René Rebe

The silly name aside (sigh), it is really ridiculous that in 2017 Apple does still not allow us to update the last Beta build to the GM (Golden Master) via a delta update, and instead forces us to download and re-install the whole OS from scratch, again.

Not only for developers this really is a total waste of time (and bandwidth). There are already hundred small design details all over macOS and iOS that are not 100%ly right in the Apple eco-system anymore, this additional annoyances really add up to a way too long list in the meantime!

Testing the Beta on my 15″ Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013) the graphic performance (e.g. editing videos, but also just browsing the web) was quite sluggish, stability awful, and there was even screen flicker and corruption during booting (hello? - where has atomic mode setting gone? ;-)

The machine run also significantly hotter and battery life was obviously much worse. If Apple did not hot-fix this in the last weeks before the GM release this might very well be the worst macOS release I witnessed to date :-/ #peakbugs

Update: after fresh installation (sigh), even the boot graphic glitches prevail:

A post shared by RenéRebe™ (@renerebe) on Sep 25, 2017 at 2:23pm PDT

Update: even the Arstechnica mentions “bugs” 9 times, and “issues” 10 times, too. Nobody would have let Microsoft get away with this, and we would have called it the worst Windows Vista release ever, … Just saying, …

Update2: iMovie still has the same problem as the latest beta installation before the GM. On my above mentioned 15″ rMBP with 4k display connected and internal display closed iMovie even crashes straight away on start-up:

Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes: 0×0000000000000000, 0×0000000000000000
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
-[QCCGLRootContext minimalSharedContextForCurrentThread]: Inconsistent state
abort() called

Surprisingly iMovie starts when I open the internal display in addition to the external 4k display. What?

Sick & sad. Really sad.

Update 5/11/’17 this is still not fixed in the macOS 10.3.1 and iMovie 10.1.8 and not 4k related, also happens with an vintage 20″ Apple Cinema Display, :-/ ..! #peakbugs

Update 6/12/’17 this is still not fixed in the macOS 10.3.2

Some time ago I posted about wake on lan being hidden by a cryptic energy BIOS option. This week I was setting up a new test system and wondered what exactly the Linux ethtool:
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
letters actually meant. The man-page is help and it actually is quite simple and logical:

p Wake on PHY activity
u Wake on unicast messages
m Wake on multicast messages
b Wake on broadcast messages
a Wake on ARP
g Wake on MagicPackettm
s Enable SecureOntm password for MagicPackettm
d Disable (wake on nothing). This option clears all previous options.

So the new iPhone-X was just announced, let’s take a quick look on the pricing: $US 999, which does not include tax. So let’s divide this by the current $US/EUR exchange of 1.20, and adding 19% German VAT:

999 / 1.20 * 1.19 = 990,675 EUR

To be on the save side they could round this up to 999 EUR-
And what is Apple listing on their Apple Germany website?

1.149 EUR !!!

Thanks but no thanks. I do not need to be ripped of and overcharged to maximize profits and subsidize the US market.

Update: Apple is basically calculating with an currently very far off exchange rate of 1.0338 !
999/1.0338*1.19 = 1149.94…

I would rather prefer they use actual exchange rates, and instead adapt prices if necessary. As they did before in Europe, Russia, Brazil, and elsewhere, ..!

Update 2018/3 In the meantime the EUR hit 1.24, which would result in a German retail price of 958,72€ incl. the 19% local VAT, ..!