MacOS 12.6.1 AND MacOS 13 Ventura dropped today!

[James Steele]

Just fired up my Mac Studio and got the notification that Ventura is out. I'm still putting my studio together and getting things dialed in. I think I'm going to sit Ventura out for now, but am going to go ahead and do 12.6.1 Monterey.

[cuttime]

I can't find any official word from MOTU (or any vendors) on Ventura, so I'm gonna set this one out for a while. Things are going just too smoothly right now in Monterey. Not getting a 12.6.1 notice, yet.

[James Steele]

Not getting a 12.6.1 notice, yet.

Go in the settings and check out the update notice. For me, the notice about the Monterey 12.6.1 update appeared in basic text under the outlined box about the Ventura update. It is easy to miss. It said “Other update available” followed by a link in blue that said “More Info.”

If you click on “More Info” it should show you the Monterey 12.6.1 update.

I’d have posted a screenshot but too late now as I already updated to 12.6.1. So far all is good.

[cuttime]

Not getting a 12.6.1 notice, yet.

Go in the settings and check out the update notice. For me, the notice about the Monterey 12.6.1 update appear in basic text under the outlined box about the Ventura update. It is easy to miss. It said “Other update available” followed by a link in blue that said “More Info.”

If you click on “More Info” it should show you the Monterey 12.6.1 update.

I’d have posted a screenshot but too late now as I already updated to 12.6.1. So far all is good.

Ah yes.Thanks. I see it now. FWIW, Native Instruments and Arturia both say do NOT upgrade to Ventura. This is a list here:

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... ility-List

https://motu.com/en-us/news/motu-and-macos-ventura/

[James Steele]

FWIW, Native Instruments and Arturia both say do NOT upgrade to Ventura. This is a list here:

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... ility-List

https://motu.com/en-us/news/motu-and-macos-ventura/

Yeah. I didn’t need any convincing. I imagine I’ll hold off for a while. Maybe even till 13.1.

Honestly under Monterey I’ve been able to use my MTP/AV and MTP which is daisy chained off of it. I’m amazed it still works. My concern is Ventura will break this. It will break eventually but I’d like to be able to put off buying new MIDI interfaces for a while if possible.

[mikehalloran]

I’ve been known to wait a year or more—not in a hurry in any case. Nothing compelling in Ventura yet.

[HCMarkus]

I do like the “find duplicates” function added to Photos. Will come in handy someday as I curate thousands of pics into a few memorable tidbits for my children and grandchildren to enjoy.

But that someday is still in the future for me, so it’s Monterey where I’ll remain for now.

[bayswater]

I do like the “find duplicates” function added to Photos. Will come in handy someday as I curate thousands of pics into a few memorable tidbits for my children and grandchildren to enjoy.

But that someday is still in the future for me, so it’s Monterey where I’ll remain for now.

Agreed. In fact this is the first OS version where I’ve seen anything worth the effort of updating for many years. Too bad there is so much uncertainty about whether software I use will work with it. Maybe time to live with two working partitions instead of one working and one test.

[James Steele]

I do like the “find duplicates” function added to Photos. Will come in handy someday as I curate thousands of pics into a few memorable tidbits for my children and grandchildren to enjoy.

But that someday is still in the future for me, so it’s Monterey where I’ll remain for now.

You might be able to do this on your iPhone if your photos are all in cloud storage. I discovered find duplicates in the Photos app on my iPhone very recently and it works well.

[mikehalloran]

El Cap screwed up USB for a few months and Mojave wreaked havoc if you had a USB interface from many makers (but not MOTU!) until MacOS 10.14.4. Then there was Lion dropping support for PPC apps and Catalina dropping all 32 bit.

And yet we lived. Ventura looks benign by comparison. We'll get through this too.

I really think it's time for Apple to stop the annual OS Upgrades, ready or not.

[James Steele]

...and Mojave wreaked havoc if you had a USB interface from many makers (but not MOTU!) until MacOS 10.14.4

I wanted to like Mojave, but in the end it was my Waterloo and what forced me, directly and indirectly, into throwing my hands up and selling a guitar and ponying up for a Mac Studio. Financially difficult, but not a day goes by where this Mac Studio doesn't just delight me with what an improved experience it is over my Cheesegrater.

Mojave also introduced the a major, unfixable problem with DP11 running on Intel Macs... at least the Intel MacPro "cheesegraters" for sure. If you never use the Movie Window you'll never encounter it. But if you did use the Movie Window and had an open movie, the GUI responsiveness became unbearably slow. Double-clicking a block of MIDI data in the TOV might take 5-6 seconds to open the MIDI Editor. The only fix was to downgrade to High Sierra or use the dosdude Catalina patcher and go up to Catalina.

I wanted to love Mojave... the improvement in graphics performance with Metal was huge... but as I said, the Movie Window bug made the Intel/Mojave/DP11 combo radioactive for me.

[HCMarkus]

The lesson is clear, at least for me: use the studio computer as an Appliance, to the fullest extent possible. By Appliance, I mean, lock it down and just use the darn thing to make music.

The challenge arises when that new, must-have piece of gear or software forces one's hand. Sometimes, we can only hope the dominos don't start falling.

Now that I have a relatively current Mac Studio on hand, the temptation to go for it, that "upgrade" de jour, is strong. As Mike suggests, Ventura may not throw any roadblocks up for us audio folk. We can certainly hope. But I'll still move cautiously; I just don't want to break things that are working so nicely already.

Here's to the early adopters... Thank You for your courage, and extra special thanks for not suffering in silence and for letting us all know when disaster strikes. My shoulder is always on offer to cry on, for when my should is thus occupied, I am less likely to push the "Update" button.

[James Steele]

Just got this email from Cherry Audio. I have a few of their VIs and effects plugs. They’re saying hard pass on Ventura (for now).

B3B868CB-404F-4E5A-B4FB-DF6BF810ECD0.jpeg (484.58 KiB) Viewed 2050 times

[bayswater]

I really think it's time for Apple to stop the annual OS Upgrades, ready or not.

I agree and I’ve had the argument with some Apple people. The answer is that the software is “chasing” the new hardware. But that tells you there’s not particular reason to update if you don’t have the new hardware.

The least Apple could do is improve QC.

[James Steele]

The least Apple could do is improve QC.

It's not like they can't afford it, either!

Of course Apple is getting their hands into everything now. They're in the streaming TV business and movie business. And of course talk of an Apple car. I miss the days a little when they were focused solely on computing. However, considering the iPod and iPhone pretty much saved them from financial disaster, they wouldn't be around today had they not diversified.

I did watch a video about Ventura and to some degree I'm annoyed by Apple's desire to make the MacOS experience look and feel the same as the iOS experience. Apparently, "System Preferences" will now be "Settings" like in iOS, and the appearance of it mimics the iOS experience. I know Apple has been pushing this merger, but every step they take towards it, makes the Mac feel dumbed down... even if it's not.

Very hard for me to put it into words, but I have misgivings about my Mac becoming a big iPhone.