Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan update to developers for testing purposes, one week after releasing OS X 10.11.5, the fifth update to the OS X 10.11 operating system.
The OS X 10.11.6 update, build 15G7a, can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center or through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.
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We don't know what improvements the sixth update to OS X El Capitan might bring, but like prior updates, it's likely to focus mainly on performance improvements and bug fixes to address issues that have popped up since the release of OS X 10.11.5. According to Apple's release notes for the update, OS X 10.11.6 improves the stability, compatibility, and security of Macs.
OS X 10.11.5, the previous update, was also minor in scale and offered only bug fixes with no obvious outward-facing changes.
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On a serious note, Apple, thank you for making a stable, reliable, easy-to-use operating system that works really well. Thank you for adhering closely to a high standard of user interface design. Even though you're not perfect, and you're often distracted by misguided opportunities to "advance" the platform, you've managed to deliver the goods time and time again. I encourage you to keep that flame alive, to never forget why Macs are so loved, and to continue to deliver only the best experience that you can.
However it's blatantly obvious to me that you really haven't experienced Windows. There are CONSTANT updates that brick this and that. People talk a lot about how great Windows 10 is, but when you're doing tech support 40 hours a week, some of the stupid, crazy, backwards bugs you encounter will blow your mind; problems that are so face-poundingly frustrating to fix, so niche, so ridiculous; the incompatibilities, things randomly not working, driver issues, registry issues, malware issues ...
Christ, even Microsoft Edge issues! Heck, have you ever tried to RESET Edge if it doesn't even open?! You know, one of the fundamental things that a browser should be able to do? If IE doesn't open, you can reset it through inetcpl easily enough. But not with Edge. You have to shift-delete a load of hidden files and redownload the components through PowerShell. We're talking about RESETTING a browser.
And God forbid if you need to get a Surface fixed. Leadtimes of a month or over are not uncommon. If you had a repair with Apple that took more than a few days, you'd be spitting bricks.
Let me absolutely assure you that OS X and Macs in general are a bloody breath of fresh air. They always have been since I began using them with Pro Tools at University, and you'd bet your bottom dollar that they still are. They're far from perfect, granted. But they're comparatively SO easy to troubleshoot and way more reliable, both with regards to software updates not balking, and hardware not failing.
Subsequently, all the energy and effort expended by Apple on subsequent upgrades is largely being wasted ... the process of bringing users along to the latest version is crumbling as millions of Mac users stay on Mavericks or earlier, simply because subsequent OS X releases (Yosemite and El Capitan) are so un-Mac like, and so unpleasant to use ... mostly for visual UI issues.
Have you seen the rating of El Capitan at the Apple Store?? It must have the lowest user rating for any Mac OS version ever released. That's not progress.
I hope this means Apple will return to an 18- or 24-month intervall between major releases (as they did before the release of Lion).
Among other things, you'll see that El Capitan has the largest share of OS X, more than three times the share of Mavericks. Yosemite has double the share of Mavericks. That works out to 41% for El Capitan, 26% for Yosemite (67% combined), 13% for Mavericks, 6% for Mountain Lion, 7% for Lion, 4% for Snow Leopard, 0.5% for Leopard, and 0.2% for Tiger.
Meantime, over at Microsoft, Win 7 (54%) still has three times the share of Win 10 (17%), and Win 10 has less than 50% more share than XP, which was released in 2001 (17% to 12%)!
81% of Mac users are on the three most recent versions of the OS, while just 32% of Windows users are on the three most recent versions. Snow Leopard and Windows 7 were both released in 2009. Win 7 is in use on 54% of Windows machines, Snow Leopard is in use on 4% of Macs.
Personally, I never pay attention to user ratings of OSes - they're never better than middling, because so many people hate change. As with most Internet polling, people with negative opinions are far more likely to vote than those who are satisfied.
New-version adoption rates have gone through the roof since Apple moved to the free update model with Mavericks. I don't recall there being hordes of Mac users running out to buy the latest OS X DVDs. They had to pay, after all! If I was to judge by postings here at MacRumors, nobody paid to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion or from there to Mountain Lion (although the numbers say otherwise). It was all, "Don't upgrade, Snow Leopard is perfect!" (Well, you see that with every new OS release.) Among other things, free distribution was designed to bring all those "stragglers" along, and it seems to have worked pretty well. Large numbers upgraded directly from Snow Leopard to Mavericks.
It can be a mistake to project your particular preferences upon the rest of the public.
I'm sure you're quite aware that nearly every version of OS X is considered "the best" by a particular constituency. I find it particularly interesting that many of the negative comments in this thread have had to do with the appearance of the OS, rather than the technology. Some people care more for appearances than others - I'll take tech/features over appearance every day of the year.
I still don't understand what "flat" really means, but I'm not a graphic artist, so I'm not dialed into that particular lingo. Everywhere I look, I see drop shadows, translucence, and other features that add a greater sense of depth. The Apple icons on the dock aren't monolithic blocks of color, there are gradients everywhere.