Hi everyone,
When apple decided to end giving us the OS on physical media, they said that we would all be ok because they would have the code we needed at the press of a button on their app store. This has not worked well, mostly not worked. And has caused major work and financial disruption to millions of people. Personally as a tech director for a 40+ person facility, in just the last year we've lost at least 60 hours of work time due to not being able to get older OSX installs, due to bugs or refusals from apple to get the install .dgm. That translates to a lot of lost earnings.
Their older OSX versions are needed by many professionals who work in the arts for connectivity to external devices which can't be replaced due to cost, work flows and other critical reasons. If we as owners of their products try to discuss this on their forums looking for help, apple deletes the posts immediately in good dictator fashion. So it is impossible to address this issue with Apple or to other apple users on their forums since apple is afraid of dissenting opinion. That behavior from apple tells us a lot about how they feel they're allowed to treat their customers.
So there are two things that need to be addressed.
1. Collect and place all the OSX installers and updates on a server apple can not take down.
This needs to happen so people can access what they need until apple fixes their broken app store links to older OSX installs.
2. Start a campaign to get users to demand access to the installers in the following fashion: A user should be able to: a. Search and find all OSX installers on the app store. b. Download a full install of any OSX regardless of operation system they are using to browse the app store. c. Users should not have to be required to have formally bought or downloaded the OSX version, since ALL osx versions of recent have been free.
If we can eventually get to item 2, then the art world will be able to use our peripherals long enough until we can earn the money to replace them with future technology. Something we all probably want, but can't just do since we're not a Tim Cook Billionaire.
Would anyone like to help with this? If we can get #1 started I can do PR releases to all the mags, but we need some momentum first.
When apple decided to end giving us the OS on physical media, they said that we would all be ok because they would have the code we needed at the press of a button on their app store. This has not worked well, mostly not worked. And has caused major work and financial disruption to millions of people. Personally as a tech director for a 40+ person facility, in just the last year we've lost at least 60 hours of work time due to not being able to get older OSX installs, due to bugs or refusals from apple to get the install .dgm. That translates to a lot of lost earnings.
Their older OSX versions are needed by many professionals who work in the arts for connectivity to external devices which can't be replaced due to cost, work flows and other critical reasons. If we as owners of their products try to discuss this on their forums looking for help, apple deletes the posts immediately in good dictator fashion. So it is impossible to address this issue with Apple or to other apple users on their forums since apple is afraid of dissenting opinion. That behavior from apple tells us a lot about how they feel they're allowed to treat their customers.
So there are two things that need to be addressed.
1. Collect and place all the OSX installers and updates on a server apple can not take down.
This needs to happen so people can access what they need until apple fixes their broken app store links to older OSX installs.
2. Start a campaign to get users to demand access to the installers in the following fashion: A user should be able to: a. Search and find all OSX installers on the app store. b. Download a full install of any OSX regardless of operation system they are using to browse the app store. c. Users should not have to be required to have formally bought or downloaded the OSX version, since ALL osx versions of recent have been free.
If we can eventually get to item 2, then the art world will be able to use our peripherals long enough until we can earn the money to replace them with future technology. Something we all probably want, but can't just do since we're not a Tim Cook Billionaire.
Would anyone like to help with this? If we can get #1 started I can do PR releases to all the mags, but we need some momentum first.
