APFS is the Apple File System. It was introduced at WWDC 2016 and, starting this year, it will replace the existing HFS+ file system on Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, iMac, and Mac Pro.
Apple made a developer preview available for macOS Sierra back at WWDC 2016. With iOS 10.3, Apple's released APFS to every modern iPhone and iPad owner on the planet as well. Yeah, pedal to the metal.
Mar 18, 2018 I don't see a 'smooth text and line art' option in my Preview. I went and changed the 1 point equals 1 screen pixel option. It made no difference. This is on a Mac in the app Preview in OS X Sierra and High Sierra. It's like Apple has stopped supporting PDF. All of my PDFs in Preview. Jul 16, 2020 Bundled apps which have changed version or build numbers significantly include: App Store, build increment; Mail, a major increment in build number from 3608.80.23.2.2 to 3608.120.23.2.1; Maps, a significant increment in build number; Music, a new version 1.0.6; News, a new version 5.5; Photos, a major increment in build number from 151.19.150.
Most of us don't need to know much about Apple File System. It's an implementation detail that will be largely transparent as it rolls out. Any future features it enables, like smarter backups and faster updates, and things we haven't even thought about yet, will no doubt get marketed all on their own anyway. For them, APFS will likewise be an implementation detail as well.
For anyone interested in file systems, though, there's a lot in APFS to find interesting.
What's new with APFS?
June 4, 2018: Apple unveils macOS Mojave with support for Fusion Drives
At WWDC 2018, Apple announced big changes coming to macOS Mojave, including a systemwide Dark mode, redesigned Mac App Store, new Finder and Desktop tools, and a whole lot more. One note Apple dropped during the Mojave presentation, almost as an afterthought, is that APFS will finally support Fusion Drives with Mojave.
May 23, 2018: Federighi: 'We intend to address [APFS on Fusion Drive] very soon...'
Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, has reportedly shed a little bit of light on what's happening with APFS support for Fusion Drives on the Mac. The news comes by way of an email response.
From MacRumors:
In response to Jonathan's question, Federighi gave a short but enticing answer, which we verified:
Hi Jonathan,
We intend to address this question very soon...
Thanks,
- craig
Previously, Apple published a support document stating that APFS will not be supported on Fusion Drives at High Sierra's launch. If you've converted your files to APFS on a Fusion Drive in the High Sierra beta, you'll have to revert them back to HFS+.
Why is Apple replacing HFS+?
HFS+ has been around since 1998 — almost twenty years ago — and has been updated and McGyver'd in almost every way imaginable since then in order to try and keep up with the demands of modern computing.
Since then we've gone from the Mac to iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, and Apple Watch, from a few million devices to over a billion devices, and from kilobytes and megabytes of data to gigabytes, terabytes, and beyond.
We've also gone from hard drive platters to solid state disks, from physical installs to digital downloads, and from manual backups to Time Machine and iCloud. We've gone from rigid, single-threaded data structures to more flexible approaches.
Through it all, HFS+ and its valiant crew have kept it running. Running in the red, maybe, held together with bubblegum and paperclips, but running.
But running in the red is no way to get to the future. For that, you need something new.
Sometimes, to make it to the future, you need a fresh approach.
What makes APFS more consistent?
While HFS+ runs on all of Apple's current devices, from Apple Watch to Mac Pro, there are differences in how it's been implemented across those devices, including key areas like encryption. That means different source code and separate maintenance and development.
APFS was designed to scale more consistently across Apple's platforms, now and into the future. That should allow for a single code base with fewer resources need to develop and maintain it and allow it to grow faster and better.
Will APFS be faster?
A great deal of speed has to do with perception. It's faster to reach for a drink on the table next to you than to have to get up and go get it from the fridge. APFS does several things to make Apple devices feel faster.
APFS, for example, focuses on low-latency. So, it prioritizes things like app launches and data delivery. That should minimizing beach balls and spinners.
It also does fast directory re-sizing, which means you shouldn't have to wait to see how big a directory is, if you're in the habit of looking.
How does APFS better suit SSDs?
Apple says APFS has been written with solid state storage in mind. That's the flash storage chips inside Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, MacBooks, and high-end Mac desktops.
What Apple means by this is that APFS writes in a way optimized for solid state, and supports the TRIM command which is helpful for people who delete a lot of files and like to keep a lot of space free.
Snapshots and clones... What about the snapshots and clones?
Two of the most high-profile features of APFS are snapshots and clones.
Snapshots create a read-only copy of the system at that single point in time. It's initially more space-efficient, because it doesn't duplicate any data until changes begin to be made. It also means changes can be reverted.
![Mac sierra preview app has changed password Mac sierra preview app has changed password](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126438739/702170331.jpeg)
Clones are copies of 'files' (both real files and the Mac's bundled folders-as-files). They're similarly more space-efficient at first, also not duplicating data until changes are made.
This makes creating both snapshots and clones far faster and more efficient than making traditional copies.
Will APFS help with storage space
For macOS users who employ partitions, AFS fixes a long-standing limitation. Basically, APFS sidesteps the issue of one partition running out of space when there's free space elsewhere on the drive by creating a container around all the partitions. If a partition needs more space it can claim it from the container, regardless of whether or not that space is physically adjacent to the partition.
Questions remain about how APFS will handle recovering storage from deleted files that have been cloned, though, since space can't be reclaimed as long as a single clone still exists.
APFS also supports sparse files, so storage is only allocated when it's really needed.
What about data integrity and crash protection?
APFS has atomic-level save state. That has to do with how it handles committing writes for files — they're either verified as completed or it appears as though they never happened at all. In other words, files use copy-on-write so a new version is created and the old version only released when the save is successful.
There are also checksums on metadata, though not on user-data.
APFS is better for encryption, though, right?
Apple makes security and privacy first-class, public facing, top-down features for their products and APFS is no different. Unlike current implementations, where macOS has disk-level encryption and iOS has file-level encryption, thanks to differences in implementation and hardware capabilities, APFS has a more consistent single-key and multi-key implementations for system-level, file level, and even specific data and metadata.
The type of encryption can vary between AES-XTS and AES-CBC depending on hardware.
Is APFS missing anything?
APFS is in its first generation, and that means not everything is included yet. Things like compression aren't yet available, which feels like an obvious next step. Likewise checksums on data. (Though Apple seems to believe Error Correction Code — ECC — on modern flash storage currently handles that well enough.)
It also doesn't currently support Fusion Drives or mechanical hard drives.
Will APFS be open sourced?
APFS is not currently open source. Over the years, Apple has either kept open and continued to contribute to, or themselves open sourced, the Mach Kernel, WebKit, LLVM, and Swift, among other projects.
Whether that will eventually include APFS we'll have to wait and see.
Should you use APFS?
If you've updated to iOS 10.3, you're on APFS. iOS is well contained and controlled environment, so it makes sense for Apple to start there. No transition is 100% safe, but iOS is as safe as they come.
If you're on the macOS Sierra beta, you can play around with APFS but the limitations listed above make it a relatively small playground. Just don't trust any important data to any APFS volumes until it's out of beta and into release.
Where can you learn more about APFS?
For more on the Apple File System, check out these resources:
iOS
Main
macOS Catalina
Main
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Apple has announced that its newest retail store, Apple Sanlitun in Bejing, is opening to customers in the area later today.
From the “Developer Preview” phase to “Public Beta”, MacOS Sierra has gone a long way and people have already downloaded it. Anyone who has a compatible Mac and an Apple ID are just a few clicks away from using this beta OS. But as a Mac user I am readily aware that using betas has its pros and cons. People usually stay away from betas until glitches are fixed and when reviews are at its best.
As much as I am careful in downloading and installing beta software, I couldn’t resist the urge to try MacOS Sierra. “Siri” would be one of the factors I had to try MacOS Sierra. I have tried the X public betas before and found that they worked pretty well. So let’s talk about the new and exciting features of MacOS Sierra and you’ll feel the urge to download it too.
I’ll be showing a few comparisons of the features of MacOS Sierra versus those of OS X El Capitan.
- Siri
I have been using an Iphone for years and Siri has been such a great help. Just imagine having her help you out on your Mac. I think it’s definitely about time that Apple stepped up as Microsoft integrated this feature in Windows 10 and was applauded by everyone.
I can say that having Siri in my Mac has been an amazing experience. To launch Siri, you can click the Menu bar icon right beside the Notification Center icon. You can also use your keyboard to launch Siri, just long press Command + Space.
Siri is still the same helpful AI you get from the iPhone. Whatever she can do for you on your iPhone she can also do for you on you Mac. It can adjust or switch some features on or off for you, from you Mac screen’s brightness, to connectivity feature like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc.
You can also ask her about your Mac’s specifications, I asked her how fast my Mac was and she replied with the processor’s name and clock speed. Siri definitely saves a lot of time than clicking through several icons in your Mac.
Another thing I’m excited about Siri is that Apple’s going to open her up to third-party app developers. Just imagine asking Siri to get you ride via Uber, or even send messages to your friends in WhatsApp. The additional features that Siri can do will be endless as long as third-part apps keep popping up every now and then.
- Universal Clipboard
After using this feature, you won’t be able to imagine how you survived without it all your life. If you’re wondering what’s so special about a clipboard, then let me explain how it works. You can copy any text from your Mac and paste it to your iPhone via Bluetooth. I used to send the text I want to copy through an email or a note app, but with the Universal Clipboard a few clicks will do the trick. The Universal Clipboard really embodies Apple’s Handoff and Continuity feature. It really makes work faster and more efficient.
- Managing and Optimizing Storage
Before MacOS Sierra, you’ll see clock indicating whether storage is used for app, audio, documents etc. Now you can see the actual file types that occupy your storage space. It will help you decide which files you need to delete or which ones are taking most of your storage space.
Not only can you manually delete these files, you can also optimize your storage by choosing to automatically delete files in the Trash that are older than 30 days. This feature might be familiar to iPhone users as this is readily available in your Photos app.
Another feature also helps you not just optimize your storage but allows you to access files across all you Apple devices. You can choose store you files in the iCloud Drive if the Desktop and Documents folders are almost full. This hits two birds with one stone, Storage Optimization and File Accessibility.
Sierra also does all the storage cleaning for you. Once you space is required on your Mac, the OS will remove copies of a file from the local storage and store them only in the iCloud Drive. There’s no need for you to go through all your files and see if the ones you have locally stored are duplicated in the I Cloud Drive and needs to be deleted which is definitely and daunting and time-consuming task. This feature is also very helpful to those who have smaller storage or SSDs in their Mac.
- Tabs in Application
This might be one of the features I would like to be improved. The MacOS Sierra boasts tabs in almost all applications, take note “almost” all. In the duration that I’ve used Sierra, I noticed that the Notes app has no tabbing. The tab support is very uneven everywhere else. It’s still in the beta phase so my fingers are crossed for the improvement of this feature.
In the Keynote app, you need to press Command + Shift + T to activate the tab bar, only then can you add new tabs. Another way is by clicking View> Show Tab Bar.
When I said that the tab support is uneven in some apps I meant it. Here are a few examples:
Mac Sierra Preview App Has Changed Iphone
- Command + T works for new tabs in Maps, but It doesn’t work for Keynote and pages.
- In order to add tabs for Keynote and Pages you’ll have to click View > Show Tab Bar
- To show or hide tabs in Keynote you’ll have to press Command + Shit + T, however, this shortcut does not work on pages.
- In pages you have to click View> Show Tab Bar to activate tabs.
This is still the public beta phase anyway, so I’m still optimistic that it will improve.
- Picture in Picture Mode
If you are familiar with the browser Helium, then this feature might be something you already use. In the Sierra public beta, you can use Picture in Picture mode when using Safari. It’s a feature used mostly by people who multi task. When you are watching a video you can click on the “Picture on Picture” icon and it send the video to the corner of your desktop so you can watch it while working on something else.
The only con about this feature is that it doesn’t work on YouTube videos, but I’ve tried it with Vimeo and it works fine. So that’s one more thing that needs to be improved as a lot of work related tutorials are available in YouTube and it would make all our lives a lot easier.
![Mac sierra preview app has changed iphone Mac sierra preview app has changed iphone](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126438739/198275064.png)
- Memories
This feature is available in both iOS 10 and MacOS Sierra public beta. Google Photos has a feature similar to this. For photo/selfie lovers out there, this feature will recognize the face in your photos and will group or categorize them accordingly. The Memories feature basically looks at the time and date the photos were taken and will group them together like how you would in an actual photo album. It’s now easier to look at certain events when you want to reminisce or show some people. You won’t need to scroll to hundreds or thousands of photos to get to the ones you need.
Now there’s still a difference between Apple’s Photos and Google Photos. Apple does all of the activity locally in your device. Google, on the other hand, uses the cloud perform the activities above. Now the good and bad news, if the tasks are performed locally on your device the processing load is heavier and might take longer, the good news is if it’s done locally then you can do it offline as well.
- Redesigned Notification Center
Well some people don’t really accept change that well, I for one prefer OS X El Capitan’s darker background better. That could just be me as I prefer darker colors in my devices as they’re less stressful for my eyes. But that could be a different case for you. The lighter Notification Center background in MacOS Sierra does look cleaner and some might prefer that. The darker background of OS X El Capitan looks more seamless when using MacBook Pros as the screens have black bezels around them. But MacOS Sierra’s light background gives a nice touch if you’re using a MacBook Air.
- Movable Third Party Menu Bar Icons
In OS X El Capitan you can move the default menu bar icons but not the third party icons, that all changed in MacOS Sierra. To move third party icons before, you would need to use apps like the Bartender. MacOS Sierra let you move third party icons anywhere on the menu bar which makes customization and organization of your desktop easier.
You can move third party icons by pressing Command then click and hold the icon you would like to move and drag it to the part of the menu bar where you’d like it to be.
Mac Sierra Preview App Has Changed Password
- Collaboration in Notes
Prior to MacOS Sierra, sharing notes to other people was already possible. The new feature for Notes is that you can now invite people to collaborate with you. This feature helps you finish your task efficiently as it let other people interact or share their thoughts, corrections or suggestions through notes, a good tool for meetings.
- Apple Watch Unlock
The apple watch unlock is a pretty cool new feature that lets you unlock your Mac if you sit down in front of it while wearing your Apple Watch. This is good for people who are always on the go, just imagine running around your office for errands and unlocking your mac every time you need to work on something. I for one have this annoying issue as I keep on locking and unlocking my Mac when I leave and get back to my desk.
Mac Sierra Preview App Has Changed Time
Now for this feature to work both devices should run the compatible OS, your Mac should be on MacOS Sierra and you Apple Watch should be running watchOS 3. There are authentication steps that should be done as well like enabling two-factor authentication, setting up a passcode and signing both devices to the same iCloud account. These steps might be a bit of a hassle if you have not set them up yet, but I believe it’s the best way to secure your data.
MacOS Sierra a Big Leap from OS X El Capitan
Mac Sierra Preview App Has Changed Free
After the all that I’ve mentioned above, I can conclude that MacOS Sierra is definitely a progressive OS and Apple has done really well with improving some of our beloved features from previous Operating Systems. There are still some issues or glitches that I encountered when using this new beta OS, I did get unusual heating patterns on my Mac. It could be an issue just for MacBook Air; I still have no feedback from MacBook Pro users but if you do encounter anything similar, let us know. Another thing I noticed is there are instances of slowdowns and it usually happens when I’m accessing my External HD drive. You might want to consider these issues before you install the MacOS Sierra, but if you think that it won’t really affect you daily tasks on you Mac and you are excited to try out the feature we discussed above then by all means take the plunge.
Keep in mind that if you have already upgraded you Mac to MacOS Sierra public beta, it will be tricky to downgrade back to OS X El Capitan. It is always best to keep a backup of everything because if you do decide to downgrade then you would need to do a fresh install of OS X El Capitan on your Mac. So weigh the pros and cons or just wait for most features to be ironed out by the developer.
We are all thrilled for the final version of MacOS Sierra. If you have tried the public beta and have thoughts about it, please share it with us or if you have questions about its features that might not have been discussed in detail then feel free to let us know.