Am I the only one not 'upgrade hungry' on macOS front?

[Starfia]

I don't think you're the only one.

I suppose I'm usually a user that sees eye-to-eye with the developers' choices: I'm personally ready for Dashboard, 32-bit apps, Flash and other Safari plug-ins to be regarded as beloved but expendable baggage, and I'm tempted by sensible and tidying moves like the replacement of iTunes by Music, Podcasts and TV. I've been eager for the "Find My" app on the Mac for some time. And Catalina has enough new smaller features that Apple listed them for the first time in years!

 

[BarredOwl]

I don’t think I’ll upgrade to Catalina. This will be the first time ever that I’ve not upgraded a Mac OS on release day. There’s just not enough to compel me this time. Duet is better than sidecar, and iTunes doesn’t bug me as much as it does some. I’m digging my heels into Mojave for the foreseeable.

 

[HandsomeDanNZ]

I am still rocking my Mid-2011 iMac. It still works as I need it to and has everything I would like to see in a Mac with the exception of the latest OS, but I am pretty happy with it's performance to date and see no need to upgrade.

 

[mj_]

You are certainly not alone. Back in the very early days of Mac OS X, around 10.0 to 10.5, I was very eager to update early on because each new version promised major improvements. Think Quartz Extreme introduced with 10.2, Fast User Switching, Exposé and full X11 support introduced with 10.3, Spotlight introduced with 10.4, or Time Machine introduced with 10.5. However, over time I grew wary of Apple's ability to produce mostly bug-free and at least somewhat stable .0 or .1 releases, and began postponing updates further and further into OS X's life cycle waiting until at least the .3 release.

With High Sierra and Mojave even that proved catastrophic, and I am now on the verge of staying put for as long as Apple provides security updates. I updated my work computers to High Sierra around 10.13.3 but had to do a full rollback and manual restore from backup shortly thereafter because 10.13 turned out to be a major disaster. I stayed with 10.12 until the release of 10.14.3 and attempted yet another update but once again had to perform a full rollback and manual restore from backup for the very same reason as before. This time I decided to give 10.13 another shot and installed 10.13.6, and truth be told I couldn't be happier. Given that 10.13 will continue receiving security updates until the release of 10.16 in late 2020 I am seriously considering not only skipping one but two major versions of macOS for the first time ever.

 

[LogicalApex]

However, over time I grew wary of Apple's ability to produce mostly bug-free and at least somewhat stable .0 or .1 releases, and began postponing updates further and further into OS X's life cycle waiting until at least the .3 release.

I think the fast release cadence is putting pressure on quality across the board.

Microsoft has to pull last years fall feature update to Windows and Windows Server 2019 from the market due to a big in the update deleting users folders permanently. It took months for them to release again.

Waiting can be prudent if you can’t deal with any issues.

 

[Ritsuka]

I don't know in which alternative reality you lived, but 10.6.0 was a big mess too.

 

[Macbooks Rock]

Tbh I wouldn't have upgraded to Mojave if it wasn't for dark mode.

 

[fisherking]

Tbh I would have upgraded to Mojave if it wasn't for dark mode.

???? dark mode is optional...

 

[Macbooks Rock]

???? dark mode is optional...

Sorry my bad i meant, I wouldn't have upgraded to Mojave...
I'm now on Mojave just for dark mode.

 

[blindpcguy]

I generally stay on the latest macOS release as i got older / other macs i can throw a older os on if i need older app compatibility iv got macs ranging from ppc to early intel to a modern 2017 Imac. My 09 Imac runs High seirra, my 2017 stays current, and i also got a couple powerPC systems running tiger and leopard plus i love all the new features. I do see where some of you guys are coming from though especially if you dont have quite a few macs staying a release behind the current can b a good thing and more stable but i like the new stuff.

 

[fisherking]

Sorry my bad i meant, I wouldn't have upgraded to Mojave...
I'm now on Mojave just for dark mode.

ha, got it. amazing how one word can change everything....

 

[socialwill]

I have gone with the release day 1 usually just for the new wallpapers Yes, I know you can get them from other locations but it is always nice Apple includes such amazing wallpapers for each OS release <cough> Windows <cough>.

While the yearly updates have not been like the early days of OS X with major framework changes, not to mention UI updates, they have been overall good improvements. For me a big one with this release is the locking down of the macOS with activation lock. Now it will make stealing a Mac a lot less attractive. Plus I am very interested to see who releases iPad apps for macOS.

 

[mj_]

I think the fast release cadence is putting pressure on quality across the board.

Agreed. I'm not quite sure who started this but yearly major releases are completely unnecessary if you ask me. I would very much prefer a bi-yearly or even entirely flexible release schedule that would give developers enough time to iron out the major bugs while maintaining a stable and robust release over a period of two or even three years.

But alas, apparently a majority of users expects a new major release with half a gazillion new features every year now

 

[AnonMac50]

I used to enjoy upgrades but now I regret them a lot. On my late 2013 MBP the upgrade to Yosemite cut the battery life in half, and slowed the computer down a lot. The computer would also get hot and spin the fans up a lot. I upgraded mainly for continuity. I hate the new interface, but I can live with it . El Capitan helped in the performance department a little, but not much. Clean installs made no difference. I kept it there for a few years till a few months ago when I went to Sierra. Speed was the same but the bugs, crashes, and glitches I had compared to El Capitan were horrendous. The thing kept crashing or had other issues. But El Capitan didn’t get new security updates and many of my apps were incompatible with everything else (as in files transferred from other people’s computers or my own Mojave Mac might not run), or apps would update themselves and then won’t launch, and I also needed a newer Xcode so I didn’t have much choice.

Jumping back to Mavericks and I can immediately see the performance and battery life increase! High Sierra and Mojave actually ran worse on this Mac than Sierra did so I stayed there.

My iMac Pro came with High Sierra, and the amount of bugs I had there was crazy. It would crash all the time. Same with High Sierra on my Mac Pro. High Sierra is the lowest I can put on the iMac, but it’s incompatible with a lot of my apps. The Mojave upgrade helped a bit on the iMac Pro, but not much. I loved the new dark mode (my main reason for upgrade). But I hate the new gallery view, and how I had to dig up my old Mac Pro running High Sierra for server duty because Mojave is much worse in that regard. Mojave also breaks compatibility with some things, but overall is one of the better upgrades in recent years.

 

[return2sendai]

ha, got it. amazing how one word can change everything....

How about one letter?

“It was the best of Tims, it was the worst of Tims.”

 

[fisherking]

How about one letter?

“It was the best of Tims, it was the worst of Tims.”

that sentence does not seem to missing any letters...

 

[return2sendai]

Dickens.

 

[Shirasaki]

I used to enjoy upgrades but now I regret them a lot. On my late 2013 MBP the upgrade to Yosemite cut the battery life in half, and slowed the computer down a lot. The computer would also get hot and spin the fans up a lot. I upgraded mainly for continuity. I hate the new interface, but I can live with it . El Capitan helped in the performance department a little, but not much. Clean installs made no difference. I kept it there for a few years till a few months ago when I went to Sierra. Speed was the same but the bugs, crashes, and glitches I had compared to El Capitan were horrendous. The thing kept crashing or had other issues. But El Capitan didn’t get new security updates and many of my apps were incompatible with everything else (as in files transferred from other people’s computers or my own Mojave Mac might not run), or apps would update themselves and then won’t launch, and I also needed a newer Xcode so I didn’t have much choice.

Jumping back to Mavericks and I can immediately see the performance and battery life increase! High Sierra and Mojave actually ran worse on this Mac than Sierra did so I stayed there.

My iMac Pro came with High Sierra, and the amount of bugs I had there was crazy. It would crash all the time. Same with High Sierra on my Mac Pro. High Sierra is the lowest I can put on the iMac, but it’s incompatible with a lot of my apps. The Mojave upgrade helped a bit on the iMac Pro, but not much. I loved the new dark mode (my main reason for upgrade). But I hate the new gallery view, and how I had to dig up my old Mac Pro running High Sierra for server duty because Mojave is much worse in that regard. Mojave also breaks compatibility with some things, but overall is one of the better upgrades in recent years.

Unlike your experience, I am now stuck at high Sierra pretty much forever since this is the last version of macOS to truly support 32-bit. Mojave is a stopgap and nothing more. 32-bit apps are breaking like crazy on Mojave, let alone Catalina. As for the bugs and such, yes, bugs, but not to an extent I want to smash the Mac. Since I also use iTunes 12.6.5.3, I cannot upgrade.

I don’t know what I can do when my current Mac fails. How far virtualisation could help me? Does parallel desktop run high Sierra well? Or at all? I have no idea. Sure, high Sierra runs slow on my Mac. Photos app is still buggy. Mails app takes forever to do anything a bit more serious. But Mojave completely ruins my experience to a point that the only thing my Mac is doing great is booting up macOS fast.

But the main takeaway is: OS upgrade is not really a thing anymore for me in 2019 and beyond. Software will always have security issues. Cellebrite will always find critical bugs that can be used to hack into your iOS device regardless of versions.

 

[fisherking]

Unlike your experience, I am now stuck at high Sierra pretty much forever since this is the last version of macOS to truly support 32-bit. Mojave is a stopgap and nothing more. 32-bit apps are breaking like crazy on Mojave, let alone Catalina. As for the bugs and such, yes, bugs, but not to an extent I want to smash the Mac. Since I also use iTunes 12.6.5.3, I cannot upgrade.

I don’t know what I can do when my current Mac fails. How far virtualisation could help me? Does parallel desktop run high Sierra well? Or at all? I have no idea. Sure, high Sierra runs slow on my Mac. Photos app is still buggy. Mails app takes forever to do anything a bit more serious. But Mojave completely ruins my experience to a point that the only thing my Mac is doing great is booting up macOS fast.

But the main takeaway is: OS upgrade is not really a thing anymore for me in 2019 and beyond. Software will always have security issues. Cellebrite will always find critical bugs that can be used to hack into your iOS device regardless of versions.

your plan is to not move into 2019 or beyond because...?

none of my 32bit apps broke in mojave, and it's like all modern mac OSes; it has a year, then there's a new OS. but no one is forced to upgrade every year; at some point, many people finally do move forward, perhaps skipping an OS or 2.

why are you running an older itunes?

at some point, you'll get a new mac, you'll be running the latest OS, 64bit apps... and you'll laugh, remembering when you thought you'd never leave mojave.

 

[S.B.G]

Nope, not upgrade hungry either. Even though I've switched to Linux, the past several years on macOS has been ho-hum for me. When the new OS's have gone public I'd make the upgrade and then keep on going with my normal routines. While many of the new features OS's introduce are pretty cool, I rarely take advantage of them.

I'm just a basic everyday user when it comes down to it. I used to do video editing a long time ago but not anymore. Now it's all essentially, email, web browsing and basic word processing.

What I enjoy doing the most with computers is customize the look and feel of the OS and programs. I fondly recall the days we could customize OS X with CandyBar a little bit. It was limited of course with what we could do, but now customization is essentially castrated on the contemporary macOS. That's one aspect of Linux that I love a lot; being able to customize, quite literally, everything I want to customize.

But as for upgrading I sometimes wonder if the upgrade itself is meaningless as far as functionality for most of us. What dawned on me recently is that, for me, it wasn't about getting the upgraded features really, but more about the act of upgrading itself. I feel like I get a hit of dopamine as I watch progress bars and whatnot scroll by as they're installing a new OS or program. Afterwards it's like a let down when it's all done and I have to go back to just using it normally. Maybe that's why I'm always looking for updates for anything and everything all the time. I need that progress bar fix!

 

[mj_]

I believe there are two different philosophies at play here, and people refuse to upgrade/update for two reasons:

1) because things break with the new version
2) because they refuse to change their habits and adjust to new circumstances

The latter is a big issue in humans in general and not just limited to computers. Remember the outcry when Coke dared to change the recipe? People went completely bonkers even though in blind testings they actually all preferred the new receipe? Humans as a species are not particularly great at accepting change, and we're creatures of habit. That is most likely also the reason why @Shirasaki is still running iTunes 12.6.5.3: it's the last version still supporting the iOS app store on macOS. Apple removed this feature in 12.7 but maintained 12.6.5 for enterprise customers for a while.

Now, those who refuse to update for reason #1 will eventuall update once the bugs have been ironed out, or once updating becomes the lesser evil. Those who refuse to update for reason #2 are forever trapped in a vicious circle of obsolescence. Once they are forced to they will eventuall update but then it'll be history repeating.

 

[Shirasaki]

your plan is to not move into 2019 or beyond because...?

none of my 32bit apps broke in mojave, and it's like all modern mac OSes; it has a year, then there's a new OS. but no one is forced to upgrade every year; at some point, many people finally do move forward, perhaps skipping an OS or 2.

why are you running an older itunes?

at some point, you'll get a new mac, you'll be running the latest OS, 64bit apps... and you'll laugh, remembering when you thought you'd never leave mojave.

Because? Because I want to use old iTunes. Because I care about local app install that actually helped me out several times over. Because there are still apps not even compatible with Mojave. I was once a guy looking forward to cutting edge features and new technologies all the time. Now I am not. Yes I am using iOS 13 beta. Yes I have iPhone XS Max and iPad Pro 2018. But my MacBook has great build quality and nice keyboard. I don’t see the reason to upgrade, until it dies. Then, I might give 2016 Mac a shot, or not. I have no idea.

As for the reasons to use old iTunes, I have two big reasons: one is App Store support. The other is better features support, especially compared with Catalina “finder sync support”. Now with iOS 13 a third one is “it still supports iPhone XS Max and iPad Pro 2018 no problem”. Oh, and it is stable.

Yes, I will eventually be forced to upgrade. But I don’t think I will laugh why I was stuck in high Sierra for a very long time. Instead, I will miss the good old days when I still had control over a small collection of my apps, when I still used functional iTunes to manage music with advanced features, when I had a Mac once before that had a great keyboard. That’s why nostalgia exists.

 

[fisherking]

That’s why nostalgia exists.

no harm in reminiscing, but living in the present, real world is so much more... real. we exist in the present, and move into the future.

i never get why people cling to 'what was', and are so afraid of 'what is'. but whatever works for you, as long as you can get your work (and/or) play done.

 

[Shirasaki]

no harm in reminiscing, but living in the present, real world is so much more... real. we exist in the present, and move into the future.

i never get why people cling to 'what was', and are so afraid of 'what is'. but whatever works for you, as long as you can get your work (and/or) play done.

Yes. I think that’s why I decide to beta test iOS 13 while use high Sierra instead of Catalina. I choose what suits me the best, and thankfully I have the knowledge and skill to do so.

Wish your best.

 

[MisterSavage]

It's funny with iOS I always run the latest version (and appreciate the new features) but with Mac OS I have to be dragged kicking and screaming. I only upgraded to Mojave because I needed to run the latest version of Xcode. The upgrade bricked my iMac and I had to go through the pain of dragging it to the Apple Store to get that corrected.