General

• New in macOS 10.13 - Support for binary (non-text) barcodes.

  • Added APIs to AV Foundation, Core Image, and SiriKit to support detection, decoding, and creation of barcodes with binary content.

  • Added CIBarcodeDescriptor, a new barcode descriptor object to Core Image to provide interoperability with AV Foundation and the Vision APIs.

App Frameworks

• New in macOS 10.13 - Download font assets.

  • Added a font asset request API to App Kit. Use NSFontAssetRequest to request asynchronous downloading of font assets. Download progress can be tracked using NSProgress.

• Improved Available Storage Space API.

  • Added new keys to URL for different usage scenarios.

  • volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsageKey returns total amount of bytes available for operations explicitly requested by user or essential to proper functioning of your apps.

  • volumeAvailableCapacityForOpportunisticUsageKey returns total amount of bytes available for storing non-essential items, such as content pre-downloaded for performance that may or may not get used by the user.

Graphics and Games

• New in macOS 10.13 - High performance image analysis.

  • Added the Vision framework for detecting faces, barcodes, text, image horizon, and rectangular regions.

  • Integrates with Core ML to run custom models on images.

  • Tracks objects in video.

  • Includes support for image registration.

• New in macOS 10.13 - Write custom image blending kernels for Core Image.

  • Added CIBlendKernel, a special type of CIColorKernel to blend two images (supported by CIRenderDestination and CIImageAccumulator).

  • Added init(functionName:fromMetalLibraryData:) to CIKernel for writing kernels using Metal to benefit from the modern language features and the reduced compile time.

• New in macOS 10.13 - Lightweight render destination.

  • Added CIRenderDestination, an object for creating renderers that return to the caller after the work has been issued. Functionality includes specifying all the destination attributes of the renderer for different destinations including IOSurface, CVPixelBuffer, GL textures, Metal textures, and memory.

• Added new Core Image filters CITextImageGenerator, CIColorCurves, CILabDeltaE, CIBokehBlur, CIMinMaxRed, and CIBicubicScaleTransform.

Metal 2

Metal 2 contains significant additions and updates to Metal, the Metal Shading Language, and the Metal Performance Shaders framework. Items below indicate where the updates occur:

  – MTL: An update in the Metal framework.

  – MSL: An update in the Metal Shading Language.

  – MPS: An update in the Metal Performance Shaders framework.

• MPS: New in Metal 2 - Cross-platform Metal Performance Shaders support.

  • All of the Metal Performance Shaders functionality is available in iOS 11.0, tvOS 11.0, and macOS 10.13.

• MPS: New in macOS 10.13 - Neural network support.

  • Added support for neural networks to the Metal Performance Shaders framework.

  • Added graphs to offer a higher level API for simplifying the creation of neural networks, including objects that allow state to be transferred between nodes in a neural network.

  • Added Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to support implementing and running deep learning using previously obtained training data.

  • Added Recurrent Neural Networks for implementing inference on images and matrices.

• New in macOS 10.13 - Indirect Argument Buffers.

  • Group your resources into an indirect argument buffer (IAB) to reduce CPU overhead.

  • MSL: Added the [[id(n)]] attribute qualifier to identify resources in an IAB structure.

  • MTL: Added the MTLIndirectArgumentEncoder protocol to encode resources into an IAB.

• MTL: New in macOS 10.13 - Programmable sample positions.

  • Configure the position of samples when rendering to a multisampled render target.

  • Updated the MTLRenderPassDescriptor class to set and get sample positions for a render pass.

• MSL: New in macOS 10.13 - Uniform type.

  • Added the uniform type to declare variables that are uniform for all threads executing the graphics or compute function of a draw or dispatch call.

• MSL: New in macOS 10.13 - Array of samplers.

  • Added the array<sampler, size_t N> type to store an array of samplers.

• MTL: New in macOS 10.13 - BGR10A2 Pixel Format.

  • Added the bgr10A2Unorm pixel format to present wide color content on P3 displays.

• MSL: New in macOS 10.13 - Raster order groups.

  • Organize access to fragment function resources by using explicit raster order groups.

  • Added the [[raster_order_group(index)]] attribute qualifier to assign resources to a raster order group.

• MTL: New in macOS 10.13 - Non-uniform threadgroup size.

  • Added the dispatchThreads(_:threadsPerThreadgroup:) method to the MTLComputeCommandEncoder protocol to execute a compute pass that uses a grid with an arbitrary number of threads.

• New in macOS 10.13 - Multiple viewports.

  • Specify multiple active viewports for a draw call and selectively draw to separate areas of a render target.

  • MTL: Added the setViewports(_:count:) method to the MTLRenderCommandEncoder protocol to specify an array of viewports for a render pass.

  • MSL: Added the [[viewport_array_index]] attribute qualifier to select a specific viewport for transformation and clip operations.

• MTL: New in macOS 10.13 - Device notifications.

  • Added MTLNotificationName values for Metal apps to respond to a GPU that is added to or removed from the system.

• MTL: New in macOS 10.13 - VR support.

  • Display Metal content on head-mounted displays (HMDs).

  • Added a direct-to-display fast path to bypass the macOS window server.

  • Improved performance to help target 90 FPS frame rates.

• MPS: Added new filters.

  • Added filters for image statistics, such as computing the mean and variance for an image region.

  • Added filters for combining two images together, such as an element-wise sum and finding key points.

  • Added filters for matrix decomposition and solving, such as decomposition using Cholesky or LU (Lower Upper) factorization.

• MSL: Extended function specialization.

  • Extended [[color(n)]] and [[raster_order_group(index)]] attribute qualifiers to work with function constants.

  • Members of a structure used in a graphics, compute, or user function can be used with function constants.

• MTL: Extended vertex formats.

  • Added new MTLVertexFormat values for small formats such as char, short, and half.

• MTL: Updated the Metal framework to support resource heaps on macOS.

  • Allocate resources from a shared memory pool.

  • Added the MTLHeap protocol to create shared memory allocations from which aliasable or non-aliasable resources can sub-allocated.

  • Added the MTLFence protocol to track sub-allocated resource dependencies across command encoders.

• MSL: Updated the Metal Shading Language to support arrays of textures on macOS.

  • Added the array<typename T, size_t N> type to store an array of textures.

• MTL: Updated the Metal framework to support linear textures on macOS.

  • Added the makeTexture(descriptor:offset:bytesPerRow:) method to the MTLBuffer protocol to create 2D linear textures that share their storage with a source buffer.

• MSL: Extended SIMD-group thread synchronization.

  • Added new functions and attribute qualifiers for SIMD-group variables for SIMD-group threads.

App Services

• New in macOS 10.13 - Support for machine learning models.

  • Added the Core ML framework for easily integrating machine learning models into apps.

• Updated MapKit for clearer display of developer data.

  • Added mutedStandard, a new map display mode that emphasizes developer data.

  • Added properties to customize how annotations behave when collisions occur. Developers use a combination of displayPriority, collisionMode, and clusteringIdentifier to influence which annotations remain on the map.

Media and Web

• New in macOS 10.13 - Support for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC).

  • High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a new standard for video encoding that offers substantially better compression than H.264 at the same level of visual quality.

  • Use AV Foundation to playback movies containing HEVC encoded tracks, and to capture and export videos.

  • VideoToolbox clients can encode and decode HEVC video bitstreams.

• New in macOS 10.13 - Support for adding project creation extensions to the Photos app.

  • Added com.apple.photo-project, a new extension point that enables adding project creation features to the Photos app.

  • Added PHProject and PHProjectInfo to the Photos framework for adding and managing photo creation projects.

  • Added PHProjectChangeRequest, an object for saving session state of photo creation projects.

  • Added PHAsset, PHPhotoLibrary, and PHFetchRequest to enable fetching of assets for a project.

• New in macOS 10.13 - AirPlay 2.

  • Improved AirPlay reliability for some audio playback interfaces in AV Foundation. To take advantage of the increased reliability, play audio using AVPlayer or the new AVSampleBufferAudioRenderer object.

  • Added multiple speaker support to AirPlay for long-form audio such as music and podcasts. To mark your application as presenting long-form audio, invoke the AVAudioSession method -setRouteSharingPolicy:error: and use AVAudioSessionRouteSharingPolicyLongForm as the parameter value.

• FairPlay streaming key management.

  • Improved the functionality of AVContentKeySession. Use AVContentKeySession to initiate content key requests independent of playback or downloading of media assets. Objects conforming to the AVContentKeyRecipient protocol, such as AVURLAsset, can be added as a recipient to AVContentKeySession to obtain access to existing content keys and initiate new content key requests

System

• New in macOS 10.13 - APFS support.

  • The OS Installer will automatically convert your system/root volume to APFS as a part of the installation process. The following formats are converted to APFS: plain HFS+, CoreStorage, FileVault encrypted, and Fusion systems.

  • APFS is now supported as a boot volume with full, native EFI support.

  • File Vault is fully supported by APFS on macOS.

  • APFS supports case-insensitive and case-sensitive variants.

  • APFS now supports an on-disk format change to allow for normalization-insensitive Case Sensitive volumes. This means that file names in either Unicode NFC or NFD will point to the same files.

  • Backup Support for APFS source volumes is now supported. The backup destination should still remain HFS+ in this release.

  • APFS supports up to Unicode revision 9 for filenames. HFS+ supported only up to revision 3.2.

  • APFS supports exporting of volumes over SMB and NFS.

• Updated the Core Bluetooth framework to match across iOS, tvOS, watchOS, and macOS, and marked call availability based on platform.