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Who will upgrade to Sierra on day 1?

Will you upgrade on day 1?

  • Total voters
    205
SteveJobzniak

SteveJobzniak

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 24, 2015
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What we can expect on day 1:
  1. Lots of apps won't work anymore and will need updates which will be trickling out over the next 3 months. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sierra-10-12-compatible-apps.1977335/
  2. There will be lots of hidden but severe launch-day bugs which are going to be fixed in the next two service patches.
  3. Safari 10 has some nice upgrades (Edit: It came out for El Capitan too.)
  4. Picture in Picture mode is cool and works straight away on most sites (by right-clicking twice on YouTube to get the regular video menu, for instance), but there is sadly no transport bar to scrub the video position for "instant replays" of your romantic action movies. Still, cool new feature! But for power users there is already http://heliumfloats.com which works with older macOS versions too.
  5. Siri on the desktop will be very fun, for those who have mics. "Siri, play my romantic action movies".
  6. Continuity is now even better, but as usual only works for those who have supported Macs (mostly 2012 and newer).

I'm contemplating just hanging out and waiting for the first Sierra service patch and for more apps to become compatible...

How about you guys? Who will upgrade day 1 and why? Who will wait and why?

Please put your votes in the poll too.
 
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I actually really want to upgrade on the same day it releases. I'm always hyped somehow about updates, because it makes my computer feel new again with new features :p. Unfortunately I have a school presentation the next day so I will most probably install it on wednesday after my presentation. I know upgrading to macOS Sierra should go without problems, but somewhere I'm afraid that it might screw up something xD. But YA IM HYPED :D
 
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I have upgraded to Sierra more than a month ago. Didn't notice any incompatibilities or other problems. I mean, even VM hypervisors work without need to update, which is probably unprecedented. There are still some bugs in Safari, related to PDF rendering and GIF display, but thats all that I have found. Sierra fixes some deep issues in OS X core (e.g. a nasty window server bug that used to freeze the entire UI), which is already reason enough for me to upgrade.
 
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Nah, i'll wait to see if there are any problems like with the iOS upgrade.. also the fact the servers get hammered and it takes 12+ hours to download
 
Sadly, not a single advertised feature would help me (sync Desktop? Nope. Siri? Nope. Optimized storage? super NOPE). And there is also no big iOS 10 features that require Sierra aside from iMessage stuff that I won't use.

In the "all the little things" thread I've seen a few minor changes that I like, but that's not an OMG UPDATE NOW thing. I'll probably stay on El Capitan until macOS 13 or I decide to get AirPods which will require the update.
 
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leman said:
I have upgraded to Sierra more than a month ago. Didn't notice any incompatibilities or other problems. I mean, even VM hypervisors work without need to update, which is probably unprecedented. There are still some bugs in Safari, related to PDF rendering and GIF display, but thats all that I have found. Sierra fixes some deep issues in OS X core (e.g. a nasty window server bug that used to freeze the entire UI), which is already reason enough for me to upgrade.
Click to expand...


Did the same thing and noticed improvements with my three macs. Will update on launch day too.
 
I will treat it like another Beta and run it on my test partition. With wide release a lot more bugs will be found with the larger test population and hopefully will be sufficiently tested and most bugs fixed by the time .1 rolls around. If .1 is reported as basically clean I'll update then. I won't update my wife's system until at least .3 if at all as she is extremely intolerant of things not working, nothing she values was added for Sierra, and El Cap seems solid for her now.
 
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BurgDog said:
I will treat it like another Beta and run it on my test partition. With wide release a lot more bugs will be found with the larger test population and hopefully will be sufficiently tested and most bugs fixed by the time .1 rolls around. If .1 is reported as basically clean I'll update then. I won't update my wife's system until at least .3 if at all as she is extremely intolerant of things not working, nothing she values was added for Sierra, and El Cap seems solid for her now.
Click to expand...

Very well written and very solid points. It made me lean more towards "wait", because I am likewise intolerant of things not working. Lots of bugs will be found in ".0" and things may quit working altogether. And lots of 3rd party apps will be broken from day 1 and will usually take 3 months until they are all fixed.

The only thing I REALLY, REALLY want is Safari 10, to fix the horrific fullscreen YouTube performance (where video and the whole browser slows down and chops but the audio keeps playing). It is fixed in Safari 10 and in Safari Technology Preview. But I just now read that Safari 10 is going to come out for El Capitan too. So that takes care of the one major reason I had to upgrade.

UPDATE after trying Safari 10: Safari 10 did not fix the YouTube performance. I found the actual cause: It's all the 60fps videos that are being served on modern channels, which are overloading the CPU/GPU. I've coded a fix for it here, which tells YouTube to give us 30fps videos instead. My fix works in Safari 9 too: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/who-will-upgrade-to-sierra-on-day-1.1997429/#post-23504061
 
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the only reason i want to update to Sierra is for APFS, but that doesnt actually come out till next year if i'm not mistaken.
 
I used to always upgrade OS X (macOS) right away but have waiting a few weeks or months the last few updates and will probably do so again. My mac currently does everything I want it to while being fast and stable, so I don't plan to risk that for features which seem cool but not really necessary. That said, if reports are that the new OS is also fast and stable on hardware like mine (i5 haswell), I'll probably upgrade within a couple of weeks, maybe at the first minor patch.
 
I am taking the wait-and-see-approch; A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my Mac Mini(Late 2012) that I purchased on August 01, 2013 from "Mountain Lion" to "El Capitan" because it was running slow and it appears to have been a very good decision. Besides what may be some security issues in doing another upgrade, I do not need many of the new features in "Sierra". I also have another Mac Mini(Late 2014) which is still on "Yosemite" and do not plan on upgrading to "Sierra" on Day-1 based upon the same aforementioned reason above. I may do it at a very later date if I see a need to do so.
 
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Upgrade implies a major step from Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan.

I should not recommend a rush to upgrade because:
  • there's a prominent invitation to use iCloud Drive Desktop and Document Folders; and
  • I foresee many newcomers to the feature being surprised, or disappointed, by the feature set and/or performance
— https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/62436#177144 under 10.12 GM performance? | Apple Developer Forums
— Drive Sync: Desktop & Documents Folders - Multiple Macs | Apple Developer Forums
… and so on.

There are other good reasons to refrain; other precautions.

KingOfStuff said:
APFS
Click to expand...

Please join the discussion at Introducing Apple File System (APFS)

jbachandouris said:
Not sure what you're talking about. I've been running it since public beta 
…
Click to expand...

@jbachandouris your reply was below the post about APFS. Does your "it" mean APFS?

Or were you referring to Sierra, or something else in another post?
 
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Irishman said:
They're adding some powerful optimizations and new features to make it more feature compatible with DirectX and Vulkan.
Click to expand...
That sinds nice. But what do you mean exactly..?

Easier ports for developers (DirectX / Vulcan -? Metal)? Or does the Metal API give developers more features akin DirectX and Vulcan..?
 
MacsRgr8 said:
That sinds nice. But what do you mean exactly..?

Easier ports for developers (DirectX / Vulcan -? Metal)? Or does the Metal API give developers more features akin DirectX and Vulcan..?
Click to expand...

Here is a thread with Mark Satt from Epic Games (makers of all the Unreal game series), over at inside mac games that I was reading this morning, regarding some of the features I was thinking of. (I'm no developer, so I only know what people tell me), http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=48033&st=40

Mark works on the Mac port of the in-development Unreal game.
 
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SteveJobzniak said:
The only thing I REALLY, REALLY want is Safari 10, to fix the horrific fullscreen YouTube performance (where video and the whole browser slows down and chops but the audio keeps playing). It is fixed in Safari 10 and in Safari Technology Preview. But I just now read that Safari 10 is going to come out for El Capitan too. So that takes care of the one major reason I had to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Yeah, kudos to Apple for back porting safari.next. They don't need to do that but they are thinking of legacy users for that.
 
dogslobber said:
Yeah, kudos to Apple for back porting safari.next. They don't need to do that but they are thinking of legacy users for that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it makes it easier to stay on Capitan for a while longer!

By the way... I found the exact cause of the video choppiness... it's all the 60fps videos that have started showing up on certain modern YouTube channels. They're outside the maximum specs of most hardware accelerated video decoders (most of which only supports up to 1920x1080 at 30fps), so Safari reverts to software decoding and using 100% CPU, freezing, chopping, spinning up the fans, etc...

I wrote a small browser extension which solves the issue, by telling YouTube to always use 30fps videos. I am finally getting smooth YouTube playback again, and 2-4x less CPU usage!

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...and-reduce-youtube-cpu-usage-by-2-4x.1997973/
 
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Yes and no. My MacBook is already upgraded and works great. I'll hold off a bit on my desktop, upgrade Parallels to v12 first and then make sure no issues with hardware (Drobo, scanner, printer). No need to rush there.
 
dogslobber said:
Yeah, kudos to Apple for back porting safari.next. They don't need to do that but they are thinking of legacy users for that.
Click to expand...

Aw, dogslobber you lovely slobbery ole dog, you git me thinking all fondly and romantic-like, about that little bit of Apple that quietly dedicates itself to old school users like me.

I'm unexpectedly misty eyed, helpless as a kitten up a tree and right now, all I can think of are those three little words that mean so much …
 
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SteveJobzniak said:
Yeah, it makes it easier to stay on Capitan for a while longer!

By the way... I found the exact cause of the video choppiness... it's all the 60fps videos that have started showing up on certain modern YouTube channels. They're outside the maximum specs of most hardware accelerated video decoders (most of which only supports up to 1920x1080 at 30fps), so Safari reverts to software decoding and using 100% CPU, freezing, chopping, spinning up the fans, etc...

I wrote a small browser extension which solves the issue, by telling YouTube to always use 30fps videos. I am finally getting smooth YouTube playback again, and 2-4x less CPU usage!

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...and-reduce-youtube-cpu-usage-by-2-4x.1997973/
Click to expand...

I'm on a Skylake rMB and so far 4k 30FPS and 1080p60 both run flawlessly, no choppiness windowed or fullscreen.

I have a question, how do you feel about creating a browser extension for Safari so Youtube always plays in the highest available format?
 
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