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It is odd why Apple hid the application in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications however the application has not been updated since 2017 despite running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 Beta (19G46c).
 
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To look on the bright side, this is good news because it means Terminal will remain. I'd heard some worrying that Apple might deprecate Terminal. In fact, now I'd expect a Terminal app on iPadOS at some point in the future.
 
To look on the bright side, this is good news because it means Terminal will remain. I'd heard some worrying that Apple might deprecate Terminal. In fact, now I'd expect a Terminal app on iPadOS at some point in the future.

I don't think we need to worry about losing Terminal in MacOS. Given Apple's pattern, they are more likely to cripple more of their existing applications and then completely bury them in Terminal.

How did we go from this:


to this?

 
If anybody is wondering, you can copy the Catalina application to Big Sur and it still works fine. At least until you upgrade to an ARM device.
 
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Really doesn’t make any sense to remove this feature!

Yeah. I don't know why they would stop this. It was so useful.

I think this is just part of the ongoing dumbing down of macOS . . .


This was extremely helpful to quickly assess where the hangup in my network connection was. Wish they would bring it back.

I knew Windows/network engineers that when troubleshooting a Mac network issue always went for the Network Utility because it was easier. o_O


I use it sometimes also. This is just stupid.


Absolutely stupid that they removed this.

PEOPLE! Every tap in Network Utility corresponds to a UNIX command you can use in THE TERMINAL! In fact, the window you get in each Network Utility tab that presents you output IS THE EXACT SAME OUTPUT THAT YOU'D GET IN THE TERMINAL! Type "::Name of tab that you'd be using in Network Utility:: ::What you'd put as an input in that tab::" and MAGIC, same exact output that you'd have gotten in Network Utility! You don't need to be a UNIX admin to know how to do this! Hell, the expertise to know what each of the tabs in Network Utility did is WAY more techy than simply opening Terminal and running these as commands.

I'm never happy when Apple deprecates anything because usually it's terrible and it's a feature that didn't need to be deprecated. In this case, I honestly have no idea why that utility wasn't deprecated sooner given that it's just a GUI wrapper for UNIX commands of THE EXACT SAME NAME!

I'd prefer a GUI, it's just faster to open it and click a tab than remember a bunch of abstract commands.

Considering that the commands are the EXACT SAME as the tabs in Network Utility (with the output in Network Utility being the exact same as what you'd see in Terminal and that you still have to remember what each one does, I don't buy this argument one bit. Otherwise, Network Utility is just a cheap wrapper around UNIX commands. And running the UNIX commands entail a much greater degree of control and functionality.

On my bingo card, I didn't have Apple making the GUI less useful for configuration than your bog standard Linux distro, but that's 2020 for ya.

Network Utility was superfluous. Has been for many many years. Plain and simple.

This bums me out. I use Network Utility probably a couple of times a year, it’s very useful for network troubleshooting.

I don’t care if there are unix commands, I have a Mac ffs because I want a gui. Even if it’s a simple wrapper, it’s still a simple wrapper and typing command-space, n, u, enter is quicker than launching the terminal and typing a command.

Get familiar with your favorite Network Utility tabs. The exact same names are UNIX commands that you can run rather simply in Terminal. Doesn't require a computer science degree or even an Apple Certification to do, since all you are doing is typing that command, hitting the space bar, then typing what you would've put in the input box in Network Utility and then hitting enter.

People act like very simple UNIX commands means their entire computing experience is gone. It was a superfluous utility to begin with!

Hell, you could probably recreate the entire functionality of Network Utility with a really simple zsh script that would take you all of two hours tops to research and create.

Ah yes get rid of GUI in favour of terminal commands. how cute, archaic and ancient.

Archaic? You ever wonder why modern desktop operating systems all still include a command line of some sort?

HINT: It's not because it's an archaic way to do business.

You have WAY more power with a command line. As for Network Utility, it was basically a Fisher Price GUI wrapper for...you guessed it! Terminal Commands! Each tab in Network Utility represented a Terminal Command! The output presented in each one WAS FROM THE UNIX COMMAND LINE!

Maybe try learning how to actually use your computer? If not, get an iPad. Those don't have Terminal...yet.



Is it on El Cap? I can't find it. Weird. An 'app' that has a 'long history', and I can't find it.

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications

Not all apps on your Mac live in /Applications .

It is odd why Apple hid the application in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications however the application has not been updated since 2017 despite running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 Beta (19G46c).

It hasn't had feature updates in several years. In 2017, it likely got the bump to 64-bit x86 so it would even run in Catalina.

If anybody is wondering, you can copy the Catalina application to Big Sur and it still works fine. At least until you upgrade to an ARM device.

You don't think it'll work in Rosetta 2?

Useless tool that never works for me, and regularly get's stuck trying to send info to Apple.

Slightly bizarre they are suggesting the use of Terminal, for many of us on here that isn't a challenge, but I would think the majority of mac users have never used a command line before.

The Windows equivalent of which it's name I can no longer remember, always worked better for me, but in that case I think it was because the driver crashed on my old laptop and needed restarting, ymmv.

Wait, so you're saying that a majority of Mac users have never used the Terminal before (which I'd probably agree with), but that even some fraction of that same majority would know what they're doing using Network Utility?

You know damn well that the people you refer to were not asking for stuff to be made only available in Terminal.

Yet most Apple utilities and tools have functionality only available in the Terminal and have since the early days of Mac OS X. Honestly, learn how to use your Mac and then this is a moot discussion point.
 
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Considering that the commands are the EXACT SAME as the tabs in Network Utility (with the output in Network Utility being the exact same as what you'd see in Terminal and that you still have to remember what each one does, I don't buy this argument one bit. Otherwise, Network Utility is just a cheap wrapper around UNIX commands. And running the UNIX commands entail a much greater degree of control and functionality.

I literally couldn't tell you what the tabs are called from memory. So there you go.
 
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A lot of people actually liked MS-Dos. They didn't see the hooplah over GUIs. It worked just fine for them when they were loading a word processor or spreadsheet. Yes, of course. When I was in school, the X-window system in Unix seemed silly to the CompSci people who spent all day in a CLI.

Yet here we are. I think the battle has been thoroughly won that GUI tools for common configurations on microcomputers are part of the toolset for the tech-oriented, as WELL as tech-oriented people walking less tech-oriented people through fixing their computers.

It seems extremely un-Apple to take this away. I spent a lot of time piping commands to and from 'ip addr.' The Network GUI was extremely useful if I wanted to quickly check if my WiFi or ethernet were preferred, or if there was anything else I didn't expect.

I don't think we need to worry about losing Terminal in MacOS. Given Apple's pattern, they are more likely to cripple more of their existing applications and then completely bury them in Terminal.

How did we go from this:


to this?

 
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Nice, use terminal. Terminal is very retro and as they say if you don't learn from your mistakes, you are condemned to repeat them. It's like the little script kiddies at Apple just found Grandpa's old high school jockstrap and decided to make it a new style because it was different. Next thing these dorks will be doing is putting handle cranks on car doors to wind them up and down, wearing bell bottoms, and dropping LSD. Wait, they are doing those last two as you can clearly tell from the goofy 🐎💩 in macOS 11!
 
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Nice, use terminal. Terminal is very retro and as they say if you don't learn from your mistakes, you are condemned to repeat them. It's like the little script kiddies at Apple just found Grandpa's old high school jockstrap and decided to make it a new style because it was different. Next thing these dorks will be doing is putting handle cranks on car doors to wind them up and down, wearing bell bottoms, and dropping LSD. Wait, they are doing those last two as you can clearly tell from the goofy 🐎💩 in macOS 11!

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Are you happy or mad that they took way network utility?
 
IPNetMonitorX from sustworks. Much better. More features, even more than you can do in Terminal, like real real-time monitoring network traffic.

Why would I need to buy this when the OS should offer the basics! I don't need a $70 sniffer for trace route!
 
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I'm going to upgrade by getting a TRS-80 to run WordStar and other CP/M software.

It's cleaner.

Consider, for instance, how much one can accomplish with those 8" floppy disks. Who needs all of this modern bloat? Cleanliness is essential going forward.

I have deprecated the macOS.

(See? I can use propaganda buzzwords to make stupid ideas seem cool, too.)
 
I'm going to upgrade by getting a TRS-80 to run WordStar and other CP/M software.

It's cleaner.

Consider, for instance, how much one can accomplish with those 8" floppy disks. Who needs all of this modern bloat? Cleanliness is essential going forward.

I have deprecated the macOS.

(See? I can use propaganda buzzwords to make stupid ideas seem cool, too.)

I saw a Dec Rainbow on the box the other day. I miss the CPM days. It was simpler, and yet more powerful, in some ways. PIP? Power... I'm looking for a Dec Microvax II in the 'World Box'. I grew up on that OS. And DecTalk, and VT220's, Barco monitors, LA180 printers... The 'good old days'? My first programming class was on a PDP/11 34, and DECUS C. But anyway... I guess I've been deprecated?o_O😜
 
The last sentence misses the entire point of the Mac so completely that there is, literally, nothing to say.

Unless the point you're trying to make is that the Mac is designed for people who don't know or want to learn how to use their computer, then I think you are the one missing the point of the Mac here. (And even if that is the point you are trying to make, I'm sure there are many Mac users that would take offense to that, myself included.)

Network Utility was hidden in an obscure location for the last several macOS releases and even if you found it and used it, you still needed to know what the individual tabs did (which, again, use the same names as the UNIX commands).

Literally, the only additional "work" that has to be done to run those same commands in Terminal is to type the name of the command out and then hit the space bar before entering whatever you were going to originally enter into the text field in Network Utility. Otherwise, it's the exact same functionality.

You all act like one needs a degree in computer science or even an IT certification to run a simple terminal command to replace a rudimentary GUI app that solely ran like 6 specific terminal commands. It really isn't rocket science. Learn to use your Mac.

Not good enough to be full time Linux or Cisco command line engineers. So they try to act like giants among Mac users.

You don't need to be a full time Linux or Cisco user, let alone command line engineer to be able to type "ping google.com" (or whatever you'd want to substitute "google.com" with) or "traceroute 8.8.8.8". These are among the most simple of UNIX commands.

We're not giants among Mac users, we're savvy enough to know that we need to figure out information that Network Utility would provide, but not so lazy or helpless that we can't quickly Google the right command and then run it quickly.
 
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Why ‘clean up’ a useful app or a useful part of the GUI? You used to be able to turn off ipv6 from settings, but post Mavericks (I think), it’s terminal only. No great shame, but why?

Because every feature that exists needs someone to maintain it.
 
I think it would've been nice if Network Utility had worked the way Commando did in MPW and A/UX: a thin wrapper around Terminal commands that also shows you what the equivalent command would've been:

1597831697014.png
 
I think it would've been nice if Network Utility had worked the way Commando did in MPW and A/UX: a thin wrapper around Terminal commands that also shows you what the equivalent command would've been:

View attachment 945481

I have tried to find a copy of A/UX, and struck out. Apple should have, should now, make it public domain. If nothing else, just for the oddity of it all. I'd want to use it. Who's with me?
 
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Actually, a lot of the mechanism in Mach/Unix has been disabled, or disconnected on the back end. I was, many years ago, trying to get an obscure ISP to work with my mom's mac. I found instructions for Unix/Linux for that ISP, and figured 'Why not!'. Well, the instructions didn't work. Not that they errored out or anything, they just didn't control the area of the modem connection that I needed. The commands were accepted, but did nothing. I ended up calling Apple, and eventually got to someone called an 'engineer', who said that he was involved in writing some of the utilities in OSx. He said that I would run into that in quite a few places, areas where the 'knobs aren't connected'. 'We can't have people in mucking around in the kernel like that', he said. So after that experience, I haven't wanted to dive too deeply into the console because who is to know what other things are 'disconnected', and knobs that don't work. I guess it makes sense for Apple to do something like that. I remember a joke about people posting a command to Unix listsrv groups that when unsuspecting junior admins invoked it, erased the filesystem, making the server useless. There is a danger layering something on top of 'Unix', that Apple would have been derelict to not protect the user from. Well, from themselves basically.

Does deprecating the Network Utility fall into that? Well, it does if you want to make macOS 'friendlier'. Who but a wild eyed Unix minion would want to know that kind of stuff.

In case anyone is curious, the ISP did an 'Upgrade' to their systems to 'help customers access the internet'. It started working fine with no strange incantations. (Idiots!)
 
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