My Experience of Using OCLP on my 9-Year-Old MacBook Pro: A 6-Month Review
How well does macOS Sonoma work on my 2015 15" MacBook Pro? Is it stable enough? Do apps work well with zero crashes? Do all the new features of macOS work on a nine-year-old Mac? This article aims to answer all your questions and help you decide if Open Core is meant for your vintage or close-to-vintage Mac machine.
Introduction
It’s been six months since I installed macOS Sonoma on my 2015 MacBook Pro. In case, you are wondering how, the answer is — Open Core Legacy Patcher or OCLP. Had it not been for OCLP, my Mac would have been stuck on macOS Monterey and would have deprived me of some amazing features like Universal Control, Continuity Camera, Stage Manager, and many more. I have already covered my one-month review of OCLP last year where I listed out some benchmark scores, bugs, and new features that I was able to run on my MacBook Pro.
Today, in this six-month review, I shall cover how many of these bugs are still persistent and how many have been resolved. Then I would like to talk about the new features with the Sonoma update and how usable they are on a nine-year-old machine like mine. Finally, we will try to analyze if the Sonoma update is worth it or should you stick to an older update like Ventura or perhaps just the last official update that Apple allows.
Here’s an index that could help you jump to different sections of this article:
🐞 Bugs: Resolved & Persistent Issues
🎉 New features: Are they even usable?
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🐞Bugs: Resolved & Persistent Issues
Bugs have had a fifty-fifty life expectancy with the latest OCLP update. Thanks to the developers who work so persistently to resolve these issues. Most of the bugs related to feature updates have been fixed while those related to very specific models are still persistent. Let us look at the resolved bugs list first:
Resolved
Continuity Camera was one feature I was excited for but unfortunately, it wasn’t working with the first update of OCLP Sonoma. However, this issue was resolved in December (just a few weeks after I posted my first-month review).
The feature works flawlessly now allowing you to use your iPhone as your webcam on video-conferencing apps like FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp, and many more.
All the features with Continuity Camera such as Portrait, Stage Light, Studio Light, and Reactions are usable when paired with a compatible iPhone. This continuity camera also allows you to use your iPhone’s ultra-wide camera for ‘Desk View’ on your Mac. This is seriously game-changing for a Mac with a 720p webcam like mine.
AirPlay from iPhone to Mac was another feature promised with Sonoma but wasn’t working with the first OCLP Sonoma update. In fact, it even broke the Mac’s menubar and needed a restart. However, within a few months, this was resolved too. You can now AirPlay music from your iPhone to Mac very easily.
Persistent
An issue still persistent on my Mac after six months is the crashing of the Photos app when loading the ‘Memories’ tab. The OCLP developers haven’t resolved this issue yet as it is only persistent with Mac models with Intel Iris Pro GPU. Those with dual GPU have been able to use third-party software to switch to a non-Intel GPU and load the Memories tab successfully in the Photos app.
While this is somewhat of a trivial issue, a discord user brought another Photos app-related issue that seems to be persistent only with Intel GPU. It turns out Editing Portrait Photos is also an issue on these Mac models.
Another persistent issue is with playing DRM Content from sites like Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming services on Safari. This seems to be particularly just on Safari. Every other browser seems to play DRM content just fine. Even apps from the App Store (like Prime Video) seem to play DRM content without any issues.
These seem to be the only bugs that seem to have persisted over the last six months. I am hoping that in the coming few months, the OCLP developers will get to focus on them.
For me, these issues have been somewhat trivial as don’t open the Memories tab often in Photos or use Safari as my browser anymore. However, if you do use these apps often then this information is worth taking note of before you decide to install OCLP Sonoma on your machine.
🎉New Features: Are they even usable?
In my last article about OCLP where I shared by one-month review of the update, I spoke about all the new features that came with the Sonoma update. This time, I want to talk about how usable these new features are on an unsupported Mac like mine.
Since I have a 2015 15” Mac with Intel Core i7 & 16GB RAM, my experience with using these features shall offer you a good benchmark to understand how they would work on your machine if you are thinking of updating.
Autofill PDFs
This feature works very well on my machine.
While filling out any PDF forms, a single click on the autofill tool on the top menubar allows you to choose which user’s information you want to fill in (in case you have more than one user’s information saved). Upon choosing the user, it simply fills in all the relevant data fields like name, contact number, address, email address, and much more.
Utility-wise, I would give this feature an 8 out of 10.
Stage Manager
Stage Manager has been tricky for me. I haven’t found much use case for it in my workflow even after six months. It seems to have completely missed my attention even when I multitask.
Window-snapping apps like Magnet along with a native three-finger swipe gesture on the trackpad (that allows you to quickly switch desktop views) have been more helpful for me. However, if you find it helpful to see all your open application windows arranged neatly, Stage Manager might be worth the whole update.
Also, my Mac seems to run on 100% fans when I use Stage Manager for over a few minutes. Utility-wise, I would give this feature a 4 out of 10.
SideCar
I wrote about SideCar in my previous review. It wasn’t great when trying to pair wirelessly with my iPad Air however it did a decent job when I used it wired.
However, after a few more months of use I have realized that even when paired with a wire, the resolution on the iPad isn’t exactly great. It appears pixelated more often than not making the whole multitasking experience on a second display much worse.
Since I have a 15” Mac and a 10.9” iPad, the whole second display experience with SideCar isn’t optimal for me. I have tried using my TV screen (with Apple TV) as an extended display for my Mac and that was fun.
I believe if you have a 12.9” iPad or bigger or if you are using a 13” Mac, the whole SideCar experience would be nice.
Utility-wise, I would give this feature a 7 out of 10.
Universal Control
Perhaps the only working feature that I did not cover in my last review was Universal Control since it required SMBIOS spoofing. However, I went ahead with it and have been using it for a few weeks now and I have to say Universal Control is one of the best features on Mac.
In my case, my model was blacklisted, and I had to use a target model for spoofing. Then upon building Open Core again, it asks you to restart your machine and if you receive an iCloud login prompt, you know you have spoofed successfully. You then have to resume syncing the iCloud process by typing your iCloud password and allowing the target Mac in your iCloud devices list and proceed to Display settings to turn on Universal Control. This whole process may seem daunting but it takes less than 5 minutes to set up.
You can choose to stay on this target spoofed model if you want to continue using Universal Control from your blacklisted Mac or simply build Open Core again (without touching the SMBIOS settings) to return to your host model.
This feature worked flawlessly on my machine. So much so that while moving the cursor using my trackpad I would often lose sight of it because of how buttery-smooth it was. No lag and it often reminds one of how miraculous the Apple ecosystem is.
Utility-wise, I would rate this feature a solid 10 out of 10. A must-try feature.
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Miscellaneous: Wallpapers, Widgets, WiFi/Bluetooth Connectivity & Battery
macOS Sonoma came with a brand new set of wallpapers and even live screensavers. I am happy to report that wallpapers and screensavers seem to work fine even for a Mac as old as mine. Some of these live screensavers are extremely GPU-intensive but still work with no lags or other issues.
Widgets on Mac are brand new and while I haven’t found much interest in placing them directly on my Desktop, they do occupy my notification center space. Only the Photo widget while showing memories tends to crash the Photos app when I click on the widget to open the app. However, there is a fix for this too. Since macOS Sonoma also allows you to choose widgets from your iPhone, you can simply have the Photos widget from your iPhone on your Mac and hence not be worried about constantly crashing the Photos app.
WiFi and Bluetooth don’t seem to give me any connectivity issues. Last month, there were some issues with Auto-joining WiFi networks however the OCLP developers were quick to jump on it and fix the issue. Since, the beginning I have had no issues with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity on my Mac. AirDrop and AirPlay work just fine.
The battery on my Mac has always been below average. Since I got my battery replaced last year, the new battery didn’t offer me any extra long battery life benefits even on the last official supported macOS update (Monterey).
However that being said, I haven’t had any major hiccups or unexpected shutdowns since I updated to OCLP Sonoma six months ago. Battery life has been somewhat the same as it was in Monterey. Special shoutout to Al Dente — an excellent power management app for your Mac.
These are some of the miscellaneous features that I thought I should cover. If you feel I missed out on any feature, do let me know in the comments below so I can give you a live update or perhaps cover them in a future review.
If you are still on the fence about updating to OCLP Sonoma, the next section of this article is just for you.
🧑💻Opinion: Should you update to OCLP Sonoma?
If you asked me six months ago, if OCLP is worth it, I would have said Yes but only if you are not doing anything critical on your machine like heavy programming, video editing, or anything else professionally.
However, I have made some three-tier answers to that question now that have fewer ‘buts’ and more ‘ifs’. So here it is:
- If you are using your Mac for professional work and rely heavily on a lot of critical applications that somewhat require you to report bugs and issues to developers, then it is best to stay on an officially supported macOS version from Apple.
- If you need to use a certain version of software that requires a higher macOS version than what your Mac supports or just want to try out some features like SideCar and Universal Control, I would suggest you go for OCLP + Ventura. Ventura came out in 2022 and is a predecessor to the Sonoma update and thus has given even the OCLP developers enough time to work on some of the persistent issues I covered in the beginning. You should have a somewhat more stable experience than OCLP + Sonoma.
- If you are ready to compromise on 100% stability and a few hiccups here and there and want to try out the latest and greatest macOS features offered by Apple, then you should go for OCLP + Sonoma. However, it is good to know beforehand that the developers are still working on certain issues and require you to stay patient until they are resolved.
It is always a good practice to check out all the persistent issues, on their GitHub page, that the developers are working on for the OCLP update you want to go for. They have a comprehensible list of stability, cosmetic as well as resolved issues for OCLP +Ventura/Sonoma on their page that could help you make the update decision more quickly.
✌️Conclusion
This year my Mac will be completing nine years. Two and half years ago, my Mac joined the list of unsupported Macs after getting seven years of major macOS updates. Since then it only received security updates. Though Big Sur and Monterey were some of the most stable updates, I was tempted by every WWDC seeing all the new updates in macOS.
So after two years of staying in Monterey, I decided to update to OCLP + Sonoma on the very first day of its release. Surprisingly, the OCLP update for Sonoma came just a week after the official release from Apple.
It has been amazing for the past six months.
I never thought my 720p MacBook Webcam would get such an amazing upgrade by just pairing it with my iPhone.
I never thought I would be able to use SideCar and Universal Control until I upgraded to a brand-new Mac, which would cost me thousands of dollars.
But for the last six months, I have been doing the impossible, which has been made possible by the awesome OCLP developers.
I would love to see all the stability and cosmetic issues being fixed by the developers in the next few months so that we can have a stable macOS Sonoma on our close-to-vintage/vintage machines.
Till then, I shall stay on guard and keep a note of all issues & fixes so that we can soon have a one-year review of running macOS Sonoma on my Mac.
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