Today at WWDC 2017 developer conference, Apple announced the next version of the company’s desktop operating system macOS. The new operating system, simply dubbed macOS High Sierra (succeeding macOS Sierra) brings a whole bunch of refinements as well as an all new version of Metal.
Apple’s been working to tweak the operating system so that it’s faster than ever. Safari, for example, Apple claims to be the world’s fastest desktop browser on macOS High Sierra. In fact, Apple says that it delivers 80% faster performance on the new modern JavaScript than Chrome.
But that’s not all, Apple is also making browsing on Safari a more satisfying experience. The browser can now block autoplay videos so you won’t be frightened by a sudden loud burst of volume from an autoplay video. Safari also has intelligent tracking prevention so ads won’t follow you around anymore. It removes cross-site tracking data so your browsing remains private.
macOS High Sierra also brings updates to the Mail app where you can now search using Spotlight and it will identify your top hits so the message you’re looking for is easily accessible. Mail will also support split view for your compose windows if you’re someone who likes to use it full screen. Mail also now uses 35% less storage space.
Photos also gets an update with new ways to filter your images, a persistent side bar and new ways to filter your images. Facial recognition has also been improved, and if you have identified a face on one of your devices, that will now also be synced to all your other devices.
Editing on Photos is also improved with editing curves, selective colours and more. Layers and edits in Photos also synchronise automatically to your photo library so you can easily switch between photo editing software.
One other big change macOS High Sierra is that Apple is ditching their HFS file system in favour of the Apple File System (APFS) which should make performance much faster. It’s also safe and secure with crash protection and native encryption to name a few features.
High Sierra will also bring HEVC (H.265) video standard to Mac. It can compress videos up to 40% more than H.264 while maintaining the same visual quality. Newer Macs (Late 2015 27″ iMac, early 2016 MacBook, 2016 MacBook Pro) will also have hardware acceleration encoding for HEVC.
Next, macOS High Sierra will see an update to Apple’s API for high-performance graphics — Metal. It’s simply called Metal 2 and Apple boasts that it will take the visual experience on Macs to the next level, bringing up to 10x better draw call throughput. Metal 2 will also have machine learning capabilities, VR optimisations (SteamVR SDK is coming to Mac) as well as support for external GPU.
Metal for external graphics takes advantage of the Thunderbolt 3 port to hook up an external GPU to your Mac. Apple is also adding a Thunderbolt 3 external enclosure developer kit that comes with an AMD RX580 graphics card inside.
macOS High Sierra is available today as a developer beta but if you sign up at beta.apple.com, Apple will release a public beta in late June 2017. In Fall, macOS High Sierra will ship to all Mac systems that support Sierra for free.
For more information on macOS High Sierra, head on over to Apple’s website.
Discussion about this post