Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 132 posts

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#11

Post by ccouzens »

traceroute66 wrote: post #7

Yawn. More Apple bashing that is not backed up by any facts. Name me one widely deployed OS that promises its users patches ad-infinitum. Microsoft certainly doesn't patch all older versions of Windows. Neither do all the widely deployed Linux flavours, they all have clearly defined EOL policies. Nor do the BSDs, e.g. OpenBSD has a "current plus previous" policy. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere in terms…

The problem is they don't allow the latest MacOS on not very old hardware. If they allowed the latest OS there would be less call to keep the older versions patched.

> Name me one widely deployed OS that promises its users patches ad-infinitum.

> Microsoft certainly doesn't patch all older versions of Windows.

> Neither do all the widely deployed Linux flavours.

But the latest and greatest Windows and Linux releases are installable on older devices.

I extended the life of a 2011 iMac which stopped recieving updates from Apple by installing the latest Fedora.

Most Linux distributions draw the line at 32 bit hardware.

Windows 11 was controversial in that it dropped support for older computers. But this shows what the expectations are.

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#13

Post by PeterisP »

traceroute66 wrote: post #7

Yawn. More Apple bashing that is not backed up by any facts. Name me one widely deployed OS that promises its users patches ad-infinitum. Microsoft certainly doesn't patch all older versions of Windows. Neither do all the widely deployed Linux flavours, they all have clearly defined EOL policies. Nor do the BSDs, e.g. OpenBSD has a "current plus previous" policy. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere in terms…

This is not about EOL - the article is about Apple not patching security issues in two-year old supported OS versions (Catalina from 2019).

Microsoft certainly does patch all two years old versions of windows.

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#14

Post by KptMarchewa »

azalemeth wrote: post #9

I'd love to know the "true" histogram of MacOS versions. I'm currently typing this on a machine running Mojave as it is the last one to support 32-bit code. I bet I am not the only one – 10.14 happens to match up with the last "perpetually licensed" adobe suite, for example, as well as older versions of Office. I'm sure Apple know exactly how many people they inconvenience at any given point, and make a calculated de…

>I'm sure Apple know exactly how many people they inconvenience at any given point, and make a calculated decision about support.

Each Apple laptop gets upgrades to newest for roughly 6-7 years.

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#15

Post by timeon »

azalemeth wrote: post #9

I'd love to know the "true" histogram of MacOS versions. I'm currently typing this on a machine running Mojave as it is the last one to support 32-bit code. I bet I am not the only one – 10.14 happens to match up with the last "perpetually licensed" adobe suite, for example, as well as older versions of Office. I'm sure Apple know exactly how many people they inconvenience at any given point, and make a calculated de…

This was exactly my case especially with the Adobe. Then my MBP died just few days before deadline. So I got new one with M1 chip. And I had to go with Adobe subscription. Not only it was bloatware it was also buggy. Then Affinity had sale and I bought three Affinity apps for the price of three months with Adobe. Affinity Designer is better for my needs then combination of Photoshop/Illustrator. However Adobe Indesign is still much better then Affinity publisher. I could live with that but there is not good compatibility between Indesign and Publisher (unlike Affinity Designer where you can easily import/export .psd). But I will have to find workaround not because subscription sucks (I do not use Indesign daily but still almost every month). It sucks because Creative Cloud is bloatware.

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#16

Post by traceroute66 »

PeterisP wrote: post #13
traceroute66 wrote: post #7

Yawn. More Apple bashing that is not backed up by any facts. Name me one widely deployed OS that promises its users patches ad-infinitum. Microsoft certainly doesn't patch all older versions of Windows. Neither do all the widely deployed Linux flavours, they all have clearly defined EOL policies. Nor do the BSDs, e.g. OpenBSD has a "current plus previous" policy. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere in terms…

This is not about EOL - the article is about Apple not patching security issues in two-year old supported OS versions (Catalina from 2019). Microsoft certainly does patch all two years old versions of windows.

First, Big Sur was the first macOS to support ARM. Given recent developments at Apple, its no surprise their primary development focus is on OS Releases that have ARM support.

Second, as already pointed out by another poster in this thread, Apple provide free upgrades to newer OS versions for supported hardware (and the hardware support goes back a decent number of years[1]).

For the vast majority of people on Catalina, all they need to do is to upgrade to Big Sur, it is almost certain they are using compatible hardware[1].

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211238

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#17

Post by traceroute66 »

ccouzens wrote: post #11
traceroute66 wrote: post #7

Yawn. More Apple bashing that is not backed up by any facts. Name me one widely deployed OS that promises its users patches ad-infinitum. Microsoft certainly doesn't patch all older versions of Windows. Neither do all the widely deployed Linux flavours, they all have clearly defined EOL policies. Nor do the BSDs, e.g. OpenBSD has a "current plus previous" policy. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere in terms…

The problem is they don't allow the latest MacOS on not very old hardware. If they allowed the latest OS there would be less call to keep the older versions patched. > Name me one widely deployed OS that promises its users patches ad-infinitum. > Microsoft certainly doesn't patch all older versions of Windows. > Neither do all the widely deployed Linux flavours. But the latest and greatest Windows and Linux releases…

> But the latest and greatest Windows and Linux releases are installable on older devices.

So is OS X Big Sur[1] and Monterey[2]

For the majority of people all they need to do is pull their finger out and upgrade the OS from Catalina to Big Sur or Monterey.

    [1]https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211238
    [2]https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212551

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#18

Post by PeterisP »

traceroute66 wrote: post #16
PeterisP wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about EOL - the article is about Apple not patching security issues in two-year old supported OS versions (Catalina from 2019). Microsoft certainly does patch all two years old versions of windows.

First, Big Sur was the first macOS to support ARM. Given recent developments at Apple, its no surprise their primary development focus is on OS Releases that have ARM support. Second, as already pointed out by another poster in this thread, Apple provide free upgrades to newer OS versions for supported hardware (and the hardware support goes back a decent number of years[1]). For the vast majority of people on Catali…

The key point for this IMHO is, as mentioned in the article "But it's also time for better communication on this subject. Apple should spell out its update policies for older versions of macOS, as Microsoft does, rather than relying on its current hand-wavy release timing".

If Apple properly supported Catalina, that would be great; if Apple explicitly said that Catalina is out of support / EOL and people need to upgrade to Big Sur, that could be reasonable; but if they keep the two-year-old release in some limbo that's kind of supported but poorly, that's simply poor support.

Apple needs to make a clear choice and publish a specific date for each of their releases up until which they commit to backporting security updates, so that people can know what is the expectation for e.g. Catalina, whether it is considered supported or not right now.

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#19

Post by Toutouxc »

azalemeth wrote: post #9

I'd love to know the "true" histogram of MacOS versions. I'm currently typing this on a machine running Mojave as it is the last one to support 32-bit code. I bet I am not the only one – 10.14 happens to match up with the last "perpetually licensed" adobe suite, for example, as well as older versions of Office. I'm sure Apple know exactly how many people they inconvenience at any given point, and make a calculated de…

According to the Steam Hardware & Software Survey [0], where the 32-bit thing hit really hard, the numbers could look a little like this:

  MacOS 11.6.0:  11.22%
  MacOS 11.5.2:   2.87%
  MacOS 10.16.0: 44.92%
  MacOS 10.15.7: 11.66%
  MacOS 10.14.6:  6.80%
  MacOS 10.13.6:  6.41%
  Other          16.12%
According to this other usage plot [1] it doesn't like the number of people staying on Mojave was any significant.

Please note that macOS 10.16 == macOS 11 and that most of these tools don't seem to recognize Big Sur and later from Catalina.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?platform=mac

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/944559/worldwide-macos-v...

Re: Apple isn’t patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS

#20

Post by rudian »

PeterisP wrote: post #18
traceroute66 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, Big Sur was the first macOS to support ARM. Given recent developments at Apple, its no surprise their primary development focus is on OS Releases that have ARM support. Second, as already pointed out by another poster in this thread, Apple provide free upgrades to newer OS versions for supported hardware (and the hardware support goes back a decent number of years[1]). For the vast majority of people on Catali…

The key point for this IMHO is, as mentioned in the article "But it's also time for better communication on this subject. Apple should spell out its update policies for older versions of macOS, as Microsoft does, rather than relying on its current hand-wavy release timing". If Apple properly supported Catalina, that would be great; if Apple explicitly said that Catalina is out of support / EOL and people need to upgr…

I really don’t get this. Apple does provide free updates for all. If you skip major versions, you’re shooting yourself in the foot and blaming Apple for allowing it.

Apple is giving you the update: Install it and now it’s up to date. They don’t have to support multiple versions of the same thing indefinitely.

The situations (devices) where the update isn’t possible (i.e. they’re outdated too early) can probably be counted on one hand.

Post reply on HN