Is macOS Catalina Apple's Vista?

[handheldgames]

Where to start...

Catalina is getting off to a rough start on multiple Apple platforms. Dropping 32-bit app support is thwarting the creatives that flock to the platform. Users are running into install disasters.

Are we looking at Apple's Vista?

 

[Tech198]

To be fair, Windows users went through exactly the same thing when they switched from 32 to 64 bits only, so i dunno why we Apple users are thinking this is disaster...

"New" to Apple yes... but anyone who has used Windows, would have seen this as "catching up" time.

I do see a trend of Apple disasters probably more and more problems, but they only do it to themselves by introducing more and more features .... but the take away from that is always "its just come out and it will be fixed by 3rd revision" of an OS.

Soon you may get to the point the same as the solution was with iTunes /Music etc in one. "Lets split up iCloud so its now a separate app" and no longer part of system preferences."

 

[SoYoung]

The only thing I don't understand nowadays is the need to absolutely release a new major OS version every year. Its almost impossible they'll not hit a wall someday and iOS 13/Catalina are a great exemple of that.

I think the old era when there's just one new major version every 3-4 years was better. That way, you have time to polish the OS and just add patches here and there and in the same time, they'll have all the time they need to beta test the next big thing.

iOS 10 runs well, iOS 11 dont, iOS 12 works well, iOS 13 dont, same with macOS with High Sierra compared to Sierra and now Catalina vs Mojoave

Lucky, I dont have many bugs so far, just a couple of annoyance here and there, but for what I read almost everywhere, Catalina seems very buggy, (but I have a bad experience with iOS 13 by the way)

 

[chscag]

To be fair, Windows users went through exactly the same thing when they switched from 32 to 64 bits only, so i dunno why we Apple users are thinking this is disaster...

But Windows 10 still supports 32 bit Windows programs. Catalina has cut off all 32 bit support. Catalina is off to a rocky start but still not as bad as Vista was.

 

[SoYoung]

But Windows 10 still supports 32 bit Windows programs. Catalina has cut off all 32 bit support. Catalina is off to a rocky start but still not as bad as Vista was.

I'm not an expert, but I don't know why Apple cut the ability to just run 32-bit programs. I had to say goodbye to some good games I still enjoyed today and bought legitimacy at the mac App Store like 3 years ago.

 

[StellarVixen]

I am really disappointed by this release, I even sometimes joked, saying: "everyone has their Vista", but, honestly, no. I think no OS will be much of a disaster as Vista was.


There are several reasons:

1. Windows' market share is just unfair to compare to Mac's market share. It's not even a contest, especially back then.

2. Vista costed several hundred dollars to upgrade, which made people pissed spending that much money to get buggy PoS in return.

3. Expanding on first point, many companies actually used (and still use) Windows, so troubles caused by Vista caused the profit losses of millions if not billions of dollars worldwide.

 

[keithop]

Not as bad as vista no, but for the largest company in the world, expected to be focused on attention to detail, ios13/catalina both feel pretty rushed to me.

Almost worse is, it's not as if they really pushed the envelope on new stuff either. I mean the pace of windows 10 updates is pretty amazing and they really are adding significant stuff regularly.

For years I defended my mac book pro buying decisions with "best hardware, best OS so I'll spend the money"... but now I'm looking at my thermally throttled MBP, with noisy fans that kick in doing normal work, with a keyboard which is just awful to type on, a touchbar that removed my physical escape key, no magsafe power, no usb A and no SD slot. All that comes with a very slow to evolve OS.

Thing is, it still has good looking fonts, works properly on high dpi monitors and doesn't currently nag me about wanting to login to the cloud to do anything. (although that could be changing too).

iPadOS just isnt there for me to use as a day to day driver yet no matter how much they want me to

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I was an original Windows Vista user and part of the problem were the "DRIVERS", they just weren't ready for the release. Also Vista came in 2 different flavors 32bit and 64 bit. By the time most of the problems were addressed i.e. bugs and drivers Microsoft released Service pack 2 and Windows Vista was pretty close in performance to Windows 7.

Microsoft had no choice but to kill off Windows Vista because of all the negative press. Even those Windows Vista, Jerry Seinfeld commercials couldn't help Vista.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

The only thing I don't understand nowadays is the need to absolutely release a new major OS version every year. Its almost impossible they'll not hit a wall someday and iOS 13/Catalina are a great exemple of that.

But that's also a double edged sword because it doesn't guarantee a better more refined OS. Sometimes when you prolong the release dates it can also inject too many different thoughts on what the OS should be. This is a problem with many videogames. That last thing a development team wants is to have an idea or group of ideas on what they want the next OS to become only to have new thoughts injected into the process and then they decide to start over. That scenario has played out with at least one Windows version i've read about.

 

[fisherking]

Where to start...

Catalina is getting off to a rough start on multiple Apple platforms. Dropping 32-bit app support is thwarting the creatives that flock to the platform. Users are running into install disasters.

Are we looking at Apple's Vista?

EVERY OS apple has ever released, in every official and beta version, has had some people unhappy, others happy. now, catalina does drop 32bit app support, so... it will be an significant issue for some; this is how big changes happen (the move to intel, for example). then people adapt, and a year later, find other things to whine about.

your statements read like a list of facts, so can you list your sources for this information?

 

[FNH15]

Where to start...

Catalina is getting off to a rough start on multiple Apple platforms. Dropping 32-bit app support is thwarting the creatives that flock to the platform. Users are running into install disasters.

Are we looking at Apple's Vista?

I’m going to repost this because its important for people to understand just how long Apple gave developers to migrate to 64bit.

Adobe, and many larger developers, were patently negligent when it came to coding for 64bit apps on the Mac. They had over a decade to compile for 64 bit, and move away from Carbon, and decided to do nothing.

For the record, here’s the timeline for 64bit support on Mac OS X / macOS: (Taken from Ars Technica’s excellent macOS review)

• June 2003: The PowerPC G5 CPU is the first 64-bit-capable chip to show up in a Mac, and with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, it can theoretically address up to 8GB of RAM.
• April 2005: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger allows for 64-bit processes under the hood—they can be spun off from another process or run via the Terminal.
• June 2005: Apple announces that it will begin using Intel processors, which are still primarily 32-bit. Whoops!
• August 2006: Apple launches the Intel Mac Pro with a 64-bit Woodcrest CPU; mainstream 64-bit Core 2 Duo Macs follow shortly afterward.
• October 2007: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard launches with actual support for regular 64-bit apps; Universal Binaries can run on 32-bit and 64-bit Intel and PowerPC machines, covering four architectures within a single app. Unlike Windows, Apple never ships separate 32- and 64-bit versions of Mac OS X.
• August 2009: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard still runs on 32-bit chips, but for the first time everything from the apps to the OS kernel supports 64-bit operation. Snow Leopard's 64-bit capabilities are a major component of Apple's marketing push, which infamously includes "no new features." However, most systems still default to loading the 32-bit kernel.
• July 2011: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion drops support for 32-bit Intel CPUs (Snow Leopard had already ended all support for PowerPC systems). Older Macs continue to default to the 32-bit kernel and 32-bit drivers, but new Macs introduced in this era typically default to the 64-bit kernel.
• July 2012: OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion boots into the 64-bit kernel by default on all systems that support it, including a few that previously defaulted to the 32-bit kernel. In the process, a few 64-bit systems with 32-bit graphics drivers and 32-bit EFIs are dropped from the support list.
• June 2017: Apple announces macOS 10.13 High Sierra and says it's the last release that will run 32-bit apps "without compromise."
• January 2018: All new apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be 64-bit only.
• April 2018: High Sierra's 10.13.4 update begins warning users about "not optimized" (read: 32-bit) apps the first time they're launched.
• June 2018: All new apps and updates to existing apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be 64-bit only. Apple announces macOS Mojave, which will be the last version of the OS to run 32-bit code.
• September 2018: Apple releases Mojave. 32-bit software continues to run but with more frequent and aggressive nag messages than High Sierra.
• June 2019: Apple announces macOS Catalina, which makes good on Apple's promise to drop 32-bit software support.
• October 2019: Catalina is released. 32-bit apps no longer run on the latest version of macOS.

Mojave will continue to receive OS security updates until the release of macOS 10.17, three years from now. Plenty of time to consider migrating to other options, or investing in an older Mac to continue to run your legacy software (which is what I have elected to do, see my sig below).


Now, in regards to stability, in my experience Catalina has been a little less stable in its initial release than 10.14 and no different from some of the earlier releases - 10.7 and 10.13 come to mind. If you’re worried about stability, then just wait for 10.15.1 or 10.15.2.

 

[hrpuffnstuff]

I don't believe MacOS Catalina is Apple's version of Windows Vista because both Apple and Microsoft has issued guidelines for software developers previously that would have minimized headaches had developers updated their apps accordingly. The transition from PowerPC to Intel Macs was far more traumatic in many ways.
I understand the inconvenience that removal of 32 bit apps has caused but I also have seen what happens when legacy software support causes code to be both unstable and insecure. I feel Apple giving developers almost 2 years to update to 64 bits and the fact that most Mac's after the Core 2 (2006) are 64 bit http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3696 should have been a harbinger of things to come related to 64 bit updates.
No Apple fanboy here , I'm only on my second Mac but as a hedge I use VM Ware Fusion with Windows 10 Pro JUST IN CASE

 

[jeanlain]

I’m going to repost this because its important for people to understand just how long Apple gave developers to migrate to 64bit.

Sure, but game developers aren't going to rewrite their games, and the newest Tomb Raider is not a replacement of older episodes.
To make the matter worse, you can't play most games in a virtual machine.

 

[IowaLynn]

Google Android is also closing in on 64-bit. No more 32-bit libraries.

Apple shot itself in the proverbial foot with 10.15 though. Not the first time, so they also don't seem to learn from the past lessons that should have been learned.

Back in 2006 with Mac Pro 1,1 and Vista beta. It did take a year before graphic drivers were really good to go.

Engineering, not marketing, should drive change. And to think iOS 14 development begins before 13 is baked and lessons learned.

 

[mj_]

Mojave will continue to receive OS security updates until the release of macOS 10.17, three years from now.

Close, but no cigar. 10.17 is going to be released two years from today, not three. Which means that support for 10.14 will be dropped in late 2021.

 

[netnothing]

I think Apple needs to slow down. The rush to get out a whole new OS each year is crazy. By the time they release an OS, they only have what, 6 months before developers are presented the next OS - and even less time internally? Maybe this is ok with iOS where the entire system is a little more controlled, but they really shouldn't have gone this route with macOS.

I also don't think they have enough beta testers. I know they opened up public betas a few years ago, but I honestly don't think the vast majority of those use the beta for anything other than being "first" to have the new features. I get the feeling most public beta testers don't submit bug reports and really test.

With iOS 13 and Catalina, it feels like they needed a good 3+ months of extra dev time before releasing. Both rollouts have just been sloppy and rushed.

I don't think it's as bad as Vista - but it's not good either.

 

[fisherking]

so much whining... zzzzzzzz. and so many people who think that their opinion speaks for everyone (for example, still waiting for the OP to share his sources for his 'facts').

as always, all of these things will crop up again next year ("10.16 sucks", "10.16 killed my mac" etc etc)... until the year after that, when it all happens again. etc

 

[handheldgames]

I’m going to repost this because its important for people to understand just how long Apple gave developers to migrate to 64bit.

Adobe, and many larger developers, were patently negligent when it came to coding for 64bit apps on the Mac. They had over a decade to compile for 64 bit, and move away from Carbon, and decided to do nothing.

For the record, here’s the timeline for 64bit support on Mac OS X / macOS: (Taken from Ars Technica’s excellent macOS review)

• June 2003: The PowerPC G5 CPU is the first 64-bit-capable chip to show up in a Mac, and with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, it can theoretically address up to 8GB of RAM.
• April 2005: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger allows for 64-bit processes under the hood—they can be spun off from another process or run via the Terminal.
• June 2005: Apple announces that it will begin using Intel processors, which are still primarily 32-bit. Whoops!
• August 2006: Apple launches the Intel Mac Pro with a 64-bit Woodcrest CPU; mainstream 64-bit Core 2 Duo Macs follow shortly afterward.
• October 2007: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard launches with actual support for regular 64-bit apps; Universal Binaries can run on 32-bit and 64-bit Intel and PowerPC machines, covering four architectures within a single app. Unlike Windows, Apple never ships separate 32- and 64-bit versions of Mac OS X.
• August 2009: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard still runs on 32-bit chips, but for the first time everything from the apps to the OS kernel supports 64-bit operation. Snow Leopard's 64-bit capabilities are a major component of Apple's marketing push, which infamously includes "no new features." However, most systems still default to loading the 32-bit kernel.
• July 2011: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion drops support for 32-bit Intel CPUs (Snow Leopard had already ended all support for PowerPC systems). Older Macs continue to default to the 32-bit kernel and 32-bit drivers, but new Macs introduced in this era typically default to the 64-bit kernel.
• July 2012: OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion boots into the 64-bit kernel by default on all systems that support it, including a few that previously defaulted to the 32-bit kernel. In the process, a few 64-bit systems with 32-bit graphics drivers and 32-bit EFIs are dropped from the support list.
• June 2017: Apple announces macOS 10.13 High Sierra and says it's the last release that will run 32-bit apps "without compromise."
• January 2018: All new apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be 64-bit only.
• April 2018: High Sierra's 10.13.4 update begins warning users about "not optimized" (read: 32-bit) apps the first time they're launched.
• June 2018: All new apps and updates to existing apps submitted to the Mac App Store need to be 64-bit only. Apple announces macOS Mojave, which will be the last version of the OS to run 32-bit code.
• September 2018: Apple releases Mojave. 32-bit software continues to run but with more frequent and aggressive nag messages than High Sierra.
• June 2019: Apple announces macOS Catalina, which makes good on Apple's promise to drop 32-bit software support.
• October 2019: Catalina is released. 32-bit apps no longer run on the latest version of macOS.

Mojave will continue to receive OS security updates until the release of macOS 10.17, three years from now. Plenty of time to consider migrating to other options, or investing in an older Mac to continue to run your legacy software (which is what I have elected to do, see my sig below).


Now, in regards to stability, in my experience Catalina has been a little less stable in its initial release than 10.14 and no different from some of the earlier releases - 10.7 and 10.13 come to mind. If you’re worried about stability, then just wait for 10.15.1 or 10.15.2.

There was definitely time for compliance IF developers invested the $$$, time and effort to upgrade legacy apps. Upgrading an app is one thing, upgrading all of the libraries consumed by the macOS app, in addition to the App's source code, multiplies the effort.

It's not as straight forward as everyone thinks
5 years ago, I started writing an enterprise marketing design and publishing app supporting the web and mobile apps. With the release of Xcode 9, about 2 years ago, I made the jump to 64-bit and the effort was manageable, including the effort to fix compatibility with several libraries that were not updated. The roadblock to updating the app was xcode 10. Interface builder layouts that had reliably worked for the last 4 years broke. Tracking down the issues lead to the realization that the the code was fine, the layouts were borked. When trying to fix the layouts, my files would corrupt and xcode would crash on loading the project. I've been forced to re-create complex interface components, going back and forth between recent and legacy versions of xcode to make any headway.

The sad state of XCode for macOS
The switch from 32 to 64-bit is easily attainable. However, the sad state of Xcode for macOS, makes what should be an easy task - unattainable without a significant investment of time and money. I don't blame the developer's. Apple is at fault for bug ridden macOS development environment.

If you want developers to update their legacy code, they need tools that work with their legacy projects. Without it.. Catalina.
[automerge]1571276646[/automerge]

EVERY OS apple has ever released, in every official and beta version, has had some people unhappy, others happy. now, catalina does drop 32bit app support, so... it will be an significant issue for some; this is how big changes happen (the move to intel, for example). then people adapt, and a year later, find other things to whine about.

your statements read like a list of facts, so can you list your sources for this information?

Read the news or you can Google: catalina install loop, catalina adobe

 

[fisherking]

There was definitely time for compliance IF developers invested the $$$, time and effort to upgrade legacy apps. Upgrading an app is one thing, upgrading all of the libraries consumed by the macOS app, in addition to the App's source code, multiplies the effort.

It's not as straight forward as everyone thinks
5 years ago, I started writing an enterprise marketing design and publishing app supporting the web and mobile apps. With the release of Xcode 9, about 2 years ago, I made the jump to 64-bit and the effort was manageable, including the effort to fix compatibility with several libraries that were not updated. The roadblock to updating the app was xcode 10. Interface builder layouts that had reliably worked for the last 4 years broke. Tracking down the issues lead to the realization that the the code was fine, the layouts were borked. When trying to fix the layouts, my files would corrupt and xcode would crash on loading the project. I've been forced to re-create complex interface components, going back and forth between recent and legacy versions of xcode to make any headway.

The sad state of XCode for macOS
The switch from 32 to 64-bit is easily attainable. However, the sad state of Xcode for macOS, makes an what should be an easy task - unattainable without a significant investment of time and money. I don't blame the developer's. Apple is at fault for bug ridden macOS development environment.

If you want developers to update their legacy code, they need tools that work with their legacy projects. Without it.. Catalina.
[automerge]1571276646[/automerge]


Read the news or you can Google: catalina install loop, catalina adobe

yes, i know, but i still stand by what i said...

 

[mmomega]

The only thing I don't understand nowadays is the need to absolutely release a new major OS version every year. Its almost impossible they'll not hit a wall someday and iOS 13/Catalina are a great exemple of that.

I think the old era when there's just one new major version every 3-4 years was better. That way, you have time to polish the OS and just add patches here and there and in the same time, they'll have all the time they need to beta test the next big thing.

Since OSX came to be, there have been 16 releases in 18 years.
Ubuntu has had 31 in 15 years. Which is also dumping 32bit in 19.10.
Windows 10 itself has had 9 in 4 years.

 

[Ethosik]

so much whining... zzzzzzzz. and so many people who think that their opinion speaks for everyone (for example, still waiting for the OP to share his sources for his 'facts').

as always, all of these things will crop up again next year ("10.16 sucks", "10.16 killed my mac" etc etc)... until the year after that, when it all happens again. etc

You know. These comments don’t help. So I should NEVER complain I get at least one kernel panic ONLY in Catalina? I should just ignore it if I get a crash every time I’m trying to do a long FCPX export? I should just not meet my deadlines because of these issues?

I’m back on Mojave now. I spent too much time diagnosing these kernel panics. Apple Support couldn’t figure it out. I should just say nothing as if Catalina is great?

 

[fisherking]

You know. These comments don’t help. So I should NEVER complain I get at least one kernel panic ONLY in Catalina? I should just ignore it if I get a crash every time I’m trying to do a long FCPX export? I should just not meet my deadlines because of these issues?

I’m back on Mojave now. I spent too much time diagnosing these kernel panics. Apple Support couldn’t figure it out. I should just say nothing as if Catalina is great?

you're not listening; anyone who has an issue, or issues, should come here to ask for help; that, at the core, is the great power of this forum; a community of mac people who can help each other.

and discussion is a good thing. and being upset is a reasonable thing, in the face of an issue (or many); so it seems reasonable to come here and share issues, crises. am simply suggesting that asking for help might serve more purpose than whining, or declaring absolutes;

so many people determine that an OS is trash, or a failure, or whatever, based on their individual experience, and state this as fact. and it's tiresome (to be fair, this whole post is just my own opinion; am not stating a fact. but am acknowledging that).

facts... people seem to think that their opinion is a fact, and an opinion is not a fact (unless, lol, it is).

 

[nihil0]

You know. These comments don’t help. So I should NEVER complain I get at least one kernel panic ONLY in Catalina? I should just ignore it if I get a crash every time I’m trying to do a long FCPX export? I should just not meet my deadlines because of these issues?

I’m back on Mojave now. I spent too much time diagnosing these kernel panics. Apple Support couldn’t figure it out. I should just say nothing as if Catalina is great?

If you have critical projects going on and deadlines it is not wise to upgrade to new OS at all until you have seen that all issues have been ironed out. That is why I am waiting at least for .1 or even .2 release and I am giving time to developers to fix their issues (Adobe, Skylum).

 

[Ethosik]

If you have critical projects going on and deadlines it is not wise to upgrade to new OS at all until you have seen that all issues have been ironed out. That is why I am waiting at least for .1 or even .2 release and I am giving time to developers to fix their issues (Adobe, Skylum).

Yep I downgraded to Mojave and zero kernel panics still.

 

[IowaLynn]

Since OSX came to be, there have been 16 releases in 18 years.
Ubuntu has had 31 in 15 years. Which is also dumping 32bit in 19.10.
Windows 10 itself has had 9 in 4 years.

Windows has had two service type packs per year? Monthly security updates plus some out of cycle. But 10 is still mainly 10. (I miss 8.1 for strong tablet support.)

Apple? those OS X 10.0 thru 10.15 and ignore all the updates during each release cycle? And even 10.6 wasnt its vest until 10.6.8. Same goes for Lion and Mountain Lion - every. single. release was buggy in its dot zero thru many more.

Does sound like Xcode is responsible for problems and it takes a year or more to flush out using compilers.