Why release Mac OS X so often?

I guess quality Mac OS X is dead...

Accelerate hardware upgrades. Push the requirements of new desirable features in the OS toward the newest hardware to entice owners to upgrade to the latest hardware in order to get the best of the latest OS.

IMHO anyway.

emir said:

Why would it be dead? Mountain Lion is still awesome, it's still the best os and works great for me.

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A large contingent of us believe the "best OS" was and IS Snow Leopard. Much faster than ML and none of the iToys OS bloat.

I'm using Snow Leopard on my 2010 MB Air and I agree that gradual improvement of this MATURE operating system is what is needed.

At this point, the OS is so good that a two or even five year update would be fine.

Hopefully it won't get to the point where like the band "Greenday," they are just releasing stuff to make a quick buck.

To some of us it's more important then that!

Mikey-Mike said:

I'm using Snow Leopard on my 2010 MB Air and I agree that gradual improvement of this MATURE operating system is what is needed.

At this point, the OS is so good that a two or even five year update would be fine.

Hopefully it won't get to the point where like the band "Greenday," they are just releasing stuff to make a quick buck.

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Isn't that what we're seeing here...? marc11 just said it, a few post above you... And I'm inclined to believe Apple is heading that way... quick buck...

Look at it objectively... Apple is dumbing down OS X so that it's easier for people who had used iOS to adopt Mac, thanks to its "Accelerated Halo Effect"...

To EOL older Macs and push people into the newer hardware. Profits are in the hardware.

emir said:

But they can't make a "quick buck" out of the OS. That's what i said in the first post. Software selling and the money that comes from that isn't Apple's main revenue item. Releasing iPhones and iPads every 11 months or so could be interpreted as making a quick buck but i think it is keeping up with the sector.

I started using Macs with Tiger i think and i also agree Snow Leopard was and is awesome, Lion was not but still Mountain Lion is pretty good.

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You know how to said it yourself... And flopticalcube just fitted in the rest...

Apple knows that the 1-year cycle of iDevices is where the quick buck comes in... So now they're trying to emulate that on their Macs, and to do that, they need OS X... hence our current dilemma of the 1-year cycle...

But like I said in my first post of this thread... They will sacrifice quality out of quick buck... It takes 8 maintenance builds on SL to make it great and stable... 11 on Tiger... but only 5 on Lion which is still ****, ML (which is supposedly fixes the Lion debacle) is currently on 2 and I still find bugs way easier than I did on SL. And now we're hearing 10.9 already...?

So you tell me... Are they into quality, or quantity...?

Why not? It keeps people excited about Mac OS. Each update brings a lot of cool features but, sadly, drops a few features that should just be there.

- RSS in Mail is gone. WHYYY???
- Some MacBooks don't turn the screen off when closed and connected to a display anymore. Whose stupid idea was this?
- Rosetta is gone. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU (I didn't update pretty much solely for this reason.)
- They hid the Library folders. At least you can unhide them with Terminal, but my dad got really annoyed by this and made me unhide all of them for him since he doesn't know much about using UNIX.
- You can't search for files by name anymore. WTF?

But the new features they added are great, so I think it more than makes up for the lost things... except for, in my case, Rosetta. I'm sticking with the no-comprimise Snow Leopard for now.

I think this is mistake on Apple's part.

First of all it doesn't make any computing sense. On the one hand, Apple seems to be merging iOS and OSX, so the minimum requirements should remain steady for the next few years. On the other hand, it's making certain machines obsolete with new OS updates. Makes no sense.

Secondly the updates don't offer very much to the user. Sure iCloud is very useful, but there are lots of alternatives. And there's absolutely no reason why iCloud shouldn't be compatible with previous versions of OSX. Let's not even get started on Mission Control, save-as, Rosetta, etc. It seems just to be eye-candy that they've got to offer. (It's funny that the best thing IMO in Mountain Lion, Fusion Drive, is hidden to the user!)

Thirdly the OS updates are so buggy. Apple can't release software with disclaimers "if you're a pro user don't update as it might destroy your production machine". Of course if your 16gb i7 2gb video ram machine is mostly for twitter/facebook, then this won't be such a problem.

So what's happening is that a lot of users aren't going to update, and will depend on third party software. Apple is pushing away the pro users for whom stability is vital.

RSL said:

I think this is mistake on Apple's part.

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No doubt about it... But they have a purpose whether or not we agree to it, but I certainly don't...

RSL said:

First of all it doesn't make any computing sense. On the one hand, Apple seems to be merging iOS and OSX, so the minimum requirements should remain steady for the next few years. On the other hand, it's making certain machines obsolete with new OS updates. Makes no sense.

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Of course it doesn't make a damn sense... Apple purposefully make machines obsolete so that poor saps like us will be forced to upgrade. Upgrade = buy new Macs. The more people buy, the more they earn = quick buck...

RSL said:

Secondly the updates don't offer very much to the user. Sure iCloud is very useful, but there are lots of alternatives. And there's absolutely no reason why iCloud shouldn't be compatible with previous versions of OSX. Let's not even get started on Mission Control, save-as, Rosetta, etc. It seems just to be eye-candy that they've got to offer. (It's funny that the best thing IMO in Mountain Lion, Fusion Drive, is hidden to the user!)

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This is what we poor PRO saps like us called it = dumbing down. For long Apple knows Mac has been a niche products years ago. But since they find "solace" with iDevices, that's where people comes in making a huge embrace to iOS. Apple saw that and screamed Eureka...! Look at the original iPhone when it was revealed by Steve. So freaking easy to use that even grannies can use it. Try giving a granny a Mac to use at that time... Hell no...! So for Apple to convince more people to use Macs, they need to dumb down OS X... Again, quick buck...

RSL said:

Thirdly the OS updates are so buggy. Apple can't release software with disclaimers "if you're a pro user don't update as it might destroy your production machine". Of course if your 16gb i7 2gb video ram machine is mostly for twitter/facebook, then this won't be such a problem.

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For Apple's effort of dumbing down the OS X and to merge together with iOS, they will have to match the latter's life cycle to a year or so instead of 2+ years, they have to rush out half-baked OSes like Lion and Mountain Lion by introducing more dumbed-down features for novice users to entice more people to buy Macs, while we PRO users are neglected for good. Yet again, quick buck...

Brace for more instabilities on future OS Xes boys and girls...

RSL said:

So what's happening is that a lot of users aren't going to update, and will depend on third party software. Apple is pushing away the pro users for whom stability is vital.

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Sadly Snow Leopard and other previous OSes are dying, and a lot of developers are abandoning supports for them. You can find a lot of apps on the MAS no longer supports Snow Leopard, despite Apple having MAS introduced on 10.6.6... So the next course of action - upgrade. So again, quick buck...

Update or not, it's up to you. But I'll be having 2 OSes for now and pray that my MBP doesn't crap out for another few more years...


CONCLUSION: It make sense to Apple alright... the key phrase is QUICK BUCK...!

Eithanius said:

Look at the original iPhone when it was revealed by Steve. So freaking easy to use that even grannies can use it. Try giving a granny a Mac to use at that time... Hell no...! So for Apple to convince more people to use Macs, they need to dumb down OS X... Again, quick buck...

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I'm not sure grannies are being targeted by Macs. I mean, an iPad does pretty much everything a granny can wish for. But I get your point.

I think on the one hand Apple is trying to simplify OSX, which would be commendable if they weren't coming up with half-baked attempts. On the other hand, they're trying to stay relevant with "new features", which for some of us make OSX less appealing.

Sadly, recently I've had the feeling that Apple is slipping into the dark side: profit margin seems to be becoming the most important criteria for their products, there is less and less user control of the OS, it's more important to meet management deadlines than to put out a great product, etc.

RSL said:

Sadly, recently I've had the feeling that Apple is slipping into the dark side: profit margin seems to be becoming the most important criteria for their products, there is less and less user control of the OS, it's more important to meet management deadlines than to put out a great product, etc.

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For any corporations, the higher the profit, the greedier they go... Apple is no exception... Gone are the days of "It Just Works!"...

faroZ06 said:

- You can't search for files by name anymore. WTF?

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Works fine for me and my girlfriend.


I don't see a reason not to push an update, if features are ready. Why wait? ML is so far the most stable OSX release, so I don't see a problem with it.

RSL said:

I'm not sure grannies are being targeted by Macs. I mean, an iPad does pretty much everything a granny can wish for. But I get your point.

I think on the one hand Apple is trying to simplify OSX, which would be commendable if they weren't coming up with half-baked attempts. On the other hand, they're trying to stay relevant with "new features", which for some of us make OSX less appealing.

Sadly, recently I've had the feeling that Apple is slipping into the dark side: profit margin seems to be becoming the most important criteria for their products, there is less and less user control of the OS, it's more important to meet management deadlines than to put out a great product, etc.

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I have no argument with this statement. After all, the current generation is FAR simpler than any previous generation could have aspired to be.

It’s to bad Linux never worked out.

I think the end of this will be some free operating system that is universally accepted and that vendors make apps. for.

Steve Jobs showed us the way with the it just works ethos...

Hopefully computing will be an evolution and not a devolution.

OS X was designed for rapid advancement. There's little reason to wait longer than necessary. An 18 month cycle isn't bad for an OS release and now with OTA updates it's easier and cheaper now for people to upgrade.

People can get nostalgic all they want about Snow Leopard (which I liked as well) but the facts are Mountain Lion is a more sophisticated OS. Features like iCloud and Core Storage are creating new ways of leveraging the OS and dealing with synchronization & security (encryption).

I would prefer to have the OS updates on an accelerated path and not view OS updates from the lens of what they "used" to be but rather what they "can" be in the future.

T'hain Esh Kelch said:

Works fine for me and my girlfriend.


I don't see a reason not to push an update, if features are ready. Why wait? ML is so far the most stable OSX release, so I don't see a problem with it.

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CMD+F in Finder gives you the search thing. It doesn't have the option to search by "file name" like in SL, only by "contents".

nuckinfutz said:

I would prefer to have the OS updates on an accelerated path and not view OS updates from the lens of what they "used" to be but rather what they "can" be in the future.

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I totally agree.

Problem is, the OS updates are so buggy you end up feeling like a guinea pig when using it, not to mention the risk of compromising the stability and productivity of your work machine.

Fork out $30 for Lion. Oops, bad move. Just fork out another $30 to have the bugs fixed in ML. Oops major battery loss, kernel panics, time machine corrupt, etc. By the time (hopefully) the bugs are fixed a new OS is released and the same circus can repeat itself. It never ends. A lot of us have lost trust.

Smaller more frequent releases means that new features can ship sooner.

Just because an OS has been released, it DOES NOT mean you need to install it on day 1.

faroZ06 said:

CMD+F in Finder gives you the search thing. It doesn't have the option to search by "file name" like in SL, only by "contents".

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Ah, we always use Spotlight for all our seaches, since it is so powerfull.

Large additional features aren't added with 10.x.x releases. Apple doesn't want to wait years to introduce features that users could benefit from now. These features also can make their other products like the iPhone and iPad more desirable as they interact with them. This means they could benefit from increased sales in their other devices. New OS many times means new hardware for users too which boosts their sales.

They don't want to be dropping OS updates every 5 years like Microsoft has done which has put them far behind the times.

Why do they release new model cars every year rather than waiting a couple years in between for larger updates than just small face lifts and small engine tweaks.

T'hain Esh Kelch said:

Ah, we always use Spotlight for all our seaches, since it is so powerfull.

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I think they're the same thing. Spotlight also searches by contents, not name.