Exactly WHY can't I update Safari in Mavericks?

[California]

My Macs are 2011 and 2012 respectively. I had to downgrade my dual bootable HDs in my mac mini from El Capitan to Mavericks because of I was UNABLE TO SEARCH my mac mail or anything else in El Capitan.

I also downgraded because Photos sucks, I like iPhoto much better, it is much more editable and user friendly.

So what's the actual reason I can't upgrade Safari in Mavericks? I don't need bells and whistles from El Capitan or anything above that.

Plus, why should I take MY TIME to learn a new OS if I don't feel like it?

Apple is supposed to be about MY PRODUCTIVITY, not their need to upgrade every minute. And I don't have the time to even be writing this thread, much less learn a new OS every year.

What exactly is preventing me from upgrading Safari on Mavericks? I don't get it. It works, it's stable for me and much more productive than any other OS.

 

[redheeler]

Apple stops supporting older OSes after a certain period of time, and has always done so. Mavericks was released in October 2013 which is more than four years ago, and was succeeded more than three years ago by OS X Yosemite. Since OS X Lion the support period has been three years (or two succeeding versions), meaning the last Safari update for OS X Mavericks was in 2016. Even OS X El Capitan will likely be dropped this year, unless Apple decided to extend support for the Macs that are officially stuck and can't run anything newer.

I agree the support for older versions of MacOS should last one or two years longer than it currently does, and the lack of support for OS X Mountain Lion had prompted me to start running Linux on my Late 2006 iMac (it cannot run a newer version such as El Capitan with reasonable performance, otherwise I would be fine with going that route). But if you want to stay using OS X Mavericks, you can still use the latest versions of alternative browsers, just not Safari.

I also downgraded because Photos sucks, I like iPhoto much better, it is much more editable and user friendly.

You can still use iPhoto in later versions of MacOS, even High Sierra, if you have the last update that Apple released. Can't comment on being unable to search in the Mail app, as that is not an issue I have experienced.

 

[BrianBaughn]

The precise, technical reason? I'm not sure anyone here could say. There hasn't been any kind of update for Mavericks since March 2017 (iTunes) and the last update for Safari was 9.1.3 in September 2016. The last security update for Mavericks was in July 2016.

At some point Apple just stops trying to retrofit software changes into old versions of macOS.

 

[Xde]

I imagine, Apple is changing very much the core system in order to support new features in some apps.
Actual example is Apple Pay. The software modifications are in the underlying system and not only
in Safari for example.
This should be the reason, that newer app versions often cannot run in an older OS, they would miss something in the core system, and would probably crash.

Sincerly, I hate this kind of software evolution, too.
My Win7 computer gets still updates and rollups.
I would like much more a lightwight core system that consists long, and features that would come as optional installs, so that everyone could decide to install..

 

[California]

What really died with Steve Jobs was the idea that Apple was made for OUR productivity, not APPLE's bottom-line. I could care less about the latest bells and whistles, they do not make us any more productive. Apple Watch? How is that making me more productive? Just another radiation-producing device too close to my body...

 

[Xde]

BTW: Recently I found in google "Leopard webkit". It seems, that some people trying to build a new (actual)
webkit version for the old Leopard Safari app.
Would be interesting, if this is possible for Mavericks, too.