Apple says “not all known security issues” are patched in updates for older OSes

arstechnica.com

13 points·howinteresting··5 comments

Glad to see Apple finally clarify what's been an open secret in the industry. Unlike on Windows or Linux, the only way to be fully patched on Apple is to always update to the latest release the day it comes out.

I think that applies to Windows and Linux, too, but at larger time scales.

I don’t think Windows 95 gets all necessary security updates, for example. Nor gets Linux 1.0 (you could backport them yourself, of course)

What makes this much more an issue with Apple’s OSes is that they obsolete hard- and software versions way more aggressively than others. Older hardware won’t support newer OS versions, and that, if you can move to a newer OS version, upgrading will more often break your existing programs.

That is not what this article is talking about. Windows 95 and Linux 1.0 have long been marked EOL on Microsoft's and Linux kernel team's respective software version charts.

This article talks about older OS versions that are listed as still receiving security updates, but that that those updates aren't actually patching holes in all supported versions equally. It's like Microsoft released security patches for Windows 11 and 10 while both are in support, but without telling anyone actually omitted some fixes from the patches released for Windows 10.

You absolutely did not have to update from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04 the day it came out to get all the newest security patches.

I would really like to see Apple publish how long they will support their devices and their operating systems for.

While they often support devices (particularly iOS devices) for a long time, I always seem to get the iPhone or Mac that gets the unusually low amount of support.

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