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macOS Compatibilty
- Thread starter ATG
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ATG said:
I am admittedly a rookie at this Mac coding thing, but I have been a developer (mainly java) since 1996. My opinion is that you should maximize compatibility where ever you can. There is always someone out there that is a hold-out, and if there is a reasonable way to make your code work for everyone, why limit yourself?
Now, this obviously is not the case when you are using advanced APIs only available in newer versions.
This is probably BS. The reason for this data is something like this: OmniGraffle is bundled with every new Mac since the introduction of Tiger, but not with Macs that shipped with Panther. So, a very low percentage of computers running Panther have an updating Omni product installed, while a very high percentage of computers running Tiger have an updating Omni product installed.
This would really skew the numbers.
NOTE: This is just a guess. I do know that OmniGraffle was bundled with my Macbook Pro (Tiger), but not with my iBook G4 (Panther), so it's possible.
We'd need a real random sampling of Macs to know.
This would really skew the numbers.
NOTE: This is just a guess. I do know that OmniGraffle was bundled with my Macbook Pro (Tiger), but not with my iBook G4 (Panther), so it's possible.
We'd need a real random sampling of Macs to know.
The stats look dodgy...
I have Tiger on my iMac G5, and Panther on my iBook G3. My iBook came with 10.2 installed, so I paid for the upgrade to Panther when it came out, but I haven't seen the need to upgrade to Tiger, and I doubt that I'm alone in that evaluation....
I have Tiger on my iMac G5, and Panther on my iBook G3. My iBook came with 10.2 installed, so I paid for the upgrade to Panther when it came out, but I haven't seen the need to upgrade to Tiger, and I doubt that I'm alone in that evaluation....
demallien said:
You are not alone. My wife is a photographer, and as such we know a lot of photographers, most of which use Macs. Most also have 10.3 or older installed on their Macs. Infact, the only photographer I know that has 10.4 has it because he bought one of the newer G5 iMacs to replace his old CRT iMac that was running 10.1.
The thing is, for Technophiles like myself (and probably most of the people here), we ALWAYS see a need to move to the latest version. But for most non-technical professonals, they move only when they have too.
Going back the photographers as an example, most of the ones I know moved to 10.3 only because iView required them too. As their tools are what force them to upgrade, otherwise if it aint broke, don't fix it.
The average person, in most cases, could give a rat's behind about new versions of iChat, or Core Components, or Time Machine. They just want to get email, surf the web, and maybe watch a DVD movie. Other than that, its business as usual.
Not true. I have a 4 year old G4 Powerbook that came with 10.2.3 originally, and it came with OmniGraffle.
Anyway, I agree that the results may biased. I just find it really annoying when (even for the most benign methods) they say 10.4 and later
. And I either have to code around it or miss out the feature yet I see all the apple apps using that exact feature/method. It really takes the fun out of coding.ATG said:
Pushing the envelope is fun. There have been many API improvements since 10.3. With 10.5, don't you want to use CoreAnimation and Timewarp? Just for the fun of it? Let them eat (pirated) cake.
Seriously though, I think (and believe I've read somewhere) that most Apple users upgrade their OS within a year of its release. Cocoa developers cut out OS 9 users but many found it was absolutely worth it. If you want the right answer for you, do some customer market analysis and identify what features if any exactly you want to use that aren't in 10.3.
ATG said:
Yeah, sorry all, you are right. It looks like OmniGraffle is bundled with "pro" computers (my MBP and ATG's Powerbook), but not consumer computers (not my old iBook, and not the current MacBooks).
So that doesn't explain Omni's numbers.
I still can't believe the upgrade figures, though. Did almost every Omni user really upgrade or pirate 10.4
.(Edit: fixed quote markup)
Kunimodi said:
You can, of course, write software that runs on older OS versions and uses newer features if they are available. Writing software that runs on anything up from 10.2 is no problem. It takes a bit of discipline, that is all.
gnasher729 said:
That's mostly true. However, you will need to build and distribute different packages for the different OS versions. Furthermore, there are cases of deprecation and modification where a previously available feature is unavailable or different in a newer release. Sometimes it is impossible to maintain both backwards and forwards compatibility.
gnasher729 said:
Discipline, hacks (weak linking... ugh), massive #ifdef'd blocks of code, feature compromises, bugs, etc... the day I killed 10.2 support in the Adium codebase was a joyous day indeed. We still have multiple implementations of the same feature in places so as to support 10.3.x.