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Well, this must be the most feeble excuse we've seen yet for the relaunch of a desktop operating system.
You've named all of your other software using a convention that demands ‘name of system + OS' – try tvOS, watchOS or (of course) iOS. So OS X just didn't have a place in the Apple's world any more. So say hello, then, to the first iteration of the first release of macOS – Sierra.
Compared to the almost-all-new iOS 10, macOS Sierra is a relatively subtle overhaul of a system that most of us (well, OK, those of us in the Stuff office) consider to be just about perfect anyway.
But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't upgrade. Sierra hides more than enough tricks up its sleeve to make the 5GB upgrade from El Capitan worth the wait and endless Espressos.
UNLOCK YOUR MAC WITH YOUR APPLE WATCH
This one's a doozy, and you may never find it.
Go to System Preferences, and you'll find a tiny little tick box under Security & Privacy that promises to allow you to open your Mac with your Apple Watch.
Before you charge ahead, you'll need to disable Two-Step Authentication on your Apple ID (and like any sensible person, you will have enabled it… right?), and then enable Two-Factor Authentication from your iPhone (you'll find it under iCloud > your iCloud profile > Password & Security). Oh, and you'll need watchOS 3 installed on your Apple Watch.
Then go back to that little tick box and tick it. You'll see ‘Turning on…' for a few seconds, after which the tick box will stay ticked.
Now close the lid on your Macbook and go for a coffee, or some other form of distraction. Come back to your Mac (whilst wearing your Watch), and gasp as the magic happens – your login screen shows a message that your Mac is unlocking using your Watch, and… hey presto, there's your desktop.
You even get a little notification on your Apple Watch confirming that this has happened. Now, prepare to engineer as many situations as possible where you can casually show off your party trick to friends at work, and be strong enough to ignore their pitying sneers.
SIRI HEARS ALL
macOS Sierra's most noticeable addition to the Mac desktop is Siri. Yes, that's right, you can now talk to your Mac, and it will either answer, do your bidding or both.
And from our experience, it does these things very well. ‘Show me all the emails from David in the last week' doesn't fluster it. The black Siri panel that slides in from the right of your desktop may ask who the hell David is, but once you've told it, it will find all of his emails sent to you in the last week.
The same goes for most of your Mac's popular services. ‘Show me photos taken in the last week' opens Photos to your last week's snaps. ‘Take a note' has Siri asking what the note should say, then saving it to Apple Notes. And you can tell it to search for things using Bing, then pin the results to your Today panel (not that we can ever imagine a scenario where we'd find that useful).
You get the idea. It's Siri as you know it from your iPhone, ported to the Mac desktop. Which is all very lovely, except for one thing – most of the people we know (not us, of course – we're confident and brash) feel silly talking to their computers in public.
And in a lot of environments, you'll need to be shouting quite loud for Siri to register what you're saying. ‘Play Abba's Greatest Hits' just isn't the sort of thing you want to be bellowing at 120db sat in the queue at a bank during lunch hour.
MAKE YOUR MESSAGES WILD
If you've installed any of the iOS 10 beta builds, you'll know that the Messages app now knows how to express its emotions (or yours) via the medium of crazy fonts and a wickedly large arsenal of emoji.
Messages on the desktop isn't quite so wild (in fact, it isn't that wild at all), but it does include the weaponised array of emoji. And if you send a link, you get a rich preview of the page or site. That's wild enough for us.
COPY ON THIS, PASTE ON THAT
Universal copy / paste comes to the Mac desktop with Sierra and iOS 10. It works precisely as the name suggests – you can copy a chunk of text or a message on your iPhone, then paste into a document on your Mac.
OK, we know – that's quite possibly something that you've never needed to do before, and its addition in macOS Sierra doesn't mean that you're likely to start doing it now. But who knows? We may be alone: there may be millions of people doing this every day, for reasons that we will one day discover.
TAKE A PHOTO TOUR BACK IN TIME
Sierra comes with an updated Photos app that replicates the new Memories feature of its iOS 10 counterpart. Basically, the app scans your photo library, and creates new albums based on significant dates or places.
You're right – this isn't new. Google Photos has been doing something very similar for quite a while. But that doesn't mean that the feature isn't welcome in macOS, and Apple has done a commendable jobs of creating pretty libraries that include maps, related people and other related albums. Google version 54.
ICLOUD BACKUP
This one's quite sneaky on Apple's part. You see, Apple probably knows that countless Mac users have installed Google Drive or OneDrive. In that sense, the market's pretty sewn up for automated file backup systems (and that's before we've mentioned the hundreds of other third party backup apps).
So to tease you into iCloud a little more often, Sierra comes with automated backup to iCloud of your Documents folder and Desktop.
And its the desktop backup that's the sneaky move. If you're anything like this reviewer, your desktop is a dump bin of recently trawled files, all of which you'll get around to filing away over the weekend. Further, you'll also know that organising OneDrive or Google Drive backup of your desktop is actually a bit of a pain (dragging folders within folders etc).
So when you're offered an auto-backup of your desktop when you first boot into Sierra, your instinct is to say yes. And the result is that we'll dip into iCloud more often when we're out and about, and perhaps even start using it as full-time storage. Couple that with the online real-time document collaboration announced by Apple a few weeks back, and there's just the sniff of a real Google or Microsoft rival.
Only… only we're totally vested in Dropbox, as is the rest of the Stuff team. And while Keynote is a killer presentation app, Pages and Numbers aren't fit to stand in the same boxing ring as their Google or Microsoft equivalents.
Still, nice try, Apple.
…AND THE REST
If your Mac knows that its hard drive is filling it, it starts automatically optimising the available space by backing up old and unused files to iCloud. Which is one of those really sensible things that should have been built into OS X years ago.
Every native Mac app now has tabs. Enough said.
Apple Notes now lets you share notes with friends. Or enemies. Up to you, really. It may only be a small addition, but couple it with the upgrades to Notes earlier this year, and you now have a credible rival to Evernote and the likes of Google Keep.
Oh, and then there's iTunes. Or at least, the Apple Music section of iTunes, that has seen the same overhaul as the iOS 10 app of the same name. This is good news, people. It's immeasurably more useful than its poorly designed predecessor – enough (almost) to tempt you into cancelling that Spotify sub.
VERDICT
This is not one of those punch-the-air high-scoring reviews. For all of the change in name and inclusion of Siri and nifty features such as auto-unlocking, macOS Sierra is more of the same for the Apple desktop.
It just so happens that the Apple desktop is ridiculously refined and capable – you can gripe that it's missing Feature A or B, but in reality, your new Mac will let you do just about any computing task without spending a cent on third party software.
And it will do it all without crashing, and with an interface that will make you smile.
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The writing has been on the wall for a long time. With the release of macOS High Sierra, Apple has finally confirmed that imaging is dead.
Apple doesn't recommend or support monolithic system imaging for macOS upgrades.
I have written a book which expands on this topic and is regularly updated. Please check it out: 'macOS Installation for Apple Administrators'
Update 2019-07-16: While most of the information in this post is still relevant, I wrote a new, updated post regarding the macOS 10.15 Catalina Upgrade here: 'Imaging is still dead'
The Final Nail
The final nail in the coffin for imaging is this support article: Upgrade macOS on a Mac at your institution
It states the limitations to installing and upgrading macOS with High Sierra:
- the Mac being installed or updated must be connected to the internet
- installations and updates cannot be done on external devices, like those connected via Target Disk Mode, Thunderbolt, USB, or Firewire
- there are four supported methods of installing macOS High Sierra
- the macOS Installer application
- a bootable installer on an external drive, created with
createinstallmedia - install or upgrade from the macOS Recovery System
- a NetInstall image built with Apple's System Image Utility
These methods are also re-iterated in this section in the macOS Deployment Reference
Some of the features have changed since this article was written. You can find an updated post for macOS 10.13.4 here.
Why?
Apple's stated reason for requiring the installer is to ensure that a Mac's firmware is all up to date and matches the OS installed on it.
Only the macOS Installer can download and install the firmware update. Firmware updates can't be done on external devices, like those connected via Target Disk Mode, Thunderbolt, USB, or Firewire.
This is especially important in High Sierra, because to boot into a system on an APFS formatted (or converted disk) the Mac's firmware needs to be able to mount and read APFS. The firmware that was installed with 10.12 or earlier is not able to read APFS volumes and. When you image a Mac with High Sierra and APFS without updating the firmware, you will get the question mark at boot, because the firmware cannot find a system.
However, the EFI, which manages (among other things) the boot process is not the only 'firmware' that needs to be managed on your Mac. Many of the hardware components in your Mac, such as the SSD, the power controller (SMC) and the TouchBar controller on the new MacBooks Pro, have their own firmware that needs to be installed and updated.
Apple has been increasing the protection of the vital parts of the system and hardware. The firmware in these components cannot just be changed by any process. Only the Apple macOS Installer application has sufficient privileges and entitlements to perform these updates. The installer process has to run on the Mac itself, it cannot run over target disk mode.
Future Mac hardware might introduce even more components that require firmware.
On iOS, a secure boot chain prevents tampering with the system on a device after it has been installed. The secure boot chain also prevents replacing the system with an image from another device.
It is conceivable that Apple wants to implement a secure boot system on future Macs as well. Current Macs probably do not have the hardware required to implement this. (The TouchBar MacBooks Pro have a Secure Enclave chip like the iPhone and iPad and might already have the necessary pieces in place.)
Long Live The King Korean Movie
So now what?
This has been coming for a long time. Even though APFS is not, as originally predicted, the direct culprit. It is still end-of-the-line for imaging.
However, the news is not entirely dire. Apple has been surprisingly forthright about the direction they want to go. While the documentation is a bit lacking, there are instructions on what the solutions for Mac System Adminstrators should be.
The four supported means of installing and upgrading macOS and the firmware for Macs are a clear direction of what needs to be done. However, Apple is a bit shy on how administrators can and should implement them.
There are a few options:
Put the Burden on the Users
This will work in some deployments where users are in control of their Macs. Either a full BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scenario, or one where devices provided by the organisation are in full control of the user.
Even when the devices are enrolled in an MDM, users are still administrators and in control. Administrators can use reporting tools, to determine which Macs are capable of installing High Sierra and not upgraded yet.
You can even use reporting tools to gather information on the firmware and whether it matches the latest version.
You can then instruct users with email or notifications to download the High Sierra installer and initiate the upgrade themselves. You should warn them to have a current backup and that the process might take some time, so it should be run overnight.
If you have a software management system in place, you can use that to load the macOS Installer application on the clients and notify the user when it is ready. River flows in you.
The Mac App Store only downloads a 'stub' installer application which is then filled in with an extra download. If you have blocked access to Apple Software Update Servers or redirected clients to a local, managed Software Update Server, clients might not get the complete installer application. Greg Neagle has a great post on this.
To save download time for the users, you can also provide USB/Thunderbolt drives with a bootable installer drive. This might speed things up a bit, though it does not really change the process.
How do we Automate this?
As system administrators we want to automate the process, so that it ideally does not require any human interaction. That way we can replicate the process hundreds and thousands of times.
Ideally, we also want to inject some custom steps into the process. Apple provides two means of achieving both of these steps, and some open source tools are providing solutions as well.
NetInstall
A custom NetInstall set built with Apple's System Image Utility is one of the supported means of installing and updating macOS (and the firmware) to High Sierra.
You can find System Image Utility in /System/Library/CoreService/Applications. You can customize the process and even add your own installer packages, scripts or profiles. Packages used in System Image Utility have to be Distribution Packages.
Since a NetInstall system is like a Recovery system, you can use scripts to control behavior of your Mac like allowed NetBoot IPs, or ‘User-Approved Kernel Extension Loading' (UAKEL) here as well.
You can even automate the NetInstall process to a point where, once you have chosen the NetInstall volume (when holding the the option key at boot) the remaining process is without interaction. (Though this is a dangerous choice, as it might simply wipe and re-install Macs. Use the other limitation options such as by MAC address or hardware type to keep this safe.)
NetInstall requires Mac running macOS Server. However, BSDPy can replace a NetBoot/NetInstall server and runs on many platforms, including VMs.
Note: as of 10.13.0 there still seem to be a few bugs with NetInstall on HighSierra. It works mostly but seems exceedingly slow. Also some admins have reported problems with adding mulitple packages, profiles or scripts for configuration. 10.13.1 is already in beta and seeding and you should be testing that.
NetInstall on USB
If you do not have the infrastructure to run a NetInstall or BSDPy server, you can also restore the NetInstall.dmg image that System Image Utility creates to an external drive. When mounted on a Mac, it will the High Sierra installer applications, and double-clicking it will start the proper installation process.
Any additional packages, profiles or scripts will be included with this custom external install application as well.
The startosinstall Command
When you already have a management system (Munki, Jamf, Filewave, etc.) you want to initiate the update process with rules or policies. At first glance the supported means of installing macOS seem to be at odds with managed client workflows, since they require user interaction.
However, there is a tool hidden inside the macOS Installer application (since macOS 10.12 Sierra) called startosinstall. The full path to the tool is
Note: I believe it was Rich Trouton who first documented this tool in his notes for WWDC 2016. Since then many admins and open source projects have worked to figure out how to use this tool in the best way.
When you run it with the --usage argument you get the following:
There is also an undocumented --nointeraction flag which can be used to run the tool without any user interaction. This is obviously useful for management systems.
Once you have used to your management system to make sure the macOS Installer application is on the client system, you can execute a script with the startosinstall command to initiate the installation process. Remember that the installation process can take a long time, so it should be initiated by the user in a Self Management portal or run during off-hours for kiosk like Macs in labs or classrooms.
The --converttoapfs [YES|NO] argument allows you to suppress automatic APFS conversion on SSD Macs.
There is also a --volume argument to target the non-boot volume. However, this will only work when SIP is disabled or when you run startosinstall from a Recovery/NetInstall disk.
The --installpackage option allows you to add one or more custom packages that will be installed after the OS installation is complete. This is very useful for customization and cleanup. Packages used with startosinstall --installpackage also have to be Distribution Packages.
Note: even though the usage states that you can repeat the --installpackage argument, as of 10.13.0 only the first package given will runthe installation with fail with more than one package. Make that one package count. (Note: edited this paragraph. Thanks to Greg for clarifying.)
Tool Support
New Mac Os 11
- Munki 3 already supports the
startosinstallcommand - Imagr will in an upcoming release
- other management systems can use the
startosinstallcommand in scripts, after ensuring the macOS Installer application is downloaded.
Is Imaging completely dead?
The imaging tools (like Disk Utility, hdiutil and asr) will work with APFS volumes. However, the support article states:
You can use system images to re-install the existing operating system on a Mac.
So when you need a workflow that requires quick re-imaging, you can use one of the supported methods to install or update the Mac (Firmware and OS) and then use monolithic (or thin) imaging over network or thunderbolt for fast restores. This is useful for scenarios where fast imaging turnaround is required, such as classrooms and labs or loaner laptop setups. However, you have to use extra care to make sure the image system version matches the version that was installed.
Long Live The King Mac Os 7
Going forward, I expect imaging to be less and less feasible as future Mac hardware and security features will make it harder and harder to use. The times where we could have just one image which will run on all supported Macs might be over as hardware (and the software required to run the hardware) becomes more and more fractured. Note that there is not a unified single ‘iOS' image/installer for all iOS devices.
Summary
macOS High Sierra 10.13.0 works well for individual users. However, there still are quite a few issues that are relevant for managed deployments. There are many problems with Active Directory and Filevault, NetInstall is slow and adding multiple packages to an installation is broken. Just to mention a few.
Photoshop ipad pro. Even though it makes sense for some deployments to hold back from High Sierra right now, you will want or have to upgrade soon.
Apple said at WWDC the iMac Pro will ship in December 2017. Its tech specs page, states it will run High Sierra. You can expect it to require High Sierra.
Also, critical security patches might only be pushed for High Sierra.
Imaging is dead. In an unusual move Apple has come right out and said it loud and clear. If you have not done so already, start testing and implementing one of the above strategies right now, so you are ready to move to High Sierra.
Read about more changes with the macOS 10.13.4 updates here.
What Is The Latest Mac Os
I have written a book which expands on this topic and is regularly updated. Please check it out: 'macOS Installation for Apple Administrators'
