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

[LukeHarrison]

Tried El Capitan, found that Logic Pro 9 is massively buggy. It runs, but terribly, and I still have a lot of 32-bit plugins in my toolchain, so Logic X isn't really an option. Gone back to Mavericks and it's working fine. This might be the end of the upgrade road for me.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Tried El Capitan, found that Logic Pro 9 is massively buggy. It runs, but terribly, and I still have a lot of 32-bit plugins in my toolchain, so Logic X isn't really an option. Gone back to Mavericks and it's working fine. This might be the end of the upgrade road for me.

That's disappointing to hear. Early tests with Metal have indicated OpenGL is faster for some things, even. It's not the "10x faster" BS Apple hype they want you to think it is. Xbench tests tell me it's slower, especially my hard drive (RAID 0 config) and one person I read said you really notice how BAD El Capitan truly is when you boot into Safe/Recovery mode and the graphics are the slowest in the history of mankind. In other words, El Capitan like Yosemite is a monument to slowness that is being "covered up" by the Metal API which makes it appear faster than it would otherwise be. Imagine how fast Snow Leopard would be with Metal in the GUI. I shudder to think. At least it's likely they will fix the instability with Logic Pro at "some point" since it's their own software. They won't bother with most 3rd party software, though and let the 3rd party people deal with their crappy OS changes instead.

I liked the dark mode and I can get used to the fonts and while the traffic light buttons are ugly, it's really the only thing that truly bugs me about the GUI look (the icons on my dock are so small relatively speaking that I can hardly notice the Finder "smile" has changed slightly--so what is my reaction. Yeah, when you use 1/10 of the bottom of your screen for the dock, you'll probably notice how ugly the icons are at that size as they seem more "basic" overall, but with a giant smallish bar on the left side of my screen (to utilize more vertical real estate, I can hardly notice). Maybe I've just gotten used to my iPod 5G as it pretty much looks similar (and the dark mode dock on the side looks almost just like Mountain Lion only with a thinner edge I think so that's an improvement and the dark menu bar looks nice). So GUI-wise, a mixed bag. But somehow, I don't hold out much hope major programs that don't run are going to be fixed when there are newer versions that work (but cost considerable money to upgrade). Apple simply won't bother. I've been giving some thought to getting a cheap external drive and putting it on there and I can test the updates from time-to-time or any games that come out. As it is, I think I'm better off with Mavericks for now.

I skipped Yosemite on this machine (late 2012 Mac Mini Quad i7 Server) and honestly, I'm surprised at how FEW changes I've seen. But then I don't tend to use Apple's software (I use Firefox and Thunderbird for browsing and email and Google Maps, etc.) Even looking at some of the news articles online, "11 features you don't want to miss in El Capitan" or something like that point at trivial things (the pointer getting big if you shake it which isn't good playing pointer-based games, IMO so I already turned it off; I don't recall losing my pointer that often anyway and IF I did it was because it somehow wandered off onto my 2nd monitor or something) while over half the list was changes to Apple PROGRAMS (i.e. Safari, Maps, Mail, Photos, etc.) that honestly could have been added to Mountain Lion even if Apple could be bothered to support older OS versions....

So why are so darn many programs breaking with such minimal "obvious" changes to the OS overall? Did something like VMWare Fusion 5.x stop working because Notifications got some new features? I don't think so. It's far more likely that many programs are breaking because of trivial GUI changes and in some cases that SIP crap. Meanwhile, Gatekeeper which the fanatics lauded so much for security awesomeness is EASILY BYPASSED with the most trivial method I ever read about. Yeah, you're safer with it on (You can't use 3/4 the programs in existence and you THINK you're so safe that you're lured into a false sense of security is more like it). I just know that I can report broken programs and other bugs all day long with "feedback" and I can almost guarantee you that nothing will change (except by coincidence). I think all feedback goes straight to the bit-bucket. Apple only reacts to major site news stories, not individuals with complaints.

 

[maflynn]

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.

OS X is the brand, just look at the updates 10.11.1, that's in no way a valid number.

 

[sracer]

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.

The problem is that once you're on OSX Apple makes it difficult to stay at the older versions. I'm not a fan of the iOS-ification of OSX... where a new version of the OS gets released every year. I need stability in compatibility. It doesn't help that Apple increases the version number by .1. The difference year-to-year is far greater than what is implied by ".1".

With every new version of OSX comes updates to apps that require that new version. That's not so much of a problem when a new OS version is offered every 3-5 years. (like Windows... including Service Packs as "new" versions) Doing this every year, it has become tiresome. The first 3 months (at least) after a new version of OSX is spent working through and around issues introduced by this new version. 9 months later, the whole cycle starts again.

 

[Choctaw]

The problem is that once you're on OSX Apple makes it difficult to stay at the older versions. With every new version of OSX comes updates to apps that require that new version......... the whole cycle starts again.

sracer...I am just a fun player with computers, have a network with both PC's and iMac. Upgrades from Win or Apple both have caused issues as we all know. I kind of lag back on new issues to see what works and what smokes. Your comments about keeping current reflect those of someone I know who works at a professional level with Apple systems. She say's the same thing you have stated, "keep up with the new OS or you lose new functionality."

I enjoy reading on this forum, but sometimes, not often, posters get an in your face attitude about their own opinions and become a bit ruffled. I suppose that is just a part of life now days, where many expect us all to salute what ever flag they run up the pole without even looking to see what it represents. That type of behavior creates a zombi society. It is slowly becoming just that, I have hopes for positive change where intelligence replaces emotional reactions.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

OS X is the brand, just look at the updates 10.11.1, that's in no way a valid number.

Sure it is. It's the European date of November 10th, Year 0001.

 

[576316]

Now preparing for my annual fresh install. Gulp! This is always a painstaking task but always worth it!!

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Now preparing for my annual fresh install. Gulp! This is always a painstaking task but always worth it!!

You do know you're not using Windows, right? There is no registry and therefore there is NO reason to EVER do another install. My Mac only gets slower when the new version of OS X is slower. It doesn't get slower over the course of the year. Never has and never will (unless you add more startup items or something). God I'd go nuts if I had to do a fresh install all the time. It's the #1 reason I left Windows in the first place. It took forever to install programs in Windows and then you have to start all over again if you redo the install. Here it's move program to Applications Directory and FORGET ABOUT IT! (Using my Donnie Brasco accent)

 

[Mr. McMac]

Well I finally updated my my 2 Mac Mini's. My only disappointment so far is the elimination of Secure Empty Trash. Why did they do that? Everything else seems fine so far.

 

[S.B.G]

Well I finally updated my my 2 Mac Mini's. My only disappointment so far is the elimination of Secure Empty Trash. Why did they do that? Everything else seems fine so far.

I haven't updated anything yet.

I ran the Public Beta on an external SSD and it was nice. There were a few glitches I encountered, obviously with a beta.

There is one app I like a lot, TotalFinder, which doesn't work well under 10.11 unless you disable SIP. That's partly why I haven't done the upgrade yet, and, partly because there isn't a compelling reason or feature, for me, to leave Yosemite just yet.

I'll probably wait for a point release or two before I do the upgrade.

I think this may be the first time since Tiger I've not upgraded immediately following a new release!

 

[Mr. McMac]

I haven't updated anything yet.

I ran the Public Beta on an external SSD and it was nice. There were a few glitches I encountered, obviously with a beta.

There is one app I like a lot, TotalFinder, which doesn't work well under 10.11 unless you disable SIP. That's partly why I haven't done the upgrade yet, and, partly because there isn't a compelling reason or feature, for me, to leave Yosemite just yet.

I'll probably wait for a point release or two before I do the upgrade.

I think this may be the first time since Tiger I've not upgraded immediately following a new release!

Thankfully I backed up my HD before I updated. If I encounter issues I haven't noticed yet, I can always restore my Yosemite install.

 

[S.B.G]

I backed up my HD before I updated.

The hallmark of smart computing.

 

[Mr. McMac]

The hallmark of smart computing.

Trust me, I learned the hard way many years ago.

 

[S.B.G]

Trust me, I learned the hard way many years ago.

Yeah, me too. I think most of us have had to learn things like this the hard way at one time.

 

[576316]

You do know you're not using Windows, right? There is no registry and therefore there is NO reason to EVER do another install. My Mac only gets slower when the new version of OS X is slower. It doesn't get slower over the course of the year. Never has and never will (unless you add more startup items or something). God I'd go nuts if I had to do a fresh install all the time. It's the #1 reason I left Windows in the first place. It took forever to install programs in Windows and then you have to start all over again if you redo the install. Here it's move program to Applications Directory and FORGET ABOUT IT! (Using my Donnie Brasco accent)

Meh. It's just something I like to do every time a new OS X drops. Usually because I'll have been running the beta for a few months and I wanted to clear out absolutely anything that could be hanging around from the beta, broken files or links or just junk files that I've forgotten about. Putting back all of my applications is as simple as dragging them back from my Time Machine and pretty much everything else is dealt with by iCloud. Just takes a couple hours of sitting down and putting stuff back how I want it.

 

[Choctaw]

Well I finally updated my my 2 Mac Mini's. My only disappointment so far is the elimination of Secure Empty Trash. Why did they do that? Everything else seems fine so far.

I am not familiar with what Secure Empty Trash means, I am not on EC yet, when I RT click Trash it only has Empty Trash, no Secure there. Explain please what it means.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I just discovered another problem with El Capitan since upgrading from Mavericks. I've had my 2nd monitor disconnected for awhile now due to an iTunes issue where it wouldn't let me get the 1080p versions of movies because it believed (based on my other smaller monitor) that it didn't have 1080p resolution (ridiculous since that doesn't mean you wouldn't want he higher resolution file even fi you couldn't watch it at that resolution. You might Airplay it somewhere or to an AppleTV etc.

In any case, I reconnected it to try it out with El Capitan here and NOTHING. The 2nd monitor is not recognized in El Capitan with my late 2012 Mac Mini. I can only guess it's one of two things. Either Apple somehow found a way to recognize unlicensed 3rd party "cheap" Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters (I paid like $6 each for three of these for myself and someone else and they worked great in Mountain Lion and Mavericks) or there's a bug in El Capitan. I haven't tried rebooting yet, but I never had to before so I doubt that's it. My HDMI-out works fine. Unplugging the HDMI to force it to consider the other port does nothing as well. It's bad enough several expensive programs don't work with El Capitan but to make my 2nd monitor not work over some petty over-priced adapter fee is too much.

I only recently noticed that the green button no longer maximizes the window, but goes full screen instead. I happened upon a closed thread that mentioned you can press the option key to get the old functionality back or assign it to the menu bar instead of minimize. Odd, but OK. It's the ONE "animation" that is NOT smooth here. That maximize "zoom" is pretty jagged moving. I also wonder why they didn't assign the old function to a right or even a center mouse button click over the same button. That would be better than having to reach for the keyboard for those of us still using and preferring 3 (or more) button mice. I wonder if I can use the Microsoft Mouse preference pane to assign the middle button to do just that....hmmm I guess not. It seems like the Microsoft pane doesn't fully function in El Capitan any longer. It doesn't matter what I select for the middle button, it just keeps doing the system handled one. My 4th and 5th buttons similarly just act as middle buttons now. I guess the Microsoft Pane doesn't work right at all anymore (strike one more program down by El Capitan! )

Further searching shows that once again, it's SIP that destroyed the program functionality. You can apparently get the Intellipoint driver working again by disabling SIP and running a command in the terminal. I'm going to have to make a freaking long LIST of things to run when I finally get SIP off (still need to get a USB drive to put a recovery partition on since I have RAID boot drives). Apple thinks they are doing us a favor with this SIP thing, but it's breaking a LOT of software and they don't care. They could have had a developer exception key or something for mouse drivers, Finder enhancers, etc., but no no no, they want you to do things the Apple way, not the better way....

 

[steve333]

OK, suddenly it's back

And now it's gone for El Capitan.
I still have it on safari but I keep getting a warning message when I try to enable it that it isn't a supported App.
What would work to download videos?

 

[John.B]

I only recently noticed that the green button no longer maximizes the window, but goes full screen instead.

Blame that on Yosemite, not El Capitan.

Further searching shows that once again, it's SIP that destroyed the program functionality. You can apparently get the Intellipoint driver working again by disabling SIP and running a command in the terminal.

Andrew Cunningham has a pretty good overview of SIP (what it is, why it was developed) over in the Ars review of El Capitan that's definitely worth reading/understanding before ranting about it: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/09/os-x-10-11-el-capitan-the-ars-technica-review/8/#h1

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that the IntelliPoint driver is trying to install somewhere under /System/Library, which is no longer allowed under SIP, in order to prevent hacks where system files could be replaced with compromised counterparts. If the driver is hardwired to install or run from that location, it would explain why you'd need to run a command (to move or reinstall the file?) after disabling SIP in order to make it function.

Edit: The IntelliPoint drivers are pretty long in the tooth, aren't they?

 

[John.B]

Well I finally updated my my 2 Mac Mini's. My only disappointment so far is the elimination of Secure Empty Trash. Why did they do that? Everything else seems fine so far.

Because SSD technology don't work in the same way that spinning disks did.

On an SSD when you overwrite a block, that block has to be erased first before it can be overwritten, and that erase operation adds a lot of time to the write operation. Worse still, SSD blocks only have so many writes in their lifetimes.

How this works is that SSDs have embedded controllers in them, which implement something called "wear leveling" which ensures the blocks that get overwritten do so evenly. So the sequence to overwrite a block is (a) the overwritten block gets marked as erasable in the controller, then (b) the actual write operation happens at some other currently unused block, and finally as the controller's processing gets freed up, (c) a separate process is spawned to go back to the blocks marked as erasable to actually erase them.

Deletes do (a) then (c), freeing up those blocks to be used for a future (b) write.

The problem with Secure Empty Trash is that, as far as the operating system is concerned, that deleted record was already overwritten. The SSD microcontroller marked the the deleted blocks as erasable, and will eventually go back to actually erase them, but the operating system itself has no idea where those deleted blocks are/were. The SSD controller manages that completely out of sight of the OS.

So that means that Secure Empty Trash on an SSD is nothing more than a placebo, and is why it was taken out of El Capitan. Could Apple have repeatedly overwritten every empty block on the SSD? Of course, but SSDs only have so many writes in their lifetimes. That only serves to shorten the life of the SSD itself.

If you really need to securely delete files in OS X, enable File Vault when you install the OS.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Blame that on Yosemite, not El Capitan.

I skipped Yosemite so it's all the same to me (i.e. they didn't change it in El Capitan so it's on ongoing problem and that means the developers' fault, not Yosemite's fault).

Andrew Cunningham has a pretty good overview of SIP (what it is, why it was developed) over in the Ars review of El Capitan that's definitely worth reading/understanding before ranting about it: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/09/os-x-10-11-el-capitan-the-ars-technica-review/8/#h1

I just read the article and it doesn't change my mind about it. Even by their own admission it fundamentally changes how a UNIX-based system works. Root is god in the UNIX world and Apple just placed themselves above god as the Supreme god and tells everyone they aren't allowed to touch anything anymore, users and developers alike. If this didn't affect anything, it might be one thing, but it clearly affects quite a few programs and severely limits other ones. The article points out how difficult it would be to compete with Final Cut Pro X as an example because Apple excludes themselves from the process (i.e. their programs don't have to follow the rules and they often do NOT follow the rules which is why iTunes used to cause kernel panics on my PPC system; it didn't follow any "safe" system rules in the name of performance or whatever else they were thinking). In other words, "Do as I say not as I do." I'm sure I'm not the only one that hates hypocrisy. Apple even locks you out of deleting their included utilities. The article gives Mail as the example. If you hate Mail and want it off your system, too damn bad unless you want to disable SIP first and reboot. Apple includes all its own programs with the "magical" layer of protection/annoyance that no one else gets.

UNIX has been more safe than Windows for its entire existence and along comes Apple to the rescue to fix something that isn't broke. A better system would be for a developer to get approval from Apple to modify the files and an exception then proffered for it (sort of like signed drivers from Microsoft). Otherwise, a certain class of applications are just going to disappear from OS X. Any developer knows that asking its users to have to reboot into a recovery partition to get their software working is akin to software suicide. People will simply not bother either due to it being a PITA or them being afraid to touch it.

Edit: The IntelliPoint drivers are pretty long in the tooth, aren't they?

Define long in the tooth. They worked 100% in Mavericks. What more could I ask from them? Despite my long-standing hatred of Microsoft and Windows for reasons I won't go into here, their Intellipoint 3 & 5-button mice were the best Mice I've ever used on any system. They are large enough to fit my hands (I'm 6'2" and don't have small hands), comfortable to use and track great. Compare that to Apple mice which want to hide extra buttons (so as not to readily admit that one big button in the center was, is and always will be stupid) and now magical mice that try to be a trackpad too (if I wanted a trackpad, I'd use a trackpad). Nothing beats a 3-5 button mouse for traditional FPS gaming. Apple never did get or at least want to admit this. Why should you have to push a hidden button or press a key on your keyboard to get a right-click context menu? Ridiculous. More apps should make more use of the 3rd (mouse wheel) button to which again, is indispensable for gaming. I can't imagine the average Mac user trying to play something like Borderlands 2 with a trackpad (instead of a mouse or game controller).

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Can anyone with a late 2012 Mac Mini (or even a newer model) confirm whether your Thunderbolt port video works or not in El Capitan with a Thunderbolt-To-HDMI adapter? I haven't used my 2nd monitor in awhile but I wanted to try it with El Capitan and found it isn't recognized. It's not even recognized at boot time (i.e. it was considered the primary output before and showed the EFI boot up screen on that monitor not my main one unless it was unplugged and now it doesn't use it at all like it IS unplugged). Admittedly, got a cheap adapter back in 2012 when they were ridiculously overpriced (even Amazon now offers a $10 model) but it always worked before. Until I can get another adapter to try, I'm not even sure the port is working at this point. I don't know if Apple changed something in one of those EFI updates that stopped a cheaper adapter from working (some kind of official "check" ?) or if something broke. It worked the last time it was plugged into the monitor, but I only unplugged the monitor, not the whole cable from the Mac Mini.

 

[Choctaw]

[QUOTE="MagnusVonMagnum, post: 22035068, member: got a cheap adapter back in 2012 when they were ridiculously overpriced (even Amazon now offers a $10 model) but it always worked before. from the Mac Mini.[/QUOTE]

I would buy from Apple Store or affiliate the real deal adapter, try it out. If it works you have the answer, if it does not work the answer is the upgrade changed things. So sad it always seems to be a situation that of late new releases bring unhappiness. It would be niece if developers got things up and working correctly before unloading them on the public, and expecting them to find the weak spots afterwards.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

ME: got a cheap adapter back in 2012 when they were ridiculously overpriced (even Amazon now offers a $10 model) but it always worked before. from the Mac Mini.

...

Until I can get another adapter to try, I'm not even sure the port is working at this point.

I would buy from Apple Store or affiliate the real deal adapter, try it out.

You mean like I already mentioned in my own post as I've quoted above?

I asked first so perhaps I wouldn't have to buy another adapter if others have problems with their official licensed adapters too. If I just wanted to buy another adapter to find out, i would have had no need to post anything.

 

[jblagden]

And you mean Pages 09, not the "new" and "improved" version of Pages that stripped out the DTP side of Pages '09, right? It's that DTP side that matters most, so I need the former version of Pages to work well or I have to consider making a separate boot drive of the "as is" before considering this OS X upgrade. Thanks for any clarification.[/QUOTE

Fortunately, iWork '09 is still on your Mac. It's in the Applications folder in a folder of the same name. I personally prefer iWork '09 over its newer counterpart, particularly because it's more functional and it doesn't have the annoying sidebar.

I also use the older version of iMovie because it can keep separate project files (unlike its newer counterpart) and it can have video playback on one monitor and the video timeline on the other.