Yes, one of my favorite bloggers for more years than I can count. What is crazy isn’t just how crazy the stories he has to share are but also just how many of them he has. You’d think with the craziness bar set so high he wouldn’t have this much content, but he still manages to be one of the most prolific bloggers!
I'm ok with Apple having different priorities so long as it benefits the end users of the product (and I'm sure some people will go to lengths to make up end user benefits ) but whenever I use OS X I just don't see any benefits of not having backwards compatibility - it's not faster than Windows , nor stabler, it's not like it updates faster and it's only getting iOS features backported. So it feels like not caring about backward compat is just a self serving easy way out for Apple.
> So it feels like not caring about backward compat is just a self serving easy way out for Apple.
I think there is more to it. I think is because they actually don't want obsolete software to be seen on their computers. Imagine people posting a picture with a Macbook on Instagram, and you see some ugly 1990 piece of software running on it. Not cool. So from time to time they remove whole frameworks, to force developers to re-implement the app in a new one, which is prettier. If no one is still around to maintain the app, that's ok too.
This is why you don't see any ugly software on Macs, they make sure to purge it every 5 years or so.
I agree with what you write about performance and stability, but there is one other metric where MacOS has always excelled: Consistency. From the way hotkeys work to how screen elements look, to how macs interact with other Apple products in your possession.
Note: I switched to Win10+WSL in 2018 - it's a good and productive environment, but I do miss certain aspects of MacOS still. I think valuing consistency over backwards compatibility is a valuable choice, as long as the people in charge have very good taste. Not so sure about that anymore in recent iterations though.
You could argue the more time Apple spends maintaining legacy code the less time they have for other work.
Personally I thought the whole 32-bit thing was blown out of proportion. It wasn't long between Apples shift to Intel and 64-bit machines becoming the norm. The majority of software got updated and a few vocal haters complained a lot on HN.
Couldn’t disagree more; ctrl-alt-del gets a LOT of use on every Windows OS and client software combination I’ve ever used - I can’t even remember the equivalent hotkey on MacOS although it’s now been my daily driver for ~2 years of heavy use.
Raymond Chen has lot of good stories about the lengths Microsoft would go to to ensure old programs still worked.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/tag/history
Yes, one of my favorite bloggers for more years than I can count. What is crazy isn’t just how crazy the stories he has to share are but also just how many of them he has. You’d think with the craziness bar set so high he wouldn’t have this much content, but he still manages to be one of the most prolific bloggers!
Try it now MacOS X
I'm ok with Apple having different priorities so long as it benefits the end users of the product (and I'm sure some people will go to lengths to make up end user benefits ) but whenever I use OS X I just don't see any benefits of not having backwards compatibility - it's not faster than Windows , nor stabler, it's not like it updates faster and it's only getting iOS features backported. So it feels like not caring about backward compat is just a self serving easy way out for Apple.
> So it feels like not caring about backward compat is just a self serving easy way out for Apple.
I think there is more to it. I think is because they actually don't want obsolete software to be seen on their computers. Imagine people posting a picture with a Macbook on Instagram, and you see some ugly 1990 piece of software running on it. Not cool. So from time to time they remove whole frameworks, to force developers to re-implement the app in a new one, which is prettier. If no one is still around to maintain the app, that's ok too.
This is why you don't see any ugly software on Macs, they make sure to purge it every 5 years or so.
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I agree with what you write about performance and stability, but there is one other metric where MacOS has always excelled: Consistency. From the way hotkeys work to how screen elements look, to how macs interact with other Apple products in your possession.
Note: I switched to Win10+WSL in 2018 - it's a good and productive environment, but I do miss certain aspects of MacOS still. I think valuing consistency over backwards compatibility is a valuable choice, as long as the people in charge have very good taste. Not so sure about that anymore in recent iterations though.
1 reply →
You could argue the more time Apple spends maintaining legacy code the less time they have for other work.
Personally I thought the whole 32-bit thing was blown out of proportion. It wasn't long between Apples shift to Intel and 64-bit machines becoming the norm. The majority of software got updated and a few vocal haters complained a lot on HN.
> “ it's not faster than Windows , nor stabler”
Couldn’t disagree more; ctrl-alt-del gets a LOT of use on every Windows OS and client software combination I’ve ever used - I can’t even remember the equivalent hotkey on MacOS although it’s now been my daily driver for ~2 years of heavy use.
6 replies →