macOS 13 Ventura on Unsupported Macs Thread

[0xCUBE]

It’s THE fundamental issue with manufacturers now. Hardware peaked a long, long time ago. For the vast majority of the billions of people on earth, modern computers, and modern phones, and modern ANY electronic things do nothing better today than they did 10 years ago.

Sure you can point to incremental little improvements here and there, like a better resolution of camera or screen, faster this, faster that, but at the end of the day these devices are doing the exact same things people were using them for a decade ago.

Electronic Manufacturers realize this. Just as light bulb makers did 120 years ago. Planned, deliberate obsolescence is the only way forward for them now.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the current 14 and 16 inch macbook pros are only the product of "little improvements here and there" as opposed to a similar model from 2012. Much better efficiency, higher power, less heat, thinner frame, better screens, better batteries, and improved software and security are not "little improvements"; they are generational changes that add up to an overall better experience. Just try using an iPhone 4 on iOS 6 in 2022 as a daily driver and you'll understand what I mean.

 

[Aston441]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the current 14 and 16 inch macbook pros are only the product of "little improvements here and there" as opposed to a similar model from 2012. Much better efficiency, higher power, less heat, thinner frame, better screens, better batteries, and improved software and security are not "little improvements"; they are generational changes that add up to an overall better experience. Just try using an iPhone 4 on iOS 6 in 2022 as a daily driver and you'll understand what I mean.

If it was so much of an "overall better experience" then the new hardware would sell itself, on just that, and Apple would not have had to deliberately dropped support for the 2012 model, which works perfectly fine on the latest official MacOS.

I still use my iPhone 6s+ and it also works perfectly fine. The secret to iOS is to NEVER update to the latest iOS just before support is dropped, as Apple *always* does something in the last few updates to dramatically slow the phone and kill the battery. Lots of us have learned this the hard way.

 

[amaze1499]

Out of curiosity: Who in here finds Ventura a necessary update for unsupported Macs and why?

 

[rbart]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the current 14 and 16 inch macbook pros are only the product of "little improvements here and there" as opposed to a similar model from 2012. Much better efficiency, higher power, less heat, thinner frame, better screens, better batteries, and improved software and security are not "little improvements"; they are generational changes that add up to an overall better experience. Just try using an iPhone 4 on iOS 6 in 2022 as a daily driver and you'll understand what I mean.

It's better, but at the end, you perform exactly the same tasks, it's just faster and more confortable with latest hardware.

 

[woefi]

Who in here finds Ventura a necessary update for unsupported Macs and why?

Well, regardless of new features, some pro applications regularly drop support for 2-3yr old OSs (e.g. FinalCut, DaVinci Resolve, CaptureOne,...) So it's best to know early when your machine will be in a "difficult" update situation.
Sometimes it's just to keep your Mac in sync with your iOS devices (Notes, Reminders, iWork, Safari, Handoff,...)

Anyhow, if you do (paid) work on your mac it's usually best wait for a XX.3.0 release of macOS, which in the case of Ventura would mean approx. february ´23 for the earliest. So if I know that my machine is capable of Ventura it will be in sync until spring '24 and will run my pro applications until 2025 (and receive security updates)

Whether I will want to get a faster (m2/m3)-mac anyway at that point is my freedom to decide until then (2025)

 

[0xCUBE]

It's better, but at the end, you perform exactly the same tasks, it's just faster and more confortable with latest hardware.

Technically you "can" run 4k exports in final cut pro on a 2012 13" MBP, but not only can you not run the latest version without a patcher, but it is so slow that you could take a nap while it's exporting, and it would only preview in a couple FPS. Technically you "can" continue running your iPhone 6S on its original version of iOS, but it would not support the latest apps, many apps just wouldn't run outright, the degraded battery would make battery life more terrible than it already was, and inevitably breaking hardware would be much more likely at that old age. Sure - technically you "can" do things on old devices, but I would call it a bold claim that it is worthwhile to save the money at that point.

 

[rbart]

Technically you "can" run 4k exports in final cut pro on a 2012 13" MBP, but not only can you not run the latest version without a patcher, but it is so slow that you could take a nap while it's exporting, and it would only preview in a couple FPS. Technically you "can" continue running your iPhone 6S on its original version of iOS, but it would not support the latest apps, many apps just wouldn't run outright, the degraded battery would make battery life more terrible than it already was, and inevitably breaking hardware would be much more likely at that old age. Sure - technically you "can" do things on old devices, but I would call it a bold claim that it is worthwhile to save the money at that point.

You could do more things if Apple decides to continue to support old OS or install new OS on the old machine.
Without Ventura, you can't use family album in Photos, so you can't sync it with your iPhone.
Honestly, what's missing to a 2015 5K retina iMac with Skylake to support this kind of feature ?
Not everyone is exporting 4K videos ...
A lot of people use their Mac for office purpose, web browsing, photo viewing, for watching videos ...
For basic usage, a 2015 hardware is perfectly capable of doing any task.
The way the Apple APIs work force us to have the last system, they rarely back port their API changes to older OS. So when apps want to take advantages of new features, they need the new API and the new OS.
I have an iPhone 13, I do nothing more than with my previous iPhone 7. It's faster, but the 7 wasn't slow, photos are a bit nicer, but I can do better photos by learning photo techniques. The photograph is more important than the device.
Small thought:
What people do with Office 365 / Windows 11 (on a 4Ghz CPU, 8Gb RAM, 1Tb of HDD) they can't do on Office 97/Win 98 (100MHz CPU, 8Mb RAM, 1Gb HDD) ? For most people, they write exactly the same documents with the same features. But the required hardware is 1000x more powerful ...

 

[0xCUBE]

You could do more things if Apple decides to continue to support old OS or install new OS on the old machine.
Without Ventura, you can't use family album in Photos, so you can't sync it with your iPhone.
Honestly, what's missing to a 2015 5K retina iMac with Skylake to support this kind of feature ?
Not everyone is exporting 4K videos ...
A lot of people use their Mac for office purpose, web browsing, photo viewing, for watching videos ...
For basic usage, a 2015 hardware is perfectly capable of doing any task.
The way the Apple APIs work force us to have the last system, they rarely back port their API changes to older OS. So when apps want to take advantages of new features, they need the new API and the new OS.
I have an iPhone 13, I do nothing more than with my previous iPhone 7. It's faster, but the 7 wasn't slow, photos are a bit nicer, but I can do better photos by learning photo techniques. The photograph is more important than the device.
Small thought:
What people do with Office 365 / Windows 11 (on a 4Ghz CPU, 8Gb RAM, 1Tb of HDD) they can't do on Office 97/Win 98 (100MHz CPU, 8Mb RAM, 1Gb HDD) ? For most people, they write exactly the same documents with the same features. But the required hardware is 1000x more powerful ...

for office use, you can stay on an old OS just fine. Just realize that using an old device for 10+ years isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. Also I don't think that you can "learn" how to do a 0.5x photo or 3x optical zoom on your old phone.
As for what people can do with windows 11 that they can't do with windows 98? Basically everything. Just try web browsing on a computer with 8mb RAM in 2022.

 

[rbart]

The problem is that OS editors don't let you the choice. You must update to the versions, for security purpose, for using software that require the last version ...
If Apple brings a Ventura version without new features on my "not so old 2015" Mac, I am perfectly fine with that.
I don't need camera continuity, stage manager ...
But I need to be able to sync everything with my other devices, I need to be able to have the last API, I need to install the last Xcode version.
My Mac is running perfectly, but Apple has decided I won't be able to continue to develop on it next year, when Xcode 15 will be available and not supported on Monterey.

 

[0xCUBE]

The problem is that OS editors don't let you the choice. You must update to the versions, for security purpose, for using software that require the last version ...
If Apple brings a Ventura version without new features on my "not so old 2015" Mac, I am perfectly fine with that.
I don't need camera continuity, stage manager ...
But I need to be able to sync everything with my other devices, I need to be able to have the last API, I need to install the last Xcode version.
My Mac is running perfectly, but Apple has decided I won't be able to continue to develop on it next year, when Xcode 15 will be available and not supported on Monterey.

if you need those features, buy a new Mac. 2015 is 7 years ago now - prime time to upgrade.

 

[rbart]

So Apple is right ... I have to put a perfectly running 6 years old Mac to the trash just to have an updated system ...
It's not a laptop with a destroyed battery, it's working like day one and powerful enough to run the last Apple software.
If I want something equivalent, how much ?
A Mac Studio with a Studio display ?

 

[adrianlondon]

if you need those features, buy a new Mac. 2015 is 7 years ago now - prime time to upgrade.

When Apple takes relatively basic things, Notes in this case, and says you need Ventura and iOS 16 to read them once you click "upgrade" (remember when they did this with Reminders a few years ago?) then the option is easy - don't upgrade anything.

Throwing away a decent laptop from 2015 because Notes no longer works doesn't sound like a positive step.

 

[rbart]

The main problem is the monolithic architecture of Apple OS.
If apps like Notes, Photos, Safari, Reminders, Maps could be updated without updating the whole OS, it won't be so annoying
Apple is not a poor company with limited ressources, we also buy their expensive hardware because it lasts long.
If a 5 year 3K€ computer is outdated, it's a very bad signal for the planet ...

 

[algernonpule]

So Apple is right ... I have to put a perfectly running 6 years old Mac to the trash just to have an updated system ...

Not at all. Someone on eBay will gladly pay you a few hundred pounds for it!

 

[MisterAndrew]

to be fair, buying one of those things in 2019 isn't necessarily a very smart idea, considering that it was essentially the same price as in 2013, the hardware didn't change, hence you were overpaying more and more for older hardware. This is even more true when apple announced the 2019 Mac Pro at WWDC. Unless it was for urgent enterprise reasons, there really wasn't much of a reason to buy the 2013 Mac Pro in 2019.

I don't agree. In 2019, and even up until the release of the Studio, the 2013 Mac Pro made sense if you wanted a headless Mac that was more powerful than a mini and still supported by the current OS, and also if you didn't need quite the power of the 7,1.

 

[0xCUBE]

When Apple takes relatively basic things, Notes in this case, and says you need Ventura and iOS 16 to read them once you click "upgrade" (remember when they did this with Reminders a few years ago?) then the option is easy - don't upgrade anything.

Throwing away a decent laptop from 2015 because Notes no longer works doesn't sound like a positive step.

also keep in mind apps like Xcode, which I use regularly. If you don't have the latest version of macOS, you can't use the latest version of Xcode, and therefore you can't run the latest versions of Swift or run simulators on new devices. And Apple doesn't do this because "Apple bad", they do it to create the best experience possible by only supporting macs that truly deserve to be supported.

 

[osxhero]

It's also interesting that Apple touts itself as an environmentally conscious company yet contributes directly to landfills by never standardizing ports that the rest of the industry uses. Now we expect this from companies that never make an ECO statement, but not from Apple. Failing to support older processors that have plenty of horsepower fills the Earth with millions of metric tons of parts that won't biodegrade ever. Having a staff (think of Apple's bank statement) that supports virtualization hooks to old processors shouldn't be a problem for a company with their wealth. It's obviously profit driven while trying to maintain a contrary position in the Greta Thunberg world.

 

[Loki_89]

Out of curiosity: Who in here finds Ventura a necessary update for unsupported Macs and why?

Count me. Why -> security reasons mainly. Good example might be recent Monterey 12.5.1 update, which for Big Sur devices came only in form of Safari update.

 

[oldmacs]

Out of curiosity: Who in here finds Ventura a necessary update for unsupported Macs and why?

Because it means an extra year of feature and security updates for my Mac, and the ability to keep using various iCloud services and iWork applications for an extra period of time.

 

[Prohere7321]

Excited on what is about to come. Congrats to the developers for achieving graphics acceleration on legacy Metal GPUs!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1561602826534457346

 

[Larsvonhier]

Wow. Seems the main cudos go again to @ASentientBot !
Great teamwork overall. Can´t wait to test this on various machines at hand...

 

[TimmuJapan]

 

[pshufd]

I have 2009, 2010 iMac 27s, 2014, 2015 MacBook Pros and the 2014 5k iMac that I'd like to test with Ventura. I assume that it will take some time to put together a kit but it sounds like proof of concept is done.

 

[14dcutaneo]

View attachment 2045793


View attachment 2045792

You forgot Syncretic, cdf, and a few others

 

[0xCUBE]

Alright folks, news has broken that legacy metal has acceleration patches! However, as they are not released, I ask everyone to please refrain from asking how to install ventura with the patches! Thank you for your cooperation