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Snow Leopard Security Update Kills PowerPC Apps Using Rosetta

*LTD* said:
Then be prepared to deal with the consequences. Snow Leopard is now a superseded OS.
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By something that mimics its namesake perfectly, lazy slow and unresponsive? Compared to a Snow Leopard which is agile, fast and stealth like.

Great evolution LTD
 
KnightWRX said:
Yes, that's what Quality Control departments (or Quality Assurance, Q&A) departments are for, and that's what Regression tests attempt to find for developers to fix before code ships out to production systems.

It's not unreasonable to ask Apple Q&A to have proper regressions in place for supported components of the system. They haven't announced EoS for Snow Leopard yet and Snow Leopard contains Rosetta.
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There's approximately 0 software companies in the world that achieve this level of perfection. I doubt Apple has regression tests for every single feature in their OS, for all possible edge cases. That's a pipe dream.

The closest you'll get to that level of perfection are the heavily regulated software industries like avionics software, where even the possibility of a safety impacting bug can never be tolerated. The downside to that model of software development is that it costs an absolute fortune and develops at a snail's pace.
 
WestonHarvey1 said:
There's approximately 0 software companies in the world that achieve this level of perfection. I doubt Apple has regression tests for every single feature in their OS, for all possible edge cases. That's a pipe dream.
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Sure, but there's a difference between minor bugs and major show stoppers.

No one is asking for perfection, but shipping show stoppers is a big no-no in the industry. That's why they're called "show stoppers".
 
pubwvj said:
This is a tragedy. Apple is destroying the wealth of data and applications that came before. The modern computers have the hardware processing capacity to continue emulating PPC, 68K, OS9, etc. Even the oldest iPhone or iPodTouch has the power to handle this in emulation. There are a tremendous number of applications for those in the educational and small business fields as well as games. These were never ported to OSX or iOS. Apple should work hard to support this older software. It would expand their market and benefit consumers.
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Then, they would be like Microsoft… supporting ancient apps (Windows 1.0 apps) on Windows 7…


*LTD* said:
LOL. This. That is exactly what's going on.

It's Rosetta. Probably not too high on the list of critical features.

This isn't even an OS issue. The issue is with users not upgrading their ancient software.
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Exactly… AppleWorks? Move to iWork… It can import AppleWorks documents…
I was worried about upgrading to Lion… after looking through System Profiler, I realized that basically all my PPC apps either where replaceable, or unused…

I don't think Apple even tested Rosetta… All the apps either have Universal versions, or have replacements…
 
*LTD* said:
Time to upgrade, folks.
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I already did. My Mac mini is running OS X 10.7 Lion.

However, I still have 10.6 Snow Leopard on an alternate startup drive solely for running Quicken once or twice a week. After applying the January 2012 security update, Quicken now crashes when I go to the File menu and try to open another data file.

My current workaround is to double-click the Quicken data file in Finder so I can limp along and do my tasks.

This is a showstopper and it never should have made it past QA.
 
pubwvj said:
This is a tragedy. Apple is destroying the wealth of data and applications that came before. The modern computers have the hardware processing capacity to continue emulating PPC, 68K, OS9, etc. Even the oldest iPhone or iPodTouch has the power to handle this in emulation. There are a tremendous number of applications for those in the educational and small business fields as well as games. These were never ported to OSX or iOS. Apple should work hard to support this older software. It would expand their market and benefit consumers.
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What PPC apps are people still running that can't be upgraded (serious question, not meant to be sarcastic)?

It seems to me that all main stream consumer apps have a Lion compatible version (e.g. Office). Also, if you're hardware-limited, can't install Lion, and absolutely must use a program (e.g. business apps) it's time to buy new hardware and migrate to newer software anyways. Maybe there are some scenarios I'm missing.
 
Thanks for killing Quicken 2007

It's bad enough that Intuit is hosing Mac users, but now I can't import or export anything within Quicken 2007 because of an APPLE update??????? Not even giving Intuit a chance to come out with their patch in the Spring so it will work on Lion? I can't even export the info over to another software program without Quicken crashing. Thank goodness I hadn't done the security update on my laptop yet.
 
min_t said:
Apple should just draw a line in the sand, already. Any powerPC software will no longer be supported. I don't want to see them follow Redmond's policy of supporting all legacy apps. Stay nimble.
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They already dropped support in Lion, so they are "staying nimble."

The problem is that they broke support in a minor security update, which shouldn't happen.
 
finkmacunix said:
Then, they would be like Microsoft… supporting ancient apps (Windows 1.0 apps) on Windows 7…




Exactly… AppleWorks? Move to iWork… It can import AppleWorks documents…
I was worried about upgrading to Lion… after looking through System Profiler, I realized that basically all my PPC apps either where replaceable, or unused…

I don't think Apple even tested Rosetta… All the apps either have Universal versions, or have replacements…
Click to expand...

No, they would be like any company, that understand's it's better to not release updates that break functionality and call it an "update". Of course, Apple's "updates" usually work in this manner; this update, Final Cut Pro -> FCPX, iMovie HD -> iMovie 08 (I think)...
 
finkmacunix said:
Then, they would be like Microsoft… supporting ancient apps (Windows 1.0 apps) on Windows 7…
Click to expand...

NTVDM is not so competant, and Microsoft dropped support for Win16 and other 16 bit sub-systems in WOW for 64 bit versions of Windows a long time ago.
 
pdjudd said:
Indeed. See migrating from Windows XP to 7 - lots of manual work. Heck, I was forced into manual conversion of tons and tons of Quark files to migrate them to InDesign. We are trying to figure out migrating tons of Act contact files from an obsolete version of Act into a centralized CRM system. Both of these things require tons of work to do and we are a decent sized company. The older your products are, the tougher things are to accomplish these things. Sometimes the only path is manual conversion. It stinks, but thats how things are sometimes.
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ACT 6.0 which is ancient still runs on Windows 7 btw. Your problem your problems are from your change of software versions and not the OS.
 
This is bad, but hopefully they'll fix it.

Of course if you rely on, or even just really like any PPC apps this is why up to date back-ups (and preferably full system ones not just your files) are always a good idea... you never know who's going to mess up or when - all you can do is try to make sure it's not you!
 
WestonHarvey1 said:
There's approximately 0 crappy software companies in the world that achieve this level of perfection. I doubt Apple has regression tests for every single feature in their OS, for all possible edge cases. That's a pipe dream.
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FTFY.

If it can be tested there needs to be a regression test case for it - simple as that. How else do you think Microsoft issues bazillion updates - every Tuesday for at least 3 different OS variants - without causing issues? It's the regression tests.

Point is this isn't really an edge case - this is testable functionality. PPC apps are still available and in use. If Apple had one major PPC app that had a launch test it would've been discovered and declared a show stopper.

Edge case would be someone using some obscure unpublished API in an app that is used by few. Making MS Office not work due to "Security Update" isn't. That's just carelessness.
 
The Phazer said:
Super, those of us that need security in an OS and are stuck with the fundamental insecurity of Versions can just use FileVaul... Oh, wait.

Phazer
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What, you mean if someone has physical access to a Mac which is already logged in, they can get the files on it? You don't say! 🙄

That article even specifically states there's no new exploit being used, and the software to do this costs $1,000. Not much for the average user to worry about really.
 
fxtech said:
This isn't a new thing. Apple's QC has always been atrocious, for as long as I can remember. Pretty much every single OS release and application update has broken something that I've then had to scramble to fix.

I'm glad people seem to be mostly sympathetic for people who for whatever reason still need to run PPC software. I'd expect the more common response here would be "Why are you running that old crap? Upgrade or die - that is the Apple way." Of course, that belies the fact that some of us use our computers for more than just checking the twitterz.
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All right. Updates always break something or the other. It's no big deal. But so many issues these days with Apple is the reason I posted.
 
0dev said:
That article even specifically states there's no new exploit being used, and the software to do this costs $1,000. Not much for the average user to worry about really.
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I'm sure the guy who's stolen my MacBook will be deeply against software piracy.

Phazer
 
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