Is it true this doesn't support 32bit?

[steve62388]

I'm a fairly heavy daily user of several iOS and macOS devices, and I saw nothing about it.

I have two 32-bit applications that are necessary to daily (and official!) life, and my office are no small shakes in the official world.

It caught us off guard and we had to roll back to Mojave.

Now, having said that, the popup warning, if you actually *read* it, warns you that those two mandatory applications will no longer work.

We tried anyway, and had to roll back.

No harm done, really, except for the lost time restoring. And, as you might imagine, that restoration took quite a long time.

Aside from that, no harm done.

Unless you see as a kind of "harm" having to remain on Mojave.

Yeah, fair enough. But by your own admission it gave you a warning. Nothing ventured, nothing gained eh?

Mind you, do you have an IT Dept.? Where were they in this?

 

[Fishrrman]

Apple had been giving warning for at least the past two years that a future version of the OS would no longer run 32-bit software.

But some folks just don't pay attention!

 

[revmacian]

I heard on a Podcast, but they didn't seem too sure.... is it true? If so then I will have to go back to Windows in the future.

Thanks.

I’d be willing to bet that you could find alternatives for those 32-bit apps that you’re going to eventually have to leave behind. Finding and using alternative apps will, in my opinion, be far more efficient than moving to an alternate operating system and having to change your computing habits/techniques. The tech world moves fast so we’re going to have to keep up with the pack or be left behind. Change is a good thing.. it helps us grow and improve.

 

[Drak3]

Apple had been giving warning for at least the past two years that a future version of the OS would no longer run 32-bit software.

But some folks just don't pay attention!

The warning that the OS itself gave didn't do a good job of specifying why a program needed to be updated. It was a lackluster 'This app is not optimized, you should update' and had the option to run it anyways. To the standard non-techie, that warning means nothing.

 

[fisherking]

The warning that the OS itself gave didn't do a good job of specifying why a program needed to be updated. It was a lackluster 'This app is not optimized, you should update' and had the option to run it anyways. To the standard non-techie, that warning means nothing.

but it's information, and, if you were concerned, you could have easily google'd the issue... or asked for help here.

 

[Drak3]

but it's information, and, if you were concerned, you could have easily google'd the issue... or asked for help here.

It's an unhelpful """troubleshooting""" message, that is no more helpful than sites that go "Oops!" when they fail to load something, or a check engine light when the MAP sensor got one false flag a month ago. The usefulness is not there, and the only people that would know that it's because the app is 32bit, already knew that Apple was going to kill 32bit in an upcoming major update already.

For the standard non-techie, the highly touted warning was a nothing burger. For those of us that already knew that Apple planned on killing 32bit support, that warning was a nothing burger.

 

[fisherking]

It's an unhelpful """troubleshooting""" message, that is no more helpful than sites that go "Oops!" when they fail to load something, or a check engine light when the MAP sensor got one false flag a month ago. The usefulness is not there, and the only people that would know that it's because the app is 32bit, already knew that Apple was going to kill 32bit in an upcoming major update already.

For the standard non-techie, the highly touted warning was a nothing burger. For those of us that already knew that Apple planned on killing 32bit support, that warning was a nothing burger.

if you get a warning message and choose to ignore it, that's on you. that's where google (and forums like this) can help.

 

[Drak3]

if you get a warning message and choose to ignore it, that's on you. that's where google (and forums like this) can help.

If the developers issue an insufficient warning, as Apple has, that's on them.

 

[Stephen.R]

I remembered this came up on HN a few months back, and there was an interesting post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20252567) about the technical limitations of supporting both, forever:

32 bit code is stuck with the older ObjC runtime, which can’t support a bunch of new language features and suffers from from fragile ABI issues which make changing the internals of classes extremely problematic.
It’s not simple to fix (“just upgrade the runtime to support the new features”) because the newer runtime trades on the fact that a bunch of unused space in 64 bit pointers can be exploited for tagging, pointerless classes and a bunch of other things. And if they did fix the fragile ivar problem on the 32bit runtime, you’d need to recompile to use the new way of dynamically calculating strict offsets to member fields — and these apps are mostly dying with 32bit precisely because no one is recompiling them.
It’s basically dead-end code that is difficult to maintain and which increasingly requires the rest of the OS to stagnate just to keep it running.

 

[fisherking]

If the developers issue an insufficient warning, as Apple has, that's on them.

it's a warning, and you chose to ignore it, rather than find out more. how is that not your fault?

 

[iindigo]

I remembered this came up on HN a few months back, and there was an interesting post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20252567) about the technical limitations of supporting both, forever:

I came into this thread to post exactly this. It sucks that 32-bit apps can no longer be used, but the only way to keep 32-bit support around requires that for all practical purposes, development of large swaths of the OS be halted entirely. On the developer facing side of things, Catalina brings API improvements that devs have been needing for years now and the reason those improvements were possible was because 32-bit support was made unnecessary.

That said, Apple could have eased the transition by providing an optional install-on-demand Classic-like virtualized Mojave environment for running 32-bit stuff, but then again maybe it’s better to just rip the band-aid off so users don’t get complacent with compatibility mode and devs quickly fill the newly made vacuum.

 

[mmomega]

Apple always do this :/ I thought I was safe on Mac because it's x86, it supports both 32 and 64... no problems. All I know is I won't be buying another Mac again, a shame because I think Windows 10 sucks. The Mac was the last product from Apple I enjoyed, I don't like anything else that they've made... and the iPhone is too expensive now. However saying that, Apple have ramped up he Mac prices to crazy levels too....

I dunno what Tim Cook is doing, but he has been running the company into the ground.

"Apple always does this." - then don't have expectations of them doing anything different.

Opinion would be purchase a pre-built or DIY computer and put Linux on it as macOS and Windows both appear to be unenjoyable.
Maybe RaspberryPi due to the pricing being significantly less than any prebuilt computer.

OR

Don't upgrade your OS and be completely fine again with the computer as you seem to have been just 2 days ago.

 

[CTHarrryH]

I'd be as worried if not more that I was running apps that haven't been updated to modern technology in years. You're running apps that either don't have a developer anymore or have been abandoned by their developer.
IOS had these same threads when they went to 64 only and they disappeared shortly.
Your car won't run on leaded gas anymore either

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

That said, Apple could have eased the transition by providing an optional install-on-demand Classic-like virtualized Mojave environment for running 32-bit stuff, but then again maybe it’s better to just rip the band-aid off so users don’t get complacent with compatibility mode and devs quickly fill the newly made vacuum.

Exactly. I'm all for the discontinuation of 32-bit application support; I don't even have any remaining 32-bit applications to worry about. With that said, I do wonder why Apple didn't at least provide a Rosetta-style wrapper like they did with 10.6 Snow Leopard, to at least ease into the transition, then remove the "Rosetta" wrapper in 10.16 Underwater Catalina (jk)? This might have helped people with the transition, and gotten complacent developers to urgently update their outdated applications.

 

[George Knighton]

I’d be willing to bet that you could find alternatives for those 32-bit apps that you’re going to eventually have to leave behind.

Both of the applications that I need to use do in fact have successor 64-bit replacements.

My own department has lagged in testing and certifying these applications.

Maybe Apple gave enough notice, maybe they didn't.

All I know is that it caught me. It's entirely my fault that I tried it anyway and then had to spend most of a day rolling back and working outside.

The alternative was to use the SELinux setups, which most of us would prefer not to do.

I'm sure we'll get back to normal soon, and I apologize to everyone who was scandalized by lack of attention and understanding.
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Yeah, fair enough. But by your own admission it gave you a warning. Nothing ventured, nothing gained eh?

Mind you, do you have an IT Dept.? Where were they in this?

My guess is that they were embroiled in the constant daily struggles of the people who use Windows.

I'm sure we'll be on Catalina soon enough. Just not right now.