My iMac restarts four times a day since upgrading to Catalina. Every time it goes to sleep or is inactive for a period of time. I’ve taken to shutting it down at night.
The corner they’ve backed themselves into, now, is that new hardware capabilities (mainly coming from iPhone, these days) require new APIs and new software to use those APIs, and many of those are low level and justified in being part of the OS:
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Metal? OS.
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Image processing? OS.
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Continuity? OS.
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iCloud sync? OS.
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Low level system integrity, T2 etc? OS!
etc.
(Who here remembers the challenges when Aperture v1 had to wait for OS updates to support new third-party camera hardware? That’s a big part of what killed it, in the end, IMHO. Leveraging the OS was a great idea, until they couldn’t deliver.)
So all the OSs have to stay in step, and have to be ready around the next phone hardware release because, the market - real one and financial one - has been led, to expect, demand even, something New and Different every year. At least they’re all on the same kernel and, UI aside, user-land.
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I agree with the desire for a longer development cycle. I would add to that more frequent updates and to consider security updates for people stuck with older equipment. People stuck on Social Security simply can’t afford to upgrade just because Apple has moved on. It is a simple fact. You may own your own home, but not have the cash flow to much more than live on. I know people in this situation.
Back to your question -> I completely disagree. I believe that in one form or another, most of the time management is the problem. For one thing, they aren’t just building ‘for the next iPhone’, they are building for it and all of the other products they have not yet abandoned (a very sore point).
As a former systems architect and senior systems programmer, I believe that if the proper roles were included in the design meetings with significant authority to lay out a design that the programing teams were able to build, then most all of this noise could have been neatly avoided.
Another point I love to make is that every module and program should go through regression testing as part of its build process. Basic software engineering…
Apple updates software very much more frequently than Microsoft or Google, and they do squash bugs quickly. They also do more to support older stuff. It’s probably a big reason why there was a lot of discussion here about selling very elderly Macs on eBay.
It’s a fact of life that as chips, etc. evolve software must evolve along with it. I can’t do as many yoga moves as I used to do, but as I can’t swap into a 20 year old body, I deal with it. And as I mentioned in a previous thread, I was very unhappy when just anout 2-3 months after buying my just released 9600 Apple announced a second version of the 9600 that could run OS X when it was released. And to add insult to injury, the new blue and white model looked a whole lot nicer than the blah tan box. But I totally understand why Apple needed to release OS X into the wild ASAP.
One of the many reasons why I have been a loyal Apple customer is that the company always pushes the boundaries. They constantly improve and update their software and hardware, and Apple’s devices work beautifully and seamlessly together. It’s what really differentiates Apple from the uncountable minions of Windows and Android hardware manufacturers. It’s also why Apple offers long term hardware and software support and more frequent updates.
Technology changes and evolves. Apple has thrived because its ecosystem always stays ahead of the game. But they are not the only company that ends support for older products:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-windows-7-support
And it’s not like Windows 10 ever had anything resembling a fan club.
Seconded. IMHO Apple should update for features only when ready, but update for security as soon as possible. But this whole fixed annual refresh of all OSes is marketing BS.
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