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Home truths about macOS

eclecticlight.co

71–80 of 181 posts

Re: Home truths about macOS

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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…

There's still Linux distros supporting 32bit PPC Macs.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#72
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…

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.

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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 somethi…

I run Linux on my 2015 iMac. Just upgraded it to Ubuntu 12.10, works great and loving the latest Gnome.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 somethi…

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. ).

Re: Home truths about macOS

#75

> 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).

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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#76
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Vista came before 7, so I guess it was 6? Then there was XP before that, which I suppose was 5?

Re: Home truths about macOS

#77
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Android is just alphabet order until they drop banned entirely for numbers, so at least you know which versions are newer.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#78
post #9
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 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…

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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#79
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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.

> 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.

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