In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Not really any more obscure than Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, or Ventura.

Maybe, but I'd heard of them

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I am still surprised that Apple requires a new OS (iPhone or mac) to get new browser and other built in apps like Mail. That now seems so backwards as both Google and Microsoft can update from the store at anytime.

Maybe I'm cynical, but as they don't undertake to maintain more than the current and last 2 OS's, it also means they don't have to provide updates to an OS for so long

Three generations and you are out has always been Apple's approach (having no intention of accruing the cruft that Windows has). The only exceptions have been during processor changes (I think after Panther, Rosetta stayed in place for 5 years, basically until Carbon was finally killed off in favour of Cocoa).

In reply to a post by ian_c:

Three generations and you are out has always been Apple's approach (having no intention of accruing the cruft that Windows has). The only exceptions have been during processor changes (I think after Panther, Rosetta stayed in place for 5 years, basically until Carbon was finally killed off in favour of Cocoa).

Yes, I know why they do it, and I don't have any particular problem with it. But it remains that if you push out a new OS every year instead of every 2 or 3 then you don't have to keep it up for so long.

Although there would be staffing implications of more frequent releases (swings, roundabouts etc).

I wonder of part of this is also driven by the discoveryd debacle, where MDNSResponder was so deeply embedded that trying to re-wirte from the ground up proved doomed to fail.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I am sure I read somewhere that there was a known bug in (pre-OSX) Chooser that was so deep in the code that it was considered not worth risking trying to fix it. Institutional Memory Fail!

I know them all from cultural references (plane, novel, Cannery Row and jazz festival, Lucinda Williams song, and wine). Ventura is the most obscure to me.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Ventura is the most obscure to me.

I just thought of... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RbvGllJGxw

In reply to a post by billford:

But it remains that if you push out a new OS every year instead of every 2 or 3 then you don't have to keep it up for so long.

and it also forces third party software updates in many cases, and when these aren't free, it can be at considerable cost. Its pushing companies that use Macs into using Apple and Microsoft (365 subscription) exclusively, even things like Fusion are slowly going as the Intel models age out of corporate life.

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Not really anything in Sonoma that is of interest anyway.

Same here. At the moment I'm thinking that Sonoma might be one of those OS's that I skip, but we'll see.

i doubt I will skip it, but just wait for a while, I suppose since I have backed up the machine using time machine I am not losing anything by trying it, but it just don't offer anything apart from some gimmicks. Seems to be the norm for operating systems these days.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I've updated a couple of machines, variously M1 and M2 based. All OK so far. Some bugs I had in previous Safari versions seems to have been zapped in Safari 17.0

I don't use safari, I use firefox, I can't seem to get on with Safari, maybe I should try again, but I don't like that the tabs are above the URL input bar.

In reply to a post by nonymouse:

Sure... Why not...

Nothing broke...

Like the new screen saver/ desktop...

I use my mac to do stuff not to just tinker with, so as nothing broke I'm happy.

A

I do a bit of video editing, some DTP, photo editing, the files are stored on external hard drives, so if these bugs are as bad as what I have heard, then it will be no good if I can't get access to my drives.