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Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

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Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#121

Post by dkonofalski »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #83
dkonofalski wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>legitimately entitled No, they are not. This isn't an upgrade to their existing OS like a patch release. This is a new OS completely and developers were all warned years in advance that Catalina would drop 32-bit support. This is not a downgrade in the slightest. >but will later I have a Mac Mini from 2005 that still runs MacOS Leopard just as well as the day I bought it. I can't install all the latest, greatest sof…

There's a lot of space in between "Company X has wronged me" and "I'm happy with company X". I feel very let down by Apple right now, and I sense the author does too. As the saying goes: I'm not angry, just disappointed. The fact that macOS updates are optional, and you can downgrade at any time, really does help a great deal here. However, Apple's three years of security updates per release isn't much.

>I feel very let down by Apple right now

And that is totally fine for you to feel that way. You are not, however, entitled to some kind of reparation for that and, if you wrote a diatribe that was comparable to the OP, I would also say that you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Something being disappointing to you, individually, does not make it a massive failure for everyone.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#122

Post by dkonofalski »

jeremyjh wrote: post #78
dkonofalski wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>legitimately entitled No, they are not. This isn't an upgrade to their existing OS like a patch release. This is a new OS completely and developers were all warned years in advance that Catalina would drop 32-bit support. This is not a downgrade in the slightest. >but will later I have a Mac Mini from 2005 that still runs MacOS Leopard just as well as the day I bought it. I can't install all the latest, greatest sof…

No computer that is not getting security hotfixes is "just as good" as it was when it was getting those updates.

Yes it is. Those updates have been applied to it. It does not magically get worse simply because time passes. It does literally everything it did when I bought it and then some because new software came out after it was purchased. Just because it can't run everything else that's come out since then doesn't magically make it stop doing what it's already been able to do.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#123

Post by dkonofalski »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #91
greedo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A customer isn't entitled to any upgrades. Apple used to charge for upgrades in the past. Now they give them away for free. Apple has never forced anyone on to upgrade their Macs. I have a fourteen year old Mac Pro that still works fine. Sure it can't run Catalina, but I don't need it to. And complaining? Complaining about what? You act as if Apple is bricking computers if you don't upgrade...

> Apple used to charge for upgrades in the past. Now they give them away for free. But back then, they also supported old releases for longer. I actually suspect this was part of Apple's internal calculus, or part of it. "Free upgrades will get installed by more people, so we can drop old releases more quickly." A fine tradeoff under some circumstances, but right now, the old way of things is looking quite appealing.

>But back then, they also supported old releases for longer.

I don't think that's true. I've been an Apple user since just before OS X's release and the support level was always 2 versions back since like Panther.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#124

Post by dkonofalski »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #96
dkonofalski wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it does because most games didn't update to 64-bit. I still fail to see how that warrants an article like that. If you know the games won't work and you still want to play them, don't upgrade. It's not that hard.

As it happens, the author isn't upgrading.

And your point is? I've already acknowledged that. I'm pointing out that a disappointment for their individual situation doesn't indicate that the update is a failure nor does it warrant what they've written.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#125

Post by renaudg »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #104
lostgame wrote: post #49

I don't understand the possible, potential advantage removing 32-bit support even has . It doesn't improve security for my sake, because I can't use a system that doesn't allow for 32-bit apps. Why can't we have a Rosetta equivalent? I've had to tell every MacOS user I know, especially non-techie ones, just to not upgrade, and consider something other than Apple moving forward.

I worked at Apple during the 64 bit transition. The answer is that 32 bit was quite painful to maintain. The 64 bit transition was a compatibility break that enabled shedding technical debt, like NeXT-isms that no longer applied. In particular it added the ObjC 2 runtime, which allowed features like adding a variable to a class without needing to recompile subclasses. So long as 32 bit is supported, it is difficult f…

Thanks. This should be the top comment for every Catalina rant posted here.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#126

Post by dkonofalski »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #85
dkonofalski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, though. There's nothing that says that you can't stay on the version of the OS that you're using until you decide not to. That decision, though, comes with the consequence that you likely won't be able to run new software. If you're not worried about new software and don't want to be until the point comes where you need new software, the updates have always been optional.

Sure, as long as they keep fixing bugs and issuing security updates for the older OS's. But Apple Support articles start with "Update to the latest version of macOS and try again" There is also no particular reason that I can tell why certain features are only added to the latest OS, though we have become desensitized to this. For example - why can't the ability to extend the Mac desktop to the iPad be added to Mojav…

>why can't the ability to extend the Mac desktop to the iPad be added to Mojave

Likely because there's a part of the iCloud stack that was set up by code that's not in Mojave. Additionally, that was never advertised as a feature of Mojave so I fail to see why there would be any expectation that this would be added to Mojave.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#127

Post by saagarjha »

bastardoperator wrote: post #106
saagarjha wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just install a recent version of bash from MacPorts instead of relying on the one that ships with the system.

Bash is depreciated in favor of Zsh in Catalina. Regardless of you where you get bash from, I prefer brew, a nag message is presented to the user about Zsh everytime a terminal session is initiated: The default interactive shell is now zsh. To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`. For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050. The export I provided prevents this nag mes…

The message is coming from /bin/bash, no? I have /opt/local/bin/bash set as my login shell, so I never see it.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#128

Post by dkonofalski »

johnisgood wrote: post #86
dkonofalski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, though. There's nothing that says that you can't stay on the version of the OS that you're using until you decide not to. That decision, though, comes with the consequence that you likely won't be able to run new software. If you're not worried about new software and don't want to be until the point comes where you need new software, the updates have always been optional.

What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software? I thought that was a perfectly fine middle ground, and now the customer MUST decide between old vs new. Does not sound good to me, at all. I would pick Linux instead. :)

>What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software?

There's wasn't much wrong with being able to run it but there's a hell of a lot of technical debt that comes with being able to support and maintain it. Every binary that needed to run on 32 and 64 bit OSs had double the code in it, double the dependencies, and literally double of everything. Developers were all notified about the change more than 3 years ago and 2 OS versions ago. This was not a surprise.

>I would pick Linux instead.

And you have that option. Godspeed.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#129

Post by [deleted] »

dkonofalski wrote: post #128
johnisgood wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software? I thought that was a perfectly fine middle ground, and now the customer MUST decide between old vs new. Does not sound good to me, at all. I would pick Linux instead. :)

>What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software? There's wasn't much wrong with being able to run it but there's a hell of a lot of technical debt that comes with being able to support and maintain it . Every binary that needed to run on 32 and 64 bit OSs had double the code in it, double the dependencies, and literally double of everything. Developers were all notified about the change more than 3 y…

[deleted]

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#130

Post by [deleted] »

dkonofalski wrote: post #128
johnisgood wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software? I thought that was a perfectly fine middle ground, and now the customer MUST decide between old vs new. Does not sound good to me, at all. I would pick Linux instead. :)

>What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software? There's wasn't much wrong with being able to run it but there's a hell of a lot of technical debt that comes with being able to support and maintain it . Every binary that needed to run on 32 and 64 bit OSs had double the code in it, double the dependencies, and literally double of everything. Developers were all notified about the change more than 3 y…

[deleted]
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