Apple Seeds Eighth Beta of macOS High Sierra to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available] - MacRumors
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Apple Seeds Eighth Beta of macOS High Sierra to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available]

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Apple today seeded the eighth beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the seventh beta and more than two months after introducing the new software at the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference.

The eighth 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 first introduced in macOS Sierra, focusing on new storage, video, and graphics technology. It brings 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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Several apps are gaining new features in macOS High Sierra. The Photos app features a new sidebar 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 back to Photos, and it interfaces with new third-party printing services.

Safari is gaining speed enhancements, an option to prevent autoplay videos, and a new feature that cuts down on cross-site 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 a public release in the fall.

For a complete overview of changes coming in macOS High Sierra, make sure to check out our dedicated macOS High Sierra roundup.

Update: Apple has also seeded a new public beta (beta 7) of macOS High Sierra to public beta testers.

Related Forum: macOS High Sierra

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Top Rated Comments

L
lec0rsaire
112 months ago
The GM is getting closer and closer. I have stayed away from the beta since I need my machine to be stable and don't want to bother running it on a partition. I know it's just going to be a refined version of Sierra but always love a new version of MacOS.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacHiavelli Avatar
MacHiavelli
112 months ago
Look Up now does Dictionary, Knowledge (Wikipedia replacement), iTunes Store, Web Videos, App Store, Films, Twitter, Maps . . . according to whatever word is being looked up. Slick.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oosamon Avatar
oosamon
112 months ago
I think you could be in for a surprise soon.:D
I hope so!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jzfgs Avatar
jzfgs
112 months ago
sudo softwareupdate -ia --verbose
Shows that there are no updates available.I'm in the US on a 2017 MBP 15" w/ 3.1GHz and Radeon 560.
[doublepost=1503942710][/doublepost]
High Sierra is getting a new file system. My questions relate to external drives. Does an external drive have to be upgraded to work with High Sierra? If an external drive is formatted with High Sierra, will that drive work on a Sierra computer?
No, external drives can still be on HFS+. If you manually change it to APFS, you can use it on High Sierra or Sierra, but the latter only works with APFS for non-boot and non-fusion drives.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chris The Bipolarbear Avatar
Chris The Bipolarbear
112 months ago
not showing up here
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
P
Paul A Jackson
112 months ago
Installation on Macbook Air Late 2010 VERY slow - at least three times originally indicated 41 minutes - but worth the tedious wait. To be fair, I only had about 10GB SSD spare and forgot to disconnect a USB 2.0 drive used for Time Machine backups, external screen via Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter, external keyboard and mouse via Buffalo USB3.0 hub.

First boot screen after restart looks like a very dumbed-down, low resolution Apple boot screen with a fat sausage style progress bar. Don't worry, you'll get the original sleeker one back later. (This may have been due to my use of an external display throughout the upgrade.) Also, don't be tempted to give up at several stages where the same time to completion is indicated for up to 20 minutes. It gets you there in the end. Maybe best to leave it all going unattended so you don't stress out over these bugbears and holdups.

Practically all prior software - including surprisingly (given some contrary rumours) Aperture and Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac - seems to load and enable me to load and save changes, though I haven't touched more than 1% of features and functionality. Time Machine backups to USB 2.0 disk and Synology DS213j work fine, though I have not tried restorations!

Safari is indeed subjectively faster, I seem to have gained 1 to 2GB of SSD space and after letting Finder / Spotlight do its indexing, all seems OK with temperatures and fan speed (I use Macs Fan Control with Exhaust - Auto setting).

Only remaining - trivial - annoyance is the three-broken-chopstick App Store icon / logo, which looks like it belongs with the fat sausage style progress bar at the beginning of the upgrade process!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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