Also, given what just happened with devs in China downloading compromised copies of XCode this situation is even more idiotic.
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Apple Pulls Older Software From 'Purchased' Tab in Mac App Store
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That's where I bought my copy of Lion a while ago. Check what it says:
"What do you receive: An email with a content code for the Mac App Store."
I just checked, and it's gone from my purchase history.
Wow! They sell me a product. Then they delete the installer. Then they ask for money to sell me a re-installer? I think that may actually be illegal.
I hate posts like this. Do you not realize that some people work with Macs in a corporate or research environment, with OS X-developed software that external (and internal) customers use? And that in those types of environments, it's often important to build & provide them on a slightly older OS to make sure that everyone can use it? If we built everything on 10.10.5 what do we do with customers who are still running Mavericks? You don't get to tell your customers what they can run. Try and have some perspective beyond your own front door. Not everyone who uses a Mac is a consumer who can just upgrade to Yosemite just like that.
I was just about to upgrade our build machine from Mac OS X Server 10.8.5 to Mavericks Server and now I can't download Mavericks from my Purchased list anymore. Total b.s. move by Apple.
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I'm glad I have all my OS's / Apps. backed up. It shouldn't affect anything I do. I started with MP being on Mountain Lion. I have that installer and every single installer since then on many backups. So glad I did that.
I think there are enough use-cases to warrant keeping these available to users. Just because hardware is old doesn't mean its useless. Same with software. Say I have a graphic design business and I have aperture installed on 10-20 iMacs. My iMac crashes and I have to do I clean re-install. Now that computer can't have aperture? I also think there is validity to the "I paid for it, I should get to keep it" view.
I am not saying Apple should be required to keep everything ad infinitum, but there should be warning before users are unable to access what they've bought. I think it should be in the 5 years from end of support range before they notify users they will be losing access.
I am not saying Apple should be required to keep everything ad infinitum, but there should be warning before users are unable to access what they've bought. I think it should be in the 5 years from end of support range before they notify users they will be losing access.
Just one week after the Xcode debacle, caused by people downloading from unofficial sources, Apple blocks official downloads of their software.
And Mavericks isn't supported any more? It's not even two years old!
And Mavericks isn't supported any more? It's not even two years old!
Spoken like someone who's young/immature and never worked in a business environment before. Lots of people use older software/hardware for perfectly valid reasons. As much as Apple wants everyone to continuously throw out old stuff and keep buying their new stuff, the real world doesn't work that way.
This is quite unfortunate. I can see many uses for folks to have to re-download the, slightly, older OS's. Especially for older Mac's and for older software that can't run on newer OS's that people still need.
I can't imagine it being such a burden to store, and serve the bandwidth, for Apple that they have to stop offering it.
I can't imagine it being such a burden to store, and serve the bandwidth, for Apple that they have to stop offering it.
No, you paid for a license to use the software. That license didn't have an expiration date, etc. If they will not give access to the software, then refund my license. I paid for Lion, and ML. Mavericks, etc were free, but still.. I have some old machines that can only run Lion. My 2006 Mac Pro is a 64 bit machine, but Apple doesn't want to upgrade the EFI to 64 bit, so Lion is the last it gets.
Yes, yes I do.
I have ML on my 2011 MBP 17, which I have reverted to twice (after Mavericks and Yosemite). I also have a 2011 iMac 27" and a 2012 15" MBP (family machines) that run Yosemite, but I've been considering taking them back to ML as well (waiting to see how El Capitan runs on them).
I like ML way, way better than anything after it, and it runs beautifully and faster than both of the latter versions on my hardware.
Newer OS X versions offer me nothing I need (I don't use an iPhone), and I don't want the newer Playskool look.
This is complete and utter BS from Apple. They need to revert this ASAP. I want to keep stuff I paid for. Period.
Thankfully, I built USB sticks of my OS X installs, because I knew they were moving to this garbage policy when I could not go back to iOS 6 from iOS 7 on my iPhone 4s.
I will not trust them anymore; I'll be setting up a specific spare drive I can download and host every .dmg file of every app I purchase as soon as I can.
Torrents: the path of least resistance. And I will never apologize for it.
Considering all the rubbish that is on the Store as well as broken games. They know exactly that people still download it. This is not a technical or economic decision, it’s a strategic one.
Tell that the Chinese iOS developers who downloaded XcodeGhost. Operating systems and IDEs should not be downloaded from sources you cannot verify, ever.
To all these geniuses: my scanner doesn't work with Yosemite, and that's because HP never updated the sw. If Mavericks fails I have to change my scanner, which works perfectly. This move is SO IDIOTIC. I like Apple less and less and less and less and less.
It goes beyond "an older mac that is sluggish." Some Macs are simply banned (often artificially) from running certain software... to "protect the user experience" or something like that. And sometimes newer versions of software don't do what the user needs.
Take iWork. My 2013 and 2015 iMacs are perfectly capable of using the newest version of iWork. But guess what, in my ways Apple [expletive deleted] the bed on that software! Complex documents and some of my presentations have completely different and undesirable looks and behaviors because of changes that Apple made. So I default to documents opening in the old versions of Pages and Keynote, when necessary.
Apple has also recently gotten into the very very nasty habit of released "new and improved" versions of software that cuts out key features. Photos lost key features of Aperture. Final Cut X lost key features of FCP 7. Often Apple makes the promise of incrementally adding (some) of those features back, little by little, in future updates. Well, great, but most of us live in the now. Should those users simply un-learn their need for those features they came to rely on, or should they stick with the original software that does the job for them?
So while I do appreciate your point, the fact of the matter is there are many legitimate reasons why people use "outdated" software.
Tangentially related — in 2006 I got the first edition of the Mac Pro. It's probably the very best computer I've ever owned. It's no longer my primary machine at home, but I moved it into my lab for my students to use. When they find out they're using a 9 year old machine, they're blown away. In this case, Apple in its capriciousness decided that Lion was the end of the line for those machines, and put roadblocks in the way to prevent them from booting up in any subsequent version of OS X. Long story short, these "64-bit machines" (as they were sold to us) don't run in 64 bits while during the boot-up process, and Apple has declined to provide a 32-bit compatible EFI file from Mountain Lion on. After letting the (real) geniuses on this board and elsewhere do their thing and come up with the protocols, I've had every version of OS X installed up through Yosemite on that machine, and it's been at 100% runtime, year after year after year. (The only real issue seems to be that base model 2006 Mac Pros had a graphics card that isn't supported in later versions of OS X — but if you didn't replace that dog of a card, you're probably also not in the population too concerned about running an up-to-date OS).
So anyway, point is, Apple makes decisions about these things that do not always appear to be with the user in mind.
edited to clean up some typos caused by my furious rage.
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If you have an early Mac Pro, Lion is as far as you get to go. Of course, the machines run later versions of OS X beautifully (with a clever user-created EFI file), but that doesn't matter to Apple.
It's the height of conspicuous consumption to just "let go" of a perfectly functional setup that does what it needs to do, simply because of forced obsolescence.
The best practice will be to avoid the Mac App Store in the future whenever you can. This is unacceptable.
Apple removes movies and apps from time to time from it's store. OS software is no different. There is no promise that it will always be available to you. That is why Apple encourages people to back up their purchases.
And contrary to belief by some on here, one's purchase of a 'to use license' does not entitle one to have access to said software indefinitely.
And contrary to belief by some on here, one's purchase of a 'to use license' does not entitle one to have access to said software indefinitely.