MacOS Catalina: only 64-bit. OS that might ship with 32-bit. software that might brick your Mac

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

What's wrong with CD players?  Now, if you had said cassette tape players instead, that would be a different story.

They're tough sells to anyone with fast cell data and access to a streaming music service.

 

Really, it's not so much their presence as the effective mandate.  Imagine if, say, Acura felt forced to keep CD players in every car because it wanted to keep the two percent of customers who would leave if they couldn't play their old discs.  Yeah, it'd keep those customers in the short term, but it'd also limit Acura's ability to evolve the infotainment system due to the space and power chewed up by that big, bulky CD player.  Ditto Microsoft: it was so worried about losing business customers that it made compatibility decisions that hampered Windows years down the road.

[LeSheen]

20 hours ago, Kilrah said:

But there is also no reason an OS should drop support for all legacy applications that aren't maintained anymore.

There are even multiple reasons... Easier to maintain, smaller install, less chance to break something because of legacy code,.... And as I told you earlier these can still run in a vm for example.

Every time you run a 32 bit application a subsystem has to be booted which affects battery, performance, memory,...  So yea there is no reason to drop 32 bit support 

[Pickles von Brine]

And I will be waiting a bit before upgrading. I do a fresh install when upgrading anyways. Hopefully can avoid these issues. 

[RedRound2]

16 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Another funny thing with this OS, is that after Apple did all the joking with Vista with UAC prompts (which is what Linux based OS already introduced), now Apple joins the party. I think they could no longer deny the security benefits of not being true admin/root.

 

Looking on Twiiter, many people using the new OS are now doing the same complains that Windows users did back in Vista days when UAC was introduced. Unlike Windows, there is so far no option to reduce them or hide them to my knowledge.

What are you even talking about?

On 10/16/2019 at 12:52 PM, Blademaster91 said:

I don't see the point of rushing to ditch 32bit support, the decision breaks compatibility especially for education or pros that need to use older software, IMO at least give users the choice to have support for 32bit apps, then again it's Apple and they'd rather force you to buy new everything.

Kinda ironic the OS easily gives you the option to be without critical updates. Unpopular opinion,but Windows hiding the option to completely block updates is a good thing, most users would just block it.

They didn't rush. They announced it long ago. They started giving warnings with Mojave, and they had dropped lot of older macs with less than 4GB RAM with last year's release. And Apple has always been known to move away from legacy stuff when the time comes. So, it's the developers fault if they haven't moved their code to 64-bit by now. And if you are reliant on an older software the doesn't get any updates, don't update. You'll still get security updates while you find a better alternative (or if you're a huge company, fund the developers to get the app updated)

12 hours ago, Jito463 said:

What's wrong with CD players?  Now, if you had said cassette tape players instead, that would be a different story.

Who uses CD player's today? Getting an entire album on any music streaming service is super easy a grandma can do it, with the added bonus of better quality. And CDs can get damaged easily? CDs are today's cassette tapes so move on. Stop having some fond memories over CDs (I for one like to have swords fights instead of having guns in the world, but welp)

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, RedRound2 said:

What are you even talking about?

They didn't rush. They announced it long ago. They started giving warnings with Mojave, and they had dropped lot of older macs with less than 4GB RAM with last year's release. And Apple has always been known to move away from legacy stuff when the time comes. So, it's the developers fault if they haven't moved their code to 64-bit by now. And if you are reliant on an older software the doesn't get any updates, don't update. You'll still get security updates while you find a better alternative (or if you're a huge company, fund the developers to get the app updated)

Who uses CD player's today? Getting an entire album on any music streaming service is super easy a grandma can do it, with the added bonus of better quality. And CDs can get damaged easily? CDs are today's cassette tapes so move on. Stop having some fond memories over CDs (I for one like to have swords fights instead of having guns in the world, but welp)

Streaming better quality than CD?   At best it is good enough to be unnoticeable for the majority of users. The rest of the time it is worse.

[RedRound2]

12 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Streaming better quality than CD?   At best it is good enough to be unnoticeable for the majority of users. The rest of the time it is worse.

Tidal offers lossless. But fine, CDs may have the upper hand, but is it really a huge advantage compared to all the other benefits of streaming. Worst case, buy your album in lossless and stick it in a thumb drive. THere's no justification for Cds to exist today especially when it takes up so much room in the hardware and storage, compared to today's alternatives

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Streaming better quality than CD?   At best it is good enough to be unnoticeable for the majority of users. The rest of the time it is worse.

Sure it's more convenient, but not everyone has unlimited data for streaming on the go, as antiquated as everyone insists CD's or Blurays are, I like owning some physical media and streaming is much worse in quality.

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

They didn't rush. They announced it long ago. They started giving warnings with Mojave, and they had dropped lot of older macs with less than 4GB RAM with last year's release. And Apple has always been known to move away from legacy stuff when the time comes. So, it's the developers fault if they haven't moved their code to 64-bit by now. And if you are reliant on an older software the doesn't get any updates, don't update. You'll still get security updates while you find a better alternative (or if you're a huge company, fund the developers to get the app updated)

 

It really does seem rushed, especially since the update has the capability to completely brick an install, the same thing people sh*t on Microsoft for except Apple is being praised for it.  Funny they dropped support for the 2010-2011 macs, while hardware of that age would still run Windows 10 just fine. There is no reason to completely ditch support,people can blame the developers yet all it really hurts are the consumers either stuck with a bricked machine, or have to buy new software. And that isn't a realistic expectation,as a lot of legacy software doesn't get updates, and companies won't spend money if software just works, many companies would probably switch to another OS for 32bit support.

[Sauron]

lUnIx BaD bEcAuSe U nEeD tHe CoMmAnD lInE tO fIx It

[mr moose]

31 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Tidal offers lossless. But fine, CDs may have the upper hand, but is it really a huge advantage compared to all the other benefits of streaming. Worst case, buy your album in lossless and stick it in a thumb drive. THere's no justification for Cds to exist today especially when it takes up so much room in the hardware and storage, compared to today's alternatives

Well, that is really up to the end user, I prefer CD's to streaming when listening to music is the activity rather than it going on in the background.  I like my CD and DVD collection.  I like inlays and bonus material etc.  And I like supporting my favorite artists by buying the product that puts the most coin in their pocket.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

the product that puts the most coin in their pocket.

Wouldn't that be a concert ticket?

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Wouldn't that be a concert ticket?

Yes and no.  Depending who you ask (and the size of band and support they get) cd's still mean more money for them given the amount I can afford to spend.  E.G Midnight oil might make more form a concert than a cd and more from the cd than from streaming, but I can't afford the concert.

[Jotoco]

Apple can get away with it because the percentage of people who use specialized software on Mac is minuscule. 

 

I don't know a single person who uses specialized software on a Mac that is not photoshop, premiere or similar. 

 

Go to windows and there are not only legacy software, but legacy hardware. Sometimes equipment that is decades old but works just fine and would cost tens or hundreds of thousands to update. 

 

The developer or manufacturer wouldn't want to update it for a sale he already made a long time ago from which he doesn't make any money anymore, and from a business stand point it would be suicide to spend cash you don't need to. 

 

In my field (engineering and automation) it would be unthinkable to drop support for legacy software. Millions worth of equipment being thrown away because of incompatibility with modern computers is not feasible. 

 

And why update computers that interface with those old equipment, you say? 

 

Because they are also connected to more modern parts of your work flow. Say an old machine sends data to a new supervisor system. There are many times when you need to interface old and new. 

 

Never seem a Mac be used in anything then design/drawing/video production, so it makes sense because it is an industry where everything changes quickly and legacy support is not necessary. 

[GoodBytes]

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

What are you even talking about?

 

https://tyler.io/macos-10-15-vista/

 

 

 

And here is 2 of the many posts on Twitter:

 

This was Apple ad:

 

[Jito463]

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Who uses CD player's today? Getting an entire album on any music streaming service is super easy a grandma can do it, with the added bonus of better quality. And CDs can get damaged easily? CDs are today's cassette tapes so move on. Stop having some fond memories over CDs (I for one like to have swords fights instead of having guns in the world, but welp)

I never said I used them (though I do still have a large collection of CD's), I asked what was wrong with them.

 

And if you knew how bloody, brutal and messy sword fighting was, you would never say that.  Guns are far less invasive and destructive, apart from large calibers like .50 cal.

4 hours ago, Jotoco said:

In my field (engineering and automation) it would be unthinkable to drop support for legacy software. Millions worth of equipment being thrown away because of incompatibility with modern computers is not feasible. 

Just last week, we worked on a customer's CNC machine system that still ran Windows 98.  Legacy support is critical for businesses, otherwise they'd be dropping 1,000's (or even 10's of 1,000's) of dollars every 5 years or so.  Though admittedly, running a 20+ year old OS might be a tad excessive.

[RedRound2]

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

It really does seem rushed, especially since the update has the capability to completely brick an install, the same thing people sh*t on Microsoft for except Apple is being praised for it. 

Tbh, I haven't seen reports anywhere else about macs getting bricked. All I've actually seen is that 32-bit apps just wont run. THe bricking seems to be a very corner case thing.

 

Also, Microsoft stuff gets bricked for no reason. I've never had as much as BSODs as I do with the latest Windows 10 1903 update.

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Funny they dropped support for the 2010-2011 macs, while hardware of that age would still run Windows 10 just fine. There is no reason to completely ditch support,people can blame the developers yet all it really hurts are the consumers either stuck with a bricked machine, or have to buy new software.

Yeah they dropped 2010-2011 Macs because they aren't capable of handling Metal graphics API. Yes you could install Windows on it, because Windows has always been designed to run as many as hardware as possible, even though very poorly, a burden Microsoft just can't get rid of unless they start segmentation.

 

Also, as someone else stated most 95% of mac apps don't seem to have issues. It's mostly older games and steam, which tbh, if you bought a mac to game, you have other problems. Windows can't do the same because there are alot of equipments windows is usually used to interface that wouldn't get updated (they could, but everyone's lazy and if it ain't broke, dont fix mentality, for like next 20 years)

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

And that isn't a realistic expectation,as a lot of legacy software doesn't get updates, and companies won't spend money if software just works, many companies would probably switch to another OS for 32bit support.

And let those companies switch OS. Apple clearly doesn't care. Nobody you know personally, like some YouTubers livelihood is affected by this move. They moved on from legacy stuff. Plain and simple. Fuck old software that isn't getting updated, which would most likely also mean it wouldn't take advantage of Apple's new APIs to perform better

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

Well, that is really up to the end user, I prefer CD's to streaming when listening to music is the activity rather than it going on in the background.  I like my CD and DVD collection.  I like inlays and bonus material etc.  And I like supporting my favorite artists by buying the product that puts the most coin in their pocket.

Again, USB sticks. You can get the same thing. Buy your lossless 600 MB (or how much ever MBs lossless usually is in) and go bananas on your audio setup with a tiny thumbdrive. I get the old school vibe, but it's just exactly that, old school that has no relevance whatsoever today.

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

snip

Is this a widespread issue? Because I've had the same problem on my Dad's mac that ran El Capitan. It's an issue with some iCloud that causes the problem, or frequent refusal to sign into your Apple ID, since Apple ID is tied to everything. And Apple hasn't changed any netegrity functioning of the OS to cause this problem with the new release. Until I see articles about it everywhere, this is just a couple of users who haven't configured their system properly

20 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

I never said I used them (though I do still have a large collection of CD's), I asked what was wrong with them.

It's old. It's big. Takes up a lot of space, both as a medium of storage and the thing required to actually play it. USB sticks or Internet streaming is a far better alternative (and hence why we all moved on, which was incidentally started by Apple)

20 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

And if you knew how bloody, brutal and messy sword fighting was, you would never say that.  Guns are far less invasive and destructive, apart from large calibers like .50 cal.

But guns are long range. Area of destruction can be significantly increased compared to sword's one person radius. Guns can be used for mass murder, killing unsuspecting civilians, etc. With swords, you can at least run away if you dont stand a chance.

20 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Just last week, we worked on a customer's CNC machine system that still ran Windows 98.  Legacy support is critical for businesses, otherwise they'd be dropping 1,000's (or even 10's of 1,000's) of dollars every 5 years or so.  Though admittedly, running a 20+ year old OS might be a tad excessive.

Nobody uses macs to run assembly lines. I mean, imagine how expensive that would be?

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

Just last week, we worked on a customer's CNC machine system that still ran Windows 98.  Legacy support is critical for businesses, otherwise they'd be dropping 1,000's (or even 10's of 1,000's) of dollars every 5 years or so.  Though admittedly, running a 20+ year old OS might be a tad excessive.

Try in millions. Quite many workshops are almost build around the machinery, not the otherway around. One client I had around a year ago had workshop where he had this huge drillpress/milling machine from the 40's or 50's with something like 20 or 200 metric tons of concrete under it. He had upgraded it's control system last time somewhere in the 90's and already it was custom made because nothing current could control the machine and IIRC he said that "new" control system costed some tens of thousands. Next time that control system needs to be changed (the rest of the machine can probably run hundreds of years with changing some small parts) the newer system will cost probably even more just because it needs to be made for the machine and probably next time even the software needs to be partially custom made because the machine is so old. Apple users would say "just buy a new huge drillpress/milling machine" but there is the problem that that old one isn't moving at least without demolishing the whole workshop, not to mention if the concrete slab under it needs to be taken away, and that will be expensive as hell and probably risking the data safety with a computer that can run the machine is multiple hundreds of times cheaper than changing the machine, probably even paying every single customer ever few hundred euros for risking their information is cheaper than changing the machine.

[Jotoco]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

I never said I used them (though I do still have a large collection of CD's), I asked what was wrong with them.

 

And if you knew how bloody, brutal and messy sword fighting was, you would never say that.  Guns are far less invasive and destructive, apart from large calibers like .50 cal.

Just last week, we worked on a customer's CNC machine system that still ran Windows 98.  Legacy support is critical for businesses, otherwise they'd be dropping 1,000's (or even 10's of 1,000's) of dollars every 5 years or so.  Though admittedly, running a 20+ year old OS might be a tad excessive.

It would probably run fine in windows 10, tbf. 

 

Most software work. 

[jagdtigger]

On 10/16/2019 at 9:22 AM, Blademaster91 said:

most users would just block it.

Trust me, they are blocking it even now. There is a metric but-ton of guides on the subject..... (or the ones with a good firewall just block external DNS and block WU via the resolver running on the FW)

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Just last week, we worked on a customer's CNC machine system that still ran Windows 98.  Legacy support is critical for businesses, otherwise they'd be dropping 1,000's (or even 10's of 1,000's) of dollars every 5 years or so.

But this is not a problem, it's typically not very much compared to the total running costs of operating the machine.

It's a problem of attitude, people fail to consider that keeping the control system up to date should be part of the routine maintenance of the machine. 

[jagdtigger]

3 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Though admittedly, running a 20+ year old OS might be a tad excessive.

"If it aint broken dont fix it!" applies here. If a machinery does what the company needs they will keep using it until its beyond economical repair. But since back then longevity and easy repair was still an important thing these machines are cheap AF to repair parts wise(compared to modern stuff).

[Jotoco]

22 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

But this is not a problem, it's typically not very much compared to the total running costs of operating the machine.

It's a problem of attitude, people fail to consider that keeping the control system up to date should be part of the routine maintenance of the machine. 

I don't think you grasp the costs and complexity of this. 

And modern machines are often much much more expensive to buy and maintain. 

Not to mention retraining staff to work on the newer systems. 

 

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Trust me, they are blocking it even now. There is a metric but-ton of guides on the subject..... (or the ones with a good firewall just block external DNS and block WU via the resolver running on the FW)

Yeah you could find a guide and easily block updates without much effort, never had a problem with win10 pro but I understand why they force updates, though MS finally realized it can break an install and slowed it down to 1 huge update a year instead of 2.

On 10/16/2019 at 3:38 AM, Thaldor said:

 

The problem here is that while upgrading to the Catalina the macOS might not upgrade the entitlement subsystem completely to the new 64-bit version and so are left with basicly 32-bit account management and the OS is dead because there is no support for 32-bit architecture. Apparently in some cases this may also lead into bricked EFI that means Catalina upgrade bricked your Mac for good.

It's good to hear that probably most get on without problems but the real hitter here is that those with problems get again the warm and always so nice Apple Fuck You, Pay More -treatment. While most of the problems are fixed by removing one file that requires about 5-10 minutes and some knowledge, Apples "official" fix is to change the logicboard and SSD at customers expense (Apple hasn't come out with anything official, but their community is moderated by people who actually work for Apple and they are apparently banning people who give the "wrong" suggestion to remove the problematic file, I would say that is Apples Official stance here just because someone higher must give green light for this and someone even higher also).

Even more reason to have the option for 32bit support, no reason to risk bricking the EFI. And the Apple community banning people for proving them wrong isn't surprising, as Louis mentions in the "Mac OSX Catalina update is breaking machines,here's a fix" video,the community banned iPadRehab for pointing out devices could be easily repaired or data recovered, but Apple would rather you just buy new.

[Jito463]

28 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

"If it aint broken dont fix it!" applies here. If a machinery does what the company needs they will keep using it until its beyond economical repair. But since back then longevity and easy repair was still an important thing these machines are cheap AF to repair parts wise(compared to modern stuff).

Agreed, that's why we ended up fixing their system instead of trying to replace it.  We even still had a small enough IDE drive to replace the failing one with.

3 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Nobody uses macs to run assembly lines. I mean, imagine how expensive that would be?

The cost isn't so much the issue, it's that Apple has a horrible track record of legacy support (case in point: this thread).

[Blademaster91]

3 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Tbh, I haven't seen reports anywhere else about macs getting bricked. All I've actually seen is that 32-bit apps just wont run. THe bricking seems to be a very corner case thing.

 

Also, Microsoft stuff gets bricked for no reason. I've never had as much as BSODs as I do with the latest Windows 10 1903 update.

Well Apple would definitely call it a "limited number" or a "isolated issue" as they do with any critical issue. A simple update that can break the EFI is something I'd consider to be more than a corner case.

I had no problem with 1903, dunno what people are doing but I had way more BSODs with Windows 7 than Windows 10.

3 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Yeah they dropped 2010-2011 Macs because they aren't capable of handling Metal graphics API. Yes you could install Windows on it, because Windows has always been designed to run as many as hardware as possible, even though very poorly, a burden Microsoft just can't get rid of unless they start segmentation

They shot themselves in the foot with what little support there was for gaming, just to have a proprietary API instead of the OpenGL standard.

I've used plenty of laptops with hardware from 2010-2011, even laptops with 4GB of ram run Windows 10 quite well.

3 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

And let those companies switch OS. Apple clearly doesn't care

In a business there is little reason to change software when it still works, but fuck those consumers,just buy new software. So much for "iT jUsT wOrKs". Instead of cutting support for things to claim their OS is slightly faster,maybe Apple should stop ripping off consumers with low end hardware for a premium price, like stop using mechanical HDD's in iMacs, or include more than 8GB of ram when the ram is soldered in.

[Kilrah]

39 minutes ago, Jotoco said:

I don't think you grasp the costs and complexity of this. 

And modern machines are often much much more expensive to buy and maintain. 

Not to mention retraining staff to work on the newer systems. 

I do. I just say that nowadays whether you like it or not it's part of the business. Newer shops understand it and work with it, evolving and learning as things come instead of buying equipment, leaving it as is with no upgrade for 20 years and then being completely lost when they have no choice but to make a huge change. Current machinery manufacturers have teams working on continuous improvements to the software and keeping it up to date in the various regards instead of the old way of getting a team to develop a product and moving them on to something else once it works. It's mostly old shops that have that kind of issue, becasue it's how it was in the past. Your manual mill will work just the same 50 years apart, but with electronics tech it's different. Some were happy to welcome the tech for what it allowed them to do, but did not exactly understand everything that meant in terms of maintenance.