Did anyone upgrade their 2017 MBP to High Sierra?

[Sebastian79]

So should I do it? The below are the apps I use the most:
-iMovie
-Scrivener
-VMWare / Win10

Will it affect battery life, performance...?

 

[adamh10]

I did it right when I opened my new 2017 MacBook Pro (15-inch TB) as it was preinstalled with Sierra.

So far I have no complaints, however admittedly I can't compare it to Sierra as I didn't really use it with Sierra. That said, I am getting excellent battery life and performance, both for the most part as advertised.

I use Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro X, Photoshop, Lightroom, iMovie, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and many more graphics intensive applications and processes and I have literally zero complaints with performance on my MBP and High Sierra.

I know I didn't directly answer your question as I can't compare it to Sierra on the 2017 MBP, but with High Sierra my performance with the above applications that are graphics hungry has been fantastic on my 15-inch 2017 MacBook Pro.

Cheers

 

[Sebastian79]

I did it right when I opened my new 2017 MacBook Pro (15-inch TB) as it was preinstalled with Sierra.

So far I have no complaints, however admittedly I can't compare it to Sierra as I didn't really use it with Sierra. That said, I am getting excellent battery life and performance, both for the most part as advertised.

I use Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro X, Photoshop, Lightroom, iMovie, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and many more graphics intensive applications and processes and I have literally zero complaints with performance on my MBP and High Sierra.

I know I didn't directly answer your question as I can't compare it to Sierra on the 2017 MBP, but with High Sierra my performance with the above applications that are graphics hungry has been fantastic on my 15-inch 2017 MacBook Pro.

Cheers

Thanks for the info bro. Still reluctant though... Maybe I should wait a few more updates... Perhaps that would be safer...

 

[Jimios]

People seem to be worried way too much about updating their software or not. I have never, for the life of me, understood why someone would willingly not update to the latest version of the software, especially the OS.
In my 25 years of using all available desktop and mobile operating systems, I have yet to encounter a widely accepted case where using the newer OS is a worse experience compared to the older (admittedly a couple of niche cases do exist as notable exceptions).
Not to mention all the newer features and security fixes?
Having the latest patched software is far more important than questionable and negligible couple percent less battery life. Especially with High Sierra, since it is a direct under-the-hood improvement compared to Sierra.

I do recommend waiting a couple of weeks maybe, in case any groundbreaking bugs pop up, but after that everybody should just update and not worry too much about it.

Anecdotal evidence: my 2010 MBP runs absolutely fine with High Sierra. The same as every single version of macOS and OSX before it.

 

[Frankfurt]

I waited for 10.13.1 and then upgraded my MBP 2017 15".
Encountered no issues. However, I also have seen no advantage in my day to day work vs Sierra.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

People seem to be worried way too much about updating their software or not. I have never, for the life of me, understood why someone would willingly not update to the latest version of the software, especially the OS.
In my 25 years of using all available desktop and mobile operating systems, I have yet to encounter a widely accepted case where using the newer OS is a worse experience compared to the older (admittedly a couple of niche cases do exist as notable exceptions).
Not to mention all the newer features and security fixes?
Having the latest patched software is far more important than questionable and negligible couple percent less battery life. Especially with High Sierra, since it is a direct under-the-hood improvement compared to Sierra.

I do recommend waiting a couple of weeks maybe, in case any groundbreaking bugs pop up, but after that everybody should just update and not worry too much about it.

Anecdotal evidence: my 2010 MBP runs absolutely fine with High Sierra. The same as every single version of macOS and OSX before it.

If you don’t make money with your computer, feel free to follow the quoted advice.

If, however, you need your computer to make money for you, always try an OS upgrade on a test/external drive partition.

You may not know, for example, that Logic Studio 9 no longer works at all in High Sierra. The program icon has the prohibitory sign through it and tells you to upgrade to Logic Pro X on the App Store if you click on it.

As usual, audio plugins (Audio Units) need updating to work with HS.

These are the main software issues I’ve discovered testing HS. There is also a bug being discussed in this forum where the dGPU doesn’t work anywhere near 100% power after waking from sleep and only a reboot will fix this issue. This issue still exists in the latest macOS beta released yesterday.


I would personally wait until at least the dGPU issue has been resolved before upgrading to HS.

HS includes a reformat to APFS, so your macOS partition is no longer viewable in Windows if you use bootcamp. Bootcamp hasn’t been updated to work with APFS yet, so you can’t select the macOS partition to boot into from windows. You have to hold Option key on boot and then select the OS to boot.

 

[Jimios]

If you don’t make money with your computer, feel free to follow the quoted advice.

If, however, you need your computer to make money for you, always try an OS upgrade on a test/external drive partition.

I should have probably clarified that my post above was indeed meant for personal (i.e. not work) computers.
I agree with the recommendation to try the new OS on a separate test computer or partition.

Slightly off-topic: the issue with apps and even hardware not working with newer versions of the OS (per your example) is very, very rare in Windows, which I primarily use. Hence why I didn't think of the recommendation myself.

HS includes a reformat to APFS, so your macOS partition is no longer viewable in Windows if you use bootcamp. Bootcamp hasn’t been updated to work with APFS yet, so you can’t select the macOS partition to boot into from windows. You have to hold Option key on boot and then select the OS to boot.

Another sound piece of advice. Especially if you need access to your macOS files while in Windows.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Trust me, Windows incompatibilities between Windows versions are quite common. My employer is about a year out from rolling out Windows 10 in order to time application software upgrades with the migration to 64 bit windows. There are about 100 applications in testing, including homegrown systems. Remediation testing has been in process for a year now. With over 40K computers to upgrade, the upgrade must go correctly or not at all.

 

[Jimios]

Well, I would consider this a niche example. 40k computers? Of course you have to be careful. Sure, special applications in huge corporations may require extensive testing, but for most workplaces and most homes, a current Windows 10 computer can reliably use most software and hardware from the 90's onward. (keyword: "most")
My 2002 soundblaster sound card works fine with Windows 10 today, and I can use most of my programs and games from the last 20 years with little to no modifications.
Not so much the case on the Mac side.

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

You're normally safe with mainstream software, stuff like Adobe gets updated fairly quickly. But if you have a niche bit of software or something else you rely on, make sure it has been updated and verified working with the latest OS before you upgrade. There could be that tiny little thing that you don't realise, or is no longer supported, you're usually fine but you want to prepare for that and not discover an issue during a project. There's also things such as plugins as @PGB4_Dude mentioned that are worth considering.

Either way, just make sure your software is compatible. Don't needlessly wait for an arbitrary release before upgrading, OS upgrades rarely add anything 'new' and are more about security, so it's worth pursuing, but not at the expense of loosing valuable time in fixing outdated software.

 

[adamh10]

Honestly I really don't think you need to be worried. Updating the OS on your Mac is always recommended and brings the best new features and performance. I agree with the people above about being way too worried about upgrading the OS. Obviously if this is in an enterprise environment with hundreds or thousands of computers you'd want to be slow and ensure everything works first, but for most personal, single-computer users, there isn't much to be worried about. All Apple, Adobe, and more popular applications are updated immediately (if they even don't work without an update at all to begin with), and unless you have an extremely niche piece of software that is often slow to be updated, I really don't think you need to be worried.

Again, my MacBook Pro (2017, 15-inch) with High Sierra is performing as good as I could have ever imagined.

Cheers

 

[Hanson Eigilson]

Honestly I really don't think you need to be worried. Updating the OS on your Mac is always recommended and brings the best new features and performance. I agree with the people above about being way too worried about upgrading the OS. Obviously if this is in an enterprise environment with hundreds or thousands of computers you'd want to be slow and ensure everything works first, but for most personal, single-computer users, there isn't much to be worried about. All Apple, Adobe, and more popular applications are updated immediately (if they even don't work without an update at all to begin with), and unless you have an extremely niche piece of software that is often slow to be updated, I really don't think you need to be worried.

Again, my MacBook Pro (2017, 15-inch) with High Sierra is performing as good as I could have ever imagined.

Cheers

I disagree, since their 1 year upgrade cycle a lot of poorly tested code get's out the door especially considering how few features actually get's any updates at all. If you depend on your mac for any kind of work i would wait a few weeks every update and check compatibility with the 5 most important applications. Apple is notorious for breaking compatibility (without warning) for good and for bad, if your a business it's pretty much just bad but if you are just a consumer doing day to day stuff without requiring specific applications I wouldn't worry much.

 

[adamh10]

I disagree, since their 1 year upgrade cycle a lot of poorly tested code get's out the door especially considering how few features actually get's any updates at all. If you depend on your mac for any kind of work i would wait a few weeks every update and check compatibility with the 5 most important applications. Apple is notorious for breaking compatibility (without warning) for good and for bad, if your a business it's pretty much just bad but if you are just a consumer doing day to day stuff without requiring specific applications I wouldn't worry much.

I suppose you have a point and it depends on what you are using it for.

I use it for my photography business, and all of my main applications were updated and confirmed working: Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Final Cut Pro X, as well as MS Office & iWork.

Now, these are common Adobe and Apple applications that are somewhat major, so it is of little doubt that they would be updated and compatible. However, if there are any specific niche applications that are used for business purposes I would agree with you that it would be wise to wait.

Cheers