El Capitan?

[mhschmieder]

As it might get lost in my larger post, I just want to make a bit clearer what is the most radical difference about Apple's Java vs. Oracle's in terms of packaging:

Apple's Java is INCOMPLETE; whereas Oracle's Java is COMPLETE.

What that means is that Apple's Java was written in such a way as to directly depend on a non-redistributable file elsewhere on the OS installation.

If you open up the "application" directory for Oracle's Java, all dependencies are resolved and included therein, and also pretty closely match the Unix/Linux and Windows distributions.

None of you need to worry about that as it is automatically taken care of by the Java 6 installer; it is meant to further explain why there is no way that the two vendors' versions can "step" on each other. Oracle talks about this a lot at JavaOne each year; how they deliberately chose a distribution and installation model that couldn't possibly cause any conflicts with APple's legacy Java.

[Shooshie]

What Mike said about CS6. That was a biggie for me, too. It works fine with the older Runtime Java.
Of course, I'm always getting that "a newer version of Java exists..." dialog. I just have to remember to hit Cancel.

The biggest problems in El Capitan for me have been:
1) the spinning wheel. Damn thing is always spinning. I lose more time to that thing, and I NEVER saw it before El Capitan. I have a 12 core Mac Pro with 40 GB RAM. It should handle anything. My original Macs were faster in terms of workflow. They responded pretty much in real time. This thing makes me wait for everything.
2) Mail, Messages, iTunes, and anything else that uses my Apple account. They just won't all get on the same page and stay there. I've turned off iCloud so many times, and reconfigured it all and restarted it all... it gets really old. Again, I'm reminded of 1991 or so, and the early Internet and PPP and TCP-IP and all that. It's different stuff now, but it shouldn't have to be like this. There should be no problems with connections. This is Apple, and it's 2016. I talked to Apple Tech Support, and they admitted that it's a widespread problem. Told me to turn off iCloud and restart it. Reconfigure everything. As I said, I've done that many times, and I think it's finally "taking," but not as I would like for it to. I've had to give up on outgoing mail on any of my Apple accounts. I use Google for outgoing mail now. The Apple stuff refuses to work.

It's not just me. The forums are full of it, and like I said, Apple Tech Support confirmed it's widespread.

So, I'm not happy with El Capitan, but I wasn't happy with Yosemite, either. Another thing: if you use a lot of aliases for files or folders in the finder, they can cause problems. First of all, they are usually bigger than the file they represent. Make an alias of a 500K jpeg, and it's liable to be larger than 1MB. The alias, that is. Add a custom icon to a folder alias, and it may work for a while, but at some point it will probably get dumped. (I use several of these in the Finder, to access often-used folders on many drives) I'm in the habit of rebuilding my folder aliases quickly after restarting my Mac. I need those custom icons, because I can't slow down to read every folder every time, and they're always shifting positions as I drag files to the Finder. The icons enable me to go right to them. So... aliases need work, but this has been a problem since Mavericks.

QuickLook in the Finder won't do a full-screen slide show if the pictures are less than full screen themselves. It won't enlarge them. It'll enlarge the first one, maybe the 2nd one, but the rest go back to their default size. Hold down the OPTION key, and it will do it. But you have to hold it down for the whole darn slideshow. Not fun. This, too, was a problem since Mavericks. Still not fixed in El Capitan.

Then there's Photos (replaces iPhoto) and Preview. Preview has been systematically dismantled over the years, but there's not much left to destroy. They managed to hack it down a few more notches for El Capitan. Photos replaces iPhotos, but it has NONE of the features of iPhoto. It's the worst retrograde app replacement ever done by Apple, especially for something as important as our photos!

To recap my list:
1) the spinning wheel
2) iCloud, Apple accounts
3) Adobe CS6 Java Runtime issue
4) Aliases in the Finder
5) QuickLook
6) Preview
7) Photos


Those are some of my main beefs, not all specifically El Capitan, but close enough. I'm not happy with Apple right now. Very much not.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

Of course, I'm always getting that "a newer version of Java exists..." dialog. I just have to remember to hit Cancel.

Don't. That has nothing to do with JRE 6.

That message is telling you that a newer version of JRE 8 exists. Oracle is continually updating Java 8, mainly to deal with Internet security issues. Either install the update by clicking on the link or through the Java panel in System Preferences.

The only message that JRE 6 gives is the JDK message if it is not installed.

[bayswater]

To recap my list:
1) the spinning wheel
2) iCloud, Apple accounts
3) Adobe CS6 Java Runtime issue
4) Aliases in the Finder
5) QuickLook
6) Preview
7) Photos


Those are some of my main beefs, not all specifically El Capitan, but close enough. I'm not happy with Apple right now. Very much not.

Shooshie

You didn't mention iTunes. It was once a simple convenient way to store music and move it to a player. Now it's a dog's breakfast.

On aliases: I found symbolic links still work properly (in Yosemite), and will be accepted by applications as a valid pointer to a document or folder when an alias is not.

[Babz]

Yes, Shoosh, Photos and the replacement of Labels with "tags" are two things I dread. For years I have relied in being able quickly find something in a long list by giving it a color. Now that is apparently just a little dot! And I believe I had to do the Java 6 thing even under ML. But these are little things. As long as DP 9, UAD, NI, Arturia, and RX4 work, and CS6 will run under El Cap, I guess it's safe to forge ahead (and hunker down while Sierra gets sorted).

[Babz]

And yes iTunes has been a devolving march of folly for years. I avoid iTunes and use iFunbox as much as I can.

[Shooshie]

You didn't mention iTunes. It was once a simple convenient way to store music and move it to a player. Now it's a dog's breakfast.

It was part of the Apple Accounts thing, but it should be in an entry of its own. That interface has become a joke. Not to mention the spinning wheels which I reported earlier. Apple has ruined most of their software, and I haven't a clue as to what they thought they were doing. Did they think they were making it better? It's like they turned some junior engineers loose on it and said "if you don't change some things, you're fired."

On aliases: I found symbolic links still work properly (in Yosemite), and will be accepted by applications as a valid pointer to a document or folder when an alias is not.

Not sure how one could use symbolic links in the Finder. I need folder aliases so that I can access various locations on various hard disks that I use pretty much every day. I use custom icons on those folders so that I can readily identify them. When I make an alias, it copies the icon, and all is well, but soon the alias becomes a generic folder, and sometimes they even lose their connection to their original folder. (that part has been partially fixed, but the icons still drop out regularly) Compound that with the fact that an alias is often larger than the file it represents. Aliases used to clock in at 16K. Now they're anywhere from 1MB to 10MB. That's just seriously messed up.

Shoosh

[Morpheo]

Those are some of my main beefs, not all specifically El Capitan, but close enough. I'm not happy with Apple right now. Very much not.

Shooshie

OS X, sorry...macOS has been a complete mess since Yosemite came out. In El Capitan, the fancy UI stuff takes an indecent high percentage of cpu (resizing windows, scrolling...). Also, why does Spotlight need to index my drives *every* time I log in??? My logitech mouse shows up twice in my preferences for some reason, or sometimes doesn't show up at all.

Photoshop (I'm using the latest version, 2015.5) is ssssslllllooooowwwwwww! There's a "temporary" plugin from Adobe that is supposed to fix it...Well, it does fix the toolbar but that's it! Editing or moving a document/layers is painful.

Don't even get me started on the "Pro Tools lag" under El Capitan..... People on the DUC like to diss Avid for just about any reason available, but this one's, imo, is on Apple, not Avid.

DP's UI has never been "smooth" and it's worse in El Capitan...

I've gone back to Mavericks, and things are so, so, so much better here! I have the exact same MacPro as yours Shooshie, with 40 GB of RAM too. Like you said, this Mac should be able to handle everything, unfortunately El Capitan tends to slow everything down. Not to mention the countless background tasks... In Mavericks, I have none of these issues, Photoshop is working perfectly, as is Pro Tools, as is DP, etc...

I'm staying with Mavericks unless I absolutely have to upgrade.

[bayswater]

Not sure how one could use symbolic links in the Finder. I need folder aliases so that I can access various locations on various hard disks that I use pretty much every day.

I use SymLinker. The links work the same way as aliases. You put the symbolic link where you it, e.g. on your desktop. In my case, I put it where Logic expects to find the EXS24 libraries. Aliases won't work, and Logic no longer has an install option for the library location (another weird Apple decision). I haven't tried putting custom icons in them but it wouldn't take long to test that.

[bayswater]

I have the exact same MacPro as yours Shooshie ....

I'm staying with Mavericks unless I absolutely have to upgrade.

It seems to help to consider the specific Mac and what works best on it. Mavericks was a dog on my older iMac and MBP, but Yosemite shines on both. El Cap was a disaster. I have a Mini that came with Mountain Lion, and attempts to update to Yosemite were disappointing.

I'm off the OS update bandwagon, and fed up with flaky .0 versions that need a series of updates and bug fixes.

I notice El Cap has an average rating of 3 stars from over 2,700 ratings. That has to be a low tide mark for an Apple OS. Maybe Apple should go back to charging for upgrades and put the money towards QC.

[amplidood]

On my MacBook Pro 11,3 El Capitan has been a beast. It really works the hardware of this machine right. Everything I was doing in Mavericks went to light-speed. I really feel like it was designed specifically for these newer machines. Of course, I do tons of system modification to tweak things exactly how I want them, but I've not regretted my decision one bit. Except for the cash output to get into 64 bit versions of everything

[mikehalloran]

Also, why does Spotlight need to index my drives *every* time I log in

It doesn't unless there's a problem which should be found and fixed. If you only connect the drives on occasion, then this is normal behavior. You can turn this off but you lose the ability to search the drive.

I like El Cap a lot except for Disk Utility. Even that works except on old hard drives as I have documented in another thread.

Otherwise, my Adobe and other apps work fine and I have no issues. No functionality in any of the current versions I need. No doubt, at some point, Apple will drop support for 32bit but, till then, I'm good.

The only app that slowed down was Office 2008 and it went nearly back to Mountain Lion speeds—except that I'm now on an SSD so it takes a few more seconds to boot up instead a couple minutes. I can always go back to 2011 (bleah!) if I have to, I suppose—I deleted it when 2008 got faster in Mavericks. With all of the problems Microsoft is having with Office 2016, I'll put that off as long as possible.

My wife was having a lot of problems with Office 2008 recently. It turned out that she was working on the files in Dropbox instead of her Mac. This can work for small files but is not recommended for large tasks.

[Babz]

I believe El Cap was the first Mac OS to take advantage of the "Metal" graphics API. But only certain Macs, generally 2012 or later models, can take advantage of it. This could possibly explain different performance for different users. But I'm far from a boffin in this area. I could be way off. One would hop that "not able to take advantage of" doesn't mean "slower performance if you cant take advantage of", but who knows with Apple. I am definitely concerned when I hear people saying their performance suffered after the El Cap upgrade. Anything that slows you down in any way is not a proper upgrade.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(API)

[mikehalloran]

My 2010 and 2011 iMacs cannot take advantage of Metal Graphics.

[Shooshie]

Are we talking about general appearance in system preferences? I didn't even know about Metal. My "Mid 2014" Mac Pro does not see that. I guess that means it can't use it.