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Comment by kup0 | Hacker News Reader

Just realized this is the first time my iMac will not support the next update (iMac 14,3)- if this list is exhaustive and not subject to change, that is.

Due to other crashes and issues I had already been considering the switch to Windows or Linux (I already use those operating systems for other PCs I have in the house).

I've enjoyed using MacOS as my daily driver until Catalina, and even then, there are things I still really like about it compared to other operating systems, but especially now that Apple wants to force me to upgrade hardware to run a newer OS, I'm not sure I want to stay in Apple land.

Maybe it's time.

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I'm in the same boat. The MacBook I bought in 2013 was mind-blowingly awesome, most notably with the Retina display, and the sheer power of machine.

Almost every difference between that laptop and the MacBook I bought a few months ago is negative (touchbar for volume and brightness, the flimsiness of USB-C connectors against the weight of the cable (though that's not Apple's fault), enormous trackpad, less of a "crumple zone" in the keyboard to absorb the energy of my typing, etc)

I actually like Catalina more-or-less, except for the lack of 32-bit support and the way the fan always runs on my 2013 machine now.

But I think this is the last Apple computer I'll buy. It's too much money for a declining experience.

It’s 7 years old. Imagine what your experience was with a 7 year old windows machine.

What’s in Big Sur AND windows 10 that is not for the current macOS?

Copying my reply to someone else as I think is applies here too:

That's a legit argument against Android, but the exact opposite holds for Windows. You can run Windows 10 on 10 years old hardware, 15 if you push it and I'm not exaggerating. I'm typing this on my 10 years old desktop PC running Windows 10 as we speak, and it's very smooth. I'd have been very pissed off if three years ago Microsoft decided to not support my PC because "7 years is long enough". Yes I hate forced reboots, but that's beside the point here.

As another commenter pointed out, 7 years old mid to high-end hardware will typically give you a fine experience on Windows 10, as long as you have an SSD.

The cutting edge has moved on in 7 years, but a Dell XPS 13 from 2013 [0] has an i5 (ivybridge), 8GB ram, a 256gb SSD and a 1080p IPS screen. I'd be more than happy to use that as a primary bon-developer machine, and I bet it runs great on windows 10.

[0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/6849/dell-xps-13-q1-2013-ultr...

I switched to Windows 10 several years ago and don't regret it. Stay on the "happy path" and get hardware that's well supported and your experience will be just as smooth as any Apple experience. I use Lenovo laptops, which are built very well.

The forced reboots meant there was no happy path in Windows 10 for me.

Xubuntu did me for years but I hate the new snap thing that happened to Ubuntu so I assume that will happen to Xubuntu too.

Debian Testing seems to be the way to go now.

For what it's worth, Windows 10 since 1809 has supported prompt-before-download for Windows Update, and corrected many of the other annoying "do as I want, not as I say," issues from previous releases.

Why do you hate snaps?

I assume you mean forced reboots for updates? Linux is definitely leading here, my MacBook needs a reboot fairly frequently for updates, I'd almost guess at more often than my win10 machines. That said, one reboot a month isn't an outrageous ask I don't think.

There's a difference though: on macOS the system will say "there's an update, do you want to install it now?". If you select "yes" the system will upgdate and eventually reboot, otherwise you can go on with whatever you're doing without worrying. On windows instead you get a notification that says "I just installed an update and you need to reboot, if you don't do it right now the machine will reboot outside of the active hours". I just don't understang why Microsoft doesn't put a simple toggle for automatic updates in W10. MacOS has it, all the linux distro have it, even iOS has it, why is it so difficult for them?

> my MacBook needs a reboot fairly frequently for updates, I'd almost guess at more often than my win10 machines.

I call bull, unless you’re on a beta channel.

When was the last time you had to reboot macOS for an update, and how long ago was the second-last update?

I had to reboot to do the update from 10.15.4 to 10.15.5

And cannot remember the last time any one of the 100+ windows 10 machines I administer had a forced reboot.

In 10 years I have never had a forced reboot on macOs, that I explicitly did not allow.

Meanwhile there are plenty of horror stories of people being unable to work, or worse, losing their work, because of Windows 10 updates.

I don't get forced reboots either. I'm running a stock Windows 10 Pro, and I haven't changed very many settings from the default. I'll get a notice that I should reboot to get an update about once a month, but not a forced one.

> I hate the new snap thing that happened to Ubuntu

I installed sshd using what I thought was apt. It actually happened that Xubuntu installed a snap. I also couldn't enable or start/stop `sshd` using systemctl, for some reason.

I'm quite sure there's some way I could learn to manage services in snaps... or maybe it was a bug? Either way, I don't want to waste my time. I don't see how this change makes my workflow any easier than centralised package and service management. I'm looking at MX Linux/AntiX now.

Sorry but I'm calling bs.

`sshd` isn't a valid package name in Ubuntu repos which Xubuntu uses directly and without modification (it's openssh-server you are looking for) so apt would throw a package not found error.

Also `sshd` doesn't exist in the snap store[1], neither does `openssh-server`[2].

Given Canonical/snapcraft.io are the only source of snaps what you have described is impossible.

1. https://snapcraft.io/search?q=Sshd

2. https://snapcraft.io/search?q=Openssh

I wasn't fibbing; it is disingenuous to lie in support of a cause. I did genuinely encounter this issue. But with what you've said, I'll accept that it wasn't to blame upon snap.

While the package wasn't named "sshd", that's an abbreviated way to refer to the ssh daemon. The package name varies between distros, but the config file and executable are known as "sshd". I was installing the ssh daemon package by whatever name the Debian/Ubuntu maintainers christened it.

Something else must've broken it, then.

Try searching for "files missing after windows 10 update" and Google will prompt you to see if you mean the incident in 2018, 2019, or 2020.

That's not a happy path.

I switched back to Linux in 2018. It's not as polished as Mac OS but it works well enough now that for the most part I don't really care.

That is a 7 years old iMac. Apple is not forcing you.

A 7 year old iMac keeps running Windows 10 fine.

My laptop is from ~2006. I can still run OpenBSD and Chromium with ~15 tabs open, and play videos well up to 720p, 1080p is wasting HD size because the screen is smaller than that.

If I want to run Big Sur, it's my only legitimate option.

So yes, if I want to continue to use macOS and want to stay on the latest release, then "having to upgrade hardware" is the only route. If you take issue with me calling that "forcing" then fine, but it's obvious how I'm using that term.

Plenty of hardware from 2013 runs current operating systems- basically only in the Apple ecosystem is this a problem. I doubt there's any _technical_ reason older hardware cannot run newer versions of macOS. Apple just draws a line whereever they want.

I understand this is a "known concern" of being a part of the Apple ecosystem- but it's one of the first times I've encountered it personally, so yes, it's frustrating.

A known “concern”? It’s a known benefit of owning Apple hardware. 7 years of support. You’re asking too much. Hope you enjoy forced reboots and telemetry on Windows

I already use Windows on another PC, and while I don't love telemetry, the only reboots I get are during my scheduled "okay to install updates" hours which is at like 5am when I don't notice it.

I'm not MS's biggest fan, and I have my own peeves with Windows, but the way you worded this seems unnecessarily hostile.

I use Windows, Linux, and macOS for various purposes and I understand the benefits and drawbacks of using them. You don't need to talk down to me about telemetry and updates.

Spinning having to buy unnecessary new hardware to continue running an up-to-date OS as a benefit seems ridiculous to me.

This is remarkable spin on what is objectively a bad thing.

Strictly speaking, "company drops support for software X" isn't always a bad thing, when it forces people to move on. For example, Windows XP dragged on for far too long, and there's a good argument that it should have been discontinued earlier.

Sure, but here it's support for hardware costing 4-5 figures being dropped after a paltry 7 years.

The latest version of Windows 10 runs great on 10 year old desktops, and will probably be supported for many more years to come.

I have 10 year old PCs that are perfectly functional. My main desktop is mostly from 2012 with a couple upgrades in between and works like a champ. 7 years is far too low. This is planned obsolescence.

With Apple preventing dual boot on ARM this problem will only get worse.

I mean...it is what it is, but my desktop is based on the previous year's Intel CPU, cost about as much, and still runs Win10 and Linux just fine.

I run Mojave perfectly well on a mid 2012 Macbook Pro, a friend of mine even on a 2008 one (also well for his needs).

Durability has long been a feature of these machines, even sadder to be forced into hardware upgrades by what seems to be intentionally broken core features like wifi.

What makes the broken wifi seem intentional?

It has nothing to do with a lack of capability of the older machine. They just decided it wasn't worth the effort to support the model of wifi chipset present in the older models, effectively killing them off.

I think you may be projecting. Wifi cards go bad. It happens. Sometimes they can be replaced. Sometimes not. I've had it happen to lots of my machines over the last two decades.

But I don't think it's fair to characterize what could very well be a hardware fault as the work of some bean counter in Cupertino sitting behind his desk rubbing his hands with glee.

I can't find reference here, but I remember a discussion with an Apple engineer who said that AirDrop had been blocked in a certain model, "due to incompatible wifi", but that the wifi card mentioned was not one they'd ever heard of being put in a production Mac, i.e. "ass-covering BS".

Even Apple doesn’t have unlimited resources. They may still offer patches for outdated WiFi cards in a future update but it’s silly to commit to doing so in your initial OS release.

> That is a 7 years old iMac. Apple is not forcing you.

This attitude needs to stop.

If a user's needs are met with a 7 year old machine and they are happy without upgrading then artificially obsoleting it in the name of capitalism is not progress, it's irresponsible.

If he was required to upgrade to Big Sur in order to keep his computer working, I'd agree with you. But nobody is forcing him to upgrade.

I have an old Mac that I use daily that maxed out at Mojave. It still functions fine. Nobody forced me to do anything to it in the name of capitalism.

You said yourself that his current machine meets his daily needs. So what's the problem? It's not going to turn off the day Big Sur is released.

Apparently I should not have used the word forced because some people went full-boar pedantic about it unfortunately. It's forced in terms of "if I want to run Big Sur, I have no choice" (thought that was obvious).

Not forced, but unnecessarily required to purchase new hardware to run the latest OS version which should not have any reason for not working on the older hardware. I still think that's a problem.

If there was a feature of Big Sur that required particular hardware to run, then I would be more understanding. Yes, I can stay on Catalina on my iMac, but it will continue to get more out of date when Apple could have easily kept supporting it. I'm understanding enough to know Apple has business reasons for doing it, and maybe even technical ones (that no one has yet explained) but it doesn't mean I agree with it.

This is so silly. First, Apple’s history is that they will continue to support older hardware with security updates even if they can’t support them with the latest OS.

Sometimes older hardware isn’t capable of supporting new features. In prior cases it might not have a 64 bit processor or not enough memory, and of course you can’t expect support in those cases.

In this it’s old WiFi hardware that can’t support new features. It would be dumb for Apple to take engineers off making Big Sur more solid for 98% of Macs to waste time on this problem for a tiny percent of the active base.

Apple is doing exactly the right thing. Make it work well for the vast majority, then see if they can take it farther back in the first couple of bug fix releases.

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