Hi, Sierra

...now go away.

I was forced into an OS upgrade a few months back. The upgrade process at least was painless (unlike a friend's computer, which somehow killed the HD so bad they were almost suckered into a new machine).

Performance enhancements? Not that I've noticed.

Useful tools? Nary a one I've found yet.

Regressions? Let me tell you about regressions. My USB 10-key stopped working correctly (it would delete the entry as soon as you took your finger off). Got a new 10-key and the OS popped up a "helper" that kept asking me to please hit the button to the right of the shift key so it could properly identify it and set it up correctly. You ass, Apple. Not every USB peripheral that agrees with universal definitions set by an international consortium is a fucking keyboard! Fortunately after a half-dozen go-arounds I was able to figure out which of the various "cancel" buttons actually, you know, cancelled the set up assistant.

Next is some basic file stuff. Here's what I've been doing for I don't know how many different OS's and even on a PC or two; open a folder, if they are graphics switch to icon view for faster browsing, select an item or a group and hold to get the "open with" pop-up.

Here's High Sierra's version; open the folder. Wait a minute or two because apparently it is that much worse at figuring out how to display a list. Hold and wait for "open with." High Sierra scans...I don't even know what it scans because I usually give up on it. Especially for groups. The old system somehow managed to deal with multiple files, but the new system seems to start the scan from scratch for each and every file. Why? I write better software in my sleep, and I'm not an Apple programmer.

(Seriously, folks, this is search 101. You narrow the search one the first file, and test only within that smaller group for consecutive files. How is this hard? You had it right before?)

Well, before the Mac fanboys jump in that my machine is obviously too old for such a modern OS and probably doesn't have the RAM, I got extra-size RAM when I got it and, yes, it is well within Apple's official recommendations.

Which is good because based on how Apple is manufacturing their new machines I'd really rather not. They are no longer repairable, apparently. And not only aren't they repairable, Apple considers them non-recoverable. If you have a newer phone or iBook you will lose the data unless you are backed up externally. Doesn't matter that it is still on the drives...Apple has scorched-earth on any of the usual data recovery options in their effort to make sure all customers come to their own shit stores, where they can upsell you instead of repairing.

There's a bunch more trivial annoyances High Sierra throws my way, but the brunt of it is that it doesn't do as well the basic things the OS did for five generations. And doesn't offer anything worthwhile in return. But this is Apple. You can't even get help. Complaints? Forget it.