Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth | Hacker News Reader

Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

morrick.me

295 pointsttepasse316 comments

I still love macOS but Catalina has been the buggiest beta and release that I can recall. When we saw betas of x.1 before there were even GMs/release candidates of x.0 we knew it was going to be rushed out the door.

Even after release it's still randomly losing files. Just yesterday my purchased music downloads just disappeared. No explanation (unless I trashed and emptied them in a fugue state). They were still showing as downloaded in the Music app, but when I tried to play them I got the "File missing. Locate?" dialog, so the Music app wasn't aware of this either. They weren't stored on iCloud Drive either, just the default local music folder, so it wasn't related to the iCloud Drive bug. This was a clean installation on a fresh disk, no third party system level junk, and after the unnumbered OS update they released a while ago.

There are quite a few other bugs too. macOS is still the better alternative to Windows, but the wow factor of "It just works!" is becoming rare and bug fatigue is creeping in.

>> it's still randomly losing files.

Whoa, no. That is a huge code red for me as a creative. Especially in the music folder. I work at all crazy times of day and night, inspiration hits, and is often impossible to replace. Not alright.

A recent major Windows update deleted user documents as well. [0]

Seems like it's chaos everywhere. Maybe a conspiracy by Big Backup.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+update+deleted+docum...

I’m guessing it was a bug in the Music app, or remote deletion because of new versions/format/DRM but the Music app didn’t notify.

Or I did indeed delete them myself but can’t recall. I had no reason to.

That’s why as a creative you should be using a backup solution. With modern internet connections backing up is quick and efficient. File loss should be expected on the FS. Many things can and will go wrong one day.

A big No to that. File loss should be expected due to disk failure, but certainly not "on the file system." That's like saying data loss should be expected in a database. If your FS loses files, get a better FS.

It's not usually the FS itself losing them, but some process getting misled into deleting the wrong directory.

Having a backup still doesn't excuse Catalina for that bug.

Didn’t say it did. But doesn’t matter what OS you’re on, data might get lost at the hardware or software level.

In which case, your point was quite tangential to what was being discussed before, no?

adapting to something wrong is no progress at all but the opposite

(so what you are saying is that the backup is not buggy? ;) or having cool AI perhaps deciding when a situation is not for backup because it is a wrong situation, now that would be a cute feature, working hard developing cool ML techniques to recognise and handle elementary system f* ups!)

I got to say, my Windows 10 PC at work, with an 8 year old CPU, has been rock fucking solid.

So has my 2013 MBPr at home.

Seems to me 2013 was the real sweet-spot for MBP.

I still use mine almost every single day. It's a beast, and has been very reliable. Keyboard is WAY nicer to type on than the current generation. It's a little thicker and heavier, and lacks USB-c ports, but it's still damn fine.

Yup. Still on my pimped-out 2013 MBP. Still has plenty of horses, and the only things that have failed were a fan ((cats & cigarettes) simple replacement), and the power lead wore through.

Super reliable machine, still relevant performance-wise.

I plan on using it until it disintegrates.

Edit: I wonder if apple regret making these machines. They seem like a failure of planned obsolescence - at least, until new releases of OS X stop supporting them, which will probably be the next release, looking at the current horizon. Anyway. Totally broke the upgrade cycle for me - I have grown rather fond of my (t)rusty steed. My mother upgrades more often than I do, usually because she’s left every process open and running, and the machine is slow, and therefore she thinks she needs a new one.

I bought my mum a MacBook Pro, I honestly can't remember what year or which CPU. She told me last week she had someone put a new battery in it and an SSD to replace the spinning disk. She's still well happy with it.

It's a good point about the planned obsolescence: I've dropped this machine so many times it doesn't quite close properly, the aluminium around the top of both USB ports and the HDMI port are deformed, I've had to clean metal particles out of the MagSafe2 connector many times, I work in a metal fabrication workshop so metal particles follow me everywhere.

Six year old machine still in reasonably good condition and works fine.

I find planned obsolescence to be fascinating. First-order, it seems obviously terrible, both of the companies that (deliberately) practice it and for their hapless customers.

But second-order (and beyond), particularly from the perspective of the companies, I'm less sure what's best, or if there even is a global, objective 'best'.

Consider the most radically distant point you can imagine in 'self-supporting human group' configuration space, that's still capable of making something like a MacBook. What does it look like? How is funded/financed/supported? Is it temporary, i.e. more like a one-time project like making a movie or a video game? Or is it, somehow, a 'going concern'?

The 'going concern' attribute is one that I think is perhaps under-appreciated. One thing that companies, and other long-lived organizations, do well is in organizing people with specific expertise long-term. Think about making a computer, or a washer, or any physical product. Surely the people that make those things, that have done so for an extended period, have a huge amount of detailed knowledge, and wisdom, pertaining to making the specific things they make. What would be lost by them NOT having made the same things for so long? What would our computers, or washers, or pencils, be like if they were all produced by something more like a Kickstarter project?

Imagine another possible world where the 2013 MacBooks were just as good as in our world, but also intended to last indefinitely, perhaps more easily repairable, or made of more common or standard components somehow. Say they lasted 30 years, easily, before needing to be replaced. How is Apple different in this other world? How do they retain engineers like they do now? How do Apple's competitors do this? And, maybe most importantly, how much do MacBooks cost in this other world?

> I wonder if apple regret making these machines.

If your old products are still running fine that's only good publicity and generates word-of-mouth credibility.

my 2013MBP is still working fine and awesome. But I think 2015MBP is also fine, the keyboard is a little bit thinner but I like it anyway. It's a far cry from the following generations with throw-away keyboards.

Or was for the Air too.

The same here!

My win10 pc at work is living hell, but I’m 95% sure this is all the corporate spyware and anti malware shit my employer throws on top.

Windows 10 vanilla is probably pretty nice.

[edited to clarify the source of the problem]

It’s possible that your IT Department are idiots of course, but it’s also possible your management insist on downloading random crap from the internet, plugging in random USB drives and so, and powerless to just ban that activity, the IT dept are doing the best they can...

It’s possible that your IT Department are idiots

I wouldn't use exactly those words, more like 'not really capable', but yeah, definitely possible. Due to circumstances I can run my own machines out of IT's hands. This is a pretty large university, yet: my Linux, Windows 7 and 10 machines are what I'd call rock solid even despite aged hardware. Better spec'd machines running the same OS managed by IT seem to be riddled with random bugs and in case of Windows also slower.

I’m sure what’s left of our IT dept has the usual distribution of folks. But we have 100,000+ employees, and basically 1 policy for everyone.

I am typing this from a late-2013 MBPr. It has been rock solid until Catalina. Now it occasionally reboots while its closed and there's something going on in the system settings that tells me I need to re-log in to some services, then errors out when I click on the button to proceed and do that.

Not up to quite the usual quality, definitely.

> So has my 2013 MBPr at home.

Which operating system? This isn't about comparing hardware.

I'm on the latest MBPr and I love it; the problems are coming from Catalina.

Sorry, yeah, that's a good point. Now I'm at home I can check: High Sierra.

I usually only update when I either need to because a program I want to run doesn't support the old OS, or the OS stops receiving security updates, or if I get really bored one night.

> it’s still randomly losing files

> it is still the better alternative to Windows

I’m not sure what kind of Stockholm-syndrome it takes to put these two sentences in the same post.

This is just crazy.

Perhaps this simple illustration of a scale will help?

    BAD ---X-----Y----Z----- GOOD

Given the standard definitions of "better" and "worse", Y needs to regress substantially to put it behind X.

An operating system needs to guarantee a minimal level of stability before any other metrics even matter.

Randomly losing files is not at all acceptable and IMO puts it below that minimum. The prettiest font-rendering in the world won’t matter if your documents are gone.

A recent major Windows update deleted user documents as well. [0]

Catalina's file loss was confined to iCloud Drive during the beta, and what happened to me was in the Music app after release.

I grew up with Windows, and the recent problems with macOS are still not bad enough to make me want to go back to Microsoft.

macOS is the occasional burn, while Windows is a constant assault on multiple fronts. UI, spyware, performance, security, consistency, aesthetics, accessibility, lack of a multi-platform ecosystem (phone/tablet/TV) and bugs of its own like every other software.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+update+deleted+docum...

Most users would put "randomly loosing files" pretty far left.

Yes, but it depends on the frequency of the issue. If it’s very rare/isolated it can be tolerated. Since release I've only seen it in the iTunes/Music app so far.

And Windows updates have had that problem as well, so the whole scale just shifts.

I fully agree with the author, and I am also worried about how Apple treats its users. And I am also an abandoned Aperture user, with huge libraries full of organized albums with non-destructive edits. I still do not know what to do about that.

Having read most of the comments, I got the impression that you could correlate them with age. Younger people are all "Catalina works for me! Progress! Change is necessary! What are you whining about?!". Perhaps I can relate because I've been using computers for >25 years now, and I'd like to see a division between rapidly changing things (like my applications) and foundation-type stuff that I need to get work done (like computers and operating systems).

I don't fully agree, but the following really resonated

> Apple has more or less always said "Jump!" and users and developers have always been expected to reply, "How high?" That attitude, We know what’s best for you, was tolerable — at times even welcome — when it was crystal clear that Apple really knew what was best.

Aside from the bugs, which I'm sure will get resolved in updates, Catalina takes a lot more than it gives.

I'm in the same situation with Aperture. It's not only a problem because of the issue you describe with losing the product of my prior work, but it's not clear what the migration target would be. The most obvious alternative is Lightroom, but this would mean trading a tool I have been using happily for free for 7 years for a 20EUR/month subscription service I would have to maintain the rest of my digital life.

My current solution is just to keep a bootable Mojave volume around, but long term I don't know.

I don't use it often but on Linux I found https://www.darktable.org/ great. They also have a Mac Version. Maybe something worth looking into.

Incidentally, I am thinking about writing an Aperture export/migration tool. I want to at least preserve the album structures, ordering within albums, version grouping/selection and image metadata.

I thought about doing this as a commercial project, but it's likely I'm the only one who cares (I have a large archive of historical photos organized using Aperture).

One thing I've learned: from now on, I will organize my image archives using my own software. I am done with trusting any large company.

Try Capture One. I’m happy after Aperture-> Lightroom -> Capture 1

You can always just pirate Lightroom (LR Classic, that is—the non-cloud-dependent one). It’s not particularly difficult, and sidesteps the subscription lock-in nicely.

The article mentions that the author tried Lightroom, twice, in case the newer version was a better fit.

In my young ages I was hungry for new technology, learning and adapting the progress, experimenting. Nowadays I am for something that works and can be used for what I need. Apple is good in the first, and gives no f* about the second. Their products - including hardware - is for the young. I think I am going to accept that and 'adapt mindset' to this premise as an ultimate step of not 'resisting change'. (I already gave up on the hardware btw)

Their products - including hardware - is for the young.

I don’t think that’s it.

Once upon a time a Rolex was a serious tool for professional pilots and divers but now it’s a status symbol. It still basically tells the time but no one buys it for that.

Once upon a time a Mac...

I think there is something to this idea that Apple's products are for the young. Older folks like me learned to use computers as toolboxes of specialized tools that we could use in combination to create customized solutions to whatever we had to do. But Apple would rather sell you solutions (higher value-added) than sell you tools to make your own.

By "courageously" taking things away from users, they frustrate older users who know how to do what they want for themselves, but Apple seems to be counting on a new generation of users who never learned to do things for themselves to be just fine with letting Apple do them. I always appreciated Apple's dedication to "quality", but the quality involved in computers as "bicycles for the mind" is not the Apple of today, where "quality" is about looking young, hip, fashionable, and somewhat wealthy.

Yes I see what you mean, but that is a bigger trend than just Apple e.g. Google keeps trying to hide URLs in Chrome so you can only get around the web by clicking links and running Google searches. But Apple is definitely trying to hide the concepts of files, filesystems etc from users, that is something I find particularly annoying

Difference is, I doubt Rolex could maintain brand status if they stopped making quality watches.

Apple makes high-quality phones and tablets. Which is kind of the point.

I don't think their products are for the young.

Short answer: I'm definitely not young—I started on an Apple II in high school.

I do keep my software current and pay attention to things. I lived through 68000 -> PowerPC -> Intel, so I know how this goes.

I've been running Catalina since the late betas and haven't experienced the issues others have, other than my old Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad not working with Catalina, which is kinda annoying, since I really like the extra keys, etc. instead of the Bluetooth keyboard that came with the iMac.

Know what I did?

I submitted a bug report to Apple.

There's no doubt that Catalina (and iOS 13 for that matter) are more buggy than recent past upgrades, which is not good.

I don't think it's Apple not caring; I think they're trying to do a whole lot with overlapping groups. If the rumors are true and there's a 16-inch MacBook Pro about to come out and ARM Macs will likely become a thing in 2020, I suspect a lot of engineers are juggling multiple projects across multiple groups and this is the result.

I also switched to Zsh before I upgraded so I'd have my config all set before hand. So far, so good. And thank goodness for Homebrew and how quickly it had Catalina-compatible packages ready to go.

> I also switched to Zsh ...

Wait, how hard is it going to be to keep running Bash?

Looks I was partially right: https://tidbits.com/2019/10/21/six-reasons-why-ios-13-and-ca...

What computing products “for the old” would you recommend?

I doubt you could count me someone from the younger generation. My experience with computers started with DOS. I Have been Mac user since 2006. Catalina works fine for me. I was also Aperture user. And then Lightroom user. And now I am Capture One user.

Yeah I'm a younger generation and I believe macOS and Apple's software in general has gotten worse and worse.

I've wasted hours this week wrestling with issues in Xcode 11 and the command line tools because of bugs in Apple's code.

The bluetooth on my MBP2015 constantly drops, requiring a full restart in order to work again. Apps run slow whenever I have multiple monitors attached.

And don't get me started on the MBP2018 hardware, that damn keyboard keeps sticking.

I am not impressed with Apple's recent offerings.

Ditto. Catalina is working fine for me too. Mac user since 2006, I think the first intel chips. It's definitely not a noticable change. The only such change was the upgrade to Snow Leopard. That was a 'wow' change. This is more like a 'meh' change. I haven't tried the iPad sharing thing yet, not too excited by that either.

What I have noticed is that Apple hardware is highly inconsistent these days. I think it's a function of the Retina displays. The non retina Macbook air with such an underpowered processor sesms to work better than the current Macbook air.

OTOH the Macbook pro is seemingly working great. The 1.4GHz entry model outclasses the older generations by leaps and bounds. I have also started appreciating the touch bar, despite being a heavy vim user. The one touch shortcuts for da y to day stuff like zoom sharing desktops etc are very welcome.

I have used Macs for quite some time now, mostly as secondary machine. PowerMac G4, Quad G5, first Intel aluminum iMac, 2013 iMac (and a few others occasionally in between), and basically all the OS versions up to and including Mojave. That's where I stopped and moved away from Macs (at least for the time being). Not because they're bad but because I can't find a compelling reason to keep using it, it just steered away from what I considered a good match with my preferences and use cases. Still very much enjoy the iPhone and iPad. Just no room for the Mac.

I guess my point is something doesn't have to be "good OR bad" for some people to like it and others to dislike it. Pretty sure it can be both at the same time, depending on where you're looking from.

Just an aside, I also quit Lightroom because I don't want to be tied to a subscription. Since I have a Sony Camera, I am currently testing Capture One Express.

How does the Capture One Pro version work for you?

Author hasn't tried Catalina, and their biggest complaint appears to be that the email app allegedly has a new UI--but I don't think it does. Mail app looks the same in Catalina, doesn't it? I can't say I noticed any differences.

Either way, this is an extremely long blog post to say basically just "I don't like change, and I'm not willing to see change as a potential improvement to try to accept it".

I am the author, and I may be guilty of writing an extremely long blog post; but judging by your response, you didn't bother to read it that thoroughly. The new layout in Catalina's Mail.app is actually my smallest complaint.

I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. I don't like change when it is haphazardly imposed on a yearly basis by a company which has clearly stopped caring about Mac OS as far as management is involved.

I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented.

But hey, that's me.

So, have you tried Catalina?

He mentioned that a couple of hours before your question (and I do not know how to link to a comment):

>Hello! I am the author, and no, I haven't tried Catalina because, as I state at the very end of my article: >"Both my main Macs are really working flawlessly at the moment, and Catalina is beta-quality software that’s likely to give me headaches I don’t need right now. Who knows, maybe down the road I could acquire a cheap used Mac that can run Catalina (something like a 2014 Mac mini) and use it as a test machine. As things are now, I absolutely do not want Catalina to mess with my current setups and data."

Nobody on Hacker News reads the articles.

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments. Continuing like this will get your main account banned as well. Please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Alternative possibility: you just got old.

In all seriousness, older people are more opposed to UI and other types of change.

He is evidently NOT opposed to changes, read these quotes from him:

> I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine.

> I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented.

He is opposed to changes that 1) break things that used to work fine, 2) do not make him work better, and so on, you get the idea. If those changes make him work better, or when the advantages clearly outweigh the downsides, and when improvements are noticeable and thoughtfully implemented, then he is all in favor of those changes, i.e. not opposed to changes in general, just some changes that do not meet some criteria.

> He is opposed to changes that 1) break things that used to work fine

The arguments for building emulators into the OS are weak. A minority of users running old operating systems in VMs while the majority get a sleeker, better maintained and thus hopefully more secure OS. That is a fair tradeoff.

Pulling native 32-bit support may be 2019’s laptop-with-no-disk-drive drama.

> I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine.

This is by definition what change is. It's an improvement, and if changes didn't break things there'd never be progress and nothing would get changed.

Or he's a professional and doesn't want to waste his time beta-testing something that wasn't ready for prime time.

I don't know about you, but I value working software and it'll probably be six months before I consider dropping Mojave.

Multiple data loss bugs? Arbitrarily killing all 32-bit apps? No thanks, I'll wait.

> In all seriousness, older people are more opposed to UI and other types of change.

It's not that. We just have more experience of Change, and know that Change Without Purpose rarely provides any benefit.

I read a few paragraphs, got the same impression, and closed it, because the author admitted they're using practically none of the Apple ecosystem and therefore have already discounted the overwhelming majority of the improvements in Catalina.

It's certainly disingenuous to have a clickbait headline "Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it's worth" when it's missing "as explained by someone who doesn't use music, photos, TV, reminders, notes, or really anything else from the Apple software ecosystem".

I don't think it's disingenuous when it's a personal blog, which comes with an inherent "for my particular use case".

The problem is when that context is stripped away by aggregation sites like this one where tons of articles we read are from publishers and the expectation might be that the author did some research, tried different things, and was trying to write from a more objective or all encompassing view point.

I have the same problem with articles where the title will read like it's going to be a regular news article but instead it's a 6000 word story on the authors journey to uncover the information and how it made them feel yadda yadda. Not really the publishers fault, I'm sure their reader base knows what to expect (I know I've learned to stop clicking links to The Atlantic), but ends up misleading the potential reader from elsewhere a bit.

When this happens I think the fault is with the aggregator not allowing or enforcing proper information labelling. Not the author being disingenuous.

Maybe this is why all my posts are being downvoted, then. I obviously missed the boat on the whole "personal blog" thing. When I think of a personal blog, I think that the person is writing their personal opinion about something that they've concluded in good faith. This article, specifically, doesn't seem like it was written in good faith to me and so, as a result, comes off as nothing but complaining for the sake of complaining. I'm not asking for anyone to prevent people from complaining but I just don't think it has any value when even the complaints come from an inherently biased place that doesn't even acknowledge its bias.

I'm only saying this because I updated to Catalina without going through the betas first and I haven't had any issues whatsoever. To read something like this that is so negative about it seems like astroturfing or manipulation, especially when the only articles this website has ever posted on HN are all critical of Apple.

It's a fair take though.

macOS is a product on its own, especially if you come from the hardware pespective, wanting for instance a iMac Pro and seeing the OS that comes with it as a glorified hardware manager.

Is macOS Catalina the best OS for your machine ? Is it genuinely better than the precedent version ?

That's a question worth pondering.

macOS is a product, that includes Music, TV, Photos, and all sorts of other apps, which were a major focus of the user-facing changes in Catalina. If you don't use Music, TV, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Calendars, or any of the other software, then you're discounting 95% of what the OS provides.

The author is talking specifically about the classic layout, which appears to be missing in macOS Catalina.

Ah, I see, looks like there is a way to get the classic layout back in Catalina if you want it: https://www.macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/macos...

"change as a potential improvement" Potential? Potential only?! Really??!

I couldn’t tell from the article if the author had actually tried Catalina. I have been running the beta since day one of the beta release and the only issue is that applications have to be signed or built locally.

Apple wants macOS to be a safe walled garden like iOS and Chromebooks. I am fine with this, but I also have a very nice Linux laptop to play with.

I expect organized crime and most governments to continue hacking activities so it makes sense having my Apple devices locked down as much as possible. I avoid arbitrary web browsing on my Linux laptop and just use it for coding.

Hello! I am the author, and no, I haven't tried Catalina because, as I state at the very end of my article:

"Both my main Macs are really working flawlessly at the moment, and Catalina is beta-quality software that’s likely to give me headaches I don’t need right now. Who knows, maybe down the road I could acquire a cheap used Mac that can run Catalina (something like a 2014 Mac mini) and use it as a test machine. As things are now, I absolutely do not want Catalina to mess with my current setups and data."

I'll add — I'm in a position (work-wise) where I can't afford to risk Catalina messing with my current setups and data.

Can you give me the TLDR version of MacOS Catalina’s downsides? Apart from mail layout change of course. I tried to read your blog but it was too difficult to find the points you were making too much rant with actual points hidden here and there.

Personally for me this has been the smoothest upgrade ever! Literally no apps are broken and no data lost.

Edit: typos and clarified that I read the blog.

He is using Aperture and it is not even starting on Catalina and it is part of his work process.

>I avoid arbitrary web browsing on my Linux laptop and just use it for coding.

What makes web browsers less secure on Linux than on macOS?

Well, lack of DRM support for one. Disney+ won't work on Linux browsers.

WTF does DRM have to do with browser security?

I think OP got confused and gave an example of how allegedly browsers on Linux are more secure because there is no DRM (because DRM to an extent allows another party to control what your computer can and can not do, through an unvetted binary blob). But even then they are wrong, as DRM works on browsers running on Linux.

He's right in that Disney+ doesn't work on Linux however, as it uses Widevine L1, which isn't supported, and which I doubt will ever get supported. I personally expect Disney+ to allow L3 eventually, which is supported on Linux, as it's just software based.

Unless you're going out of your way to run your browser in a container or dedicated VM on Linux, there are substantial risks associated with browsing the web in terms of exposing all of your information in /home, which might include ssh and pgp private keys, basically everything your user can access.

But we have a number of solutions for running things in containers if you just use them. Early on firejail was popular, these days I just run nspawn containers for browser instances and bind mount in some stuff for a shared Downloads directory etc.

I can't speak to how that compares to OSX as I've never used it, but it is worth noting that the security story on Linux can range from bad to somewhat OK depending on your setup.

Edit:

In responses people seem to be completely ignoring that I already stated above in my original comment that I can't speak to how it compares to OSX. I don't know what OSX is doing for application sandboxing defaults.

I can however speak with some authority on the Linux situation. And today, if you're running firefox/chrome as your regular user as installed by apt/yum etc, without any additional sandboxing, and that user has access to secrets like ssh/gpg private keys, you're being unnecessarily reckless. And unfortunately that is basically the default way browsers are run today on most distributions

This is a major reason why the Flatpak/GNOME people have been working so hard on portals and namespaces are an integral component of the runtime. It's not just about application distribution. They're trying to close a major security hole in desktop linux as it's often used today. They want applications like the browser run in its own namespaces with just the minimum of host filesystem paths bind mounted in.

There's absolutely no reason for your browser process to have the ability to access all of your private keys, just because they happen to be under the home directory it happens to have access to, full stop.

> substantial risks associated with browsing the web in terms of exposing all of your information in /home, which might include ssh and pgp private keys, basically everything your user can access.

What are you talking about? You're saying that a random website is given unrestricted file access to everything the user can access. Can you back that up with a concrete example or a link explaining the issue or something?

All it takes is a browser exploit.

We've had plenty of browser exploits for any given browser, sandboxing the entire program a la containers is the most effective mitigation outside of running it in a dedicated vm.

All it takes is a browser exploit, in any OS.

What does the possible existence of exploits have to do with macOS being more secure than Linux? macOS can also have exploits.

I don't understand where your claim that there's a specific risk of unrestrained file access to websites comes from. In my eyes, saying that it could be true because exploits could exist nullifies everything you said.

You could apply that argument to everything: There is a substantial risk in iPhones giving websites unrestrained access to making phone calls on your behalf because all it takes is an exploit.

I think the misunderstanding here is that you did not answer the actual question, which is, what makes Linux less secure in comparison to macOS? What you mentioned applies to all OSes, and does not answer the question.

Both Chrome and Firefox have support for sandboxing on Linux. For the security conscious, there's always the Xen/Linux Qubes distribution, which is considerably more secure than MacOS.

Yes, Qubes is a good option to providing a dedicated VM per browser instance.

Relying on the browser alone for sandboxing is problematic as the dominant browsers can't really be trusted. It's best to sandbox the entire program, in addition to their internal sandboxing techniques.

How does a user "try out" Catalina, decide that its not for him and then revert back to Mojave ?

Install it on a new volume/virtual machine?

Except that that may not really tell you much. If you have a system that is working, and are worried that Catalina might make it no longer work as it did before, you don't learn a lot by installing on a new volume or virtual machine.

That's a risk inherent with any upgrade to any software. The answer is ultimately that you can't know without trying it on your system. The best thing you could do is to create a cloned backup of your drive or use time machine to restore it if it doesn't work out.

I'd hazard to say, that option is out of reach for most of the Apple user demographic. Instead most will be nagged by Apple to upgrade, upgrade and then there is no going back.

Seems like he hasn't... just read about problems.

What about all the iCloud bugs? https://tyler.io/broken/

Countering a personal anecdote with another personal anecdote. Here's another: I've been using Catalina since release on multiple Macs and haven't had any problems. I'm also an extensive user of iCloud services, Photos and Drive are very important to me and if I had any issues with either I'd probably lose my mind.

The problem is your anecdotes not equal.

One person is losing file site awful. One person finds out works isn't suprising, it just shows apple managed to release an OS which isn't buggy for every user.

"iCloud did <x> to my files" is not an anecdote. It's an assertion of software behavior. The fact that only one sample is being provided does not magically make it an anecdote. You can say the person reporting the bug is a liar, but that's not how quality assurance works in the real world.

Most likely the bug they encountered happens in a specific scenario, but regardless, "personal anecdote" or "it works for me" are not appropriate ways to respond to a bug report, let alone one about data loss.

iCloud having bugs isn't a rare occurrence.

I only have one Apple device (an iPhone), and even in that simple use case I have sync issues from time to time. It's mainly previously deleted things that appear back on the device (photos, reminders…).

Apple isn't good at this.

Why would you try it? Some of us lose money when our machines go down. Apple is supposed to represent quality, but that hasn't happened in so long that if your machine is the machine you make money on, you wait to hear what other people are encountering.

Thanks for being my beta tester!

My father feels the same, he initially started using apple because he felt his Windows machine was using too much of his time for bs. Now he just upgraded to Catalina and Photos stopped working with this Synology based library, even I, a computer nerd, have already spend an hour at the problem. We are about done. I feel that Windows 10 would be just fine for him (or maybe I can get him sold on Ubuntu). Where pictures are simply in folders and any backup program will just sync them anywhere.

My in laws are very happy on Ubuntu Mate, it looks like old Windows (after changing one setting), and the Pictures and the email app are simple and clean. It's all they do.

Photos is one reason I always end up back on windows. My photo library is windows explorer and the file system. It just works. And it’s not hidden in any weird opaque and fragile abstraction.

Every time I’ve used macOS (I’ve had three MacBooks and two iMacs) I have to fight them. And I’m not up for that.

Google Picasa for Mac (the desktop app, now discontinued), was great for that. Keep .jpgs in folders, and use picasa to search and browse on top of that. Seeing at it seems to be a 32bit app, I'll be holding on to Mojave for much longer than usual.

> Where pictures are simply in folders and any backup program will just sync them anywhere.

That's how I organize photos on Mac OS. You don't have to use the Photos app. Periodically I dump all the photos from my phone and other devices and sort them in folders by year (and sometimes sub-folders for vacations and other big events). I only use Photos to get at the pictures from my phone if I need to look at them before the dump.

How do you view them? I'm on Mac, and have found the photo viewing experience much worse than it was on windows.

Generally slower to browse and open previews.

"Photos stopped working with this Synology"

I have this too, I planned to look into it this weekend to see if there is a fix. I have moved my photos library to my synology just before upgrade to Catalina, as well having a little one, your photos exponentially increase. When I want to sync now it says it syncing, 'finishes within 3 seconds' and didn't sync at all..

I did some research, officially Apple does not recommend or support any photo Libraries on a NAS. It has to be a local APFS or HFS+ disk. Insane. My father is now pulling his 120 GB library over wifi to a local disc to see if it can be fixed. They really want you in the Apple cloud. I thinking maybe use Synologies "Moments" but apps get less than 2 stars... Meanwhile over here in Ubuntu-land I have Shotwell sitting in a nice folder structure working perfectly, simple , easy to move to something else and easy to backup.

To be fair, Windows also has a Photos app that can suck in photos into a library that's hard to find, and breaks easily .. it's just that nobody uses it.

(The Metro one, not the photo viewer in explorer)

For what its worth, Catalina has made my 2019 run slightly smother and less buggy. This might be because it reset all the preferences or its just in my head. All my "pro" audio stuff seems to work and my Apogee Groove works like before. My usb hub network port/driver would fail/crash randomly on Mojave needing a reboot but this has not happened on Catalina.

Edit: And someone else replied, the DPI/font stuff seems to be fixed as it was driving me crazy in Mojave. The upgrade is worth a try for that alone.

FWIW, many (most?) audio developers[1] are advising that folks wait to upgrade to Catalina for legitimate reasons.

[1] https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2019/9/...

I'm happy with it too. They just added Radeon RX 5700 XT drivers to the latest beta release, something I have been eagerly awaiting since the card got released.

Same here

I have too many 32bit games that will never be updated to 64bit. For the first time in 18 years, I am not going to upgrade to the latest mac os.

Apple orchestrated a much smoother transition from OS 9 to OS X and RISC to x84 than from 32bit to 64bit.

They did? 32-bit apps continued to be supported for a full decade after the hardware architecture went 64-bit.

During that entire decade, Apple issued steadily-increasing warnings to users that eventually, the 32-bit support would cease.

Seems like a smooth transition to me.

How does it count as a transition if everything just breaks? Them giving you warning doesn't make it a transition, it's just an EOL with advanced notice. A transition implies that you're moving from one working state to another, or replacing the old thing with a new one. How am I supposed to replace unmaintained/old software when there's no new 64-bit, notarized version of it?

>How am I supposed to replace unmaintained/old software

You're not supposed to. The fault lies with the developers of these apps that knew the change was coming and didn't do anything about it.

Exactly.

> How am I supposed to replace unmaintained/old software when there's no new 64-bit, notarized version of it?

You are not, and therein lies the problem that apparently some people are incapable of recognizing. It was a terrible decision, and some guy tried to justify it with "technical debt", but somehow other OSes are perfectly capable of handling it while Apple cannot. Why is that?

I do not even get the transitioning part within this context. If you are pretty sure that the software you are using will not work on Catalina, then what significance does transitioning have? Having more time saying your goodbyes to your old games (in this case), or what? 32-bit applications will not magically turn into 64-bit ones.

In any case, I think it was a silly decision to "force" the customer to pick between old vs new software, but I am sure they can afford it. People will probably forgive them for it, and then completely forget about it. New users in the future probably will not even have anything to forget (or forgive), unless they want to run "really old" software, in which case people will just boo on them, and say "times change, technologies change, you gotta adapt, man" and the like which seems to be the case today with respective to both old software and hardware.

By the time Classic and Rosetta were retired I didn't miss them because everything I cared about had gotten upgraded.

This is not true of my 32 bit apps.

For some reason people were still releasing 32 bit apps as late as this year. Maybe it was because Apple didn't warn users about this until Mojave was released, which was barely a year ago.

But why warn, why stop supporting it at all?

Because the removal of widely used things that worked fine caught on for some reason. Apple has been doing this for a while now. Jack, USB, ESC key, whatever else I cannot recall.

I am with you as far as the headpone jack and escape key, but I am more than happy to embrace the USB-C only future. The main problem is peripheral manufacturers are slow to catch on.

I wish I had my HDMI and SD card ports back though.

Um, it caught on because there isn't room for 200 ports on the side of a computer. Eventually you sometimes have to ditch old standards to move on to newer, better standards.

Btw, Apple's reportedly putting the Esc key back on the new MB Pros. And they still have an audio jack. And they still have USB.

> steadily-increasing warnings

Did they?

I only saw warnings in Mojave.

The warnings were for MacOS developers to update their codebase to support 64 bit and transition to newer APIs. Mojave's warnings were for users.

When and how did Apple start communicating those warnings for macOS?

I'm and Apple registered dev. I remember in 2016-2017 when it was announced for iOS and that was just 2-3 years ago. For macOS I think the first time I heard about it was about a year ago.

I would expect such a big deprecation to be announced at least a couple of years in advance if not more, but Apple generally does a terrible job at letting you know what will happen 2+ years down the road.

the ppc -> intel upgrade was amazing in that it was ho-hum.

There was a whole machine architecture change, and most people didn't even notice.

Yeah, they used to be really good at this. The 68k -> ppc transition was also seamless like that, old programs just ran.

Same here. It’s pretty shameful how the richest company on the planet cannot be bothered to spend a little money on supporting backward compatibility, while everybody else does just fine. Even not-for-profit Linux projects do. This decision simply cannot be justified.

It’s extremely disappointing. Apple just ensured my next machine will run Windows.

> I have too many 32bit games that will never be updated to 64bit. For the first time in 18 years, I am not going to upgrade to the latest mac os

Same here. Counter Strike Source. Shame, Valve!

I've upgraded to Catalina on my 2015 MacBook Pro the day it released (didn't run the betas), and I haven't experienced any problems.

I mostly use it for development, everything still works.

My only annoyance so far has been SideCar, it just never works the first time, I have to switch from second display to mirror, then back to second display to make it work.

Sidecar is officially supported only on 2016 and later MacBook Pros.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT210380#systemrequirements

I use a 2015 MBP too, so I'm glad to hear it does work and thanks for the workaround.

Oh that's strange, pretty sure mine is a 2015 model. (Although I would need to check).

Once it works, it's actually really great, I mainly use it for my terminal and browser debug tools. It's nice to have some extra space.

Could you double-check if it's really a 2015 and if it's early or something else, what cpu? My early 2015 shows error for Sidecar/not enabled and supposedly requires at least a Skylake CPU.

EDIT: my Q was more likely to woutr_be, where it was enabled..

My bad, it was indeed a 2016 model.

I’ll double check tonight.

I have to correct myself, I have a 2016 model. So not sure if it works on a 2015.

I have had a few weird freezes/lock-ups, which I think were related to time machine going out to lunch.

Other than that, it’s been pretty good. Battery life improvement, seems faster, etc.

> I haven’t experienced any problems

> it just never works the first time

Make up your mind. These two statements are not compatible.

They are, the first one is referring to the Catalina upgrade in general, where I haven't experienced any problems, either with the OS, or the existing software I use.

The second one is specifically referring to SideCar as an individual feature.

"why mess with Mail’s classic layout? It’s been my preferred layout since Mac OS X 10.0, and that type of layout has basically been the one I have used since I started using email more than twenty years ago"

This seems to be the heart of the post. I see the value in stable, unchanging things, but I also have to believe the designers at Apple are trying to make things better, and I think that is honorable.

> but I also have to believe the designers at Apple are trying to make things better

Except they're not trying to make things better. They're just changing things - often ignoring their own UI guidelines to do so - and introducing bugs that cause data loss at the same time.

Updates shouldn't cause data loss - especially for something as critical as email.

There is no evidence, and no reason to believe, that the UI changes in Mail are related to reports of data loss.

You are correct, updating the UI and the underlying storage mechanism are almost certainly separate things falling under a broader umbrella of "lets change up Mail instead of fixing long-standing bugs".

I would really love to see every other major release of macOS and iOS to be a bug-fix release rather than a "lets change all the things" release.

> I would really love to see every other major release of macOS and iOS to be a bug-fix release rather than a "lets change all the things" release.

Here fucking here!

From what I have seen the designers aren’t making things better but different for its own sake or dumbed down.

Mail on Catalina has no visual difference to me, but this may be because it preserved my layout. now itunes being broken up into multiple apps was more annoying

> Apple are trying to make things better, and I think that is honorable.

Unwanted help isn't help at all

I would have to think you did not read the entire article if you think that is the heart of the post.

That's the smallest thing in it.

The heart of the post is that Apperture is crucial to his current workflow and it is not starting in Catalina.

"My point is, I’ve been into technology for more than 30 years, and I feel that Apple’s software culture has become progressively more user-hostile than it used to be."

Supporting the upgrade process at an enterprise level is especially difficult. PPPC's must be created to get anything connected to the camera, mic, keyboard or screen. The walls to the rose garden of macOS are higher.

Could OS software be built like Ubuntu? With LTS in the model for 5 years? + Security patches when necessary?

"Apple Music, TV, Podcasts, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Screen Time, and Apple Watch"

Apple has, for the entirety of Mac OS X and macOS, has spent a substantial amount of time enhancing media and mobile quality of life. Catalina is no different. Take a stroll down memory lane: iTunes (was the amalgamation of the first three apps you mentioned), DVD playback, iChat, .Mac syncing, Dashboard (Widgets), Back to My Mac, MobileMe, Front Row, Photo Booth, App Store, iMovie, iPhoto, iChat, AirDrop, Messages, FaceTime, Game Center, and iCloud.

Some of the apps you mention have been getting updates for longer than just Catalina. Photos was launched in Yosemite, while Notes and Reminders launched in Mountain Lion.

I am sure we can both imagine people who were disappointed in 2007 when Apple redesigned Mail and were posting on digg about how Lion is more trouble than it's worth.

As for the lack of 32-bit support, this is really not a sticking point for customers who pay to have their applications supported. If a product is no longer being developed, why is it that you blame Apple's software update?

Oh, and another thing that isn't new: initially buggy releases of macOS

> I am sure we can both imagine people who were disappointed in 2007

Was it to the same extent that people are complaining about MacOS Catalina though? This is the first update that I don't like, and it's because of the lack of 32-bit support. Being forewarned about 32-bit going away doesn't make my 32-bit applications run on Catalina.

> Oh, and another thing that isn't new: initially buggy releases of macOS

True, but the combined bugginess of iOS 13 and Catalina is astonishing. Shit really went wrong with this cycle. I am sure they will get it under control, but it’s so bad right now that I’ve actually told people considering entering the Apple ecosystem to hold off for a while until this dumpster fire is put out.

I find it slightly annoying too, especially when an upgrade breaks the command line tools, or homebrew, and make me lost a few GB of SSD space. The last upgrade made me lose about 30 minutes of my day to fix a few issues. And I didn't notice much changes, besides the welcome screen picture, and that something changed with itunes, which prevented me from using it.

So overall, I tend to think that there are too frequent upgrades and that I don't need them. But overall, I'm still a satisfied mac user so I give Apple the benefice of the doubt.

This is one of the biggest reasons I hate doing Mac updates.

I will usually wait almost 6 months to do the upgrade because of that, and then usually over a weekend/holiday so I don't lose work time trying to deal with the troubles that can arise.

My iMac Pro went into reboot loops every 20 minutes. Even after a clean install. Then I lost a lot of mail even on a clean install.

Its pretty much crap. I'll wait until 10.16 is out and then upgrade to the 10.15 that isn't crap.

I'm the author of the article, and I would like to add a few things to hopefully make my point clearer.

- While I'm flattered by the attention my piece got by 'making Hacker News', it is simply a personal view and a personal disappointment towards the direction Apple is going with Mac OS. It's not a prescriptive article. I'm not telling people to avoid upgrading to Mac OS 10.15. It's your Mac, it's your work, it's your data, it's your time. Do whatever you please.

My decision to not upgrading is the result of a lot of time spent gathering information and evaluating costs and benefits of the upgrade. And my conclusion, as I clearly stated in the article, is that I'm not upgrading because "what Catalina takes away from me is more than what it gives me."

I also took the opportunity of sharing a few reflections and my criticism towards Apple's recent treatment of Mac OS. Whatever the underlying causes, it's undeniable that Mac OS is not as robust, consistent, and well-designed as it used to be. It wasn't bug-free before. Nothing is bug-free. But I remember past versions very well. I use a variety of Macs of older vintages, so I still use older Mac OS X versions. The degrade in software quality and system stability isn't a matter of opinion. It's out there to see.

And yes, I don't like the direction Apple has been moving after Steve Jobs's passing. That's an entirely personal preference, and I respect the point of view of those who, instead, love what Tim Cook & Co. are doing. I'm not really 'complaining' that Apple's not doing things 'my way'. However, as someone who has been using computers for 38 years and Macs for 30, as someone who knows a thing or two about user interfaces, user interaction and user experience, I think I'm allowed to share a few criticisms about the direction Mac OS is going without being called a 'whiny entitled teenager'.

I try to approach technology by focusing more on the forest than a single tree, and sometimes I struggle to see all this 'progress' and 'future' other tech geeks keep talking about.

Technology should adapt to us, not the other way round. Progress should mean making things better, improve what we do with the help of computers and devices. Instead, as I wrote, "I also notice that — for everything to keep working smoothly — you have to do more work than before. It just works, with Apple products, has lost the frequency and consistency it once had. It is a strange progress when you keep feeling the sting of two steps back for every step forward."

Despite all this wall of text the one thing voids everything: you haven't even tried the new OS. And thinking that "knowing a thing or two about UI" makes you better than Apple… well, I'll leave it here. "Apple is going downhill since Steve Jobs" and "this is a buggiest (i)OS( X) ever" got old years ago.

Just look up comment after any major upgrade of OS X. It will be a deja-vu. People compare the last x.x.xx release with tons of bugfixes to the y.0.00 and are so shocked there are bugs. Well, duh.

Hey - thanks for commenting on this thread. I personally enjoyed the article.

>> I think I'm allowed to share a few criticisms about the direction Mac OS is going without being called a 'whiny entitled teenager'.

I do as well - and, to boot - I wholeheartedly agree with your critique for the most part.

>> Progress should mean making things better, improve what we do with the help of computers and devices.

For sure, and removing access to a lot of my commonly-used applications doesn't help with that, for sure.

> my desktop workhorse, a 2017 4K retina iMac

> 5400 rpm hard drive as its main internal volume

Regardless of OS, the author _really_ needs to bail on the 5400rpm HDD and get a solid state disk in there... especially if you're gonna call it a workhorse!

When it was time to get that 4K retina iMac, I only had money for one built-to-order upgrade. It was a tough decision. It was either leaving the internal 1TB hard drive and choose to have 16GB of RAM instead of the base 8GB, or choosing a 256GB internal SSD and keeping the base 8GB of RAM. Since RAM in that 21.5-inch retina iMac is only upgradable at purchase, not down the road, I opted for the 16GB of RAM and staying with the hard drive. My reasoning is that I can upgrade to an external Thunderbolt SSD at a later date when I can afford it. RAM is not upgradable later.

>> RAM is not upgradable later.

Biggest reason I will never buy another Mac. It seems like they just don't want this to be the case. Terrible for the environment.

Surely you can just swap the internal drive. External thunderbolt disks and enclosures are very expensive for no good reason.

Source: I have been looking for cheap ways to have fast external disks for years. 4 years ago I went with a hacked Buffalo LinkStation (it’s one of the few products that can be easily taken apart, so I swapped its slow disk with an SSD), and now I just ordered a new TB3 enclosure from aliexpress (plus a super-fast disk from a reputable source) to replace it. External TB disks are still overpriced, let alone TB3. I honestly don’t know why that is - I suspect it’s something to do with the main market being Apple users with deep pockets and limited knowledge.

> Regardless of OS, the author _really_ needs to bail on the 5400rpm HDD and get a solid state disk in there... especially if you're gonna call it a workhorse!

Apple themselves needs to bail on the 5400rpm HDD

When reading articles like this, I always wonder whether it was that different way back when: Did macOS change less disruptively five years ago?

I switched to using macOS just recently (Mojave being the first I really used), so I might not know.

I notice myself being less and less open to radical new change and being more willing (and able) to just stick to something that works for me. I have tinkered a fair lot in my days, mainly on Linux.

I think some people have short memories, there have been numerous grumblings (right or wrong) about many of the step-change releases. To me, this feels a bit like when the rosetta fat-binaries were killed off in 10.7, for some people it was pretty bad for those with software which didn't and wouldn't support Intel binaries, but for others it was a minor blip.

Catalina has been fine for me, but I probably have a different use-case.

This is far and away the most disruptive major update to macOS in recent memory. My experience of the past few major versions have been almost entirely seamless.

I see! Maybe because I wasn’t running any 32-bit applications, it was rather seamless for me.

I haven’t had a bad experience with Catalina, but the new app sandboxing has broken a few minor tools like BalenaEtcher. Not a big deal as it still runs fine under sudo... and they’ll surely release a new version shortly.

Not a Mac user, so I have a little anecdotal evidence here, but with all the buzz about Catalina being broken, has this been a problem in earlier versions?

Just last night I spent all day trying to do some work on a friend's 2011 or 2012 MBP (16 GBs RAM, i7, should be fully capable). They needed Windows 10 for some special software, and wanted some help cleaning the hard drive to make room for the partition. After hours and hours of fighting tools and trying to work around Boot Camp Assistant limitations (it insisted on always reformatting as exFAT, in spite of Win10's 4+ GB .wim files), I finally determined that it was probably all fixed in a later version of macOS and proceeded to update her to Mojave.

Fast forward another hour and we're stuck in a bootloop of failing Mojave installs with some barebones diagnostics and repair tools that do nothing.

Thank GOD she had months worth of complete Time Machine backups we could easily restore.

But it's insane to me that a system update served by the App Store in the golden path on a piece of hardware still within it's support lifecycle could fail so catastrophically. I've given the middle finger to Windows' "Don't turn off this computer" messages scores of times, and it's always been able to boot up again just fine. As of late, I've not even experienced the need to do "Automatic Startup Repair" like the old days.

Is Apple really slipping that hard right now?

> insisted on always reformatting as exFAT, in spite of Win10's 4+ GB .wim files

exFAT doesn't have a 4gb limitation like FAT32

I have been using Macs to manage my digital life (personal photos, files, videos, music, notes, documents etc) since Tiger/Leopard days and have been mostly happy with the experience. But I feel now more than ever before that my decade and half old collection is on shaky ground and at risk of being lost with any given OS upgrade. Lost because of file system or crypto or some such software deprecation/compatibility bug or because of the software apps may become unusable. (Btw iOS 13 upgrade did cause me data loss on my phone – it wouldn't unlock after upgrade because my passcode had a special character that it would no longer accept as input, post upgrade. I had to wipe reset the phone and lost data that hadn't synced yet.)

Standards based software engineering seems to be all but dead in consumer apps (it never existed?). Clearly, there is no explicit guarantee of longevity to your data and the metadata (edits, collections, albums, tags, comments) you create upon your own data.

This is a really poor way to live one's digital life.

Do you think about longevity of your data+metadata? What's your setup deal with this?

I think it's about diversifying. The general rule is 3 copies of your data in different places - for me personally, I keep important data in an external drive at home, another in an external drive at my parent's house (updated less frequently for obvious reasons) and an account in the cloud with a third one.

Funnily enough, the cloud account is the one that worries me the most. The data I want to keep includes some indie movies and music that I fear might disappear from the internet (like mixtapes from very indie local groups I listened as a teenager that nobody cares about) and I fear the whole account might be suspended if at some point they set up a copyright filter or something.

Privacy from the vendor, for cloud backups, is barely addressed by most of the cloud storage providers. I find the best solution is to - like many comments here about photo and music storage - stick to older more stable standards that aren't about trying to sell you services.

In my case that means a chunk of SFTP-based storage, and rclone to make that storage encrypted at-rest.

I was really shocked when I tried to upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave about a month ago and found that my work directory was completely gone. It turned out that I rigged the work directory to Dropbox via a hard link, which is emulated in HFS+ as a shadow directory plus a placeholder, and the conversion to APFS broke this emulation. Fortunately for me I had a shortcut to that shadow directory in the Finder and was able to recover it, this time using a plain symlink (less than ideal, sigh), but I now have a big question about Apple concerning about existing users. At least I trust Dropbox more than Apple though...

I don't understand the possible, potential advantage removing 32-bit support even has. It doesn't improve security for my sake, because I can't use a system that doesn't allow for 32-bit apps. Why can't we have a Rosetta equivalent? I've had to tell every MacOS user I know, especially non-techie ones, just to not upgrade, and consider something other than Apple moving forward.

I worked at Apple during the 64 bit transition. The answer is that 32 bit was quite painful to maintain.

The 64 bit transition was a compatibility break that enabled shedding technical debt, like NeXT-isms that no longer applied. In particular it added the ObjC 2 runtime, which allowed features like adding a variable to a class without needing to recompile subclasses.

So long as 32 bit is supported, it is difficult for Apple to use these features internally. If you add a variable to a class you break the 32 bit system. If you add a variable conditionally under an #ifdef then it is annoying to manage the separate build configurations, or disparate 32bit/64bit behaviors.

This only applies to the Mac; iOS always had the modern runtime. But macOS engineers are very very happy to see 32 bit go because it was painful to support.

Thanks. This should be the top comment for every Catalina rant posted here.

As a user, why would I care how inconvenient it is for a trillion dollar company to support their software?

It's not their software that's breaking. It's software that hasn't been updated that's breaking.

Would you say this is due to architectural limitations in how 32/64-bit are implemented in OS X, vs the way compatibility works on say Windows or Linux? I know people have claimed that part of this is due to the need for system binaries/etc to all include full 32/64-bit versions.

Windows 64bit mostly uses 32bit shims which call the 'real' 64bit API. This means that 32bit support is almost no-cost to maintain - I am certain MS will support 32bit for the next decade at the very least - but at the cost of having the 64bit API itself slightly less breaking compatibility so shims are easier to make (e.g. "long" is still 32bit). Arguably MS would have made the same API compromises anyway just to make porting easier.

Linux has some 32bit shims in the kernel and a few separate syscalls, but userland does the separate libraries approach where all 32bit libs are separate than 64bit libraries. So the kernel pays a small cost, while userland needs to maintain separate versions of the libraries - which often costs very little (many can simply be recompiled, this is open source after all), but can bite the maintainer sometimes.

MacOS uses the fat binaries approach, where every binary carries all the arch versions. I don't think the system supports a different method - so Mac pays a bigger cost than Windows or Linux in order to maintain 32 bit. Also Mac kernel API is unstable by design, and I guess Apple would like to drop some older stuff. For better or worse that's the Apple Way - they don't maintain anywhere as much backward compat as other platforms.

Future releases of MacOS will probably support ARM. They don’t want to take away functionality for a big release like that.

That would effectively mean that Apple decided to purposefully cripple their current products in order to make their future products more appealing.

They don’t hesitate to purge legacy.

I thought this post was going to be about stability. It is _not_ stable. That's the biggest problem.

Author did not even try it. He knows nothing about how stable it is.

They totally destroyed audiobooks in what used to be iTunes. No smart lists, can’t edit MP3 tags, can’t delete or listen to single tracks, can’t store files on external drive. I don’t understand how anybody could think this was a good idea. Why destroying functionality that worked and replace it with something that barely works? This is a huge disappointment.

I don’t use iTunes for audiobooks (I had an audible subscription that went unused and I finally unsubscribed, I’ve realised that I prefer reading physical books), but there’s this free OSX app called AudioBookBinder[1] that can bind a set of mp3 files into an m4a file and add it to iTunes as an audiobook. That might help in this case.

[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audiobook-binder/id413969927

Exactly. I use iTunes every day to manage a very large music library. It works very well and has the features I need. I spent years learning how to use it well. I see no reason to give it up now. Could Apple have kept iTunes intact and simply removed the non-essential components? Of course, but it would have been expensive and time-consuming. If iTunes is truly obsolete, Apple should release the source code and let a community of users and developers continue its development.

iTunes was a bloated mess, I'm glad to see the back of it.

Yep, destroying functionality is what Apple has been doing for a while now. I am unable to understand how anybody could think that this is a good idea. Do not break what works!

I always wait a minimum of a few months after major updates are released to install them. Nothing I hate more than having my dev environment hosed because some binary I depend won’t build correctly or something in my stack starts throwing runtime errors. A couple months usually all of these type issues to get ironed out.

Selling a computer with spinning rust as main drive in 2017 is extremely shameful.

Why? Time and I/O speed isn't as relevant for everyone as you might think. I sure don't want a system without flash memory, but I know not everybody is me and not everybody will care.

My mother bought a spinning rust iMac two years ago, sold to her as a "fast" machine. It was not fast. It took 15-30 seconds+ to do the most basic of tasks. It was unusable. I did what I could to remove background tasks and it was still painful to work on. She hated it.

I cloned the drive onto an external SSD with no other changes. Immediately she had a usable machine, and she now enjoys using it again.

Operating systems increasingly seem to be expecting an SSD. Windows is unreasonably slower on an HDD, extremely frustrating to use at all. IIRC that started with Win8, but might've been 10. Linux DEs, heading the same way. Wouldn't be surprised to find out that MacOS is like that these days, too.

That does mean OS/DE devs are hitting disk way the hell too often and just hoping modern disk speed makes it harder to notice, but there's no way that's not adding up to some real (but less crippling) latency even on SSD-equipped systems.

So it's not an option for you, me or your mom, but that doesn't mean it's not an option for the billions of other people in the world. (again, not saying it's a good idea considering the cost and storage requirements for a general user -- but again, not everyone is the same user)

Because it's really slow.

To us perhaps, but most western users are only a fraction of people on the world. Even if you take BRIC out of the picture you still have billions of people that either nave no computer or a computer that is so old a recent PC with a rotating disk is still way faster. It's very easy to get lost in a current context.

Sure, I'd rather have a computer with spinning rust than none at all, but we're talking about new $1000+ machines where there's no rationality behind using these disks in 2019, or even 2009. It's just a money making machine for Apple.

I have a Korg Microsampler. It's a common music synthesizer (er, sampler) keyboard manufactured in 2009. The only way to upload and download samples to this device is via a piece of proprietary software made by Korg USA. Which is 32-bit. So I'm in the situation that OS X Catalina will not only break my various 32-bit applications, it will also obsolete external hardware that I use regularly. I am lost as to why Apple would do this with no legacy option whatsoever.

The legacy option is to remain on an older OS. Or you could say it's Korg's responsibility to provide a 64-bit version of the software.

Apple has an obsesssion with killing off anything slightly inconvenient to them, users be damned.

Since readers here might be more apt to have the same problem:

Has anyone else noticed Catalina doesn't remember external display rotation when waking from sleep?

There have been a few instances where it somehow restores the proper rotation, but most of the time I am forced to put it back manually. I don't want a "workaround" via AppleScript or a hotkey to easily set it back to what I had configured, I just want it to work like it always had!

I really, really miss Dashboard. It was a nice quick way to have access to my stickies, a calculator, the weather, and a calendar all in one place

I got hit with the "not enough space" endless reboot loop during installation. Booting into Recovery Mode and reverting to a previous local Time Machine backup fixed everything in about 5 minutes. However, discovering that 5 minute fix took about 24 hours hours of frustration and command line experimentation. I didn't even know Mojave created local snapshots.

Then I hit the "configuring macOS" forever bug after the second install attempt (just force reboot).

I think both of these installer bugs have been addressed in the recent supplemental update to 10.15.0 for any downloads going forward. Despite all these issues, things have been fine actually running Catalina, but I'd wait a few point releases if I did it again. The whole thing 'feels' very fragile, for lack of a better word — mostly due to the online conversation about it.

I'm definitely leaving my home theater Mac Mini on 10.14 for the foreseeable future after reading about the HDMI issues.

- I like SideCar. After logging in and out of iCloud, it works just fine. - Having issue with Time Machine taking forever, but that seems to be more a Spotlight indexing issue. - Anyone else miss the iTunes Remote? I kinda like the new Music app, but wish I can still control it from my phone.

I just bought an iPad today solely for Sidecar. As a remote dev who doesn't want to lug a monitor around, its an absolute diamond of a feature.

I’m always wary of MacOS upgrades from when Snow Leopard made my Warcraft and Age of Empires stop working.

Ultimately, I find it best to just suck it up and upgrade and use virtualization to run specific stuff.

Mac is the easiest for me to have a daily driver browser while also being useful for most dev and basic Unix user tasks.

Unfortunately Apple has lousy backward compatibility, particularly for games. Dropping 32-bit is going to kill a bunch of games.

On iOS it seeem even worse, with yearly releases breaking many apps; Apple's aggressive ABI changes offload a large maintenance burden onto app developers, who have to keep updating their apps every year just to keep them working the same way.

Windows seems to do a lot better, and game consoles do even better: with the exception of multiplayer games whose servers get shut down after a year or two, most games keep working indefinitely across firmware revisions.

> Apple's aggressive ABI changes offload a large maintenance burden onto app developers, who have to keep updating their apps every year just to keep them working the same way

Ideally, apps that work on one iOS release will continue working on the next with no change in behavior, as Apple checks when apps were linked and will opt out of the new behavior.

FWIW I installed Catalina from the first beta and it's worked flawlessly for me. Maybe because I'm on a newish Macbook Pro and I don't use shitty Adobe software, produce music on this machine, or have a complex testing setups with purposefully old stuff.

If you mostly use a browser/terminal for everything its nothing to worry about.

I will say that Podcasts app kinda sucks, just like the iPhone one it's needlessly confusing when trying to open the show's page with the episode list, instead of just "recently played" or w/e you've downloaded. It tries too hard to be clever, while abandoning simple descended by when the show was added. idk why they can't do both.

Installed the first beta, had some issues in beta 3 or so with actually deleting files when emptying the bin, but that’s why it’s called beta. Had zero problems with later betas, have no idea why podcasters and other influencers are negging on it so much.

I didn't have any issues with my personal laptop (2013 MBP) (which is superior, by far, in almost every way, to my work laptop, a 2019 MBP).

The only difference I noticed (and I don't really have time to obsess over little details) - was that WINE was broken.

As far as my work-laptop goes, I'm just going to hold off. I don't really need any of the new features; and I don't rely on WINE for anything I do for work. I just don't have any strong feelings for a major OS X update right now.

I think the last time I even used Safari was about 5 years ago for testing a website I was developing.

> It’s been my preferred layout since Mac OS X 10.0, and that type of layout has basically been the one I have used since I started using email more than twenty years ago

Lost me at UIs shouldn't change in twenty years

I would just like to have Mojave kept stable for a few years, security updates included. Keep macOS as a solid platform, and add features through apps. That's pretty much all Apple seems to do each release, make new applications and add-ons, bundle them with the OS and call it an upgrade.

I generally agree with the author, I don't have anything else in the Apple ecosystem so most of the new features are largely worthless to me compared to what I have to give up.

> That's pretty much all Apple seems to do each release.

So, they're doing what you want?

The comment about macOS’s Mail.app struck a chord with me. My upgrade to iOS 13 has changed the mail app on my phone to sporadically open old inbox threads. It happens something like 1 in every N times I launch the app. It’s seemingly done at random and is the strangest thing about this upgrade by far.

It’s like Apple are trying to nudge me into being better at responding to emails. Is there a PM at Apple watching an engagement metric increase? With my personal email?!

My God, me, too! I swear to God, I thought I was just confused or something, 'when did I open this?' - and it had only seemed to happen past the upgrade - this is certainly bizarre, if not just a strange coincidence.

This also raises the question: not only is it suspected that an email application is being monitored for engagement metrics, but is it also the case that growth-enhancing UI features are being a/b tested on us as well?

Well that is of course all silly conjecture and I doubt its anything more than a bug, but if it were true then that’s some real Silicon Valley stuff right there.

Maybe Apple own stock in whichever paper manufacturer is post commonly used for printing emails from meemaw. More emails really pushes the needle on those paper sales! Q4 performance summary cycle bonuses all round!

Real data required: How many people who experienced data loss or other issues have one of the following underlying conditions:

1. Creeping storage corruption that is exposed by the upgrade. 2. Latent configuration issues from running the betas.

Personal experience: I have had several issues with apps on a machine that went through all the betas. Had to spend some quality time with Console to sort things out. Zero issues with machines that upgraded untouched by betas.

Real data: my Mac Pro transitioned from betas to production fine, albeit with some annoying warning messages about unexplained dangers during upgrade, about a Preboot folder that would be deleted, so be ware.

Hours of backing up later, it just upgraded off the beta train perfectly, though didn't explain why it took some valid files (perhaps cached from iCloud) and dumped them into a folder.

Completely fresh install (disk utility format/partition) on a 2016 iMac... reboot loop, disk space complaints. Had to re-attempt install to get it to succeed. No diagnostic issues.

I'm just... confused. Is the author using the same OS I am? I upgraded the day it came out, and I haven't even noticed in any meaningful way. ZSH is the biggest change, but I've already gotten used to it.

Nothing I use is breaking, none of my workflows or habits needed changing, it was fine.

The author ought to take a good, long look in the mirror and ask if maybe they've got some problems with change.

That reads less like a reasonable, well-thought breakdown and more like a whiny diatribe coming from an entitled teenager. If the entire argument boils down to "I don't wanna!", then what's the point? Don't upgrade. Apple isn't forcing anyone to upgrade at all. If you need to run all your old software, don't upgrade. That's not a fault of the new OS. Technology changes. That's a fact of life. Even the example of Aperture is a little far-fetched. It's literally been years since Aperture was discontinued and taken off the shelves.

I dunno... to me it sounds like someone complaining that their new computer can't run DooM anymore because it didn't come with a 3.5" floppy drive. Yes, you can run DooM still but not in the very specific, needlessly encumbered method you want to run it in. Times change, technology changes, and it's just not productive to lock yourself in to something and then complain when what you've locked yourself into doesn't work out the way you predicted. Keep using the old OS. Just don't act surprised and attacked when it doesn't work anymore years from now.

> That reads less like a reasonable, well-thought breakdown and more like a whiny diatribe coming from an entitled teenager.

A customer is legitimately entitled to upgrades that aren't actually downgrades.

> Apple isn't forcing anyone to upgrade at all.

> Just don't act surprised and attacked when it doesn't work anymore years from now.

Well... if Apple isn't forcing people to upgrade now, but will later, then there's still grounds for complaint.

An unhappy customer always has the right, nay, duty, to publicly complain until the business changes its behavior.

>legitimately entitled

No, they are not. This isn't an upgrade to their existing OS like a patch release. This is a new OS completely and developers were all warned years in advance that Catalina would drop 32-bit support. This is not a downgrade in the slightest.

>but will later

I have a Mac Mini from 2005 that still runs MacOS Leopard just as well as the day I bought it. I can't install all the latest, greatest software on it and I can't even access every website anymore (TLS updates and all that) but it still functions as good, if not better, than it did when I first bought it and runs all the software that's still installed on it.

No MacOS update has ever been forced or mandatory. Ever.

The customer is not always right but I'm pretty sure offering an OS upgrade is doing right by the customer considering it doesn't cost anything and, for most people, adds far more than it takes away and is, again, optional.

There's a lot of space in between "Company X has wronged me" and "I'm happy with company X". I feel very let down by Apple right now, and I sense the author does too. As the saying goes: I'm not angry, just disappointed.

The fact that macOS updates are optional, and you can downgrade at any time, really does help a great deal here. However, Apple's three years of security updates per release isn't much.

>I feel very let down by Apple right now

And that is totally fine for you to feel that way. You are not, however, entitled to some kind of reparation for that and, if you wrote a diatribe that was comparable to the OP, I would also say that you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Something being disappointing to you, individually, does not make it a massive failure for everyone.

>This is a new OS completely

I don't disagree with your point as a whole, but Catalina is is not a new OS, it's an incremental upgrade.

It's a new OS in the scope that it's dropping 64-bit support completely from all Mac hardware. It will not function the same way that the old macOS versions did and large parts of it are fundamentally different from prior versions.

No computer that is not getting security hotfixes is "just as good" as it was when it was getting those updates.

Yes it is. Those updates have been applied to it. It does not magically get worse simply because time passes. It does literally everything it did when I bought it and then some because new software came out after it was purchased. Just because it can't run everything else that's come out since then doesn't magically make it stop doing what it's already been able to do.

A customer isn't entitled to any upgrades. Apple used to charge for upgrades in the past. Now they give them away for free. Apple has never forced anyone on to upgrade their Macs. I have a fourteen year old Mac Pro that still works fine. Sure it can't run Catalina, but I don't need it to.

And complaining? Complaining about what? You act as if Apple is bricking computers if you don't upgrade...

> Apple used to charge for upgrades in the past. Now they give them away for free.

But back then, they also supported old releases for longer.

I actually suspect this was part of Apple's internal calculus, or part of it. "Free upgrades will get installed by more people, so we can drop old releases more quickly." A fine tradeoff under some circumstances, but right now, the old way of things is looking quite appealing.

>But back then, they also supported old releases for longer.

I don't think that's true. I've been an Apple user since just before OS X's release and the support level was always 2 versions back since like Panther.

I still get patches from Apple for my older Macs that are classified as obsolete. Mostly stuff like Safari etc.

_Apple_ never has, but I had to upgrade macOS a couple of years ago because Chrome stopped supporting older versions.

No, they're just bricking apps if you do upgrade.

Name one.

Catalina does break a lot of games. I am pretty sure that if you get on Steam, the list of games that Catalina breaks is longer than the list of games that work on Catalina.

I'm sure it does because most games didn't update to 64-bit. I still fail to see how that warrants an article like that. If you know the games won't work and you still want to play them, don't upgrade. It's not that hard.

As it happens, the author isn't upgrading.

And your point is? I've already acknowledged that. I'm pointing out that a disappointment for their individual situation doesn't indicate that the update is a failure nor does it warrant what they've written.

Is that just because of the signing requirement on executables?

No, it's because for some reason there's a bunch of 32-bit only games on macOS.

> Technology changes. That's a fact of life.

Is it? It's not really clear to me there's any sort of hard technical limit that requires operating systems to abandon components that support older software.

There may be an economic argument that every team has a limited amount of attention and resources, and older libraries/apis/layers may compete with newer ones, and that argument may even have some merit if the newer stuff is categorically better.

But, OTOH, there's MS's backward's compatibility, so it's clear that some platform owners can bear the cost just fine. Too bad Apple just doesn't make enough money for that, I suppose. :/

Perhaps they could think differently and charge users who want to stay on older versions of macOS for the updates. That'd provide a signal of how valuable it actually is and perhaps even a supporting revenue stream.

Unless resources aren't actually the issue.

The point is it's always slightly risky to upgrade, and if there aren't life-changing new features this time around (which there aren't) then in the short term you're simply rolling the dice and simultaneously losing compatibility with all 32-bit apps. It's for these reasons that for the first time in years, I'm not immediately updating.

That's fine, though. There's nothing that says that you can't stay on the version of the OS that you're using until you decide not to.

That decision, though, comes with the consequence that you likely won't be able to run new software. If you're not worried about new software and don't want to be until the point comes where you need new software, the updates have always been optional.

Sure, as long as they keep fixing bugs and issuing security updates for the older OS's. But Apple Support articles start with "Update to the latest version of macOS and try again"

There is also no particular reason that I can tell why certain features are only added to the latest OS, though we have become desensitized to this. For example - why can't the ability to extend the Mac desktop to the iPad be added to Mojave?

>why can't the ability to extend the Mac desktop to the iPad be added to Mojave

Likely because there's a part of the iCloud stack that was set up by code that's not in Mojave. Additionally, that was never advertised as a feature of Mojave so I fail to see why there would be any expectation that this would be added to Mojave.

> Likely because there's a part of the iCloud stack that was set up by code that's not in Mojave

That's my point - if it's a software requirement then it can in theory be added to say Mojave 10.14.7.

> that was never advertised as a feature of Mojave so I fail to see why there would be any expectation that this would be added to Mojave

This is software, so I highly doubt that the real reason is technical (why can't the code be added to Mojave?) just that Apple feels they may suffer long term if they reward people for not updating to major releases, or it's too costly to maintain so many forks of macOS.

I wouldn't care nearly as much if Catalina didn't drop support for 32-bit apps.

What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software? I thought that was a perfectly fine middle ground, and now the customer MUST decide between old vs new. Does not sound good to me, at all. I would pick Linux instead. :)

>What was wrong with being able to run both old and new software?

There's wasn't much wrong with being able to run it but there's a hell of a lot of technical debt that comes with being able to support and maintain it. Every binary that needed to run on 32 and 64 bit OSs had double the code in it, double the dependencies, and literally double of everything. Developers were all notified about the change more than 3 years ago and 2 OS versions ago. This was not a surprise.

>I would pick Linux instead.

And you have that option. Godspeed.

I agree with the "entitled teenager" feel of the article. The author sees a change in Mail's look and a change font.

A software developer sees Apple finally busting up iTunes which was an overloaded monolithic beast. A software developer sees Apple dropping 32-bit to reduce complexity. This is all refactoring which we'd love to do on our own projects.

I think you just came here to tell OP that he's wrong for having different priorities than you do.

It's not a matter of different priorities. It's a matter of accurate vs. inaccurate.

And, for someone complaining about that, you sure didn't do much more than come here and tell me that I'm wrong for having different priorities without any of the follow-through that I did to, at the very least, explain my thoughts. You haven't even done that.

He also hasn't installed Mojave. Was that not worth the trouble, either?

It's a pretty typical graybeard rant about the halcyon days. Except since we're in 2019, replace System 7 with Snow Leopard.

Then switch or don't upgrade. For all the bash purist you're gonna need this:

export BASH_SILENCE_DEPRECATION_WARNING=1

I just install a recent version of bash from MacPorts instead of relying on the one that ships with the system.

Bash is depreciated in favor of Zsh in Catalina. Regardless of you where you get bash from, I prefer brew, a nag message is presented to the user about Zsh everytime a terminal session is initiated:

  The default interactive shell is now zsh.
  To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.
  For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

The export I provided prevents this nag message from being displayed for Bash users.

The message is coming from /bin/bash, no? I have /opt/local/bin/bash set as my login shell, so I never see it.

I know apple isn't the company it used to be and with all the FUD going around I was reluctant to install the latest version but it works perfectly. This is article of +3000 words, don't take the time to write this and then complain about having to click a number of popups.

The Catalina update did not go smoothly for me. I upgraded a stock brand new MBP a couple of weeks after I got it. Every time I plug in a monitor or remove a monitor it inverts my mouse scroll direction and trackpad scroll direction.

Is Apple release cadence a 6-month length now? My company just suggests an upgrade to High Sierra a month ago. They don't even go for Mojave yet let alone Catalina. No wonder everyone is complaining about the quality.

Release candance is once per year, your company is just being conservative.

As an owner of a nvidia650m macbookpro, the fact apple actually made it work again with discrete graphics is the best part of the upgrade (in the previous os, it would slow down till it was unuseable)

I have an issue with my iMac 5k 2017 not staying in sleep when I selected so. Randomly wakes with the display off. But I can tell because there’s a very low fan noise and some heat from the back.

Are you sure “power naps” isn’t enabled? It’s in your power panel.

I’m pissed because I can’t create a /logs folder anymore :/

You can if you really, really want. Turn off SIP and remount / as rw. You can create a launchd plist to redo this every time your os boots.

I can't upgrade because I depends on VS Code + Panic Transmit (downgraded to old version). This allows me to edit files on a remote server.

Images on webpages in the beta look glitched with a pinkish hue. Finder becomes slow af too

I did upgrade. A small number of apps I depend on work fine. A larger number of homebrew dependencies work fine. They played with DPI scaling again, it works fine.

They fucked up USB device reattach and my dell dock is a hassle in clamshell mode, which is a multi time per day (sleep and plugin unplug) royal pain in the ass.

Tl;dr is no different to any recent upgrade if you live in a terminal to other hosts.

I would love it if someone ported the MacOS desktop manager to Linux.

TLDR; The author hasn’t upgraded, and while they have some well-founded concerns they haven’t actually used it.

It’s going to be difficult to make anyone happy with this release that has already decided they don’t like it.

You know why I haven't actually used it? Because I've read enough experiences from tech-savvy people and power users who actually used it, and based on what I've read, plus all the things that Catalina would disrupt for me, my work, and how I use my Macs, I've made my cost/benefit analysis and decided that no, I'm not going to upgrade to Catalina.

It has been a perfectly informed decision from someone who has been using Macs since 1989. I haven't got out of bed on the wrong side the other day and just decided I didn't like Catalina.

If it's breaking 32-bit apps, and you need at least one 32-bit app (for the author, Aperture), that's kind of all you need to know.

Aperture is a 64 bit app. Still doesn't work, though.

To save anyone reading 10,000 tedious words: It’s always a wise decision to wait till till the new OS matures before upgrading.

I'd prefer if more people read my 3,300 words and actually understood my point. :-)

Not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but all of this seems like a cheap strategy to make users move to iPadOS.

That makes no sense.

1) Apple makes more margins on Mac hardware.

2) Catalina allows you to basically run iPad apps on the Mac. They wouldn't do this if they were trying to push users to iPad.

3) iPadOS and OSX are fundamentally different. There is no way Apple could ever replace the Mac with an iPad.

> Apple makes more margins on Mac hardware

Maybe but sells a lot more iOS units.

I never said they could, but from the ads, feels like they want to.

> Not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but all of this seems like a cheap strategy to make users move to iPadOS.

How can users "move" to a different OS that’s not designed for nor compatible with their device?

Nobody is forcing people to upgrade - you’re free to stick with an older version of any OS, although possibly at the cost of the OS going out of support from the vendor. Why such a decision seems to lead to these long winded opinion pieces on the internet is weird - don’t these authors have something better to do than opine about how what they want doesn’t line up exactly with what some vendor is giving them for free?

> Nobody is forcing people to upgrade

Except if you want the latest Xcode version.

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