Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of macOS High Sierra to Developers

Monday July 24, 2017 10:01 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the third beta and more than a month after introducing the new software at the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference.

The fourth beta of macOS High Sierra can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air using the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

macOS High Sierra builds on features introduced in Sierra, focusing on new core storage, video, and graphics technology. It introduces a new Apple File System (APFS), High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC), and an updated version of Metal with support for VR and external GPUs.

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Some apps are gaining new features in macOS High Sierra. The Photos app is being updated with a new sidebar that's designed to make it easier to access editing tools and albums, and there are new filters and editing options like Curves and Selective Color. Photos also supports external editing apps like Photoshop and Pixelmator, saving changes made in those apps, and it interfaces with new third-party printing services.

Safari is gaining speed enhancements, an option to end autoplay video, and a new feature that puts a stop to data tracking. Siri in macOS High Sierra has expanded music capabilities and a new, more natural voice, and Spotlight supports flight status information. There are also improvements to iCloud, FaceTime, Messages, and Notes.

macOS High Sierra is available for both registered developers and public beta testers and will see several updates ahead of its expected fall public release.

Related Forum: macOS High Sierra

Top Rated Comments

longofest

81 months ago

Safari is gaining speed enhancements...

wait... are you literally saying... Safari is snappier??? :eek:

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Markoth

I'm really looking forward to High Sierra, but the soonest I'd ever install it would be when version 10.13.1 comes out. Even when the highly competent Steve Jobs was CEO, new Mac OS releases were quite buggy upon the release. With the highly incompetent Tim Cook as CEO, it's even more important than ever to wait until at least the first bug fix comes out before installing a new OS.

Plus, the slew of problems that people will inevitably face when upgrading to a new filesystem, makes this an operating system to stay away from in the early versions. I don't want my data getting silently corrupted behind the scenes due to some as-of-yet undiscovered bug in that shiny new filesystem. I've already seen APFS crash my computer a few times on 10.12.6, which screams to me "stay away", because you have to wonder what else it's doing wrong.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

macpro2000

These new releases just aren't as much fun as they used to be.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

mikeboss

do we now have support for APFS on the 2010 Mac Pro?

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Keirasplace

probably because you get them a lot more often, agile and what not, so you incrementally get all the features instead of getting them in one go.

chrfr

Should work on every Mac that supports High Sierra. I couldn't select it while installation on my Mid-2011 iMac. But I think that's only why it's optimized for SSDs and my iMac doesn't have any. It is in Disk Utility and I think I can convert my drive from the Recovery Partition. Did not try it yet. At least in the running OS it is greyed out.

No, still no support for APFS in the 2010/2012 Mac Pro, according to the release notes.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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