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Apple's software division has lost their way. They've done nothing but add flashy features and move buttons around, deprecating things and breaking backwards co

Apple's software division has lost their way. They've done nothing but add flashy features and move buttons around, deprecating things and breaking backwards compatibility (yeah, 32bit has been awhile now, but alas), meanwhile retreating on stability. Snow Leopard still remains the company's crown achievement. 0 bloatware, 0 "mobile features on desktop" (wtf is this even a thing?), tuned for absolute speed and stability.

raw_anon_1111 1y ago
They completely removed hardware support for 32 bit software.
- morshu9001 1y ago
  This was in the Intel generation of Macs. If Windows can support 32-bit software then so should Mac, along with all that 64-bit software that got broken in random Mac updates. Ironically I can still run old 32-bit Windows software in Wine on my M1 Mac. Windows software is more stable on a Mac than Mac software.
  - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
    Do you think they didn’t know they were moving away from Intel when they did that? Besides code is shared between MacOS and iOS even then. They removed 32 bit support from ARM processors years before they moved to ARM based Macs.
    - morshu9001 1y ago
      They probably did, but just because M1 gets released doesn't mean Intel Macs suddenly don't have 32-bit capable hardware. I get why it was easier to drop it in the new OS regardless of hardware, only it throws a lot of software under the bus, and running software is kinda the OS's main job. And the hardware isn't a showstopper anyway. Apple did x86-64 on AS, Windows' WoW64 does x86-32 on ARM-32 or even IA-64, and I'll bet Windows will do x86-32 on x86-64 if Intel ever drops the 32 mode. Wine 32on64 will run x86-32 on AS already.
      - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
        And Windows is also a bloated mess that they couldn’t use on mobile and their ARM initiatives have gone nowhere. If you don’t think Windows is a bloated mess, look up all of the different ways you have to represent a “string” depending on the API you are calling.
        morshu9001 1y ago
        Sure but those are unrelated. Microsoft doesn't make the chips, and Windows crapiness is its own thing. It not like macOS would turn to crap if they made Rosetta2 support x86-32, or in general stopped breaking all the 3P software.
        raw_anon_1111 1y ago
        Windows crapiness is because they won’t deprecate anything ever. Read some of Raymond Chen’s posts about all of the special casing they did for apps that broke on newer versions of Windows because app developers were using unpublished APIs. Every bit of backwards compatibility increases the testing surface and the vulnerabilities. In fact, an early bug in Windows NT that you could encode DOS shell commands in the browser URL bar from a client and they wouod run with admin privileges if the server was running IIS. Should Apple have also kept 68K emulation around? PPC?
        morshu9001 1y ago
        Apple went the other extreme. Even if you use public APIs exactly the way they want, your software will break frequently. This is without even getting into the whole OpenGL vs Metal drama. In Windows they took things a bit too far by not only supporting old stuff but also treating it as first-class. If software is too outdated, it's fair to stick it behind some compat layer that makes it slower, as long as it still runs. But that's not even the biggest problem with Windows, it's Microsoft turning it into adware, also not being Unixlike in the first place. To answer your last question, yes for PPC at least. 68K is too old to matter. Emulation layer doesn't need to hold back the entire system. If it means less dev resources to spend making glass effects and emojis, fine.
  - miffy900 1y ago
    To be fair, Microsoft has always had a culture of strong backwards compatibility, even between major OS versions - this is something they cultivate internally AND also tell their customers/users about. Apple has had no such culture internally and they sure as heck don't emphasise backward compatibility to their customers (users or otherwise) - if anything, Apple prods and nags their developers to stick to the latest SDK/platform APIs, and shove the burden of software compatibility and maintenance onto them and hand wave away the breaking changes as being part and parcel of membership in the Apple ecosystem. This attitude can be traced back to the Steve Jobs era at Apple. It's definitely not new and comparing what Microsoft does with software and backward compatibility and expecting Apple to do the same is not fair - they really are different companies.
    - morshu9001 1y ago
      It's been this way forever, and consistently that's been my annoyance with Apple. If I weren't a coder or hobbyist musician or filmmaker, there's no way I would've wanted a Mac in the 2000s because it failed its main job of running software. If I were grown up back then with a desk job, it's probably involve a Windows PC. Web partially fixed this, but only by accident, because Apple isn't for the web. And if I cared at all about video games or were doing certain fields of work (maybe creative tools now that Apple even lost that hegemony), that'd take me off the Mac. Somehow the Mac 3P software scene is even worse now than in the PPC era. And Microsoft is now testing just how annoying Windows can be without people leaving, answer is a lot. Apple is limiting their reach so much, for reasons I still can't rationalize. Some basic level of backwards compatibility or at least more stable APIs should be possible without sacrificing the good things. I've done some iPhone and Mac dev too, it sucks in every possible way, and I get why people trust it so little that they'd rather shoehorn a web app into a native shell.
      - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
        How is Apple limiting its reach? It doesn’t want to compete with the bottom of the barrel low end PC sales and for the most part people with money are already buying Macs unless they are gamers. Apple routinely captures around 50% of PC revenue
badc0ffee 1y ago
I've heard about rounded corners and low information density windows in Tahoe, but what "mobile features on desktop" are in Sequoia and earlier? The App Store? Launchpad? iCloud? Notifications? You don't need to use those.
- morshu9001 1y ago
  They tried to make you use the App Store for Xcode and system updates, but thankfully there have been solid workarounds
morshu9001 1y ago
I liked Snow Leopard too, it was indeed the last focused Mac OS, but there was some memory-related bug that made me update past it. The new OSes aren't so bad, but yeah I don't touch any of the new features.

raw_anon_1111 1y ago

They completely removed hardware support for 32 bit software.

morshu9001 1y ago
This was in the Intel generation of Macs. If Windows can support 32-bit software then so should Mac, along with all that 64-bit software that got broken in random Mac updates. Ironically I can still run old 32-bit Windows software in Wine on my M1 Mac. Windows software is more stable on a Mac than Mac software.
- raw_anon_1111 1y ago
  Do you think they didn’t know they were moving away from Intel when they did that? Besides code is shared between MacOS and iOS even then. They removed 32 bit support from ARM processors years before they moved to ARM based Macs.
  - morshu9001 1y ago
    They probably did, but just because M1 gets released doesn't mean Intel Macs suddenly don't have 32-bit capable hardware. I get why it was easier to drop it in the new OS regardless of hardware, only it throws a lot of software under the bus, and running software is kinda the OS's main job. And the hardware isn't a showstopper anyway. Apple did x86-64 on AS, Windows' WoW64 does x86-32 on ARM-32 or even IA-64, and I'll bet Windows will do x86-32 on x86-64 if Intel ever drops the 32 mode. Wine 32on64 will run x86-32 on AS already.
    - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
      And Windows is also a bloated mess that they couldn’t use on mobile and their ARM initiatives have gone nowhere. If you don’t think Windows is a bloated mess, look up all of the different ways you have to represent a “string” depending on the API you are calling.
      - morshu9001 1y ago
        Sure but those are unrelated. Microsoft doesn't make the chips, and Windows crapiness is its own thing. It not like macOS would turn to crap if they made Rosetta2 support x86-32, or in general stopped breaking all the 3P software.
        raw_anon_1111 1y ago
        Windows crapiness is because they won’t deprecate anything ever. Read some of Raymond Chen’s posts about all of the special casing they did for apps that broke on newer versions of Windows because app developers were using unpublished APIs. Every bit of backwards compatibility increases the testing surface and the vulnerabilities. In fact, an early bug in Windows NT that you could encode DOS shell commands in the browser URL bar from a client and they wouod run with admin privileges if the server was running IIS. Should Apple have also kept 68K emulation around? PPC?
        morshu9001 1y ago
        Apple went the other extreme. Even if you use public APIs exactly the way they want, your software will break frequently. This is without even getting into the whole OpenGL vs Metal drama. In Windows they took things a bit too far by not only supporting old stuff but also treating it as first-class. If software is too outdated, it's fair to stick it behind some compat layer that makes it slower, as long as it still runs. But that's not even the biggest problem with Windows, it's Microsoft turning it into adware, also not being Unixlike in the first place. To answer your last question, yes for PPC at least. 68K is too old to matter. Emulation layer doesn't need to hold back the entire system. If it means less dev resources to spend making glass effects and emojis, fine.
- miffy900 1y ago
  To be fair, Microsoft has always had a culture of strong backwards compatibility, even between major OS versions - this is something they cultivate internally AND also tell their customers/users about. Apple has had no such culture internally and they sure as heck don't emphasise backward compatibility to their customers (users or otherwise) - if anything, Apple prods and nags their developers to stick to the latest SDK/platform APIs, and shove the burden of software compatibility and maintenance onto them and hand wave away the breaking changes as being part and parcel of membership in the Apple ecosystem. This attitude can be traced back to the Steve Jobs era at Apple. It's definitely not new and comparing what Microsoft does with software and backward compatibility and expecting Apple to do the same is not fair - they really are different companies.
  - morshu9001 1y ago
    It's been this way forever, and consistently that's been my annoyance with Apple. If I weren't a coder or hobbyist musician or filmmaker, there's no way I would've wanted a Mac in the 2000s because it failed its main job of running software. If I were grown up back then with a desk job, it's probably involve a Windows PC. Web partially fixed this, but only by accident, because Apple isn't for the web. And if I cared at all about video games or were doing certain fields of work (maybe creative tools now that Apple even lost that hegemony), that'd take me off the Mac. Somehow the Mac 3P software scene is even worse now than in the PPC era. And Microsoft is now testing just how annoying Windows can be without people leaving, answer is a lot. Apple is limiting their reach so much, for reasons I still can't rationalize. Some basic level of backwards compatibility or at least more stable APIs should be possible without sacrificing the good things. I've done some iPhone and Mac dev too, it sucks in every possible way, and I get why people trust it so little that they'd rather shoehorn a web app into a native shell.
    - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
      How is Apple limiting its reach? It doesn’t want to compete with the bottom of the barrel low end PC sales and for the most part people with money are already buying Macs unless they are gamers. Apple routinely captures around 50% of PC revenue

badc0ffee 1y ago

I've heard about rounded corners and low information density windows in Tahoe, but what "mobile features on desktop" are in Sequoia and earlier? The App Store? Launchpad? iCloud? Notifications? You don't need to use those.

morshu9001 1y ago
They tried to make you use the App Store for Xcode and system updates, but thankfully there have been solid workarounds

morshu9001 1y ago

I liked Snow Leopard too, it was indeed the last focused Mac OS, but there was some memory-related bug that made me update past it. The new OSes aren't so bad, but yeah I don't touch any of the new features.