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Apple is in the moneymaking business, not helping the customer business. Anything that could drive people to move to its own apps, re-purchase newly "compatible" apps - is in Apple's interest. Not to keep people using paid for apps for a long time. I am even surprised Apple allows for app "purchases", I was thinking they would go subscription everything everywhere, billed monthly.
 
No. Apple has NOT done this for decades.

Do you have any idea how much work Apple put into making 68x00 binaries just work on PowerPC? And do you remember how incredibly seamless that transition was? Stuff JUST WORKED. You didn't even know it was a 68k binary running on your Mac in 1998.

The Mac OS 9 to 10 transition was a pain, but Classic worked beautifully until Apple killed it in 2007. That's right, over 20 years of backwards compatibility for some apps, all the way up until 10 years ago with 10.5.

So yeah, a decade of this is what we've had to endure.

Windows has so much trouble because they use a monolithic database known as the Registry to store a LOT of things that shouldn't be stored in the same database. It was a horrible mistake, a workaround for limitations of their previous versions, and they never saw fit to stop using it for new things. If M$ had decided to contain that mess before XP, they'd have solved a lot of problems, if they'd decided to contain it before 7, they'd still be better off. But no, it's still used in 10.
You're right, but it isn't as bad as you paint it on the Windows side. The registry (may it burn in hell) is being marginalized in Windows 10 with the UWP API. All new UWP and older Win32 API apps converted to UWP, are sandboxed and never touch the registry. It's going to be long and boring process, but apps on Windows are being pushed into an API which does not allow access to the registry.

So it's bad, but slowly improving.
 
They shouldn't be treating macOS in the same way, unless it's just limitations on the Mac App Store.
 
"The developer of this app need to update it ..." WTF is this message? What should I do as a user? I just want my app, I don't want to contact any developer, Apple should do it. What a non-sense message from Apple to the user.
 
I still don't understand. You introduce an artificial fork by referring me as being worthy of only these alien OS versions when all that's required is for Apple to do the decent and correct thing? Again, just what the heck has Windows got to do with the Apple OS discussion?
Apple isn't going to do what you consider to be the "decent and correct thing", so good luck.
 
Do we get our money back for our old apps that don't run ?


Yeah Apple step to the plate and do the right thing. I have an old version of MS Word on floppy disk that I would like refunded as well. It cost a ton more than any of these old apps, and none of the current operating systems will run it. Heck, I can't seem to find any of the current hardware that has a floppy disk drive. What's up with that??
 
I can't think of any legacy apps i remotely care about anymore. I use the latest adobe and apple apps as well as various media conversion apps all of which are regularly updated.
 
Anyone else find it annoying how quickly Apple obsoletes older software on their platforms?

Even annoying-as-hell Windows can often run 20 year old binaries. TWO DECADES ago.

Right now the oldest binaries MacOS can run are from the PowerPC -> Intel switch era, circa 2006. Whatever macOS comes after High Sierra will probably obsolete 32 bit x86 binaries, which will pull the date even more forward.

They don't seem to care about preserving the functionality of legacy software. Some apps will never be updated because the developers no longer care about it, went out of business, etc... This software is lost to time. This is even MORE the case on iOS where you can't even GET the software anymore. At least on macOS you can keep archives of old apps around.
Being able to keep your apps in iTunes aside I agree.

Some years ago you could argue that macOS is so much more stable and it might result from keeping its support so limited, however Windows has matured a lot over the years and that WITH being able to run applications that are decades old.

I can KIND of live with this strategy on iOS which is a toy OS anyways for me, but on macOS where I run applications to get stuff done I don't want to worry about Apple throwing a hissy fit about a blown up installation size and all that.

My Mac has a 1TB system partition, 32GB of RAM, short story: don't care at all about having the 32bit frameworks still loading.

CHOICE is key, because sometimes your customers DO know better due to specific use cases.

Glassed Silver:win
 
A 99 cent app, sure. A $200 Office Suite? Not so much. $100 Graphic editor? Again, different expectations. (Talking Mac software).
Seoras is blissfully unaware that this is a macOS thread not iOS. ;) I use some small tools like AppCleaner, CheatSheet, etc that I'm guessing aren't 64bit. Is there a quick way of checking?
 
I guess I'd take the bellyaching here in stride. Some people even got worked up when Apple dropped 1880s headphone jack design from the iPhone.

On the one hand, people get upset when their 15-year old app might not be accommodated in a future version of MacOS, and at the same time, others (maybe some of the same people) complain that the latest hardware updates aren't specced to incorporate every last emerging bell and whistle, while also using an entirely modular design so that they can swap out for new components every couple of weeks. For some reason, there's an expectation out there that their computer is supposed to be a rolling archive of the history of technology, while also operating flawlessly and securely at the fastest possible speed.

Personally, I'm disappointed that my new MBP doesn't have a built-in paper tape reader.
 
Pretty glad I already switched to Windows a few months ago. It's actually a bonus because it runs better than Mac OS ever did, and I have a Mac Mini.

Microsoft managed to keep Windows snappy and stable with strong legacy support. I'm sure Apple could have figured it out too.
 
I'm digging the 64-bit only transition, I don't understand all the hate.

I don't understand the hate either. This is a great move. I can't grasp how people have become so technologically illiterate that they don't realize legacy apps can't be supported forever.
 
You also won't get security updates, you won't be able to Safari and iTunes and Pages and Numbers to the current version.
Which is exactly why I wouldn't want to run CS4 in the first place, I get chills in my bones when I think about when it was updated the last time.

I'm just a bit confused when I hear people praise the backwards compatibility of Windows. It has required a **** load of work from Microsoft to stay compatible during the years. Those resources could have been used for something useful instead.
 
Sure is a lot of hate for something that's going to happen to the successor of the OS that was just ANNOUNCED. By the time its phased out, it'll probably be 2 years from now.

Everyone saying how its Apple being lazy... at some point you cut off support. That's it. At some point it doesn't make sense technically or financially. People were bitching how OSX/macOS was stagnating and how Apple wasn't innovating. Well here you go, this is them innovating.

I just YESTERDAY upgraded to Sierra. Up until now i've been running Yosemite. Why? Because it worked well and I didnt NEED any of the new features. Plus Apple was still releasing security updates.

Nothing is forcing you to upgrade to the OS thats at least 2 years away.
 
Yeah Apple step to the plate and do the right thing. I have an old version of MS Word on floppy disk that I would like refunded as well. It cost a ton more than any of these old apps, and none of the current operating systems will run it. Heck, I can't seem to find any of the current hardware that has a floppy disk drive. What's up with that??

I hear ya bro... I have QuarkXPress 3, which came in a huge box with a big wad of floppy disks. I'm a little steamed at Apple letting me down cuz it doesn't run on my 5K iMac. And then there's Deneba Canvas - don't get me started on that. Wah... Somebody take care of me...
 
What apple should do is automatically cross recompile the old apps to work on the new hardware. There are a lot of old apps that are excellent but will never get updated, a great many for small business, games and a huge inventory of educational applications. Nobody else will bother to write a replacement but cause the original creator was inspired and it is a small market in many cases. Yet, they are still great apps. Apple is doing this again on both iOS and MacOS. This same problem has happened before when Apple abandoned earlier MacOS versions. They are nearly a trillion dollar company. They could easily put forth the effort to bring the old apps, all the way back to the Lisa, onto the modern operating systems with recompiling. Shame on Apple for creating deadwood.

For those who think it's too hard a problem, you're wrong. I'm a programmer and have written both compilers and cross compilers. You don't need the source code. If you have the final program you can run it through a cross compiler, a just-in-time compiler or just emulate to run it on different hardware. That list is in order of efficiency and preference. This is not a hard task. Apple has done it before.

Apple should be interested in doing this is it adds value for their customers because the software you use today will run tomorrow and because it maximizes the Apple application ecosystem which Apple likes to crow about in their marketing materials, ads, etc.

With the extraordinary computing power of todays devices this is all very easy and even emulated software can run faster than it did on the original hardware.

Imagine a world where all your old books, music, photos and other documents are no longer accessible because Apple and other companies drop support.

It is time for two pieces of legislation:
1) If a company or an individual wants to release a program they must also accept that their copyright and patents end within two years of their stopping supporting the software. Same thing for hardware. In other words, shorten the protection time dramatically. This will make it so other people can pickup the product and support it if they want to as fans or as another vendor.

2) If a company is above a certain threshold, which should be very low, then they must also release the supporting documentations for source code, maintenance, etc so that other people can pick it up.

3) If a company is at the high level of Google, Microsoft, Sun, Apple and the like then they must continue to offer legacy support for a minimum of 50 years in addition to #1 and #2 above.
 
It's about time, I've had 64bit processors in my main computer since about 2003. All macs I've owned have been 64bit. There cant be that much software that is 32bit only and even if it there is a VM should be sufficient for the small number of users who need something legacy, they shouldn't hold the rest back.
 
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