macOS Archive

OS X Yosemite under the magnifying glass

macOS 31 Comments

There are still many rough edges in the new OS but overall I am really excited about the visual direction that Mac OS X Yosemite is taking. It demonstrates a more mature and subtle approach in adapting iOS 7 design language. No ultra thin fonts, no crazy parallax, no ridiculous icons, just subtle use of translucent materials accompanied by a bright and cheerful palette. Using the new OS feels fresher, exciting, and more modern. I am looking forward to exploring other design changes in the the new OS that I may have missed.

I'm definitely pleased with the design direction Apple is taking OS X into, despite the fact that as it currently stands it's clearly still in flux. We're in beta, though, so that's just fine. The two biggest issues to me are one, that text input fields and buttons are not visually different, and two, that neither of them get any mouseover effect whatsoever - both cursor and button/input fields remain exactly the same.

Something else I've noticed: is it just me, or does Apple use a different theme on-stage during a keynote than what actually ships in the beta right now? The transparency and colours pop way more during the keynote than while using the beta. Odd.

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Apple eliminates the random resize button in OS X 10.10

macOS 52 Comments

Close, minimize, and maximize are now close, minimize, and full screen, eliminating the extra full-screen control and consolidating the window controls in one place. Streamlining these and other elements of the interface means you can navigate the desktop more efficiently.

OS X' idea of "maximise" was "some random window resizing nobody really used anyway", so I'm glad Apple finally replaced it with something else. Too bad OS X' fullscreen view is way too disruptive for my tastes to be of any practical use.

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Compile 68k Mac applications for System 1.1 in OS X 10.9

macOS 6 Comments

Like most of you, I've always wanted want to code and compile 68k Mac OS applications in OS X that work on System 1.1. This question kept me up night after night, but thanks to Steven Troughton-Smith, we now know that it is, indeed, possible. It started with a 68k application on System 6. Not long after, he managed to compile a simple application that worked on System 1.1. This test application's code is available on github.

This is possible using ksherlock's MPW Emulator, which, as the name implies, is an emulator that allows you to run the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop on any OS X 10.9 system (a case-insensitive HFS+ volume is required).

I'm glad this matter has been settled. In all seriousness, while the number of useful applications for this is probably limited, it's still very cool.

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iTunes 11.2 update hides Users folder on OS X

macOS 49 Comments

One side effect of the iTunes 11.2 update on Thursday, May 15th 2014 has been that some but not all Macs were seeing the /Users and /Users/Shared folders disappear.

The permissions on the /Users folder were also changed to be world-writable, so that anyone could read and write to the /Users folder.

As far as bugs go, this is a very fascinating one. Initially, people thought the OS X 10.9.3 update was the culprit, but as it turns out - it's the iTunes 11.2 update. I'm interested to (eventually) hear the root cause of all this, but for now, the linked article contains a temporary workaround.

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NetBoot PowerPC, Intel Macs from Mavericks Server

macOS 11 Comments

As part of some maintenance here, I did a little research as to how to set up NetBoot for various different Macs. For this piece, interchange 'NetBoot' with 'NetInstall' if you're being pedantic - I'm NetBooting the install disc for a particular OS. NetBooting a full install should also be possible using the same techniques.

Mavericks Server (an app free to all developers) has a built-in NetBoot (NetInstall) server GUI, but it only supports a handful of modern versions of OS X. Thankfully, if you follow the instructions in the bootpd manpage you can manually build NetBoot images supporting both PowerPC and Intel Macs going back to OS X v10.2.

Because we can.

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Improving the state of 4K display support under OS X

macOS 26 Comments

In my Mac Pro review I lamented the state of 4K display support under OS X 10.9.0. In my conclusion I wrote: "4K display compatibility under OS X is still a bit like the wild west at this point". Compatibility was pretty much only guaranteed with the ASUS/Sharp 4K displays if you cared about having a refresh rate higher than 30Hz. Even if you had the right monitor, the only really usable resolution was 3840 x 2160 - which ends up making text and UI elements a bit too small for some users. Absent were the wonderful scaling resolutions that Apple introduced with its MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Well it looks like that won't be the case for long, last night I got reports (thanks Mike!) that the latest developer build of OS X 10.9.3 includes expanded support for 4K displays, 4K/60Hz support for rMBPs and scaled resolutions below 4K.

So, OS X is essentially the only desktop operating system with proper HiDPI support, right?

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Porting XNU to ARMv7-A

macOS 3 Comments

As you are all probably aware of (I hope), I maintain an open-source port of the XNU (iPhone OS/Mac OS X) kernel to ARMv7-A (soon AArch64 and ARMv6/v5!) platforms. The kernel is very bare in its implementation and needs a lot of work. Work seems to also not be put into the proper areas, so I made this article to rectify that issue. Simple enough, I hope.

Very interesting (via @stroughtonsmith).

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OS X 10.9 Mavericks: the Ars Technica review

macOS 46 Comments

Apple has released OS X 10.9 Mavericks - for free - so it's that time again: John Siracusa's excellent OS X review.

According to Apple, Mavericks has a dual focus. Its first and most important goal is to extend battery life and improve responsiveness. Secondarily, Mavericks aims to add functionality that will appeal to "power users" (Apple's words), a group that may be feeling neglected after enduring two releases of OS X playing iOS dress-up.

Is that enough for Mavericks to live up to its major-release version number and to kick off the next phase of OS X's life? Let's find out.

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OS X 10.9 Mavericks preview

macOS 5 Comments
"This is still early, early days for OS X 10.9, and Mavericks will likely change and shift much more before it's released this fall. It's clearly not going to be the total aesthetic overhaul iOS 7 is, though, and that's okay. It’s a simple, familiar operating system, even less of a change than Mountain Lion, just with nips and tucks and a whole lot fewer sheets of weirdly torn paper. It has its bugs, sure, but it's also corrected a number of bugs that somehow made it into the final version of Mountain Lion, and even at this early stage is impressively stable and fast. It's gotten rid of a lot of the design issues that plagued many Mountain Lion apps (except for Game Center, which is still hideous), in favor of a cleaner, softer look that is far easier on the eyes." Hard to complain, really.
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OS X 10.9 to include power-user enhancements?

macOS 75 Comments
"OS X 10.9, which is internally codenamed 'Cabernet', will focus on various 'power-user' enhancements and take core features from iOS, according to our sources. Unlike operating system updates such as OS X Leopard and OS X Lion, OS X 10.9 will likely not be an overhauled approach to how the operating system feels and functions." Features for power users and features from iOS? Seems like an oxymoron. Still, if they manage to finally fix the Finder and Spaces, I'll be happy.
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Quicksilver moves out of beta

macOS 4 Comments
Via Ars Technica: "After almost 10 years of testing, Quicksilver lays the beta tag to rest (if the lack of an eszett brings a tear to your eye, you can always reminisce by hitting option+S on your keyboard). What does this release mean? It means more than just a change in the version numbering system - it signifies a maturity of Quicksilver and a sign of what's to come." Quicksilver is fantastic for those of us for whom command+space and the dock combined is not enough. While I personally don't use Quicksilver (I use Spotlight through command+space to launch applications), I know of quite a few Mac users who swear by it.
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Getting rid of the Finder’s ‘Open With’ duplicates

macOS 17 Comments
"This is the problem: You want to open a file using something other than the default application. You right-click its icon in the Finder, choose Open With, and a submenu pops up with an absurd number of duplicate entries." This is so annoying. Dr. Dang made a little addition to .bashrc so you can fix it with a single command. Now it's up to Apple to actually fix the problem (via Daring Fireball).
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