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Home truths about macOS

eclecticlight.co

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Re: Home truths about macOS

#51

Post by Tijdreiziger »

protomyth wrote: post #12
kennend3 wrote: post #3

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 hackintos…

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.

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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#52

Post by shmde »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #37

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.

Isn't that... Umm good ? Windows completely rehauls everything in every major releases and makes it difficult to navigate through.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#53

Post by blondin »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #18

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.

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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#54

Post by Tijdreiziger »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #10
ben-schaaf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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).

Re: Home truths about macOS

#56

Post by bombcar »

wlll wrote: post #5
Danborg wrote: post #2

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…

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.

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

Re: Home truths about macOS

#57

Post by FpUser »

kmfpl wrote: post #48

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…

>"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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#58

Post by michaelcampbell »

kmfpl wrote: post #48

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…

> 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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#59

Post by InCityDreams »

shmde wrote: post #52
BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #37

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.

Isn't that... Umm good ? Windows completely rehauls everything in every major releases and makes it difficult to navigate through.

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?

Re: Home truths about macOS

#60

Post by scarface74 »

somebehemoth wrote: post #50
scarface74 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s nice. The article and most comments are about mac os. Snarky android comment is misplaced.

From the parent comment

> Sort of agrees with my own opinion, that your use of Macs and iPhones

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