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Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

computerworld.com

11–20 of 44 posts

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#11
post #2

> Apple on Tuesday made it clear that it will no longer patch OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, when it again declined to offer a security update for the four-and-a-half-year-old operating system. Well, The SSL bug only affected Mavericks. Additionally, I don't think we know if the security updates released for mountain lion and lion also affected Snow Leopard. And if it did, well, Apple moves quicker than Microsoft does…

My $2700 Cintiq is 7 years old and works dandy, but Wacom will not be making Maverick drivers -- ever. So I won't be upgrading ever. My TV is 10 years old and working. We have a 15 year old TV in the office. My 2001 ibook is going strong and my six year could use it -- but it can't even be updated to the new wireless networking protocols, and linux abandoned the G3.

I can't tell if you're complaining about Apple abandoning support for Snow Leopard, or just making a statement supporting why people still stick to old(er) hardware.

If the latter, then I completely understand, and you make a valid point.

If the former, though, then my question would be why would one be content with sticking to old(er) hardware, but not be content with sticking to old(er) software?

Again, not saying you fall into that boat, but in general, anybody protesting this decision should be asked that question.

And it's a genuine question -- maybe there is a valid reason. I just can't think of one.

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#12

Snow Leopard was the high watermark release for OS X, before focus and engineering talent migrated to iOS, and successive releases of OS X began to become cluttered with throwaway useless user interface candy and naggy GateKeeper dialogs.

Naggy GateKeeper dialogs? It's extremely rare that I see them, and even then it's nothing like UAC was back in the Vista days.

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#13

Snow Leopard was the high watermark release for OS X, before focus and engineering talent migrated to iOS, and successive releases of OS X began to become cluttered with throwaway useless user interface candy and naggy GateKeeper dialogs.

YMMV, but a lot of that "useless user interface candy" makes my day noticeably better. Launchpad is silly, but Mission Control pretty much changed how I used a computer. I'd been using Macs since 10.4, but I didn't get Macs until Lion. And 10.9 made multi-monitor much much better by making Mission Control desktops per-monitor. This is the best OS X release by far.

As far as Gatekeeper dialogs go, I'm curious what you're doing with your machine because I have seen a Gatekeeper complaint exactly once, because Cisco hadn't signed their VPN software (which was really awesome of them).

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#15
post #9

To put that in perspective, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard were released to manufacturing at about the same time, and that ~4 years is roughly 25% of the time that Microsoft supported Windows XP. I'm biased, but that kind of organization-wide upgrade treadmill would be a nonstarter with most of my clients (ranging from small-business to enterprise). Strange move by Apple if they hope to challenge Microsoft's lion share o…

To put your comment into perspective, Vista came out almost 6 years after XP and was a disaster. The next usable (and far more widely adopted) release, Windows 7, came out 8 years after XP. Apple, on the other hand, has a far more rapid release cycle which tends to not break things as much.

It's a strange move by Microsoft for them to make huge changes every 5 years, rather than small ones every year or two like Apple. It's much easier to adapt to change incrementally.

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#16

Snow Leopard was the high watermark release for OS X, before focus and engineering talent migrated to iOS, and successive releases of OS X began to become cluttered with throwaway useless user interface candy and naggy GateKeeper dialogs.

Have you tried Mavericks? I was on 10.6 until 10.9 came out, and I have not been disappointed. I actually gained about 30 minutes more battery time. I also enjoy the notification integration with so many apps. Growl used to do the job, but it didn't always work.

10.6 to 10.9 is a good upgrade, try it.

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#18
post #2

> Apple on Tuesday made it clear that it will no longer patch OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, when it again declined to offer a security update for the four-and-a-half-year-old operating system. Well, The SSL bug only affected Mavericks. Additionally, I don't think we know if the security updates released for mountain lion and lion also affected Snow Leopard. And if it did, well, Apple moves quicker than Microsoft does…

My $2700 Cintiq is 7 years old and works dandy, but Wacom will not be making Maverick drivers -- ever. So I won't be upgrading ever. My TV is 10 years old and working. We have a 15 year old TV in the office. My 2001 ibook is going strong and my six year could use it -- but it can't even be updated to the new wireless networking protocols, and linux abandoned the G3.

[deleted]

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#19
post #16

Snow Leopard was the high watermark release for OS X, before focus and engineering talent migrated to iOS, and successive releases of OS X began to become cluttered with throwaway useless user interface candy and naggy GateKeeper dialogs.

Have you tried Mavericks? I was on 10.6 until 10.9 came out, and I have not been disappointed. I actually gained about 30 minutes more battery time. I also enjoy the notification integration with so many apps. Growl used to do the job, but it didn't always work. 10.6 to 10.9 is a good upgrade, try it.

Considering we spent months where Mail.app didn't perform it's most basic duty (receiving mail) and Messages continued it's almost simulated organic decay, I beg to differ.

Re: Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

#20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Mavericks? I was on 10.6 until 10.9 came out, and I have not been disappointed. I actually gained about 30 minutes more battery time. I also enjoy the notification integration with so many apps. Growl used to do the job, but it didn't always work. 10.6 to 10.9 is a good upgrade, try it.

Considering we spent months where Mail.app didn't perform it's most basic duty (receiving mail) and Messages continued it's almost simulated organic decay, I beg to differ.

Nope. It didn't perform it's most basic duty with the non-standards compliant email provider that is Gmail. Literally every other service that offered standard IMAP worked fine.
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