. Naming it OS XI (11) does make sense to progress numerically up the figurative ladder.

No, not really. Note that they used "OS X" instead of "OS 10". It was always a brand even when it was "Mac OS X"; they focussed heavily on the "X". Take a look at old install discs. Yes, X is a Roman numeral for 10, and it's obviously a play on OS 7, 8, and 9, but the fact is that the brand is OS X, and they're not going to arbitrarily throw that away. It would make no sense from a marketing/branding perspective.

--Eric

 

[dubmick]

anyone having problems with Photos? App is stuck at 85% updating library for me.

 

[Shortdog]

Trying to get in early in hopes of someone delivering the answers...

Could anyone verify with certainty:

• Will it run Adobe CS 5.5 programs with no issues?
• Will it run Pages '09 with no issues (especially the DTP side functionality)?

Earlier betas had some trouble with these and I'm wondering if these are working now or if 10.9.5 or maybe 10.10 is the last OS for those 2?

For those who want to come back pitching upgrades, I need Pages 09 for the DTP side of that program (something the "new" and "improved" version of Pages can't match). And I'd rather keep using Adobe 5.5 than get on the subscription program for Creative Cloud.

I have heard that Yosemite will run both with no big issues. Can anyone on the final incarnation of Yosemite confirm that too?

Thanks for any reliable answers.

Edit: made corrections to the latter question about Yosemite

 

[John.B]

So is there any combination of Photos Extensions that make it as useful/usable as Aperture, or is it still a useless POS?

Early days, yet. The vendors have to make such things available. But... check out the animation here. I for one am looking forward to Affinity's offering.

As I said, I'd settle for an Apple Photos extension or something from a 3rd party, that made Photos.. useful.. tolerable..

From my Twitter feed, Jason Snell (formerly at Macworld) wrote up a preview of a few extensions: Photo Extensions come to Photos 1.1 - sixcolors.com

I gotta admit, so far I'm pretty underwhelmed.

What I'd really like would be an extension to add GPS coordinates to existing photos in a Photos library, given the Photos application's emphasis on locations.

 

[cubbie5150]

Took forever to DL on release day, since I live in a rural area w/ only crappy DSL, but since install, zero complaints. Split-screen has been used much more than I had anticipated. One small nit: I really miss being able to change all sorts of icons (from Finder, Mail, App Store, etc...).

 

[bigpoppamac31]

No, not really. Note that they used "OS X" instead of "OS 10". It was always a brand even when it was "Mac OS X"; they focussed heavily on the "X". Take a look at old install discs. Yes, X is a Roman numeral for 10, and it's obviously a play on OS 7, 8, and 9, but the fact is that the brand is OS X, and they're not going to arbitrarily throw that away. It would make no sense from a marketing/branding perspective.

--Eric

Maybe so. But the latest release should be 11.1 instead of 10.11. Yosemite would have been 11.0. Even if they still call it OS X they could still go with 11.x starting back with Yosemite. So they're just gonna keep going with 10.x forever? Makes no sense. They'll end up with 10.100.x in about 90 years. LOL In a way I do get what you're saying but the numbering is messed up now.

 

[Eric5h5]

Just ignore the "10." part. That never actually made sense, since OS X was a different and incompatible operating system compared to the previous Mac OS. So versions 1-9 of OS X never existed. But yes, they can keep counting up forever and it's fine; numbers don't end. Think of it as just OS X 11, much like we have iOS 9, which will be iOS 10 next year and then iOS 11 after that.

--Eric

 

[ArmCortexA8]

Apple has "hidden" the Network Utility in a folder buried on the hard drive verses having it in the actual Utilities folder you can access from the Go menu starting with Yosemite. Combine this with the hard drive no longer automatically appearing on the desktop and you make a nice problem for people trying to do tech support and walk something through pingtesting. Spotlight is the only easy way to get it now.

Apple have hidden Network Utility since Yosemite, and Macintosh HD has been off by default since then too. I don't know why they do this, but its pretty easy to find on the system.

 

[737george]

MagicJack does not work with El Capitan, if you use MagicJack for phone calls DO NOT UPGRADE.. MagicJack says they are working on the problem..

 

[John.B]

The "X" in OS X is also a nod to Darwin's BSD/UNIX underpinnings.

 

[bingeciren]

MagicJack does not work with El Capitan, if you use MagicJack for phone calls DO NOT UPGRADE.. MagicJack says they are working on the problem..

Oh thank you for the warning. I wasn't planning upgrading anyway but it's nice to know.

So far, this upgrade seems to have more headaches than benefits. Parallels 10 is working but not 100% compatible, Paragon NTFS for Mac (v10) is not working and needs to be upgraded, Magic Jack is not working, Disk Utility is simplified and pruned - looks awful, and the list goes on.

OSX upgrades are free but the repercussions are costly.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Just ignore the "10." part. That never actually made sense, since OS X was a different and incompatible operating system compared to the previous Mac OS. So versions 1-9 of OS X never existed. But yes, they can keep counting up forever and it's fine; numbers don't end. Think of it as just OS X 11, much like we have iOS 9, which will be iOS 10 next year and then iOS 11 after that.

--Eric

In any event it just makes sense to me for Yosemite to have been OS XI (11) and they go from there. So El Cap would be 11.1. But one could possibly also argue that we could be at OS XX (20) or so by now if every major release was a new number.

 

[SeaFox]

Apple have hidden Network Utility since Yosemite, and Macintosh HD has been off by default since then too. I don't know why they do this, but its pretty easy to find on the system.

It's not really hidden in the sense of invisibility. But one thing the Dock has done is dumbed down people when it comes to navigating the filesystem via the Finder. This isn't a surprise really. When you have people switching to Mac (or first time computer users) and 90% of their computer usage is Internet services, they have little reason to use the Finder -- Safari and Mail are right there on the Dock when the machine is powered on for the first time. The same thing happens with Windows users. You try to get them to find file on their computer and they don't know how to use a standard open/save dialog box if it doesn't automatically select the folder they were going to use (Desktop or Documents or Pictures).

 

[manu chao]

Maybe so. But the latest release should be 11.1 instead of 10.11. Yosemite would have been 11.0. Even if they still call it OS X they could still go with 11.x starting back with Yosemite. So they're just gonna keep going with 10.x forever? Makes no sense. They'll end up with 10.100.x in about 90 years. LOL In a way I do get what you're saying but the numbering is messed up now.

Software version numbers are not real numbers. Version numbers often have more than one 'decimal' point. No real number can have more than one decimal point. We had OS X 10.4.11 which according to your logic should have been called 10.5.1 (if 10.10 should have been 11 then 10.4.10 should have been 10.5).

Version numbers are more like multi-dimensional complex numbers where each 'decimal' point separates different dimensions (unless you are used to this stuff, three dimensions is the most that easily comprehensible but mathematically you can have as many dimensions as you want).

 

[manu chao]

In any event it just makes sense to me for Yosemite to have been OS XI (11) and they go from there. So El Cap would be 11.1. But one could possibly also argue that we could be at OS XX (20) or so by now if every major release was a new number.

Apart from 'code names', which changed from cats to places, nothing really distinguishes 10.10 and 10.11 from the previous versions of OS X. And they had to switch the code names as they slowly started to run out of well-known large cat species.

 

[NMBob]

Spotlight for workflow? It's not that hard to locate documents and applications on a Mac without spotlight.

Well...it's getting there. Go ahead, find a PDF you put into iBooks without using iBooks. (Fat chance finding a book you bought. Their file names have all been obfuscated.) OS X is getting pretty stupid.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Software version numbers are not real numbers. Version numbers often have more than one 'decimal' point. No real number can have more than one decimal point. We had OS X 10.4.11 which according to your logic should have been called 10.5.1 (if 10.10 should have been 11 then 10.4.10 should have been 10.5).

Version numbers are more like multi-dimensional complex numbers where each 'decimal' point separates different dimensions (unless you are used to this stuff, three dimensions is the most that easily comprehensible but mathematically you can have as many dimensions as you want).

I'm not concerned about the second decimal point. Once we hit 10.9 then the next should have been 11.0. It could have been 10.4.100. So what? Once the next major release came out it went to 10.5. Once we hit 10.9 that made for 10 iterations of OS X (10). Once the ".9" goes to ".0" again it would make it 11.0. After 10 releases of 11.x it would then go to 12.0 and so on. Groups of ten major OS releases.

 

[manu chao]

I'm not concerned about the second decimal point. Once we hit 10.9 then the next should have been 11.0. It could have been 10.4.100. So what? Once the next major release came out it went to 10.5. Once we hit 10.9 that made for 10 iterations of OS X (10). Once the ".9" goes to ".0" again it would make it 11.0. After 10 releases of 11.x it would then go to 12.0 and so on. Groups of ten major OS releases.

Version numbers are not real numbers. They are strings of numbers connected via a dot. The point (full stop) is not a decimal point. Version numbers don't use the decimal system or even any numeral system with a fixed base (where 'decimal' refers to use of ten as its base). Imperial units frequently use a base 12 system: 12 inch make 1 foot. Dates are another example of representing a number (the time passed since a given marker from the past) with a different base than ten, it even has mixed bases that change along the way and except for the years doesn't know the number zero. One common way to write today's date is: 4.10.2015. If we reverse that we get: 2015.10.4. Now, I think we all agree that the day after 2015.10.9 is not 2015.11.0. That is because the base of last part is 28, 30 or 31. And the next part also doesn't have ten as its base. What follows 2015.9.30 is not 2016.0.0 but 2015.10.1.

Version numbers are even more different. While they represent an order, there is no fixed base and there is no absolute value attached. Contrary to time or length they don't follow a linear path and don't represent a real number (time and length are real numbers). They use numbers and punctuation for other purposes than representing a real number. They are best seen as each part representing a different (spatial) dimension:

 

[SlCKB0Y]

In any event it just makes sense to me for Yosemite to have been OS XI (11) and they go from there. So El Cap would be 11.1. But one could possibly also argue that we could be at OS XX (20) or so by now if every major release was a new number.

My god. Is this tired old debate still going on years after it began?

Software version numbers are arbitrary and not a decimal system.

 

[ArmCortexA8]

Well...it's getting there. Go ahead, find a PDF you put into iBooks without using iBooks. (Fat chance finding a book you bought. Their file names have all been obfuscated.) OS X is getting pretty stupid.

You can enable full visibility of the filenames easily to get around this issue.

 

[Choctaw]

[QUOTE="bingeciren, post: upgrades are free but the repercussions are costly.[/QUOTE]

From all the complaints on the forum I keep telling myself let some time go by before upgrading to this new EC. I do want to have it, probably need to let it get tweaked a bit and have the kinks fixed. Will continue to watch and read the posting for the clear signs that it's bringing satisfaction.
Thanks for your comments on EC it along with others has kept me from jumping in for now.