OS X 10.11 El Capitan: The Ars Technica Review

Apple brings refinement and under-the-hood changes to Yosemite's new design.

Read the whole story

 

[zephonic]

I did not read the review (TLR) but Booh! Sucks! Bring back Siracusa!




;-)

(Hey, I'm just following Brodkin's instructions to insult the new guys).

 

[artvandelayIIII]

rmaine[/url]":1sl3esbf]

The middle ground is the Fusion Drive, which isn't bad at all.

Still, for the prices SSDs are down to now, Apple should be able to just eliminate all HDDs from their lineup and not egregiously gouge their users.

 

[ArX]

Apple should bring back color labels and scroll arrows.

 

[kinless]

The most irritating thing about SIP is that it effectively kills all of BinaryAge's apps, such as TotalFinder, TotalSpaces, etc.

Call me stubborn, but if I decide to upgrade to El Cap, I'm definitely turning it off in order to continue using Total Spaces 2. I've used virtual desktops in an organized 9x9 grid since the days of 10.5 and I'll be damned if Apple is going to force their stupid limitations on my productivity.

I don't know much about the low-level kernels, but I'm thinking Apple needs to have some kind of "Pro" setting of OS X for power users that would allow root changes for properly signed apps and extensions.

EDIT: Meant to say "setting" not "version"

 

[voline]

Static and Noise[/url]":2gc7wqnk]

nbs2[/url]":2gc7wqnk]

Joriarty[/url]":2gc7wqnk]Our fears about John Siracusa's departure appear to have been unfounded...

Even Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky (or Gretsky), Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Sachin Tendulkar, Pele, etc. were eventually replaced with capable performers. Yet, we will always yearn for the days of yore.

In other words, I look forward to the circa 2025 debates about how Siracusa and Cunningham should be ranked, with the relatively younger crowd focusing on Cunningham's broad knowledge and the older folks decrying that as hogwash in light of Siracua's laser like focus on OS X. I foresee a schism. THE END IS NIGH UPON US!!

I actually prefer Cunningham over Siracusa, Siracusa sometimes went a bit overboard IMO.

Now, was that the equivalent of saying you prefer Ferenc Puskás over Pelé or Mario Lemieux over Wayne Gretzky...?

That's like saying you prefer Claude Jocelyn Lemieux over Wayne Gretzky.

edit: Comparisons to Claude are uncalled-for and I apologize to Andrew.

 

[thomsirveaux]

voline[/url]"echsmy3]

Static and Noise[/url]"echsmy3]

nbs2[/url]"echsmy3]

Joriarty[/url]"echsmy3]Our fears about John Siracusa's departure appear to have been unfounded...

Even Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky (or Gretsky), Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Sachin Tendulkar, Pele, etc. were eventually replaced with capable performers. Yet, we will always yearn for the days of yore.

In other words, I look forward to the circa 2025 debates about how Siracusa and Cunningham should be ranked, with the relatively younger crowd focusing on Cunningham's broad knowledge and the older folks decrying that as hogwash in light of Siracua's laser like focus on OS X. I foresee a schism. THE END IS NIGH UPON US!!

I actually prefer Cunningham over Siracusa, Siracusa sometimes went a bit overboard IMO.

Now, was that the equivalent of saying you prefer Ferenc Puskás over Pelé or Mario Lemieux over Wayne Gretzky...?

That's like saying you prefer Claude Jocelyn Lemieux over Wayne Gretzky.

edit: Comparisons to Claude are uncalled-for and I apologize to Andrew.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT REFERENCE BUT I ASSUME IT'S AN INSULT

 

[dal20402]

kinless[/url]":3t5qzken]I don't know much about the low-level kernels, but I'm thinking Apple needs to have some kind of "Pro" version of OS X for power users that would allow root changes for properly signed apps and extensions.

Wouldn't that just be... OS X with SIP turned off?

 

[CA1900]

Overall I like the improvements, but one glaring issue:

Outlook 2011 doesn't work with El Capitan. It boots up, but quickly locks up to the spinning wheel until it's force-quit. I don't want to buy Office again, or a 365 subscription, just to keep my applications working. I may have to roll it back to 10.10 if this issue isn't resolved.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

nbs2[/url]":29nmbbjx]

Joriarty[/url]":29nmbbjx]Our fears about John Siracusa's departure appear to have been unfounded...

In other words, I look forward to the circa 2025 debates about how Siracusa and Cunningham should be ranked, with the relatively younger crowd focusing on Cunningham's broad knowledge and the older folks decrying that as hogwash in light of Siracua's laser like focus on OS X.

I'd love to see the web traffic results for the review vs for Siracusas.

Social media always blew up for Siracusa...haven't seen that yet for Cunningham.

 

[oopscene]

thomsirveaux[/url]":1w69wmya]

Johnb0002002[/url]":1w69wmya]

Joriarty[/url]":1w69wmya]Our fears about John Siracusa's departure appear to have been unfounded...

But it did take two people to replace him...

Between iOS 9 and the iPhones I needed to call in some air support.

You are a modest man! The quality of this article has nothing to envy to its predecessors

 

[Joriarty]

iljitsch[/url]":1tm4abj4]

rex86[/url]":1tm4abj4]2. Improved performance when viewing pdf files. Their pdf viewer is the worst shit I've ever seen.

It does seem like Preview performs much better on big, complex PDFs now.

This is fantastic news! Adobe Reader is clunky, and the scrolling is never smooth – but at least it performs pretty consistently no matter what the content of the PDF is. Preview in Yosemite (and earlier) is brought to its knees when there are too many high resolution images or complex vector graphics, and as a scientist, it frustrates the hell out of me.

My guess is that we can thank Metal for this.

 

[wlym]

Not sure why you're getting down-voted (except maybe for the potty mouth). The last few updates have destroyed WIFI reliability on my MBP. Under Mavericks it was perfect. Yosemite..., well forget handoff or instant hotspot, neither are reliable enough to bother with.

rex86[/url]":3a4lp2tl]Two things I want from OS X:

1. Better wifi connections. The current situation is just awful. It's pathetically bad.

2. Improved performance when viewing pdf files. Their pdf viewer is the worst shit I've ever seen.

 

[kinless]

dal20402[/url]":2ytavor4]

kinless[/url]":2ytavor4]I don't know much about the low-level kernels, but I'm thinking Apple needs to have some kind of "Pro" version of OS X for power users that would allow root changes for properly signed apps and extensions.

Wouldn't that just be... OS X with SIP turned off?

Sorry I should have said "setting" not "version". There should be something in the UI (instead of using the command line in Recovery Mode) that allows you turn it on or off, or give specific authorized apps/extensions the ability to do so.

I didn't mean to imply that there be different versions of OS X. Definitely don't want to get into Windows territory.

 

[sleepcountry]

It's fine, I guess... It just isn't the same without a rant about the spatial Finder.

 

[tipoo]

Even with Metal, I still do wish they'd support Vulkan. Metal is nice for iOS ports, but Vulkan would allow much easier cross platform porting of PC games. Having Windows, Linux, and OSX all being able to run Vulkan would be a huge boon. As it is I lose 30-50% of my graphics performance staying in OSX rather than booting to Windows on native OSX OpenGL apps.

Apple is on the consortium board, so we'll see.

I still have some weird networking stuff too. Safari in particular (but Chrome as well) sometimes doesn't load pages until I hit enter a few more times, and sometimes just loads a fraction of the loading bar then stalls there forever. Can't figure it out, nuked all my plists and caches and everything.

 

[around 20 light-years per second]

Also curious and humorous was Apple's hidden only mention of El Capitan and its release date during this month's event.

 

[Shuffy]

tipoo[/url]":vidldzd6]Even with Metal, I still do wish they'd support Vulkan. Metal is nice for iOS ports, but Vulkan would allow much easier cross platform porting of PC games. Having Windows, Linux, and OSX all being able to run Vulkan would be a huge boon. As it is I lose 30-50% of my graphics performance staying in OSX rather than booting to Windows on native OSX OpenGL apps.

Apple is on the consortium board, so we'll see.

However it still depends on how much everyone else is willing to support the API. OpenGL should've been this but it hasn't. It was doing so poorly it convinced John Carmack to use DirectX for id Tech 5, at first anyway.

Crossplatform compatibility is only a tick in a vast swath of pros and cons to use any API.

 

[sleepcountry]

Apple tells us that the Core Graphics and Core Animation acceleration is available only on Macs that use Intel integrated graphics exclusively. It’s not available on higher-end Macs with dedicated GPUs or in laptops that switch dynamically between integrated and dedicated graphics. The Intel GPUs are the ones that need the most help driving OS X’s UI, but it still seems a bit odd.

Any idea why this needs to be implemented so specifically to hardware?

 

[thomsirveaux]

sleepcountry[/url]":1zrgr4ic]

Apple tells us that the Core Graphics and Core Animation acceleration is available only on Macs that use Intel integrated graphics exclusively. It’s not available on higher-end Macs with dedicated GPUs or in laptops that switch dynamically between integrated and dedicated graphics. The Intel GPUs are the ones that need the most help driving OS X’s UI, but it still seems a bit odd.

Any idea why this needs to be implemented so specifically to hardware?

They're pretty tight-lipped about it, "the integrated GPUs need it and the dedicated ones don't" is as close to an explanation as they have.

 

[tipoo]

Have there been any tests of this stuff?

 

[sleepcountry]

thomsirveaux[/url]":2i0gsvjk]

sleepcountry[/url]":2i0gsvjk]

Apple tells us that the Core Graphics and Core Animation acceleration is available only on Macs that use Intel integrated graphics exclusively. It’s not available on higher-end Macs with dedicated GPUs or in laptops that switch dynamically between integrated and dedicated graphics. The Intel GPUs are the ones that need the most help driving OS X’s UI, but it still seems a bit odd.

Any idea why this needs to be implemented so specifically to hardware?

They're pretty tight-lipped about it, "the integrated GPUs need it and the dedicated ones don't" is as close to an explanation as they have.

Interesting. Does this mean Macs with dedicated GPUs aren't even using their considerable capabilities to accelerate OS stuff then? (e.g. If there are two MacBooks Pro, one with integrated graphics, one with a dedicated GPU, and otherwise identical specs, the one with the dedicated one would actually be at a disadvantage when doing stuff on the desktop?)

 

[BadSuperblock]

I haven't even read the review yet...but was very relieved to see that you guys are still continuing the great Ars tradition of the comprehensive OS X review!

As usual I'll be referring to and linking to this review for months until OS X 10.12 comes out...

 

[CraigJ ✅]

So,m safe to assume that maps still does not allow you to create a route with multiple stops and to drag the route to create detours? So, sending to the iPhone cool, but still completely outclassed by the javascript, web based google maps?

 

[BadSuperblock]

ArX[/url]":3ujp0r55]Apple should bring back color labels and scroll arrows.

Scroll arrows are the absolute slowest, most inefficient way to scroll a window. They're only necessary when using an outdated input device that completely lacks any kind of a scrolling trackpad or scroll wheel (and in non-editable windows like web browsers, it's faster to scroll with arrow keys/spacebar/PgUp/PgDn). The reason scroll arrows are so inefficient is that they are the one scrolling UI element that require you to actually move the cursor to a specific small target area outside the window to get the scroll going. With more modern input devices you can scroll while leaving the cursor exactly where it is, no need to move over to the scroll arrow and back over into the window.
 
 
 
 

 

[JustAnotherNobody]

kirb[/url]":327wyvcx]

We got a release date for El Capitan on the day of the event, but it was posted to Apple’s site, not mentioned onstage.

It was hinted at during one of the demos actually.

That is a very loose definition of mention.

 

[Eitot]

I’m very impressed in particular with the subsection on System Integrity Protection. I’ve been very interested in that topic and the detailed information and demonstrations are really useful.

One wee remark: in the first paragraph below, why do you start explaining how the Security Configuration utility works when Apple has removed it a couple of beta builds ago? Would it not be better to explain how the csrutil works? The GUI is gone, even in 10.11.1 beta.

If you’re of a mind to disable SIP—and, truthfully, we don’t recommend doing so unless you have a legitimate need—you can do it by booting into the OS X Recovery partition. Restart your Mac and hold command-R at boot to perform a Recovery partition boot and then choose "Security Configuration" from the Utilities menu. Next, uncheck "Enforce System Integrity Protection," apply the change, and reboot back into OS X.

Early preview versions of El Cap came with a GUI "Security Configuration" utility used to disable SIP, but in the final build it looks like you'll have to resort to the command line. The csrutil utility is used to check SIP's status and toggle it on and off. Interestingly, csrutil also has an option for adding secure network boot locations—which makes sense, given the ability to manipulate SIP's NVRAM settings this way.

 

[tipoo]

rex86[/url]":zzoi0t0b]1. Better wifi connections. The current situation is just awful. It's pathetically bad.

I thought I was the only one. Yosemite and El Capitan both drop the wifi a lot on my Haswell 15" rMBP, can't figure that out either. All the other laptops and devices in the house are golden on the same router (DIR-615).

That's apart from the page loading issues.

On the same Macbook, dual booting to Windows makes it all fine.

 

[around 20 light-years per second]

Just a note: On the second page, the link that is supposed to lead to the WWDC app is missing a colon and a slash that precludes it from working.

 

[Zak]

CraigJ[/url]":2nd1amtt]So,m safe to assume that maps still does not allow you to create a route with multiple stops and to drag the route to create detours? So, sending to the iPhone cool, but still completely outclassed by the javascript, web based google maps?

It's not even that: Maps shows gas stations where there aren't any and haven't been any. They have some serious issues with quality of their data to start with.

 

[apoclypse]

kinless[/url]":2kfb82rz]

dal20402[/url]":2kfb82rz]

kinless[/url]":2kfb82rz]I don't know much about the low-level kernels, but I'm thinking Apple needs to have some kind of "Pro" version of OS X for power users that would allow root changes for properly signed apps and extensions.

Wouldn't that just be... OS X with SIP turned off?

Sorry I should have said "setting" not "version". There should be something in the UI (instead of using the command line in Recovery Mode) that allows you turn it on or off, or give specific authorized apps/extensions the ability to do so.

I didn't mean to imply that there be different versions of OS X. Definitely don't want to get into Windows territory.

Why not just hold developers accountable for doing what they are supposed to in the first place? If you give developers the option to circumvent the process they will. They'd rather put up a wiki page letting users know how to run their app than actually go through the trouble of doing it right in the first place.

 

[dvanh]

CA1900[/url]":1hn1m774]Overall I like the improvements, but one glaring issue:

Outlook 2011 doesn't work with El Capitan. It boots up, but quickly locks up to the spinning wheel until it's force-quit. I don't want to buy Office again, or a 365 subscription, just to keep my applications working. I may have to roll it back to 10.10 if this issue isn't resolved.

Office 14.4.9 still works perfectly on El Cap (tested outlook, word, excel and powerpoint).
14.5.5 is major crash and burn...

 

[jimc99999]

sleepcountry[/url]":3t9j64mh]

thomsirveaux[/url]":3t9j64mh]

sleepcountry[/url]":3t9j64mh]

Apple tells us that the Core Graphics and Core Animation acceleration is available only on Macs that use Intel integrated graphics exclusively. It’s not available on higher-end Macs with dedicated GPUs or in laptops that switch dynamically between integrated and dedicated graphics. The Intel GPUs are the ones that need the most help driving OS X’s UI, but it still seems a bit odd.

Any idea why this needs to be implemented so specifically to hardware?

They're pretty tight-lipped about it, "the integrated GPUs need it and the dedicated ones don't" is as close to an explanation as they have.

Interesting. Does this mean Macs with dedicated GPUs aren't even using their considerable capabilities to accelerate OS stuff then? (e.g. If there are two MacBooks Pro, one with integrated graphics, one with a dedicated GPU, and otherwise identical specs, the one with the dedicated one would actually be at a disadvantage when doing stuff on the desktop?)

The MacBook Pro with the discrete GPU will normally be running on the integrated GPU, and will likely take advantage of Metal. When the discrete GPU is active, the whole UI is running on that GPU and therefore there is probably no noticeable benefit to using Metal.

Edit: I've noticed since I've started using Xcode 7 that an app I'm working on no longer automatically triggers the discrete GPU in my MBP. The layer-backed NSView displaying a CGImage always triggered the discrete GPU before. I'm still running 10.10, although the app is now using the 10.11 base SDK with Xcode 7. Creating a context for rendering a CIImage still does trigger the switch to the discrete GPU.

 

[jimc99999]

rmaine[/url]":1mes26pv]

artvandelayIIII[/url]":1mes26pv]

It’s already very difficult to buy a Mac without solid state storage

Is it? All the base configurations of desktop Macs come with HDDs by default, even the 5K iMac. It *should* be difficult to buy an HDD Mac at this point, but sadly it isn't yet.

And indeed, it is pretty painful to buy an SSD iMac. I'm typing this on my 27" iMac with a 1TB SSD, but it is a 3rd party external SSD. (The HDD is sitting in there essentially unused; I'd pull it out but I prefer not to risk that sort of surgery). Apple wanted $1000 to upgrade the default 1TB HDD to a 1TB SSD. So instead I bought a nice 1TB Samsung for about $400 and stuck it in an external case. Quite happy with it I might add.

Just checked before posting this to see if things have changed while I wasn't looking. Nope. Its still a $1000 upgrade.

The $1000 1TB SSD on the new iMacs is a PCIE SSD. Those run about $900 on Newegg, so it's not like you're paying that much extra to have the Apple version installed by Apple when they build the computer.

 

[apoclypse]

tipoo[/url]":324yekbc]Even with Metal, I still do wish they'd support Vulkan. Metal is nice for iOS ports, but Vulkan would allow much easier cross platform porting of PC games. Having Windows, Linux, and OSX all being able to run Vulkan would be a huge boon. As it is I lose 30-50% of my graphics performance staying in OSX rather than booting to Windows on native OSX OpenGL apps.

Apple is on the consortium board, so we'll see.

I still have some weird networking stuff too. Safari in particular (but Chrome as well) sometimes doesn't load pages until I hit enter a few more times, and sometimes just loads a fraction of the loading bar then stalls there forever. Can't figure it out, nuked all my plists and caches and everything.

As great as Vulkan sounds it's not like the Kronos group has a great track record and Apple doesn't seem all that interested in OpenGL anyway. Apple probably sees two benefits of being able to control their own api. Making changes whenever they want, and lock in. Either way I see Apple sticking it out on this one. For game engines and such this is almost a non-issue as the major ones are already using Metal in some form (Unity and Unreal).

That being said it could also be just as simple as Apple waiting for Vulkan to be finalized and stable, at this point. Vulkan hasn't even been released yet last I checked and Apple isn't going to rely on a brand new api run by committee and not tailored to their platform for the level of integration they usually do with the graphics subsytem. I highly doubt we will see Vulkan in an official capacity anyway. Some enterprising dev or even AMD or Nvidia could probably release some sort of translation layer and if Apple is willing even drivers.

 

[cfinazzo]

Joriarty[/url]":3jk2hh83]Our fears about John Siracusa's departure appear to have been unfounded...

While perhaps not up to John's level with regard to personal references, pop culture, or length, this still is a resounding success. Have they figured out how to send beer (not emoji-style) over a Wi-Fi connection yet? I feel like Andrew has definitiely earned it.

Well done, Andrew!

 

[cfinazzo]

DuckFOO[/url]":eqv9lfx7]Instead of allowing developers to put files wherever they want, El Cap offers four canonical safe locations for applications, support files, and drivers:

/Library
~/Library
/usr/local
/Applications

Author: don't forget ~/Applications

Quick rant: Who uses ~/Applications? Apple has said in the past (WWDC at some point, if I recall) that most Macs are single user systems. While I don't think this means that it should be removed, but the people who make use of this probably already know that this location is still available.

 

[cfinazzo]

RockDaMan[/url]":2l71s0pm]

nbs2[/url]":2l71s0pm]

Joriarty[/url]":2l71s0pm]Our fears about John Siracusa's departure appear to have been unfounded...

In other words, I look forward to the circa 2025 debates about how Siracusa and Cunningham should be ranked, with the relatively younger crowd focusing on Cunningham's broad knowledge and the older folks decrying that as hogwash in light of Siracua's laser like focus on OS X.

I'd love to see the web traffic results for the review vs for Siracusas.

Social media always blew up for Siracusa...haven't seen that yet for Cunningham.

Pssh. He was destroying the Ars CMS w/ 20,000 word articles before "social media" even existed.

 

[tipoo]

jimc99999[/url]":1lb4bdv2]

sleepcountry[/url]":1lb4bdv2]

thomsirveaux[/url]":1lb4bdv2]

sleepcountry[/url]":1lb4bdv2]

Apple tells us that the Core Graphics and Core Animation acceleration is available only on Macs that use Intel integrated graphics exclusively. It’s not available on higher-end Macs with dedicated GPUs or in laptops that switch dynamically between integrated and dedicated graphics. The Intel GPUs are the ones that need the most help driving OS X’s UI, but it still seems a bit odd.

Any idea why this needs to be implemented so specifically to hardware?

They're pretty tight-lipped about it, "the integrated GPUs need it and the dedicated ones don't" is as close to an explanation as they have.

Interesting. Does this mean Macs with dedicated GPUs aren't even using their considerable capabilities to accelerate OS stuff then? (e.g. If there are two MacBooks Pro, one with integrated graphics, one with a dedicated GPU, and otherwise identical specs, the one with the dedicated one would actually be at a disadvantage when doing stuff on the desktop?)

The MacBook Pro with the discrete GPU will normally be running on the integrated GPU, and will likely take advantage of Metal. When the discrete GPU is active, the whole UI is running on that GPU and therefore there is probably no noticeable benefit to using Metal.

It says in the article only Macs with /exclusively/ integrated graphics take advantage. Ie even running an integrated chip on one with a dGPU won't use Metal for UI acceleration.

 

[jbondo]

Anybody able to chime in on Adobe Creative Cloud compatibility with El Capitan GM? Particularly, are there any major known issues?

 

[Ryuji]

tipoo[/url]":2wlqxqdp]

rex86[/url]":2wlqxqdp]1. Better wifi connections. The current situation is just awful. It's pathetically bad.

I thought I was the only one. Yosemite and El Capitan both drop the wifi a lot on my Haswell 15" rMBP, can't figure that out either. All the other laptops and devices in the house are golden on the same router (DIR-615).

That's apart from the page loading issues.

On the same Macbook, dual booting to Windows makes it all fine.

For what it's worth, I have similar problems on my 2013 MBA, and I solved it completely by disabling bluetooth (it seems that wifi and bluetooth interacted badly with one another). I made several tries, it worked best if I rebooted after disabling bluetooth.