Has High Sierra been a mess? Comparing its updates with Sierra and El Capitan

The police get younger, time passes more quickly, and each major release of macOS is more of a disaster. Isn’t it?

With all the supplemental updates and kludges to High Sierra, as it approaches the mid-term update to 10.13.3, I am going to step back and compare its life-history with those of Sierra and El Capitan before, to try to get a more objective and less emotive assessment of how it is doing. As Apple doesn’t let us look at its bug reporting databases, I’ll step through their update records.

High Sierra:

10.13, 25-09-2017. An initial two-step installer was hurriedly replaced with monolithic, 5.17 GB. There were inevitably some APFS conversion issues, and a few users were quickly begging to go back to Sierra, but most fared well.
10.13 Supplemental Update, 05-10-2017. The primary reason for this was to address a glaring encryption password bug in Disk Utility, and a bug allowing malicious apps to extract keychain passwords. But at 915 MB, it contained more extensive fixes which had missed the original release date.
10.13.1, 31-10-2017. This also addressed some important security matters, including the KRACK Wi-Fi vulnerabilities. Again, at 2.1 GB it was also catching up with things which should have been fixed before 10.13 was released.
Security Update 2017-001 (17B1002), 29-11-2017. This was an urgent fix to address the notorious root user vulnerability, and was just over 1 MB.
Security Update 2017-001 / Supplemental (17B1003), 01-12-2017. This was an additional fix to the last fix.
10.13.2, 07-12-2017. At 2 GB, another major update with many bug and security fixes.
10.13.2 Supplemental (17C205), 08-01-2018. A much smaller update, mostly with Safari 11.0.2 to mitigate the risk of Spectre.

So in the first just over three months, we have had three major updates. Much of the urgency and additional fixes have been in response to a series of glaringly obvious security vulnerabilities, in particular the root user gaffe.

Sierra:

10.12, 20-09-2016. A 4.77 GB download, followed by a long and complex installation. For many this replaced El Capitan’s freezing problems with kernel slowdowns. It also introduced a serious bug in DAS/CTS scheduling which leads to backup failure. Some Macs became quite unstable, suffering freezes or kernel panics, which didn’t resolve until upgraded to High Sierra.
10.12.1, 24-10-2016. 584 MB, with many bug and security fixes.
10.12.2, 13-12-2016. 1.94 GB, again a very substantial update.
10.12.3, 23-01-2017. Just over 1 GB.
10.12.4, 27-03-2017. 1.56 GB. Very extensive fixes, and changed re-installation options in Recovery mode.
10.12.5, 15-05-2017. 2.15 GB. I was so incensed that I described it as a “shoddy update”.
10.12.6, 19-07-2017. 1.1 GB. Many faced significant installation problems.
Safari 11.0, 20-09-2017. Security fixes.
Safari 11.0.1, 31-10-2017. Security fixes.
Security Update 2017-001, 31-10-2017.
Security Update 2017-002, 07-12-2017.
Safari 11.0.2, 08-01-2018. Security fixes.

Although for many users, Sierra has proved robust and stable, others have found it has left their Macs prone to freezes and panics. By this time in its cycle, Sierra had had two major updates, but it lacked glaring errors in security features.

El Capitan:

10.11, 30-09-2015. A 6 GB download and very slow install.
10.11.1, 21-10-2015. Major bug fixes and security updates.
10.11.2, 08-12-2015. Another major set of bug fixes and security updates. Also accompanied by El Capitan Recovery Update 1.0.
10.11.3, 19-01-2016. 600 MB total, with extensive updates.
10.11.4, 21-03-2016. 1.3 GB, very slow install, with a lot of major security and bug fixes.
10.11.5, 16-05-2016. 907 MB, which had many installation issues.
10.11.6, 18-07-2016. 592 MB including iTunes update.
Security Update 2016-001, 02-09-2016. 414 MB, really 10.11.6.1 with much more than just security fixes.

By 10.11.6, El Capitan still manifested persistent Bluetooth problems including spontaneous disconnections, and persistent freezes on many Mac models. By this time in its cycle, El Capitan had had two major updates, but didn’t suffer any early security gaffes.

At mid-term, then, High Sierra’s record isn’t that much worse than El Capitan or Sierra before it. It has required one additional substantial update, which Apple cunningly tried to disguise by calling it a Supplemental Update, which doesn’t seem to have been in the grand plan. Most of High Sierra’s problems have arisen from a small number of very obvious and serious security gaffes, such as the root user vulnerability.

Comparison with the introduction of APFS is valuable. Although still only supported on SSDs, which remains one of High Sierra’s biggest outstanding failings, Apple’s new file system has undergone very rapid development since the release of 10.13:

in the Supplemental Update of 05-10-2017, it was at version 748.1.47,
in the 10.13.1 update of 31-10-2017, it had reached version 748.21.6,
in the 10.13.2 update of 07-12-2017, it reached version 748.31.8.

A few users have had problems with APFS on SSDs, and there are residual compatibility issues with its approach to normalisation, but by and large this major change appears to have progressed quite smoothly.

High Sierra’s worst problems have been with inadequate pre-release testing, particularly in security features. The 10.13.2 update has also broken SMB, but that seems to happen at least once during each macOS product cycle, and should be fixed when 10.13.3 is released in a few days. Let’s hope that this brings APFS support for Fusion Drives, and wider access to HEIC and HEVC compression too.

4Comments

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1

Jerry Fritschle on January 18, 2018 at 4:22 pm

Forgive me if I’m repeating myself (don’t remember if I’ve used this line here), but if we hold out till 2030, per the last estimate, Copland will be here! 🙂

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  hoakley on January 18, 2018 at 5:10 pm
  
  Thanks – yes, I’m so looking forward to Copland too!
  Howard.
  
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3

BruceB on January 19, 2018 at 2:36 pm

So is it your perspective that High Sierra 10.13.2, once one is past any installation issues, has fewer bugs that affect day to day use than the last versions of Sierra and El Capitan? I have been wondering when you would write a “Known bugs in High Sierra 10.13.x …”, a series which began with 10.11.2 for El Capitan and 10.12.0 for Sierra.

I think I will make the jump to High Sierra when 10.13.3 is released (waiting a few days to see the initial reactions). This will be the first time I’ve run my main computer on the latest version since 10.4.11 over 10 years ago. I got tired of “beta testing” MacOS at that time (even the now vaunted Snow Leopard was a mess for the first few releases) and am currently on Yosemite 10.10.5. I do prefer to stay on a version getting security updates (although I still use the no longer updated Office 2011 and Acrobat Pro 9 on a daily basis). The numerous issues with El Capitan and Sierra detailed here and elsewhere have encouraged me to skip those entirely. Getting off Yosemite will also allow me to try out some of your tools, which all appear to require El Capitan or later. Thanks for the interesting site.

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  hoakley on January 19, 2018 at 3:14 pm
  
  High Sierra has fixed some important bugs – notably, I think, that which stopped Time Machine automatic backups – but has some new ones. At this stage, it has been hard to track those, and they have been changing very quickly!
  Personally, I won’t upgrade this iMac with a Fusion Drive until there is a clear benefit, in the form of APFS on that drive.
  I would still be cautious about making the leap to High Sierra, though. I hope that 10.13.3 does bring some real improvements, particular in support of APFS for Fusion Drives.
  I know Sierra, and its faults, (only too) well. I do run High Sierra on my MacBook Air, but don’t use that as frequently or intensively as my iMac. On that, High Sierra is fine, just not that different from Sierra.
  Howard.
  
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