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> It seems like a multiplicative trade-off: Apple saves a small number of hours but offloads a support burden onto thousands of developers. Backwards compatibi

> It seems like a multiplicative trade-off: Apple saves a small number of hours but offloads a support burden onto thousands of developers. Backwards compatibility is not a trivial effort, and can severely constrain the future evolution of a product. Keep in mind you’re asking for a completely backwards compatible embedded device OS. Being willing to make breaking changes is part of why Apple’s software is the quality that it is. If you want a counter example, Windows is notorious for strange undocumented behaviors and special case handling. These are consequences of Microsofts choice to fully embrace backwards compatibility. This leads to a complicated platform that is continually more and more expensive to maintain, polish, and secure. That expensive polishing cost is what tips the scales here for Apple. Backward compatibility can get in the way to get the level of polish that they call acceptable.

alerighi 4y ago
Android to me is better regarding of backward compatibility. Of course everything is easier since it has a much more flexible architecture, being based on bytecode and a JVM (contrary to iOS where applications are actual native binaries). The problem is that iOS is not all that well designed in that regards. > If you want a counter example, Windows is notorious for strange undocumented behaviors and special case handling. These are consequences of Microsofts choice to fully embrace backwards compatibility. This leads to a complicated platform that is continually more and more expensive to maintain, polish, and secure. Yes, and macOS (and iOS) a POSIX operating systems that maintains backward compatibility with something from the 80s. In that regards Windows is much more modern.
- andrewxdiamond 4y ago
  Well. MacOs also recently dropped the M1 architecture shift with no warning. Rosetta is more of a crutch than true backwards compatibility

alerighi 4y ago

Android to me is better regarding of backward compatibility. Of course everything is easier since it has a much more flexible architecture, being based on bytecode and a JVM (contrary to iOS where applications are actual native binaries). The problem is that iOS is not all that well designed in that regards. > If you want a counter example, Windows is notorious for strange undocumented behaviors and special case handling. These are consequences of Microsofts choice to fully embrace backwards compatibility. This leads to a complicated platform that is continually more and more expensive to maintain, polish, and secure. Yes, and macOS (and iOS) a POSIX operating systems that maintains backward compatibility with something from the 80s. In that regards Windows is much more modern.

andrewxdiamond 4y ago
Well. MacOs also recently dropped the M1 architecture shift with no warning. Rosetta is more of a crutch than true backwards compatibility