Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Does macOS Force Users to Upgrade (in a Windows-esque way)?

M

MalagLagoon

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 19, 2019
158
59
I'm running Mojave on my 2015 MBP - and I constantly receive incessant notifications pestering me to upgrade my OS. There is no option that I can see to make these messages stop for good. And, I worry, that one day, I'll accidentally upgrade my OS due to the repetitive notifications. Currently, I run a script on terminal several times a day to get rid of the 'upgrade your OS' notification.

My question is this: Does it get worse if I upgrade to Catalina or Big Sur? Would I lose the ability to run my script to get rid of those, extremely annoying, notifications to upgrade my OS? Even worse, does Catalina or Big Sur force your system to randomly reboot like Windows does whenever it needs to upgrade anything? Does macOS still allow the user to return to a previous version of macOS?

I suppose it's only a matter of time before Apple's beautiful OS becomes just as crappy as a Microsoft Windows operating system. :(
 
  • Like
Reactions: CasualFanboy, -DMN- and gregohb
You can still defeat the updates relatively easily, but unless you jump through hoops you'll get ever more consistent nagging notifications from other apps that rely on the OS updates in order to install their own updates. For example "An Update to Pages is available but requires a newer version of MacOS. Update to..." every time you launch Pages, and some of these seem to bypass Apple's nagification, excuse me, notification settings pretty thoroughly. The only way I've found to successfully turn off the iWork nags, for example, is to use Profile Creator to create a custom Profile that turns that nag off for those three apps. (Very useful in education and soho settings where the OS is almost *never* up-to-date because the last thing you want in your school or small business is the 'latest and greatest' OS, which is almost always full of bugs for months or a year (or, for Catalina, apparently forever) after initial release.)

But the short answer is "no" Apple does not *yet* force updates like MS does. Like many, I expect it to happen in the future.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ouimetnick and MBAir2010
i am still on Mojave- but can't upgrade to big sur, or catalina
i can see  forcing upgrades, they do this with repairs now!

and a Dell owner i want the windows 10 upgrades
everything stays the same!
whereas every OSX fiddle frattles with my itunes library and other programs i like.

enjoy your MacBook 2015, it is a great machine!
 
Looks like Catalina and Big Sur deletes iTunes. So, what is used in place of iTunes? An added monthly fee perhaps?
 
MalagLagoon said:
Music got put on my iPhone after an upgrade - it doesn't work correctly with mp3s.
Click to expand...
i play music through the Dell XSP and foobar on the iPad from now on,
iTunes loses instruments and volume of songs during playback and cant format albums anymore.
i have been fighting with iTunes since 2013 Mavericks.
 
Fishrrman's rule on "upgrading":

DO NOT leave your Mac set to "automatically update" the OS or anything else.
TURN THIS FEATURE OFF.
It should be YOU who decides when and what to update.

And no... you DO NOT have to accept all the updates when Apple issues them, if you don't want to.
Sometimes, doing this (auto updating) will BREAK the software you're using now.

I'm not saying that you should never "update".
But think about your reasons and needs before doing so.
"Look" before you "leap".
There are many many posts here at MacRumors from folks who blindly jumped into a newer OS, started having problems, and then ask "how do I get back"? It can be quite difficult if one hasn't taken steps in advance to prepare for such an occurrence.

I deliberately run OLDER VERSIONS of the OS on my Macs.
NO PROBLEMS here with that, ever, in 34 years of Mac usage.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: CasualFanboy and tranceking26
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back