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Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

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11–20 of 395 posts

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#11
post #2

This is why Microsoft is the better long-term play: Backwards compatibility -- their commitment to the investment of labor. If you build your software on Apple, there almost certainly will come a point in the future where your code will cease to work. Microsoft has made a commitment to backward compatibility. It's such a huge benefit. I have code that has continued to run, untouched, for decades . I don't have to upg…

And how much has it cost Microsoft? Apple was able to successfully take the base of MacOS and port it’s operating system to a much lower spec phone back in 2007 and came to dominate the smart phone market (in profit they only thing that matters), the tablet market where MS failed repeatedly, not to mention it was able to port the base OS to everything from Watches and TV set top boxes - all things that Microsoft tried and failed at.

MS being so concerned with backwards compatibility has slowed down its ability to move fast into new markets even compared to Google.

If you are “building your software” for desktop PCs (or Macs) , you’re building on top of market that is becoming less important every year. There is no energy or investments going into desktop computers besides games and even that market is small. The only companies making real money in computer software are Microsoft and Adobe and even they are pivoting more toward browser based software and mobile.

Do you think that Apple should still bundle a PPC emulator with modern Macs? A 68K emulator?

Not being willing to drop legacy code comes with its own costs in maintenance and increases the vulnerability surface. Just the fact that there are over a half dozen ways to represent a string in Windows has led to security vulnerabilities, not to mention all of the other legacy cruft.

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#13
Apple might think it can get away with removing the 3.5mm audio jack or restricting iOS users to only one app store or not allowing flash content on iOS Safari etc., but they sure as hell can't get away with such ridiculous changes when it comes to macOS pro users. What is Apple thinking, really? They might be able to start a global change in the mobile industry because they own a huge market share there, but when it comes to computers, they're not in a position to dictate to developers what they can run on their machines and what they can't. The more it goes, the more of a toy MBP becomes, both hardware- and software-wise. I'm seriously considering switching back to Windows, which is sad.

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#14
post #2

This is why Microsoft is the better long-term play: Backwards compatibility -- their commitment to the investment of labor. If you build your software on Apple, there almost certainly will come a point in the future where your code will cease to work. Microsoft has made a commitment to backward compatibility. It's such a huge benefit. I have code that has continued to run, untouched, for decades . I don't have to upg…

I have a 32-bit application I use regularly to interface with old hardware (which isn't on the list incidentally; I suspect there are many other niche applications like this).

The hardware vendor isn't going to re-write it. As such I have to...

1) Avoid MacOS upgrades forever, or 2) Let the hardware become nearly impossible to use (there are workarounds on the device itself, but it's really painful to use), or 3) Write a new application myself.

If my 6-year old MacBook can last until I find something competitive with Logic Pro on Linux, I won't be buying another Apple machine. There's nothing else I need it for.

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#15
post #8
post #2

This is why Microsoft is the better long-term play: Backwards compatibility -- their commitment to the investment of labor. If you build your software on Apple, there almost certainly will come a point in the future where your code will cease to work. Microsoft has made a commitment to backward compatibility. It's such a huge benefit. I have code that has continued to run, untouched, for decades . I don't have to upg…

I feel the same. I started a project just four years ago, and now I feel that I'll need to rewrite a huge portion of the graphics code to work with future Mac versions. I also have a lesser fear that in order for my application to work on some future version of Windows, I'll need to deal with code signing and directory access rights nonsense in order for customers to think that the software "works properly". But that…

Why should I trust your application to run rampant on my computer? Since when was it a bad thing to isolate what an application can do? Even if you aren’t being purposefully malicious and being sloppy you can still cause damage. Look at what happen with the Google Chrome installer on Macs that had system integrity protection turned off.

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/15235262?hl=en

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#16
post #2

This is why Microsoft is the better long-term play: Backwards compatibility -- their commitment to the investment of labor. If you build your software on Apple, there almost certainly will come a point in the future where your code will cease to work. Microsoft has made a commitment to backward compatibility. It's such a huge benefit. I have code that has continued to run, untouched, for decades . I don't have to upg…

> I have code that has continued to run, untouched, for decades.

This isn’t always a good thing. I usually don’t like when a piece of software feels like it hasn’t been updated since the 90s. But I guess we don’t want some military defense system to break because it’s 32-bit either.

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#18
post #6
post #5

Perhaps these apps were already well beyond supported? I don't use anything except 1Password on the list at the link and the current supported version is 7. Version 2.x would have been sometime and many security updates ago, non?

On Windows it is perfectly reasonable to expect aps running even if they are 20 or sometimes 30 years old.

64 bit Windows doesn’t run 16 bit Windows code.

Re: Apple's list of 235 apps that are incompatible with macOS Catalina

#20
post #2

This is why Microsoft is the better long-term play: Backwards compatibility -- their commitment to the investment of labor. If you build your software on Apple, there almost certainly will come a point in the future where your code will cease to work. Microsoft has made a commitment to backward compatibility. It's such a huge benefit. I have code that has continued to run, untouched, for decades . I don't have to upg…

And how much has it cost Microsoft? Apple was able to successfully take the base of MacOS and port it’s operating system to a much lower spec phone back in 2007 and came to dominate the smart phone market (in profit they only thing that matters), the tablet market where MS failed repeatedly, not to mention it was able to port the base OS to everything from Watches and TV set top boxes - all things that Microsoft trie…

Apparently people keep forgetting that laptops and 2-1 hybrids are desktops as well.

Microsoft is doing pretty well there, to the point that in many shopping mall shops in Europe, Android tablets have been slowly being replaced by hybrid laptops running Windows 10.

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