[HN Gopher] Home truths about macOS
___________________________________________________________________
Home truths about macOS
Author : ingve
Score : 158 points
Date : 2022-11-06 12:15 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co)
| Danborg wrote:
| It works as long as you're willing to stay current on Apple
| hardware. If you're not... then macOS probably isn't for you...
| wlll wrote:
| To be fair, I've always upgrade my hardware before the hardware
| has lost OS support.
|
| If I really wanted to I guess I could run linux on these and
| use them for something, but I never do (I have one server in my
| house, it's enough). I upgraded the hardware for a reason.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've yet to have my main laptop fall out of updates before
| I've updated it (just jumped from 2016 to the M1).
|
| Secondary devices for particular purposes have fallen out of
| updates now and then
| hgsgm wrote:
| dangus wrote:
| Hard truths about _software_ : they have bugs. There's no such
| thing as an OS that has zero bugs. All major versions of software
| become abandoned eventually. Then you either upgrade to a newer
| version of the software or you live with whatever bugs you have.
|
| > Those residual bugs are often severe: El Capitan continued to
| cause many Macs to grind to a halt through its entire cycle, the
| cause not being addressed until Sierra. Sierra in turn was
| abandoned with a serious bug in its backup scheduling system that
| caused automatic backups to fail completely after a few days, and
| that was only fixed in High Sierra. More recently, Monterey
| initially suffered from three serious memory leaks, of which two
| were fixed early, but the third has only just been addressed in
| Ventura.
|
| Citation needed. Citation needed. Citation needed. I had multiple
| Macs with all these versions of macOS and never noticed any
| issues like this. My system never "ground to a halt," nor did I
| have failed backups, nor did I suffer from a "serious memory
| leak."
|
| > APFS is but one example of a critical sub-system that loses all
| support once Apple releases a new version of macOS.
|
| Is this an unknown or unexpected phenomenon? Does Microsoft make
| updates to NTFS on Windows 2000? What's wrong with APFS that
| needs to be fixed? "Bugs," I guess.
|
| > Many of us had suspected that, during those two security-only
| maintenance years, older macOS didn't get all the fixes it could
| have.
|
| Right, because it's an old version that's out of support. What's
| the problem?
|
| > It's safer to delay upgrading
|
| Stop. No. Don't. Stop telling people not to update their systems.
| This reminds me of everyone who recommended that people disable
| patches for Windows XP due to the mild inconvenience of the whole
| thing and then wondered why they got infected with every virus
| under the sun.
|
| > It's a similar argument to that concerning vaccination of
| younger people against Covid or other generally non-fatal
| conditions. Most people under the age of 70 who are in reasonably
| good health should be safe from serious or prolonged illness or
| death.
|
| Oh, the author is anti-vax. Great.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Oh, so the unreadable Time Machine backup on my APFS Encrypted
| drive is not just me then.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This was my personal favourate statement in the article.
|
| "Deciding whether and when to upgrade macOS is one of the more
| difficult choices we face. If your Mac isn't capable of running
| the current release of macOS, or you're dependent on key hardware
| or software which is incompatible, then the decision is made for
| you."
|
| If you head over to the hackintosh side of things you will notice
| that very rarely does a hackintosh not upgrade to the next
| version.
|
| I don't want to get "conspiracy theory" here but I do wonder how
| often the next release is blocked by Apple, not by hardware?
|
| There are hacks to allow the new OS to run on real Apple hardware
| despite being blocked and people who have done this seem to be
| running the new OS just fine?
|
| Releasing an OS with serious bugs, then limiting someone from
| upgrading to a newer one which fixes those issues is just bad.
| webmobdev wrote:
| We can indeed run newer macOS on older macs with the Opencore
| Legacy Patcher - https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-
| Patcher/ . But the bugs aren't the only concern. There's also
| the revised terms of services and privacy policies that we have
| to consider with each new macOS, as Apple plans to become a
| service company at our expense. It is also clear that Apple has
| been taking away developer options, and rearchitecting macOS to
| be more and more like ios / iPadOS to have greater control of
| over what developers can do on the system. (There's now even
| talks of Apple working on a hybrid macOS and iPadOS merge so
| that they have one common OS for both platform).
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| There is no excuse for the most profitable company in the world
| to drop support for working hardware. It's entirely within
| their capability to support even PowerPC macs. And that's
| besides fact that Apple has an incredibly small portfolio of
| hardware to support; so much so that they could trivially
| exhaustively test every update on every possible piece of
| hardware.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This is sort of my line of thinking. when you effectively
| have a very small product line and are incredibly profitable
| it does seem a bit greedy to artificially limit updates.
|
| It would be different if there was no way to bypass the
| upgrade lock, but given opencore legacy works.. Clearly the
| hardware is able to run the new OS.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Besides the impracticality of running new OS's on a 2005 era
| Mac, what software engineer at Apple would be willing to take
| on that role? Also, even if the hardware were supported, what
| third party software company would still support PPC Macs?
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| > what software engineer at Apple would be willing to take
| on that role?
|
| One being paid to do so? People still work with COBOL. If
| you have trouble finding engineers to do it, offer a higher
| salary.
|
| > Also, even if the hardware were supported, what third
| party software company would still support PPC Macs?
|
| Some software is still supported for Windows XP, and that's
| considerably older than the last PPC Macs. It would
| certainly be a whole lot easier to support if Apple still
| did the same.
|
| In any case my point is that they absolutely have the
| resources to do this. I don't see how that's at all
| controversial given how much money they have.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > One being paid to do so? People still work with COBOL.
| If you have trouble finding engineers to do it, offer a
| higher salary.
|
| Higher salary than who? Do you really think old COBOL
| programmers (FWIW I'm 48) are making more than the
| average new college grad working at any major tech
| company?
|
| And besides if you know how raises and promotions work at
| tech companies, you would know they are based on "impact"
| and "scope". You don't demonstrate either by saying "I
| spent all last year supporting MacOS on a PowerPC 6100
| from 1994 doesn't speak well to either.
|
| Unless you work at Google where it's based on creating
| new messaging app that will be killed in a year.
|
| Is the average COBOL programmer even making close to the
| same $170K+ that I've seen returning interns make at
| major tech companies (including the one I mentored)
|
| > Some software is still supported for Windows XP, and
| that's considerably older than the last PPC Macs.
|
| How much mainstream software is supported by XP?
| Microsoft Office? Adobe software? Modern browsers? Modern
| games?
|
| > In any case my point is that they absolutely have the
| resources to do this. I don't see how that's at all
| controversial given how much money they have
|
| Yes and they also had the money to buy Twitter. But what
| moron would do something that stupid?
| goosedragons wrote:
| There's still Linux distros supporting 32bit PPC Macs.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And how many people are actually getting paid to do so
| and how many companies are selling software for them?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| I was just rereading the ppc history for Apple as they're
| doing it again for ARM and it seems quite reasonable to be
| honest. They pulled something off I think would be difficult
| for many others and have shown they're not married to a
| single architecture.
|
| Still RIP my favorite machine the last ppc Mac tower
| kennend3 wrote:
| > They pulled something off I think would be difficult for
| many others and have shown they're not married to a single
| architecture.
|
| You mean like how MS Windows ran on the DEC Alpha as well
| as X86? Or how Linux runs on X86 and ARM CPU's?
|
| Running an OS on multiple CPU types goes back a very long
| time.
| alwillis wrote:
| _You mean like how MS Windows ran on the DEC Alpha as
| well as X86? Or how Linux runs on X86 and ARM CPU 's?_
|
| It's not the same thing.
|
| A macOS hard drive could boot either an Intel or PPC Mac
| and all of the apps ran on both types of machines.
|
| Apps that were "fat binaries" ran natively on both
| processor architectures.
|
| Same thing today with the apps and the operating system
| running natively on Intel and ARM machines.
| kennend3 wrote:
| Nothing you wrote is accurate.
|
| The apps ran on both types of machines thanks to rosetta
| and the performance hit this takes:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
|
| It is doubtful that a PPC system can boot an intel MacOS
| HD. One is RISC the other CISC.
|
| The reason you can "natively" run intel on ARM machines
| is Rosetta2
|
| "Until recently, Mac developers only had to worry about
| creating Intel-based apps. However, that started to
| change when the first Apple silicon Macs arrived. For
| Intel-based apps to run on these computers, Apple
| introduced Rosetta 2."
|
| Please read up before posting.
| vetinari wrote:
| > It is doubtful that a PPC system can boot an intel
| MacOS HD. One is RISC the other CISC.
|
| That's the point of fat binaries: they contain .text
| sections for several architectures. Even the installation
| DVD was a single one, for both platforms.
|
| Some more modern example of the same concept:
| Terminal: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures:
| [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e]
| Terminal (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit
| executable x86_64 Terminal (for architecture
| arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e
| alwillis wrote:
| _Nothing you wrote is accurate._
|
| You must be new here. ;-)
|
| _The apps ran on both types of machines thanks to
| rosetta and the performance hit this
| takes:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) It
| is doubtful that a PPC system can boot an intel MacOS HD.
| One is RISC the other CISC._
|
| I know about this because _I used to do it all the time
| when I worked in tech support_. Regardless of which Mac a
| client might show up with, I could boot it with the same
| external hard drive back in the mid-90s.
|
| Rosetta allowed unmodified PPC apps to run on Intel Macs
| by translating them on the fly.
|
| However, developers had the option of making a few
| changes and recompiling their apps to produce a version
| that would include native code for PPC and Intel
| machines; macOS would handle running the correct binary.
| These were known as "fat binaries".
|
| Fast forward to 2020 and Apple is applying the same
| strategy. Rosetta2 translates Intel apps on the fly to
| run on ARM. And developers can recompile their apps so
| that they run natively on Intel and ARM machines.
|
| Even though I'm typing this on an Intel Mac, I could boot
| an ARM-based Mac with its hard drive if necessary.
|
| Here's the output from the file command on the _ls_
| command: /bin/ls: Mach-O universal
| binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit
| executable x86_64] [arm64e:Mach-O 64-bit executable
| arm64e] /bin/ls (for architecture x86_64):
| Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 /bin/ls (for
| architecture arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable
| arm64e
|
| Yes, even _ls_ is a fat binary that runs natively on
| Intel and ARM-based Macs.
|
| _Please read up before posting._
|
| Perhaps you should take your own advice?
| pram wrote:
| lol maybe you should do some reading before posting.
| Mach-O supports multi-architecture binaries. Rosetta is
| solely for things that haven't been made "Universal"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary
| [deleted]
| LoganDark wrote:
| > Running an OS on multiple CPU types goes back a very
| long time.
|
| Yet moving the entire world onto this new architecture
| and getting all developers on board to start creating
| software for it is nearly unheard of outside of Apple.
| macintux wrote:
| That's the strategy that Microsoft can't/won't pursue: be
| willing to abandon legacy vendors/customers by forcing a
| migration.
| eric-hu wrote:
| I'm fan of how Apple does things for their ecosystem. I
| think only this strategy could have let them make the
| transition to arm as smooth as it's been.
|
| That said, I also have deep respect for Microsoft for
| being so deeply committed to backwards compatibility. You
| can find developer stories about how they've gone out of
| their way to hard code support for legacy apps (even
| space pinball) in major Windows updates. That sounds
| really gross from a code perspective, but from a
| business/product perspective, it buys trust/loyalty from
| enterprise customers. We see the opposite issue with
| Google, who has established a reputation for unreliable
| long term support. Despite their reputation for strong
| engineering, their new product lines suffer from
| distrust. Potential customers ask themselves why pay the
| onboarding cost for a Google product when it's unclear if
| it'll be around in two to three years.
| kennend3 wrote:
| "Planned obsolescence" has its advantages?
|
| This is the third time apple has done this so one would
| hope they have learned form their mistakes and make the
| transition seemless?
|
| Windows machines on X86 are just fine.. Amazing when you
| dont have a monopoly on both the OS and Hardware. MS runs
| on Intel, AMD, ARM...
|
| MacOS runs on whatever hardware Apple sells.
|
| you can see how an attempt by Microsoft to move off Intel
| would fail, right?
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Well, you can't run 2002 OS X software on a modern Mac
| anymore, but you can still run 2002 Windows software on a
| modern PC (and probably 2002 Linux software too).
|
| Actually, you can't even run 2010 iPhone OS software on a
| modern iPhone anymore (but you can run 2010 Android
| software on a modern Android phone).
| ehutch79 wrote:
| That's not true in any practical sense.
|
| Sure you can run the xp calculator app on windows 11, but
| so what? Most of the programs that people want backwards
| compatibility for, enterprise apps, won't run correctly.
| Yes that's mostly because of how they're coded, but even
| if the source code still exists, I doubt anyone is
| putting effort into updating them at this point, and is
| just running xp or 2000 in a vm.
| hgsgm wrote:
| geraneum wrote:
| I have a Macbook Pro 2015 and the latest OS it supports
| officially is Monterey. The new Ventura (2022) is not supported
| anymore. I consider my device to have had software support for
| about at least seven years so far and until when they stop
| releasing security fixes for Monterey. I believe this to be
| sufficient for my needs and the frequency of which I upgrade
| the laptop.
|
| P.S. I don't think that it's ok for Apple to stop supporting
| older devices. I am just pointing out my personal view
| concerning my needs.
| LoganDark wrote:
| My 2015 MBP runs Mojave (~2020) and will until it dies.
| Catalina was just too much for me.
|
| Besides, OS X looks much better than the newer iOS-based
| design, imho.
| Aloha wrote:
| I wish apple would do 'best effort' support on older macs.
| Meaning, it'll let you install after you click thru two pages
| of warnings, and might work, or might not.
| obscurette wrote:
| Apple ships all drivers with OS. So, if Apple drops
| hardware support, it removes drivers and other support for
| not supported hardware. For example for Ventura they
| dropped support for Nvidia GPU-s, Metal is built now to
| require AVX2 and much more. "Best effort" support is not
| trivial in such cases. Yes, I know about OCLP and use it
| myself, but it's a hack.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This is a much more sensible approach vs the "installer
| lock" apple took.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| But it isn't the way Apple does things. They obviously
| don't want Apple computers in the wild running a version
| of an Apple OS that might or might not work.
| kennend3 wrote:
| Yes.. artificially limiting them from upgrading by
| checking the SMBIOS in the installer and preventing an
| upgrade is MUCH BETTER for the users.
|
| And as posted here several times, what about those who
| use opencore legacy patcher and upgrade despite the
| block. What "doesn't work" for them?
|
| SO to your point, apple prefers machines in the wild
| running an old and out of date OS because???
| protomyth wrote:
| I tell people that I haven't looked forward to new features in
| the 'California' era like I did in the 'Cat' era. Now, I worry
| about what Apple will break or take away.
|
| If Microsoft wasn't so intent on spying and advertising to me,
| I might consider them. I get the feeling I will switch to a BSD
| eventually.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Check out the KDE edition of Fedora. Fedora is a rock solid
| OS and KDE is a rock solid desktop environment. Reminds me of
| what I always wanted Windows to be.
|
| You can go with their default edition (GNOME) if you want
| something that looks like a MacOS clone right out of the box,
| but the actual user experience is so different (and IMO so
| much worse) that I can't recommend it for anyone interested
| in switching.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Funnily enough I've been considering going the opposite way.
| I'm on Windows, Android and iPadOS right now, but this
| diversity of operating systems means nothing integrates well,
| so it's not a great experience.
|
| Buying into the Google or Microsoft ecosystems would improve
| things on this front, but this seems not great w.r.t.
| privacy, which is why I'm thinking of going all in on Apple.
| ticviking wrote:
| I've been leaning the same way. I'm curious why you also lean
| towards BSD instead of Linux?
|
| It's a gut feeling for me after watching the Linux ecosystem
| churn a lot and seeing BSDs with well documented core systems
| and the "core/ports" distinction make clear what is and isn't
| really supported
| Maursault wrote:
| I prefer BSD to Linux for a few reasons. Firstly, BSD is
| not encumbered by GPL. Also, any BSD is a complete
| operating system while Linux requires distros subject to
| the whims of their creators, which seem to focus on form
| over function. Any long term stability is almost
| accidental, and there is no standard edition of Linux.
| Lastly and I think most importantly, the centralized BSD
| ports system is more trustworthy than an untracked number
| of repositories and sources. Actually, these complaints
| about Linux aren't about Linux, they're mostly about GNU.
| Linux is just a kernel, and it's fine, really. GNU is the
| problem.
| jayp1418 wrote:
| Agreed. Also all BSDs have different characteristics.
|
| Linux it self can't use GPLv3 shows that it is not
| innovation supporting License
| kennend3 wrote:
| > Firstly, BSD is not encumbered by GPL. Also, any BSD is
| a complete operating system while Linux requires distros
| subject to the whims of their creators, which seem to
| focus on form over function
|
| This "BSD is a complete operating system" that you speak
| of... Do you mean FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragnonFly
| BSD, Darwin?
|
| Thankfully BSD is not subject to teh whims of any distro?
| jen20 wrote:
| Each of {Free,Open,Net,DragonFly}BSD is its own operating
| system, complete with tree, system call interface and
| ports tree. This is not the same as the distribution
| model Linux has - the BSDs have diverged substantially
| from one another.
| protomyth wrote:
| I'm much more familiar with OpenBSD and FreeBSD on the
| server-side, and I don't feel real comfortable with Linux.
| The two biggest vendors, Red Hat and Ubuntu, don't really
| give the warm fuzzies. Maybe something like System 76
| backs.
| jayp1418 wrote:
| I have tried all three and much comfortable with NetBSD.
| protomyth wrote:
| Well, don't skip the DragonFly folks. I've had the four
| main one up and running at different times.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| What about plain Debian :) if you're comfortable with BSD
| then Debian should be a cakewalk for you.
| protomyth wrote:
| The funny thing is I tried to setup and Arch Linux box. I
| can setup OpenBSD with thinking with all the partitions
| and such, but that Arch Linux install was just a bad
| time. I'll try Debian when I get back to work. We are
| replacing our Samba server and the BSDs aren't real
| current given some changes the Samba team made.
| kennend3 wrote:
| There is always OpenDarwin/PureDarwin?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Coming from macOS, there's a certain cohesiveness that one
| comes to expect that is often absent with Linux, with
| conventions being mere suggestions and things generally
| being all over the place. The BSDs aren't perfect but
| certainly much better in this regard.
|
| It's unrealistic but a Linux distro that forked as many
| packages as possible to make them follow conventions and be
| proper desktop citizens would be interesting.
| gw98 wrote:
| Got to be honest I rarely get any issues with macOS for a couple
| of years now. The only notable one I remember was the date
| selection in reminders on 12.6 stopped working and that was fixed
| in 12.6.1. Workaround was to manually key it in.
|
| You do have to keep within the 2-3 year update cycle though.
| Quite frankly it pays for itself though in less eye poking than
| windows.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Yeah, I can't recall any real bugs at all -- the main problems
| for me are various accessibility flaws and ui issue that Apple
| will probably never choose to fix anyway. I take issue with
| your "2-3 year update cycle", though -- my 8-year old MacBook
| Pro is still fine as the daily driver and I know plenty of
| others with Macs around the same age.
| rocketbop wrote:
| > I take issue with your "2-3 year update cycle"
|
| I think the OP meant the software update cycle not hardware.
| gw98 wrote:
| Both actually. I replace hardware the moment the AppleCare
| runs out. I also tend to track near or at the latest
| versions of macOS.
|
| I factor in the cost on a monthly cost basis.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I also had to replace my Mac when its AppleCare ran out,
| but only because it started having random issues with its
| keyboard and USB ports. Stinks of logic board issue, not
| worth paying to replace when it'll just break again.
|
| Still unhappy about that because nothing will ever live
| up to my mid-2015 MBP.
| gw98 wrote:
| This is why I get rid of it the moment AppleCare is gone.
| I want someone else to handle the risk of it turning into
| a brick.
| LoganDark wrote:
| This is true. It's easier to migrate your data from a
| functional machine that you can still use as a reference.
|
| Personally my Mac still serves as a remote desktop server
| for when I need to do Mac things, but it's really
| infrequent because there is no remote desktop solution
| that properly supports the Retina display.
| raybb wrote:
| Most notable bug I've experienced recently is PDF highlighting
| would make you jump to the previous highlight. It was so
| painful for so long. But 13.0 seems to have fixed it.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/kmqsfr/preview_jumps...
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yeah, I've been riding the edge of the macOS upgrade wave for
| several years at this point and it's never brought me any
| trouble. I wonder if some people's usage patterns are more
| likely to stir up trouble than others.
| bengale wrote:
| Yeah I tend to do day one upgrades and can't recall any real
| trouble. I sometimes think I must have some sort of lucky
| charm the way people go on about bugs online.
| anta40 wrote:
| "If your Mac isn't capable of running the current release of
| macOS, or you're dependent on key hardware or software which is
| incompatible, then the decision is made for you."
|
| Since I need Mac for building iOS apps, unfortunately I couldn't
| rely on old Mac systems (say > 8 years old). Apple regularely
| increase the minimum OS version for running Xcode. Since v13.3,
| you need to have Monterey installed.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/xcode/
| curling_grad wrote:
| > One factor that makes recent memory an unreliable indicator is
| the series of changes to macOS to prepare for Apple silicon Macs.
|
| Slightly off topic, but such changes from High Sierra kinda makes
| sense now. Back then it seemed like Apple engineers were dropping
| backward compatibility just because of their own convenience...
| RadiozRadioz wrote:
| > It's safer to delay upgrading
|
| This is my policy for most of my software unless there's some
| kind of critical exploit. Software updates have been the cause of
| many breakages for me, but I have not (yet) been affected by
| running out-of-date software (to my knowledge).
| LoganDark wrote:
| I avoid updating my software like the plague. Actually, the
| reason I switched to Firefox is because Chrome's updater snuck
| past my firewall. That is literally the only reason why.
|
| I am considering switching back after seeing how terrible
| Firefox is. For example, it has a memory leak that causes a
| crash after 3-4 days of uptime.
| californical wrote:
| I have ~weeks of uptime on Firefox MacOS with two separate
| laptops, and no memory issues whatsoever. So likely just a
| bug with something on your version/system (edit: check your
| plugins too)
| LoganDark wrote:
| macOS has overcommit and memory compression, so you
| wouldn't notice even if your Firefox did have a leak. macOS
| is cool that way, but Windows isn't.
|
| FWIW, I would still be using macOS... if I had any choice.
| melvyn2 wrote:
| I wonder if just maybe an update might... fix a bug?
| LoganDark wrote:
| I've been looking for evidence that the bug's been fixed,
| but even upon bringing up the issue with Mozilla engineers,
| all they have to say is "turn overcommit back on, we don't
| support your configuration".
|
| Excuse me, Mozilla? Firefox should not be collecting 20-30
| gigabytes of committed memory in the first place. They must
| be high or something.
| donio wrote:
| The only software I look forward to upgrading is Emacs.
| Everything else fills me with dread about what will break or
| what functionality will be lost this time.
| brainzap wrote:
| I miss being able to change application icons. I can't stand
| these square white icons with 4px padding.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| This article talks about regular bugs not being updated in
| anything but the current version of the OS. It talks about
| security bugs only being fixed in up to N-2 OS releases and then
| on a sliding scale of importance. It then talks about security
| bugs not being fixed in those older, unsupported N-3 and older
| which may get a rare security update.
|
| My conclusion is that Apple wants to sell you a new Mac instead
| of fixing bugs for you.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I am increasingly annoyed by it -- especially when Apple
| hardware, commendably, kind of can last forever these days. But
| at some point while the hardware may still be completely
| usable, it will stop running the latest OS. Which, with OS's
| only really supported for (depending on how you look at it) 1
| to 3 years, isn't great. There haven't for years really been
| any _features_ I wanted in new OS versions, just have to
| upgrade to stay on the maintainence treadmill.
| kennend3 wrote:
| See my other post here.. opecore legacy patcher
| (https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/) allows
| you to bypass Apple's artificial "lock" and install newer
| releases on perfectly working hardware.
|
| This is why I own an iPad and iPhone but will not buy an
| apple Laptop. I dont need to have an expensive laptop
| suddenly ruled "end of life" and not able to upgrade unless i
| "patch" it first.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| ...But I really like my 11" Airbook from 2012
| kmfpl wrote:
| This is simply how Apple does things. They provide software
| support for ~10 years and then they drop it.
|
| Is it wrong? I'm not entirely sure. You can call that greedy, but
| take a few things into consideration. Firstly, Apple provides
| highly specialized software that runs extremely well and
| efficiently on their own hardware. Continuously providing support
| for old hardware while simultaneously maintaining the same level
| of performance is simply not feasible. I challenge any software
| developer to achieve a similar goal.
|
| We are not talking about Linux here, where if you're lucky,
| things work. Anyone's that ever used macOS even once knows that
| things really work.
|
| Now, I assume this window of time between a new hardware's
| release and the software drop for that given piece of hardware
| will increase over time, given that new hardware released by
| Apple nowadays is incredibly performant, this would allow longer
| software support.
|
| Frankly, my opinion is that 10 years of support is more than
| enough for anyone to consider renovating their hardware.
|
| Recently, in the last XNU kernel release (corresponding to macOS
| 13/iOS 16) the 32-bit part of the kernel has been entirely
| removed, meaning that XNU won't support any 32-bit device
| anymore. This is really exciting to me, as I see the technology
| moving forward, without getting stuck on prehistoric hardware
| support.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Anyone's that ever used macOS even once knows that things
| really work."
|
| I am not a regular Mac user but I was once asked by client to
| port my CI/CD related script so it can work for developers who
| use Macs. Script involved dealing with docker among other
| things. After dicking around for a while I've discovered deeply
| nested folder created by docker that was not supposed to exist
| after successful script completion. Do not remember all the
| details but this folder was a thorn. Short of sacrificing a
| virgin no matter what I tried I was not able remove it.
| Invoking search power of Google did not help either - plenty of
| recipes and suggestions and none worked. Finally after giving
| this Mac to system gurus and them dicking with it for a day I
| was told that they have failed so far it is no longer worth
| their time and they will reinstall the OS.
| lkois wrote:
| Macs have a bunch of weird quirks where simple things simply
| do not work. I got a new mbp for work recently, second to my
| main windows gaming machine with 34" ultra wide 1440p
| monitor.
|
| And I've basically installed chrome, vscode, and a whole
| bunch of little packages to make basic hardware operate
| normally. There's an app to allow the track pad and mouse
| wheel scroll directions to be set differently. There's
| another to allow the mouse side buttons to work. It's a basic
| mouse. These are settings and compatibility issues that do
| not need to exist.
|
| But the most annoying is that the monitor is a bit blurry on
| the M1. I use vscode for a few mins before I realise there's
| a fuzziness to it. And apparently this is a known issue,
| because macs only scale properly for 4k resolutions. So
| there's another app to make it think its 4k or something.
| Helps a bit but not that well, and it's a trial. It's
| maddening. How the hell is anyone supposed to know that Apple
| has just decided that they won't be compatible with an entire
| category of bloody monitors, of all things.
| halefx wrote:
| Macs only look good at a 110 or 220 pixel density.
|
| 34" ultra wide 1440p has a pixel density of about 110 ppi,
| and that should work just fine. You might need to use a
| different cable, though. You should look your monitor up on
| rtings.com and search for notes on Mac compatibility.
|
| I have a MacBook Pro 14 that I use daily with a 34" ultra-
| wide 1440p gaming monitor, and I've never had a problem. I
| had a MacBook Pro 13 before the 14 that also worked without
| issue.
| howinteresting wrote:
| The problem is that macOS killed off subpixel anti
| aliasing, which is important to making text look good on
| 110ppi displays. So 220+ ppi displays are the only real
| option here.
| gorbypark wrote:
| My ~6 year old MacBook Pro (13" late 2016 model (with
| touchbar), purchased new in 2017) is no longer "supported" (no
| Ventura). As far as I can tell, linux does not support WiFi or
| audio on it, so it's pretty much a piece of trash as far as
| being a laptop once apps stop supporting macOS Monterey.
| lioeters wrote:
| Recently my old MBP (2013 model) stopped working, with a
| mysterious kernel process taking up max CPU to grind
| everything to a halt on every boot. Fortunately I had its
| files backed up to a disk in Linux-compatible format
| (ExFAT32?), so I finally decided to wipe it clean and install
| Pop!_OS. https://pop.system76.com/
|
| It gave new life to the laptop - I'd recommend trying it, you
| might be able to get more mileage out of the machine.
| kennend3 wrote:
| I use to be a huge Ubuntu fan but decided to move back to a
| hackintosh ~2 years ago.
|
| I still use ubuntu often so i went with Ubuntu Budgie
| https://ubuntubudgie.org
|
| It has that whole "MacOS" dock look and feel right out of
| the box.
|
| Good that you found an alternative OS and kept your old mac
| running. So many people seem content to spend big money on
| a Mac laptop, have it reach EOL and become landfill as they
| run out and buy a new one.
| lioeters wrote:
| Ubuntu Budgie looks nice, thanks for mentioning it - I'll
| try it sometime.
|
| An old Macbook with an Ubuntu variant is a nice
| combination of sturdy hardware, light(er)-weight
| operating system, and well-designed user interface. In a
| way, it feels more like the spirit of "Macintosh". And it
| would make for a good educational/toy computer for
| children and young people. If I see an opportunity, like
| family or friends who have old laptops or computers, I'm
| going to offer to set it up for them.
| metaltyphoon wrote:
| I known its crazy... maybe bootcamp?
| chrisandchris wrote:
| How many of these apps will drop support for Monterey within
| the coming year(s)? How many of your apps will actually stop
| working when there are no updates?
|
| I think that if a Laptop lives for 6-8 years, that's quite
| good. If you don't think so, maybe Windows is a better fit
| for you because you can purchase fove (cheap) laptops for the
| price of one Mac. If you "need" your Mac for work, I think
| replacing it every 6-8 years shouldn't be an issue.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Why buy 5 Windows laptops for the price of one Mac when one
| PC laptop can be supported for 2-3 times as long? You can
| run Windows 10 on a ThinkPad T60 from 2006. Windows 10 will
| get support until 2025. That's 19 years support from one
| machine. Use a Linux distro and get even more.
|
| Why spend more for a Mac if you get less useful life and
| are constantly having to repurchase software from OS
| upgrades breaking stuff?
| leviathant wrote:
| As a lifelong Intel/MS user in my early 40s, I've been
| staring down an M1 Mac Studio and thinking hard about
| this.
|
| I had a 2006 Dell Inspiron Laptop that I got for less
| than $1000 from the Dell Outlet, that came with Vista XP,
| and through various promotions had been able to upgrade
| the OS all the way to Windows 10, legitimately - and I
| think I might have only paid $60 for the Win 7 upgrade.
| About six year ago, I donated the laptop (the internal
| wifi card was spotty, and with 4gb of RAM, it wasn't much
| for multitasking).
|
| Similarly, I've got a Dell Desktop with an i7 processor
| that's 11 years old, which through the magic of SSDs and
| the occasional video card upgrade, continues to do a
| solid job with the creative work I do in Photoshop,
| multitrack audio, Sketchup, and Twinmotion.
|
| Ten years ago, I started using a Macbook Pro at work
| because internally, we switched to Ruby on Rails for the
| ecommerce platform we built. I was asked if I wanted to
| keep working in Windows, but basically everyone building
| in RoR was on a Macbook, so why swim against the current?
| I'll spare a this vs that comparison, and leave it to say
| that (muscle memory for keyboard shortcuts aside) I
| eventually was _okay_ with working on a Mac. It also gave
| me a lot more exposure to Apple culture, for better and
| for worse. A lot of it was insufferable idolatry and
| ideological pontification - but I started to understand,
| if not necessarily agree with, the product lifecycle in
| Apple. I had a 2013 Macbook Pro, it was still working
| fine, but I traded it last year towards my first iPad
| (now that they had USB-C and more of a creative focus
| than a consumption focus, I was willing to take the
| plunge)
|
| It's a lot like leasing cars. I'm someone who tries to
| drive a car into the ground, proverbially - I do
| regularly maintenance though, so it's more like after
| 10-15 years, the safety improvements on modern vehicles
| outweigh the cost advantage of driving something I paid
| off a decade ago.
|
| Back to Apple - once they got serious about recycling,
| the pattern became: you spend a bunch of money up front,
| and then you just keep trading your hardware in for the
| latest version. I would hold onto my iPhone for three
| product cycles because I spent a lot of money on it and I
| was going to eek out every last cent. But with Apple, you
| have a large initial outlay, and you can leverage the
| trade-in as almost a kind of hardware subscription.
| They've got a solid backup/recovery process that makes
| this really, really simple. And I kinda get it, the way I
| kinda get why some people lease cars instead of buy. Get
| a Mac with AppleCare and upgrade it every year or two,
| and that premium you pay essentially means you don't have
| to think too hard about breaking your computer, and
| you're always within a year or two of the latest,
| greatest hardware.
|
| It still costs more, no doubt about that. But like with a
| leased car, you kinda don't have to worry about
| maintenance. With cars and computers, I do a lot of work
| myself, but I'm getting to a point in life where I just
| don't care about doing that anymore, and I have better
| financial resources, and I'm thinking real hard about
| going with size, power, and performance of a Mac Studio,
| knowing that it means reshaping my relationship with
| computers. The fact that they've been reducing or
| eliminating proprietary connectors in recent years has
| played a very large factor in swaying me in this
| direction too, I'd add, while knowing that it's still
| very much Apple culture to charge you $30 for $0.35 worth
| of cable.
| kennend3 wrote:
| > A lot of it was insufferable idolatry and ideological
| pontification - but I started to understand, if not
| necessarily agree with, the product lifecycle in Apple.
|
| I have an iPhone and iPad as well as a hackintosh.
|
| I will never for the life of me understand the apple
| ideology. It is almost like some of these people's whole
| identify is tied to a company they neither own or work
| for?
|
| Sure apple does make some great stuff, but they also make
| crap and have a history of bad choices (dock, firewire
| and lightening come to mind).
|
| what i have a serious issue with is the artificial limits
| on OS updates. Clearly if Opencore legacy patcher gets
| the OS on the laptop apple intentionally blocked it?
|
| Many who have used Opencore are happy with the experience
| so why exactly did MacOS refuse to install?
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| You have another couple years until apps stop supporting
| Monterey. That said, I think it was a poor decision by Apple
| to drop the 2016 version but keep the 2017.
| lapcat wrote:
| > This is simply how Apple does things. They provide software
| support for ~10 years and then they drop it.
|
| Monterey was released in 2021 and dropped support for my 2014
| MacBook Pro, so that's only 7 years.
|
| It's fair to say that you can continue to run macOS N-1 and
| N-2, which would add years of life, but the author of the
| linked article is trying to argue that you're not safe unless
| you're running the latest major version.
| kmfpl wrote:
| Well, that's 7 years of major updates with all the security
| fixes. Moreover, Apple continues to release minor versions
| for devices that are not supported anymore, in order to fix
| major flaws that are actively exploited ITW (see iOS from
| 12.4.2 to 12.5.6, those are a lot of minors released over the
| years to address 0d ITW, same thing happens with macOS)
| dangus wrote:
| But then you get a few more years of your software not being
| 100% current but still getting a good chunk of the security
| updates and generally being compatible with current software,
| which adds up to that full 10 years.
|
| Your MacBook Pro is compatible with the OpenCore Legacy
| Patcher: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-
| Patcher/MODELS.ht...
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > We are not talking about Linux here, where if you're lucky,
| things work.
|
| What percentage of the Internet is even possible due to this,
| if you're to be believed, barely working and then only by luck,
| OS?
|
| I get the Apple cultiness, but we don't need it here.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| They're probably talking about most desktop Linux
| distributions, which are less stable than what servers are
| running both because servers run distros with packages that
| are older and more polished and because servers don't usually
| have hardware with notoriously troublesome drivers (e.g.
| Broadcom, Nvidia, some Realtek stuff, etc).
|
| Of course desktop users can tailor their machines to use with
| Linux and also run something like Debian but it's more likely
| they're using whatever computer they happened to have and
| running Ubuntu (or one of its many derivatives), Fedora, or
| Arch which are indeed more likely on average to break. I know
| because I've seen it happen several times in my own usage.
| chris_wot wrote:
| I run Linux on my 2015 iMac. Just upgraded it to Ubuntu
| 12.10, works great and loving the latest Gnome.
| rahen wrote:
| I guess you mean 22.10...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Na, they installed Quantal Quetzal to get some
| experimental TLS1.2 support after they could no longer
| connect to anything with TLS1.0
| acomjean wrote:
| I went from Mac to Linux. POPos was what the machine came
| with. It's very stable though the UI took a little getting
| used to, it's not as big a change as I expected.
|
| The upside is Bioinformatics tools run natively and it
| saves me from doing all my work on the cluster (just
| finished a multi day run that was "quick" using all 16 of
| my cpu cores. ).
| saagarjha wrote:
| Linux on a server and Linux on your laptop are very different
| experiences.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| If comments on HN are anything to go by, linux on the
| desktop is perfect and easily usable by any office worker.
|
| I'm sure if you walk up to Susan in accounting, handed her
| an arch install usb, she'll have tmux and neovim up and
| configured by lunch!
|
| In all seriousness though. I'm not sure a lot of HN
| commenters (probably myself included) have any actual
| perspective on how a normal person wants to interact with
| their computers, or what business need from desktop
| endpoints.
|
| The fact that anyone things that editing source is a good
| way to configure a window manager (dwm) is mind boggling.
| BoardsOfCanada wrote:
| Even as a full time mac user, both at work and privately I have a
| hard time remembering which release, say Sierra was and which one
| Mojave was and which one came first and if any release was in
| between.
| lapcat wrote:
| Here's a great reference of Mac version history:
| https://robservatory.com/a-full-history-of-macos-os-x-releas...
| bombcar wrote:
| I only really remember Snow Leopard heh.
| shmde wrote:
| Isn't that... Umm good ? Windows completely rehauls everything
| in every major releases and makes it difficult to navigate
| through.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| But at least we all know 3 came before 7, 11 followed 10 etc.
| Vista was 8. Dunno what happened to 9 but I'll never remember
| the order of 'name'. Same with android....kit kat was version
| what now?
| leviathant wrote:
| If you don't know what happened to 9, I'm kind of delighted
| to inform you that the version number was skipped because
| of all the legacy applications out there that matched
| against a string value of "Windows 9?" to determine if the
| OS was Windows 95 or Windows 98, instead of checking the
| actual version number that gets returned when you type ver
| in the command line.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| Vista came before 7, so I guess it was 6? Then there was XP
| before that, which I suppose was 5?
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Windows 2000 was NT 5.0, XP (32-bit) was NT 5.1, Windows
| 2003 NT 5.2.
|
| Vista was the first of the NT 6 series. However Windows
| 7, 8/8.1 and the related server versions were also NT 6.x
| gs17 wrote:
| Android is just alphabet order until they drop banned
| entirely for numbers, so at least you know which versions
| are newer.
| TillE wrote:
| Android has always gone in alphabetical order, so you can
| work it out in a few seconds.
|
| Strangely I think it was easier to keep track of the order
| of OS X codenames when they were all big cats. It was more
| memorable.
| INeedMoreRam wrote:
| Hyperbole much?
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Sort of agrees with my own opinion, that your use of Macs and
| iPhones and your stay in the ecosystem is only secure as long as
| you keep paying up.
|
| More specifically, you're good for a year after you do a major
| upgrade. After that you may or may not see critical issues
| addressed, and after two years all bets are off.
|
| I'm not sure how long Apple supports their overly expensive
| things these days, but I will not be surprised if they at some
| point declare only 3 years of support from introduction. It would
| mean more money, and they know people will payup.
| dangus wrote:
| The author glosses over the fact that you can upgrade to any
| new macOS version for free for around 7 years after your Mac
| was sold as new.
|
| And even then there are ways to prolong the support window with
| projects like the OpenCore Legacy Patcher
| https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
|
| So you buy a brand new Mac, you get to upgrade to the latest
| version and then even if you don't use OpenCore Legacy Patcher
| you're still getting at least _some_ of the security updates
| from the latest version of macOS.
|
| I realize that the author paints the picture of that later
| reduced level of support as being a bad thing, but they don't
| actually go as far as supporting their arguments with any sort
| of evidence beyond "there are bugs!"
|
| Out of the box Apple is giving you ~10 years of at least
| partial updates and you can prolong it further using third
| party solutions like the OpenCore Legacy Patcher.
|
| For example, you can use Monterey on the Mac Mini you bought in
| 2009, and the only way to go back to an older model is to start
| talking about Macs that are _physically_ incapable of running
| modern macOS because they have physically incompatible 32-bit
| processors.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The iPhone 5s from 2013 just got a security update in July of
| this year.
|
| But if you care about how long the vendor supports your phone,
| you really should get an Android phone. I'm sure you will be
| delighted about how long they support their phones.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > I'm sure you will be delighted about how long they support
| their phones.
|
| Not generally. OnePlus only provides 3 major updates, for
| example. That's 3-4 years of use.
|
| You can root for LineageOS or other custom ROMs, but then you
| lose Netflix and whatever because Android uses stupid trusted
| execution crap for DRM.
| bombcar wrote:
| We really need a sarcasm bit for tcp/ip ;)
| somebehemoth wrote:
| That's nice. The article and most comments are about mac os.
| Snarky android comment is misplaced.
| scarface74 wrote:
| From the parent comment
|
| > Sort of agrees with my own opinion, that your use of Macs
| and _iPhones_
| somebehemoth wrote:
| I read that too. Parent went off topic for 1 word. Your
| entire comment is off topic. Do you have any thoughts on
| mac os you would like to share since that is the topic of
| the post?
| scarface74 wrote:
| Well, last time I checked, now Macs and iPhones are based
| on the same processor and many of the frameworks. Every
| time that Apple has done a processor change, it did drop
| the old ones faster.
|
| Arm Macs are step change from x86. Given a choice between
| being on the Mac platform where Apple has moved fast to
| introduce better technology and being stuck on hot, loud,
| relatively slow battery hogging x86 PCs. I'll take the
| former.
| howinteresting wrote:
| The iPhone 5s got a security update _to Safari_. Android
| phones get updates to Chrome and the WebView component for
| many years past EOL as well.
| [deleted]
| leeches wrote:
| Apple needs to stop pushing annual upgrades.
|
| Please spend 2 years polishing the core system. No features. We
| need to rebase onto a more stable and reliable platform.
| esskay wrote:
| Basically we need a Snow Leopard. That was by far the most rock
| solid release they've done in years. It included a few new
| features but was at it's core a massive performance and bug fix
| release. The fact that it was also released on some very old
| macs at the time helped too.
|
| This being said, day to day I cant remember the last time I
| experienced a bug on any mac I've used. It's generally very
| stable, but does need a maintenance release to refine a few
| areas.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| My low-end test Mac is an old (2012) 11" Air, running Catalina
| (it can't run anything newer).
|
| It's been getting updates, until recently. I don't know for sure,
| if they are done.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| My dad switched to Ubuntu Mate when his updates stopped coming
| in. He's happier than ever with the "look inside, see all the
| details" approach of Linux, compared to the "details are behind
| extra hoops because we don't trust our users^W^W^Wwant you to
| have to think about these scary, scary things."
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Oh it can run newer... https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-
| Legacy-Patcher/
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I'll check it out.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Looks like you can go to Monterey at the moment and Ventura
| is in development.
|
| You shouldn't have any issues.
| kennend3 wrote:
| See my post below. Often this is an artificial limit and as the
| other guy posted, opencore legacy can bypass this "lock" and
| allow you to upgrade beyond Catalina.
| bombcar wrote:
| Sometimes you can install but things are disabled (Metal was
| one).
| blondin wrote:
| same boat.
|
| i have an air from mid-2013 and my last upgrade was Big Sur. i
| may have gotten the upgrade by mistake. since it happened, i am
| no longer getting any patches. and Monterey, of course, does
| not install. the upgrade app still nags me every now and then
| that i need to upgrade (to what?).but i do have a 2022 M2 on
| the side, for comparison. as far as i can tell, our problem is
| not the operating systems.
|
| my biggest problem is with our browsers! or rather, our modern
| resource hog web applications.
|
| i only use my personal macbook airs for the web. and i do use
| safari, chrome, edge, and vivaldi daily. each dedicated to a
| single purpose. so, on my M2 air, these beasts load most sites
| i visit fine. my mid-2013 air, sometimes, struggles opening
| gmail or youtube. i also never open any fancy webgl application
| on it.
|
| oh by the way, edge, whatever you are doing, you are the best
| when it comes to youtube ;) and that's my only task for you.
| [deleted]
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Systemwide OCR is the last feature I remember being excited about
| in a decade, of the top of my head.
|
| But it's something I could use a third party software for and
| comes with a few annoyances, like, sometimes I just want to drag
| an image, not select text.
|
| Recently, I fell macOS releases take away more than they give.
| Either by quality of life (allow terminal.app to access your hard
| drive), poor UX and aesthetic decisions or downright feature
| removal.
|
| Ventura, for instance, removes Preview's ability to render
| PostScript files, and suddenly the man2pdf bash alias I've been
| using for 20 years is broken.
| lapcat wrote:
| > What other actively exploited bugs are Big Sur and Monterey now
| vulnerable to?
|
| Actually, Apple sometimes patches actively exploited
| vulnerabilities in "unsupported" older versions of both macOS and
| iOS. The vulnerabilities that don't get quickly patched are the
| ones that aren't actively exploited.
|
| In any case, security researchers talk about known
| vulnerabilities that have or haven't been patched, but as the
| author says, "New versions of macOS are full of bugs". This
| includes security vulnerabilities! Every new major OS version has
| brand new, unknown (to Apple) vulnerabilities that did not exist
| in the previous version. So just because the latest version is
| "fully patched", that doesn't mean it's "safer". I've seen it
| happen many times in the past where a new security
| vulnerabilities in a new OS isn't discovered by the public until
| many months later.
|
| As far as stability and safety is concerned, I personally
| consider macOS N-1 to have the best tradeoffs.
|
| Moreover, the most dangerous software on your computer is not the
| operating system per se, it's the web browser. The browser is
| where you're mostly likely to encounter "malicious crafted code"
| (i.e., JavaScript). Apple supports Safari for macOS N-2, and
| Safari on macOS N-2 is more similar to Safari on macOS N than
| macOS N-2 itself is to macOS N. In other words, Safari is likely
| to be fully patched even if macOS isn't.
|
| You can also use another browser such as Firefox or Google
| Chrome, which ironically support older macOS versions than Apple
| supports, and the latest versions of those apps are identical and
| fully patched on every macOS version they support.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| All bugs aren't created equal. Malware users are vastly more
| likely to consume existing malware than create it and malware
| creators have an easier time creating code to attack known
| issues that have been fixed than finding unknown issues.
| Today's fix is a blueprint to attack people running yesterdays
| software.
|
| Ergo you are most likely to be attacked using exploits that are
| both known and fixed because you are running old unpatched
| software compared to new bugs in recently released software.
|
| In addition recently released browsers are great but your
| browser also relies on security features from your OS. I don't
| agree that its sufficient to run the most recently released
| browser on your old OS. Your up to date OS complete with new
| bugs is by far the best choice.
| ezconnect wrote:
| My iPhone 6 got an iOS update last month. I was pleasantly
| surprised they still updated an old iOS.
| Maursault wrote:
| > "New versions of macOS are full of bugs"
|
| This is why I never liked Apple's annual upgrade schedule.
| Ostensibly to stay ahead of security issues, annual upgrade
| isn't working and is causing more issues than it is worth.
| Leopard to Mountain Lion were the glory days of OS X stability,
| with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and High Sierra standing out
| as focusing on bug fixes rather than introducing new features
| (and new bugs).
|
| I wish Apple had development and stable branches for macOS,
| such that stable was plain and had very limited features,
| stayed compatible with decade-old hw, and continued to receive
| security updates, and upgrading to development was effectively
| a large patch for stable that included all the new features.
|
| > Moreover, the most dangerous software on your computer is not
| the operating system per se, it's the web browser.
|
| Agreed.
|
| > You can also use another browser such as Firefox or Google
| Chrome, which ironically support older macOS versions than
| Apple supports, and the latest versions of those apps are
| identical and fully patched on every macOS version they
| support.
|
| If one must have browser connectivity on a mac, then do this,
| even when still supported and fully patched. I wouldn't mail or
| surf on any unsupported OS.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| > I wish Apple had development and stable branches for macOS,
| such that stable was plain and had very limited features,
| stayed compatible with decade-old hw
|
| The reason they don't have that is the same we don't have
| this for phones. No profit driven venture on the planet would
| go through that trouble just to hurt their own sales.
|
| Which is why free (as in speech) alternatives are so
| important.
| Maursault wrote:
| It wouldn't hurt their sales. Users running old hardware
| aren't doing it to save money but instead because they
| can't afford new hardware, which isn't the same thing.
| Apple isn't getting those sales anyway. Mac sales are
| driven by new users and users that can afford to upgrade
| hardware every two years. These consumers aren't going
| anywhere, and if Apple remained committed to a minimal
| amount of support for older hardware, it would only make
| their brand more attractive and _increase sales._
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It wouldn 't hurt their sales. Users running old
| hardware aren't doing it to save money but instead
| because they can't afford new hardware, which isn't the
| same thing._
|
| Many of those users that "can't afford new hardware" are
| still forced to update after some point due to the lack
| of updates ("cannot afford" and "absolutely cannot
| afford" being two different things, and most are in the
| former category, they can e.g. put it on their credit
| card, or save some more, or sacrifice something else
| they'd be spending on, even if they're tight).
|
| Plus, there are many more who can afford it, but doesn't
| really care much for having a new machine, they just do
| it because the old ones don't run their software or get
| updates anymore.
|
| Both of those categories would update less frequently if
| they had regular updates and support for their old
| machines.
| flenserboy wrote:
| Especially as they're looking to expand profits from
| services. Including older hardware will only increase
| audience capture and the number of people using and
| paying for various offerings from Apple.
| mozman wrote:
| Maybe I'm getting old but the UX changes in newer versions of
| macOS turn me off. I'm still running Catalina but that has to
| change as it's EOL this year.
|
| I use third party software to bring back some old behaviors
| but it's an uphill battle, especially with things like the
| notification center.
| rapind wrote:
| Apple has added no UI changes since Leopard that I prefer
| or even care about about. I'd be extremely happy if they
| froze UI changes / features and focused entirely on
| stability, compatibility, and security instead.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Leopard to Mountain Lion were the glory days of OS X
| stability, with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and High Sierra
| standing out as focusing on bug fixes rather than introducing
| new features (and new bugs).
|
| This is a common misconception. Major OS updates always
| introduce more bugs than they fix. Bertrand Serlet put up a
| "No New Features" keynote slide for Snow Leopard, but that
| was highly misleading, because Snow Leopard had many big
| under the hood changes, and the early versions of Snow
| Leopard had some nasty bugs. You can go back and look at the
| old Mac OS X release notes to see the descriptions of the bug
| fixes. What was different about Snow Leopard than today is
| that it received a full 2 years of nothing but bug fixes. The
| Snow Leopard people remember fondly was 10.6.8 v1.1 not
| 10.6.0, which was much buggier than its predecessor 10.5.8.
|
| The current yearly major OS update schedule is death for
| quality, because there's never enough time to fix the bugs.
| The engineers always have to turn around and start working on
| the next big thing, never fix the current big then. There's
| no solution except more time between major updates.
|
| The other difference between now and the past is that now
| Apple is immediately pushing everyone to update, whereas new
| major Mac OS X versions used to be paid rather than free, so
| there was a lot more lag, you had to go to the store and
| purchase new discs in order to upgrade, and a lot more users
| were sticking with the older versions.
| Maursault wrote:
| > This is a common misconception.
|
| This is vague.
|
| > Major OS updates always introduce more bugs than they
| fix.
|
| This was my major point.
|
| > Bertrand Serlet put up a "No New Features" keynote slide
| for Snow Leopard, but that was highly misleading, because
| Snow Leopard had many big under the hood changes,
|
| But no new features. The major goals of Snow Leopard were
| to improve performance and reduce its memory footprint (by
| removing a lot of PPC code). What was nice about it, and
| what my point was, Apple had 2 years for bug fixes.
|
| > and the early versions of Snow Leopard had some nasty
| bugs. You can go back and look at the old Mac OS X release
| notes to see the descriptions of the bug fixes. What was
| different about Snow Leopard than today is that it received
| a full 2 years of nothing but bug fixes.
|
| Yes, thank you, this is the entire point of my criticism of
| annual upgrades in that a year is not enough time to fix
| bugs before introducing instability and new bugs in a major
| release.
|
| > The Snow Leopard people remember fondly was 10.6.8 v1.1
| not 10.6.0, which was much buggier than its predecessor
| 10.5.8.
|
| Thank you for the straw man, but, in fact, this was my
| entire argument against major annual releases. I'm not sure
| who expects point zero software to be bug free. I would
| actually prefer that major releases stop entirely unless
| there are fundamental changes, such as a new platform.
|
| > The current yearly major OS update schedule is death for
| quality, because there's never enough time to fix the bugs.
| The engineers always have to turn around and start working
| on the next big thing, never fix the current big then.
| There's no solution except more time between major updates.
|
| >< This is like Scooby Doo. Thank you for making me into
| Thelma, Fred.
|
| > The other difference between now and the past is that now
| Apple is immediately pushing everyone to update, whereas
| new major Mac OS X versions used to be paid rather than
| free, so there was a lot more lag, you had to go to the
| store and purchase new discs in order to upgrade, and a lot
| more users were sticking with the older versions.
|
| This is a fair point, except for the part about Apple
| pushing upgrades. Unrestrained users push themselves with
| no regard to what they're using continuing to work. Though
| software updates can be configured automatically by the
| user, and security updates are pushed, Apple isn't pushing
| upgrades, and I don't think the OS can be configured to
| _upgrade_ automatically, only update.
| lapcat wrote:
| > > Major OS updates always introduce more bugs than they
| fix.
|
| > This was my major point.
|
| I don't think your words said what you thought you might
| have meant: "with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and High
| Sierra standing out as focusing on bug fixes rather than
| introducing new features (and new bugs)"
|
| Major updates never focus on bug fixes rather than
| introducing new features (and new bugs). Otherwise they
| wouldn't need major updates at all, they'd just keep
| releasing minor bug fix updates. There's nothing really
| special about 10.6.0 (Snow Leopard), 10.8.0 (Mountain
| Lion), or 10.13 (High Sierra) compared to other major
| releases. These were all much buggier than the previous
| stable release.
|
| > Yes, thank you, this is the entire point of my
| criticism of annual upgrades in that a year is not enough
| time to fix bugs before introducing instability and new
| bugs in a major release.
|
| Except the annual release cycle actually started with
| Mountain Lion, which was 1 year after Lion, and High
| Sierra was also 1 year after Sierra, but you put them in
| the "the glory days of OS X stability".
|
| > Apple isn't pushing upgrades, and I don't think the OS
| can be configured to upgrade automatically, only update.
|
| I wasn't talking about automatic upgrades, I was talking
| about how macOS annoyingly advertises new major updates,
| for example in Software Update, and even permanently
| badging your System Preferences Dock icon until you
| upgrade. This didn't occur in the days when major updates
| were on physical discs.
| Maursault wrote:
| > I don't think your words said what you thought you
| might have meant
|
| > Except the annual release cycle actually started with
| Mountain Lion, which was 1 year after Lion, and High
| Sierra was also 1 year after Sierra, but you put them in
| the "the glory days of OS X stability".
|
| They mean what I said, but I'm certain now that instead,
| _you did_ this, but let 's see if this helps
|
| >>>> Leopard to Mountain Lion were the glory days of OS X
| stability,
|
| COMMA (NEXT STATEMENT AND NEW THOUGHT)-->
|
| >>>> with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and High Sierra
| standing out as focusing on bug fixes rather than
| introducing new features (and new bugs).
|
| > I was talking about how macOS annoyingly advertises new
| major updates, for example in Software Update, and even
| permanently badging your System Preferences Dock icon
| until you upgrade.
|
| I don't think your words said what you meant and/or I
| made a poor assumption by your use of "pushing" in the
| context of "updates" or upgrades. Apple did start to push
| out security patches for supported OS versions, but you
| meant notices, or nags, of available OS upgrades. These
| can be avoided by disabling push notifications via the
| gui[1] or more permanently using the Terminal and launchd
| to disable push notifications: sudo
| launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.appl
| e.notificationcenterui.plist
|
| or by completely disabling Software Update
| sudo launchctl unload -wF
| /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.softwareupdate*
|
| or less permanently disable automatic software updates
| with the defaults command (duplicating the gui method)
| sudo defaults write
| /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate
| AutomaticDownload -boolean FALSE
|
| Outdated, but easily modernized for current macOS, and
| still my favorite list of disabling things.[2] Here is a
| nice source of defaults commands,[3] though the script is
| personalized for the author, I've only copied out what I
| wanted. Here's a similar script to pick through (blindly
| run scripts at own extreme risk).[4]
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/how-to-
| turn-off-...
|
| [2] http://tech.masterofsql.com/os-x/unload-disable-
| unwanted-age...
|
| [3] https://gist.github.com/mvanbaak/e98b7b622ea2c8ab626d
| 51cb88e...
|
| [4] https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.
| macos
| e40 wrote:
| _> As far as stability and safety is concerned, I personally
| consider macOS N-1 to have the best tradeoffs._
|
| This is what I settled on years ago. The only exception was
| using Monterey on the new Apple Silicon macs. I upgraded to
| that earlier than normal.
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