Apple Submitting Protocol is deprecated1, not “useless”. There is a large distinction and that’s being deprecated, it is nonetheless included and nonetheless works on the time of final improvement but it surely has been outmoded by one thing else – on this case SMB2. It additionally means there will likely be no additional improvement.
Will it cease working in future variations of macOS?
There’ll come a degree wherein Apple now not contains assist for a specific protocol or service. Solely Apple will know this for sure.
Can I safely use AFP with out worrying about it “dying” on me?
AFP will not be going to die the identical method cron did not die when Apple went to launchd. If you’re working AFP immediately, you’ll have AFP tomorrow. It will not be “upgraded out”. That stated, Apple can determine tomorrow that future variations of macOS will now not include AFP; that will not break your present macOS set up.
What all this implies is that as a deprecated protocol, producers are going to cease together with assist for AFP in new merchandise (like NAS gadgets) and methods admins ought to start planning to modify over to newer applied sciences. Additionally, being deprecated, it is now not the default file sharing protocol that means you’ll (finally) must take specific steps to allow/connect with AFP shares.
It is vital to notice that AFP doesn’t assist the brand new APFS (Apple File System) so newer variations of macOS (Sierra going ahead) won’t have the flexibility to serve AFP shares.2
You possibly can share APFS formatted volumes utilizing the SMB community file sharing protocol. The AFP protocol is deprecated and can’t be used to share APFS formatted volumes.
Although, they may in all probability embody the AFP shopper so it could actually proceed to hook up with legacy gadgets/methods.
1 Deprecated refers to a software program or programming language characteristic that’s tolerated or supported however not really helpful. A deprecated attribute or characteristic is one that will finally be phased out, however continues for use within the meantime. Deprecation additionally helps to thrust back backward compatibility points, giving customers time emigrate and start utilizing the newer really helpful characteristic. The deprecated characteristic will proceed to work within the present setting, however will present a warning message that the characteristic getting used could also be eliminated in future releases. Supply:
Techopedia.
2 Supply: 9to5mac.com – Apple File System (APFS) introduced for 2017, scales ‘from Apple Watch to Mac Professional’ and focuses on encryption