I have a MacBook Pro (Late 2012, 13-inch, Retina) that I've been using for running the Public Beta of macOS Mojave.
I went to try to download macOS Sierra for another Mac that I wanted to get ready to sell.
Being fully aware that Sierra, being a version behind the current, I hunted for the special link that would load it in the Mac App Store. Upon clicking that link, it opened in Safari (going to an itunes.apple.com site, as per usual), and then loaded in the Mac App Store.
Half of the time, it would fail to load in the Mac App Store and throw up some kind of error about how it couldn't find the item. The other half of the time, it'd load just fine.
However upon clicking the download button, the Mac App Store would then load the new "Software Update" System Preferences pane and then throw up an error about how it couldn't find the requested update. I tried doing the same with my El Capitan download and the same with High Sierra. Same results.
What does this mean?
Does this mean that beginning with Mojave, we will no longer be able to download the installers for older versions of the macOS? Does this mean that future macOS releases will merely show up as massive delta updates removing the ability to make standalone bootable install media for them (a la iOS)? Does anyone have any insight as to the direction Apple might be heading with this?
Lack of control over what OS I can clean install on my Mac is not something I'm really okay with.
I went to try to download macOS Sierra for another Mac that I wanted to get ready to sell.
Being fully aware that Sierra, being a version behind the current, I hunted for the special link that would load it in the Mac App Store. Upon clicking that link, it opened in Safari (going to an itunes.apple.com site, as per usual), and then loaded in the Mac App Store.
Half of the time, it would fail to load in the Mac App Store and throw up some kind of error about how it couldn't find the item. The other half of the time, it'd load just fine.
However upon clicking the download button, the Mac App Store would then load the new "Software Update" System Preferences pane and then throw up an error about how it couldn't find the requested update. I tried doing the same with my El Capitan download and the same with High Sierra. Same results.
What does this mean?
Does this mean that beginning with Mojave, we will no longer be able to download the installers for older versions of the macOS? Does this mean that future macOS releases will merely show up as massive delta updates removing the ability to make standalone bootable install media for them (a la iOS)? Does anyone have any insight as to the direction Apple might be heading with this?
Lack of control over what OS I can clean install on my Mac is not something I'm really okay with.
