6 ms·

I’m curious, why do people jump onto a new OS release as soon as it becomes available? Especially on machines they are using professionally. Between bugs in th

I’m curious, why do people jump onto a new OS release as soon as it becomes available? Especially on machines they are using professionally. Between bugs in the OS itself, bugs in apps, and developers who lag behind on OS support (looking at you DAW and audio plug-in devs) it will probably be a year before I try this upgrade myself.

throwaway201103 6y ago
Maybe because your computer immediately starts nagging you to do it, and the messaging from the popular tech media is "stay up to date because hackerz"
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  I've not been nagged to upgrade once
  - hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
    I drive every day and have never crashed my car. Therefore, car crashes are not real and cannot affect me.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Since Catalina the "softwareupdate --ignore" command no longer works unless you have an enterprise MDM profile installed, so you can't even work around that anymore.
- astronautjones 6y ago
  it's such nonsense, especially if you are even remotely computer literate. I'm working on an article about it, but I used snow leopard for 12 years with no ill effects (until this year!) and only finally left it because of the tyranny of HDCP
mobilemidget 6y ago
Curiosity mainly I guess. The update did take longer than indicated. At some points I wondered if both my iMac and mbp were not locked up, but as I was doing other things I just let them take their time. I wonder if those people rebooted mid update or some
- wizzard 6y ago
  When I updated my old MBP to Catalina it was pretty ugly as well. There were a couple of points where I thought it was stalled, or it would reboot multiple times back into the same exact screen and it seemed to be failing, but it did eventually succeed. I had to keep myself from messing with it.
bigmattystyles 6y ago
Isn’t security the biggest reason for most? Also I work for a medium sized company and at least on a windows domain with GPO, they can lock down which windows updates are applied. Does anything like that exist for MacOS shops? Can IT control what is allowed to be applied and what is not?
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  Typically they will use Caspar, now called Jamf Pro. https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-pro/ https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-pro/
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  > Isn’t security the biggest reason for most? I don't think that's the biggest reason to upgrade to a new major (or even minor) version, especially when the previous release(s) are still supported for quite some time. Catalina, macOS 10.15, for example, didn't stop being supported when Bug Sur, 11.0, was released. In fact, it will still be supported for quite some time. Mojave, 10.14, is supported until late next year and, High Sierra, 10.13, is still supported even today! Unless there's some new feature that you absolutely just must have, there just really isn't any compelling enough reason for most folks to immediately upgrade to a new .0 release. In the Windows world, the conventional wisdom -- for probably a decade and a half! -- has been to wait until after SP1 to move to a new major version. Maybe the younger generation just hasn't been burned (bad) enough (yet) for them to learn not to touch the stove?
  - happymellon 6y ago
    But in every other world you can always boot from a recovery USB and fix it, nothing is usually "bricked". Not so with newer Mac's so the risk has intensified.
- alwillis 6y ago
  Can IT control what is allowed to be applied and what is not? Sure can. But that's true only if these machines are part of IT's infrastructure, which is usually the case at large companies. A lot of places are BYOD and don't have employee Macs on Active Directory. For $20 bucks, any office or group with a spare Mac can use macOS Server to control this stuff: https://www.apple.com/macos/server/features/ https://www.apple.com/macos/server/features/
fortran77 6y ago
Blame the victim?
rubicon33 6y ago
Often because the OS won't stop alerting you all the time that you have an update.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Mac OS is not Windows, it doesn’t install automatically and the prompts are much more reasonable.
  - biktor_gj 6y ago
    That is not true since Mojave. It will always tell you you have a pending update, it will dump a notification to update to Big Sur (already happened to me this morning), and it'll do it's best to confuse you to update. Case in point: if you have catalina and you go to system preferences, system updates, you will have the big sur update in big, then some text on the bottom of the window saying something like "there are some other updates..." and then you'll see the security updates for your current OS
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      Compared to Windows where the upgrade happens automatically.
      - cute_boi 6y ago
        windows also doesn't upgrade windows 8 to windows 10 like this . windows 10 to windows 10 isn't that breaking change so its fair and osx is not better than this since mojave.
        tinus_hn 6y ago
        Except it does, which is why people made tools like this: https://appuals.com/stop-windows-7-from-upgrading-to-windows-10/ https://appuals.com/stop-windows-7-from-upgrading-to-windows...
      - 6y ago
Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 6y ago
Average time between when a security bug is introduced in the linux kernel and when it detected is 5 years. [0] But because people don't update their shit, 99.9% of exploits in the wild involve bugs that were patched over a year ago. [0] If apple fixed a security bug in big sur, I'd like to update sooner rather than find out in a CVE next month that I should have actually upgraded ASAP. That said, waiting at least a few days to see if any problems shake out is probably a good idea. [0]: https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/10/guide-automatic-security-updates-for-php-developers https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/10/guide-automatic-security-...
- eznzt 6y ago
  Bug fixes are backported to older releases. You don't have to update to Big Sur to have bugs fixes.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Yup, still receiving them on Mojave and not planning to move past that.
dimeatree 6y ago
When developing for iOS sometimes you are forced to update because you can't run the latest simulator for e.g. A huge pet peeve.
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  A pet peeve of mine is incorrect usage of e.g. (and i.e.). https://www.aje.com/arc/editing-tip-using-eg-and-ie/ https://www.aje.com/arc/editing-tip-using-eg-and-ie/
  - hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
    Especially when they used it correctly and you erroneously tried to look smart on the internet being passive-aggressive about it
discreditable 6y ago
I use Windows but I jump on every new release. I like new stuff and I have backups. If it goes bad I just reformat and restore. I have only been burned once.
spacemanmatt 6y ago
Adoption starts somewhere

throwaway201103 6y ago

Maybe because your computer immediately starts nagging you to do it, and the messaging from the popular tech media is "stay up to date because hackerz"

breakfastduck 6y ago
I've not been nagged to upgrade once
- hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
  I drive every day and have never crashed my car. Therefore, car crashes are not real and cannot affect me.
Nextgrid 6y ago
Since Catalina the "softwareupdate --ignore" command no longer works unless you have an enterprise MDM profile installed, so you can't even work around that anymore.
astronautjones 6y ago
it's such nonsense, especially if you are even remotely computer literate. I'm working on an article about it, but I used snow leopard for 12 years with no ill effects (until this year!) and only finally left it because of the tyranny of HDCP

mobilemidget 6y ago

Curiosity mainly I guess. The update did take longer than indicated. At some points I wondered if both my iMac and mbp were not locked up, but as I was doing other things I just let them take their time. I wonder if those people rebooted mid update or some

wizzard 6y ago
When I updated my old MBP to Catalina it was pretty ugly as well. There were a couple of points where I thought it was stalled, or it would reboot multiple times back into the same exact screen and it seemed to be failing, but it did eventually succeed. I had to keep myself from messing with it.

bigmattystyles 6y ago

Isn’t security the biggest reason for most? Also I work for a medium sized company and at least on a windows domain with GPO, they can lock down which windows updates are applied. Does anything like that exist for MacOS shops? Can IT control what is allowed to be applied and what is not?

throwaway201103 6y ago
Typically they will use Caspar, now called Jamf Pro. https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-pro/ https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-pro/
jlgaddis 6y ago
> Isn’t security the biggest reason for most? I don't think that's the biggest reason to upgrade to a new major (or even minor) version, especially when the previous release(s) are still supported for quite some time. Catalina, macOS 10.15, for example, didn't stop being supported when Bug Sur, 11.0, was released. In fact, it will still be supported for quite some time. Mojave, 10.14, is supported until late next year and, High Sierra, 10.13, is still supported even today! Unless there's some new feature that you absolutely just must have, there just really isn't any compelling enough reason for most folks to immediately upgrade to a new .0 release. In the Windows world, the conventional wisdom -- for probably a decade and a half! -- has been to wait until after SP1 to move to a new major version. Maybe the younger generation just hasn't been burned (bad) enough (yet) for them to learn not to touch the stove?
- happymellon 6y ago
  But in every other world you can always boot from a recovery USB and fix it, nothing is usually "bricked". Not so with newer Mac's so the risk has intensified.
alwillis 6y ago
Can IT control what is allowed to be applied and what is not? Sure can. But that's true only if these machines are part of IT's infrastructure, which is usually the case at large companies. A lot of places are BYOD and don't have employee Macs on Active Directory. For $20 bucks, any office or group with a spare Mac can use macOS Server to control this stuff: https://www.apple.com/macos/server/features/ https://www.apple.com/macos/server/features/

fortran77 6y ago

Blame the victim?

rubicon33 6y ago

Often because the OS won't stop alerting you all the time that you have an update.

tinus_hn 6y ago
Mac OS is not Windows, it doesn’t install automatically and the prompts are much more reasonable.
- biktor_gj 6y ago
  That is not true since Mojave. It will always tell you you have a pending update, it will dump a notification to update to Big Sur (already happened to me this morning), and it'll do it's best to confuse you to update. Case in point: if you have catalina and you go to system preferences, system updates, you will have the big sur update in big, then some text on the bottom of the window saying something like "there are some other updates..." and then you'll see the security updates for your current OS
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Compared to Windows where the upgrade happens automatically.
    - cute_boi 6y ago
      windows also doesn't upgrade windows 8 to windows 10 like this . windows 10 to windows 10 isn't that breaking change so its fair and osx is not better than this since mojave.
      - tinus_hn 6y ago
        Except it does, which is why people made tools like this: https://appuals.com/stop-windows-7-from-upgrading-to-windows-10/ https://appuals.com/stop-windows-7-from-upgrading-to-windows...
    - 6y ago

Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 6y ago

Average time between when a security bug is introduced in the linux kernel and when it detected is 5 years. [0] But because people don't update their shit, 99.9% of exploits in the wild involve bugs that were patched over a year ago. [0] If apple fixed a security bug in big sur, I'd like to update sooner rather than find out in a CVE next month that I should have actually upgraded ASAP. That said, waiting at least a few days to see if any problems shake out is probably a good idea. [0]: https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/10/guide-automatic-security-updates-for-php-developers https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/10/guide-automatic-security-...

eznzt 6y ago
Bug fixes are backported to older releases. You don't have to update to Big Sur to have bugs fixes.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Yup, still receiving them on Mojave and not planning to move past that.

dimeatree 6y ago

When developing for iOS sometimes you are forced to update because you can't run the latest simulator for e.g. A huge pet peeve.

jlgaddis 6y ago
A pet peeve of mine is incorrect usage of e.g. (and i.e.). https://www.aje.com/arc/editing-tip-using-eg-and-ie/ https://www.aje.com/arc/editing-tip-using-eg-and-ie/
- hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
  Especially when they used it correctly and you erroneously tried to look smart on the internet being passive-aggressive about it

discreditable 6y ago

I use Windows but I jump on every new release. I like new stuff and I have backups. If it goes bad I just reformat and restore. I have only been burned once.

spacemanmatt 6y ago

Adoption starts somewhere