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I think it may also have to do with release timing. Leopard to Snow Leopard was 24 months and Snow Leopard to Lion was 27 months. That gave time for the 10.6.1,
by stetrain 8y ago
I think it may also have to do with release timing. Leopard to Snow Leopard was 24 months and Snow Leopard to Lion was 27 months. That gave time for the 10.6.1, 10.6.2, etc patch releases to stack up.
Most people probably didn't upgrade until at least a few of those point releases had been out, after which they could have enjoyed almost two years before another major OS update was released. I think much of the fond memories revolve around these later versions, and there were probably plenty of people continuing to run 10.6.8 long after 10.7 was released.
Now MacOS is on a yearly cycle like iOS. Stability is probably still pretty good if you wait and upgrade until about the time the new OS is announced, but Apple definitely pushes users to update sooner than that so people are spending more time running on versions that are more fresh from a major release with major changes.
- classichasclass 8y agoThis. Apple is really good at iterating, and nobody gets it right the first time. The early "cats" had lots of time to mature (look at how long Tiger persisted, my personal favourite) and I think Apple should strongly reconsider the annual cadence to allow that to happen again for macOS. They just changed the whole filesystem, for crying out loud. That needs time to settle. There's also the fact that Snow Leopard will run on any Intel Mac, and I think a lot of people remember how (necessarily) light on its feet it was by comparison with what followed.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoI'm pretty sure they didn't develop the new file system between Sierra and High Sierra.
- classichasclass 8y agoSure. But it wasn't user facing until then, and that's a big difference.
- chrisfinazzo 8y ago4 years internally is what I remember hearing, plus 1 year as a developer preview. So, no, certainly didn't happen overnight.