Joe, within the constraints of your NDA could you please summarize your perceptions of the relative strengths and relative drawbacks to updating to macOS at this point.
Given I am a inveterate or chronic
early adopter my viewpoint is admittedly colored but I will try to keep my predilections in check.
- PRO
- According to several sources including MacRumors and AppleInsider MacOS 10.12 (Sierra) is one of the most trouble free upgrades in years. 😎 In my personal experience any application issues I encountered in the early betas were taken care of long before the release with one exception. But that exception is the fault of a third party developer not Apple, and it turns out I have already come up with a workaround that may be a better option. The list of remaining incompatibilities is is remarkably short.
- Admittedly I am an enthusiastic user of iCloud, and iOS devices as well as Mac computers. There are several features in Sierra that make the integration of these three platforms much more seamless. Any data or files that are available on my Mac are transparently available on my iPad Pro and my iPhone. Interestingly enough I have run into situations where something that I could not easily do on my Mac I could easily do on my iPad Pro, for example "signing" a PDF document — that is a real signatuire, not an electronic signature. âœï¸ Because of the close integration I find I am beginning to use my iPad Pro for much (most?) of the graphics work so I can use the Apple pen to draw, but relying on the Mac for the grunt work of keyboard entry and data management. It is not a case of choosing one or the other rather of which is best suited for the particular task at hand. 😀
- If you have a Mac with a small SSD or HD and are getting pretty cramped for disk space the ability to move the Documents folder and Desktop to iCloud can free up a lot of storage space in a hurry. 👠(This has nothing to do with immediate upgrading, but the iCloud Documents, Photos, Music, and Desktop are causing me to seriously rethink how much storage capacity I will need on my next desktop Mac, This is a great opportunity to save some money.) The only time you are likely to notice would be if you open an old file that is no longer mirrored on the local drive, or you have slow or no high speed internet. I have used documents from the iCloud documents folder on my iPad Pro (which does not have cellular capabiity) via a hotspot created by my iPhone from a 4G cellular connection, and it worked great. (No cell capability on the iPad saved $100 or so at purchase time plus $15 a month for the separate data connection. ðŸ‘)
- There is a lot of stuff going on under the hood in Sierra that improve security and are paving the way for even more significant security options in the future. This is not necessarily a reason to change quickly, but it is a reason to change sooner rather than later.
- There is a long laundry list of small but significant enhancements to the standard Apple apps in Sierra that take some time to become accustomed to such as tabs every where, and in Maps the ability to merge tabs. Doesn't sound like much but if you are trip planning it is genius. 😊
- There has been an almost continuous flow of app updates taking advantage of some of the new features in Sierra such as tabs and Siri and that is likely to result in new versions that are not compatible with older versions of OS X. 😳
- Siri is not a reason to upgrade immediately, but it does get to be habit forming quickly.😉
- Most of the low level stuff does not directly effect applications unless the developer chooses to implement the new features so that risk is minimized.👌
- CON
- Some older versions of costly apps such as Adobe are unlikely to ever be compatible with Sierra but that has always been true with Apple upgrades
- While Diskwarrior has announced Sierra comptibility there are a number of utilities such as Tech Tool Pro, Tinkertool, Tinkertool System, Cocktail, OnyX(?), that have not yet been certified as Sierra compatible.
- As with almost all OS X upgrades some things have moved to new menues or locations and some old favorites have either disappeared or become harder to find 😡
- Some older devices have fallen off the the compatibility list 😫
- Some hardware devices, mice, etc that use proprietary drivers do not play nice with Sierra — yet. 🙄
- Anyone hanging onto a bunch of old semi-supported or unsupported apps is likely to be in the position of seeking replacements (Probably part of the impetus behind Apple's recent move to clean out the App Store).
