Apple Making It Harder to Avoid Nagging macOS Update Notifications

[techwhiz]

I know a lot of Mac users who need to stay on Mojave because of the hardware/software they are using. Often very expensive hardware. I bet some will be tricked now into installing Catalina. Going back to Mojave is not an easy task for less savy Mac users. I think this is a very bad move which will lead to a lot of cursing.

In my opinion it's time for a boring LTS (long term support) branch of macOS that breaks less stuff. I really don't care so much for all the fancy features Apple has been working on the last couple of years (Handoff, Continuity, Siri). What I need is rock solid OS with a decent Mail client and Photos management sofware. It would also be nice if the built in apps would not randlomly delete my file between updates.

Rule number one of OS and application development; new features mean nothing if it isn't stable.
That is similar to a doctor's oath of first doing no harm.

I bought a MacPro 2013 and immediately let it upgrade. DOH!!!!!!
The pain in rolling back to Mojave because my AVID software did not support Catalina...
I always stay a Major release of OS behind. I let all everyone else alpha and beta the OS until the next major release, then I move.

In the case of Mojave; I will not be moving until I find a replacement for lots of software.
But there is hope. I read an article that shows you can run Mojave in a VM.
I already run CentOS in a VM.
What's one more VM on my server......

 

[jchap]

Dear Apple,

MacOS has been on a steady decline for several years. The amount of bugs that cause work-stoppage (or even work-loss in some cases) has become too risky for me and my business. For that reason, I have remained on High Sierra and all of my Macs are on High Sierra today.

Apple is very likely not going to read this here. Send it to them directly.
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If I had known beforehand how horrible Catalina was going to be on my Mac, I would not have updated. Catalina has a terrible experience. In the 10+ years I've had a Mac I've never had a software update cause this many issues. I can no longer edit my large audiobook collection because it's on Apple Books and it no longer allows me to edit metadata. The worst is I can also no longer bring my Mac when I travel for work because the captive network assistant is broken. The pop up for hotel/public wifi doesn't show up unless I boot in safe mode. It's really annoying and there is still no software update that has fixed this.

These are good, specific comments. I didn't know about the metadata thing with Apple Books.
Have you sent these comments to Apple?

 

[LizKat]

But doesn’t launching It require a confirmation and password? That’s pretty intentional.

You mean when it finishes downloading? I mainly don't even want it to download, it's huge.

(Anyway even if I did want to run the thing there are certainly a lot of things I'd want to do first like make a bootable copy of the upgrade, to have made backups, a fresh clone, prepare drive for clean install. etc)

 

[MacBH928]

bad software and enforcing users to corporate wishes, Apple is turning into another Microsoft, and this is why 2024 will be like 1984.

Thanks Tim Apple

 

[zoozx]

Old Apple would never do this and a million other awful things it has done recently.
Now there is very little difference between Apple and Microsoft which is very sad.

 

[Partron22]

I'll be skipping this security update. I do not want or need Catalina. Apple's "more info" page on the update includes nothing enticing, just a demand that I install it. We deserve better service than this from Apple.

 

[topdrawer]

what gets me is that they have a "check for updates" option but they disregard your option anyway. it's like when my partner asks me if i want to go somewhere, i know i'm gonna go somewhere regardless of my choice.

 

[foodandart]

I think the community was pretty well accepting of Windows 10 doing this.

No all of us, hence my Win 10 gaming PC stays offline as I mostly play standalone games. (No Steam or the like) - the ethernet cable is literally unplugged - until I choose the time to update.. usually after reading through various forums on the issues. As it is, I'll take updates for the Nvidia card and that's about it. I just grab the unstaller packages with my Mac and move them onto the PC with a USB stick. A bit of a roundabout way to do things, but it's MY computer, not Bill Gates.
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I'll be skipping this security update. I do not want or need Catalina. Apple's "more info" page on the update includes nothing enticing, just a demand that I install it. We deserve better service than this from Apple.

I think Lulu can be set to block updates. The first time I installed it, it popped up a TON of web traffic to and from apple that has ****-all to do with any browsing or online work I was doing. Blocked all of it.

 

[moovyphreak]

Hilariously, my 2008 Mac Pro is telling me evey day to upgrade to Catalina despite it definitely not being able to handle it. I can only imagine the carnage if i said yes.

Actually, you can likely download the incompatible update and it may even stage itself before informing you that your system isn’t compatible.

 

[Timothy Leo Crowley]

Thanks apple. It's a good thing to stay up to date. People love to complain, but for most users, this is a no brainer. Catalina works great on all my systems. Thank you for all your hard work. Keep it up

 

[Mr. Dee]

Don't be like Microsoft here Apple. I'm going to skip Catalina purposely (that's on Apple and its condition), hopefully the next major version is in better shape...definitely makes me wonder if yearly is too often a release rate for major Mac OS versions (look at that Catalina bug that prevents bootable disk images from being made that just went out in the last update for it).



You forgot the /s there. LOL



Just brought my Cheese Grater Mac Pro up to Mojave this afternoon...will delay the inevitable one more year on it. Water seems fine so far.

Just a heads up, the certs in the older installers (Mojave included) expired at some point, so they won't run anymore without erroring out (I'd grabbed the last main release of Mojave long ago) and it fails. You have to download them again via direct links in the App Store (can't look them up in the App Store!!???), here's an article with links to them through Sierra versions:

How to Fix “application is damaged, can’t be used to install macOS” Errors

If you have attempted to use a MacOS installer application recently, you may discover an error message stating something like “This copy of the Install macOS Mojave.app application is damaged…

osxdaily.com

I remember getting that error when I was upgrading from 10.12 to 10.13. I had kept a copy of the 10.13 on my external drive, what I ended up doing was changing the date and time temporarily at the time I downloaded it then it worked.

 

[russell_314]

To me it does. Also to my work computer I can choose when I install updates.

It will notify you that updates are available but unless you then click on something to pause the update it will automatically install. Then it will say Windows needs to restart. If you happen to be at your desk and notice the a pop up then you can delay this restart. If not or if you're in the middle of a full screen PVP game you'll be sitting at your computer cursing when it automatically restarts. If your version of Windows is doing something different it means someone did the group policy change as a user posted above or some other workaround. There is no setting in Windows update that will tell it not to automatically install updates. The best you get is a notification before restarting and pausing updates. Trust me people have been complaining about this for a while. I was to the point where I just accepted it as how it was going to be but it looks like there is at least one workaround.

 

[Shirasaki]

Where is that option ?

That’s an option to control windows update service. Turning it into disabled could help preventing windows 10 from downloading and installing updates automatically. Works on almost all windows 10 SKU, including Windows 10 home.

 

[return2sendai]

Nope.

 

[Shirasaki]

Maybe Apple could offer a $50 Amazon gift card for upgrading, they might find more takers.

Sounds cool: pay customer to upgrade.
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You cannot defer any updates on Windows 10 Home. On Pro and above, you can defer Windows feature updates for 90 days but you can only defer security updates for 30.

Group policy in windows 10 pro/enterprise/education/LTSB can turn off windows update effectively, preventing user from even checking windows update.

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

I did a deep dive into this if anyone is interested.

10.15.5 & 2020-003 Updates = Changes to softwareupdate --ignore

If you use softwareupdate --ignore to block Major OS releases like Catalina or security updates, you better take a look at the changes in 10.15.5 & 2020-003

mrmacintosh.com

 

[Shirasaki]

Apple becomes more and more (Mac) user hostile. Screwing people over with a security update? What a joke.

Do Apple execs still use their own OS? I don’t believe so.

It’s just another sign of the iOSification of macOS. After QuickTime X, the Airport Utility, Photos, Disk Utility redesign, the Mac App Store (redesign), the horrible new Music, TV and Podcast apps this is just another example of Apple wanting to lock down macOS to a consumer OS. They slowly push away everybody who started using the Mac as a professional over the last 15 years, because people actually thought Apple had the guts to build a productivity OS.

These kind of changes are gonna hurt sales. I’m definitely not gonna upgrade until Apple commits more to the Mac for at least a year.

The sad part is, kids don’t care about everything we care about: software stability, backward compatibility, usability over fancy eye candies, and most importantly, a tool that “just works”. They care about fancy emojis, new and function reduced software to play around their face with, and so on. What Apple want are Selling products to those kids cause they lead to the next generation of macOS (or the end of it), iOS, watchOS etc. . It almost feels like anyone older than 20 years old is not Apple’s target audience. /s
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Correct. Apple will not hinder it's OS to maintain compatibility with outdated software. This is one of the reasons Windows is such a mess.

Despite such aggressive “clean cut” strategy, macOS seems to have a fair share of its own bugs and security issues. Wonder what’s going on here.
If Apple don’t care professional market, just abandon them. Easy.

 

[canesalato]

I did a deep dive into this if anyone is interested.

10.15.5 & 2020-003 Updates = Changes to softwareupdate --ignore

If you use softwareupdate --ignore to block Major OS releases like Catalina or security updates, you better take a look at the changes in 10.15.5 & 2020-003

mrmacintosh.com

Wow...what a nice job! Thanks for sharing, I'll be reading your blog.
You made a very good point in highlighting another difference between Windows and MacOS. On MacOS, if an update screws things up, going back to a previous version is a tedious process that requires a format (the ability to restore from a snapshot has been recently removed. Gross...I didn't know!). On Windows, if there is a problems with an update, you can easily revert to the previous version in a few clicks.

 

[c.o.d.]

Thats a dick move. I had to go back to Sierra because High Sierra made many of my applications crashing or not running at all. What is more, after High Sierra was installed my printer stopped working properly (freezing printing queue after 2 pages). I cannot imagine a situation where system decides to make an upgrade and crash my whole workflow - just because.

 

[Minimum91]

Is there a command for disabling the app store update notifications, badge and pop up?

Not that I know of, no

 

[jezbd1997]

He used to use Macs exclusively for live shows. Did that change?
View attachment 919423

Yeah he still uses Macs for live shows (even his shows over stream) but was talking his general daily streaming while he’s doing music and show production.

 

[motulist]

MacOS had been getting progressively worse for YEARS. Since at least whatever version it was that ruined spotlight, each version of MacOS had been worse and worse.

 

[Rodb1782]

With the release of macOS Catalina 10.15.5 and related security updates for macOS Mojave and High Sierra earlier this week, Apple is making it more difficult for users to ignore available software updates and remain on their current operating system versions.

Included in the release notes for macOS Catalina 10.15.5 is the following:For users still running an earlier major macOS version like Mojave or High Sierra, the Software Update pane in System Preferences typically displays a prominent upgrade button for Catalina and a notification badge on the System Preferences icon in the Dock, but until now knowledgeable users have been able to hide those items by using the softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina" command in the Terminal app.

After updating to macOS 10.15.5 or Security Update 2020-003, this command no longer works, with Terminal displaying the following message:As documented in a discussion thread in our forums, there are some additional commands that can be used to temporarily remove the notifications, but it's clear Apple wants as many users as possible to upgrade their Macs with all of the most recent operating system updates.

Article Link: Apple Making It Harder to Avoid Nagging macOS Update Notifications

When Catalina came out it destroyed my Mac. After using mackeeper & other online services nothing help. Resetting to previous didn’t work because mackeeper and the other kept it from working. After a year on my own I decided to restore to it’s original state CAPITAN, the update to Sierra, high Sierra, and now Mojave. It works just like new but without mackeeper and other apps. I REFUSE TO UPGRADE TO CATALINA (.)

 

[entropi]

I wonder what ARM mac OS X and hardware will bring to all this, even more sandboxing, forced updates, glue, soldering + no 3,5 mm headphone jack? Then: rent-to-own - "everything" as a "service" and everything in iCloud only...

Well well, I already started the transition from "user" to "owner", so let's see where it all goes.

 

[tonmischa]

I hate it when Apple treats their customers as children...
"please update", "come on please update", "I told you. do the update", "for the last time update now", "update or else..."