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Is it strange that the most exciting thing for me up there is Apple File System? This is seriously going to help fix a ton of the more... questionable parts of OS X erm... excuse me: macOS. Time Machine should benefit tremendously from filesystem-provided snapshots. Exciting times. :)

I can't believe they never even mentioned it but spent so much time on the iMessages stuff, stunned!
 
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Is it strange that the most exciting thing for me up there is Apple File System? This is seriously going to help fix a ton of the more... questionable parts of OS X erm... excuse me: macOS. Time Machine should benefit tremendously from filesystem-provided snapshots. Exciting times. :)

Only as strange as me! This should be a reminder as to why it's best to reserve judgement until well after the keynote. While it is a developers conference, the keynote is broadcast online to anyone. The target audience isn't just developers. The fact is, a lot of people watching the keynote aren't devs and don't even understand what a filesystem is.
 
I hope everyone's ready to upgrade their iCloud space. This is essentially the digital equivalent of storage units. Paying to store stuff that should probably be trashed.
Well said. I've been using OneDrive that way for a while and it's gotten to where I realized I'm a digital 'hoarder' and my life is not the better for it.

I'm thinking of taking the time before macOS Sierra is released to really declutter, almost use the KonMari for digital storage, asking each piece of digital life "do you bring me joy?" (which, for, say, taxes, can mean "do you function in my life the way I need you to") if not, DELETE
 
If they drop Intel Macs, I'm out.

I have multiple VMs I run, and having to wait until ARM outperforms Intel, and the instruction translation isn't ass?
Uh... no thanks.

Even though four of them are Windows VMs I'll probably migrate the VMs to VMWare, and run them on a Windows desktop should Apple switch to ARM on the desktop.
A Windows 10 VM on Windows 10 seems dumb, but hey, I'll have no choice if that happens.

Not to mention the apps I use compiled for x86/x86_64 that are no longer updated.
Some of them like SIDPLAY I wish were, I haven't found anything else to play Commodore 64 SID files which allows me to properly manage the HVSC library.
I hope Apple takes the same old "universal" route- have XCode compile two binaries and stick both in an application package.
 
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APFS is a very surprising and welcome improvement. However given the previous problems with Apple software quality and the complexity of new filesystem I think I'm going to wait at least 2-3 years before using it just to be safe side.

I'm also glad to see RAID in Disk Utility but it should have never been removed in the first place. Hopefully Disk Utility has been improved compared to POS 10.11 version...

Gatekeeper change sounds troubling, I have some older software that has so far worked long after developer went out of business but if Apple doesn't give the option to use unsigned software I can't use them anymore.

Otherwise Sierra doesn't seem to include anything beneficial for my needs, I'm very nervous about the whole "Optimised storage" idea. Trusting older files only to iCloud doesn't seem to be the smartest idea...

Unless Sierra contains some other real improvements I'm going to keep using Mavericks.
 
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It's good that Apple are finally in the process of retiring that ancient relic, HFS+ (which doesn't even support sparse files for crying out loud!), but I really think they're missing the boat here by not adopting ZFS.

ZFS has been around for more than a decade and already has most, if not all, of the things supposedly coming with Apple Filesystem (could they not have thought of a better name?!), and some stuff that AFS doesn't (yet) support. This is an example of NIH at its worst. :-(
 
Probably because a new file system is not really headline grabbing material. Frankly, it might even scare off consumers and investors alike. Apple Pay on the web, opening up with SDK's and iMessage apps, is a lot more palatable. But yes, this has potential to make the iPad into a highly productive tablet.

The announcement of a new modern file system would have brought a standing ovation from the developers in that auditorium. I wonder if Tim Cook even knows what a file system is.
 
APFS is a very surprising and welcome improvement. However given the previous problems with Apple software quality and the complexity of new filesystem I think I'm going to wait at least 2-3 years before using it just to be safe side.

Gatekeeper change sounds troubling, I have some older software that has so far worked long after developer went out of business but if Apple doesn't give the option to use unsigned software I can't use them anymore.

Unless Sierra contains some other real improvements I'm going to keep using Mavericks.

Siri is a useful addition. As for Gatekeeper, it sounds like you'll still be able to run unsigned apps, but won't be able to disable the prompts.
 
It's good that Apple are finally in the process of retiring that ancient relic, HFS+ (which doesn't even support sparse files for crying out loud!), but I really think they're missing the boat here by not adopting ZFS.

ZFS has been around for more than a decade and already has most, if not all, of the things supposedly coming with Apple Filesystem (could they not have thought of a better name?!), and some stuff that AFS doesn't (yet) support. This is an example of NIH at its worst. :-(

ZFS also has some rather onerous licensing restrictions since Oracle got hold of it. That's why Apple stopped developing their own ZFS based filesystem. It has nothing to do with "not invented here."
 
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Since people cannot set it to "Anywhere" anymore, they cannot disable Gatekeeper. They can right-click unidentified developer packages and say "Open Anyway", sure, but that doesn't disable Gatekeeper. It only lets them open totally unsigned apps (which no software developer does anymore; only free, Open Source software is unsigned).

Ah, so the many thousands of good developers who are part of the Open Source community aren't really software developers? Really? A good many of the apps I use regularly are not from the App Store, and having to remember to give the secret handshake every time I want to run one is a lousy option.
 
The announcement of a new modern file system would have brought a standing ovation from the developers in that auditorium. I wonder if Tim Cook even knows what a file system is.

The new file system is not ready yet. When it is, it will be announced. Probably in time for macOS 13 or 14.
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Ah, so the many thousands of good developers who are part of the Open Source community aren't really software developers? Really? A good many of the apps I use regularly are not from the App Store, and having to remember to give the secret handshake every time I want to run one is a lousy option.

You only have to do it once, per unsigned app. The computer will remember that you've run them before and let you do a simple double-click to open after the first time.
 
RAID support is back Yippee...
Oh Wait, MacPro 2009 not supported... Boooo

Raid support. Excellent
I had hoped for Raid10 support, but alas.
Speed+Security, and with today's HDD bargain-basement prices, the best of both worlds, really.

There are of course many hardware enclosures available that offer Raid10, but since they almost exclusively employ proprietary technology, software Raid is preferable from an enclosure malfunction/failure viewpoint.
 
Ah, so the many thousands of good developers who are part of the Open Source community aren't really software developers?

Oops I forgot the word "no commercial software developers". Fixed my post.

A good many of the apps I use regularly are not from the App Store, and having to remember to give the secret handshake every time I want to run one is a lousy option.

First time you launch an app: Right-click, Open, Allow Anyway. From then on, the system remembers the exception and it can be double-clicked even if you install updates for the app. Small price for a change that kills piracy. Wohoo.
 
It's good that Apple are finally in the process of retiring that ancient relic, HFS+ (which doesn't even support sparse files for crying out loud!), but I really think they're missing the boat here by not adopting ZFS.

ZFS has been around for more than a decade and already has most, if not all, of the things supposedly coming with Apple Filesystem (could they not have thought of a better name?!), and some stuff that AFS doesn't (yet) support. This is an example of NIH at its worst. :-(

This already been covered several times.

The first and foremost is that Apple plans on using APFS across all devices, ZFS requires a lot of memory, which is something the phone and watch do not have.

There are other issues of who owns ZFS ...
 
**** that.

No option to install apps from "anywhere"? Mandatory binary code signing? No thanks.

Christ, I hate Windows 10 as much as the next guy, but not even Microsoft requires signed binaries on x86_64. What's next, people are going to find out that csrutil is missing and SIP is now mandatory to boot?

-SC

It's just a bug in the first beta and they provided a workaround for it.
 
Is it just me or does this Optimized Storage functionality seem not well thought out. So I don't really know where my files are stored and Apple makes no availability guarantees with respect to iCould storage, so my seldom used but really important file could be just gone and I would never know until I needed it?
I'd like to see an option that allows me to use iCloud as a 'transport' layer optimising storage on MacBook and iOS devices but to my own 'server' (Mac).
 
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So in the Sierra version of Disk Utility in the ribbon where it shows the colored view of the files on your drive, does anybody know what that "Purgeable" descriptor means? Cache files?
 
This, even forgetting about the tiny space in iCloud, say i have a file wich i use very little, and to save space it is uploaded to the cloud and removed from my hd, I then go in a trib and have NO internet how do I access that file, that kindly was removed without me knowing to save space?.... am I stuck with a chromebook?

But it's no different to having a backup disk at home (for storing stuff you had to remove to free up space)... In fact, it's still better, since you'd just have to get to an internet connection, rather than having to get to one specific physical location (e.g., home, work, etc.), which could be in another city/country. I think it's a great idea, provided we're given a decent amount of cloud storage space without being forced into some annual subscription fee.
 
It's good that Apple are finally in the process of retiring that ancient relic, HFS+ (which doesn't even support sparse files for crying out loud!), but I really think they're missing the boat here by not adopting ZFS.

ZFS has been around for more than a decade and already has most, if not all, of the things supposedly coming with Apple Filesystem (could they not have thought of a better name?!), and some stuff that AFS doesn't (yet) support. This is an example of NIH at its worst. :-(

In 2007 Apple was in the process of porting ZFS to OS X. By 2009 they had abandoned it do to unacceptable licensing terms from Sun. It's possible that Apple has been working on APFS since 2009.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2009/10/apple-abandons-zfs-on-mac-os-x-project-over-licensing-issues/
 
Couple of questions:

I don't know a lot about file systems, but I believe I heard before that OS X has a limitation where only one file can be written to the file system at a time. That doesn't quite sound right now that I say that, but I feel like I've heard something to that effect. And I've noticed things like Time Machine not backing up or Spotlight not indexing if I'm doing something like recording video to the hard drive. Is this related to the current file system? And will the new one allow multiple things like that to happen at once?

Completely different topic: With all this stuff being backed up to the cloud, what are everyone's guesses about Apple increasing the standard 5 GB free storage space? Or maybe keep it as is and hope more people will subscribe?

If you look at the anatomy of a magnetic hard disk, you'll see several spinning platters, and an "arm" for each one. Usually those arms move in unison, although I'm not sure if that's changed in modern drives. That means the magnetic read-write head can only be in one place at a time. It needs to move to a separate place before it can read or write the next file. SSD removes the physical limitations of that, allowing faster read-writes from arbitrary locations. But can the controllers of these drives (HDD and SSD) handle the reading and writing of multiple files at once (data flow)? That's a question I don't know the answer to.
 
So, if an app developer doesn't have approval from Apple, their app cannot be used on a Mac???

I'm not regretting my decision to stay in the backwaters of pre 10.10...

Control-click to open... Also: "the macOS Sierra release notes indicate that this button does not work in the first beta"... i.e., in the first beta.
 
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