Confirmed: Mountain Lion sends some 64-bit Macs gently into that good night(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Confirmed: Mountain Lion sends some 64-bit Macs gently into that good night
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/confirmed-mountain-lion-sends-some-64-bit-macs-gently-into-that-good-night/
11 comments
Slightly OT, but did anyone else have any issue grokking the headline?
Yes. I thought they'd confirmed that ML killed some machines, not that some machines wouldn't be able to upgrade to ML.
Let me recommend a poem to you. Do not go gentle into that good night, by Dylan Thomas.
Edit: woops, late to the party. That's what I get for leaving a page up for 20 minutes before commenting...
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175907Edit: woops, late to the party. That's what I get for leaving a page up for 20 minutes before commenting...
It's confusing because the computers aren't actually dying, they're just being left behind.
It's a Dylan Thomas reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_go_gentle_into_that_good...
I think most people get that reference (and I don't know shit about poetry).
It just makes it all the more confusing and misplaced, so I'm guessing the one person that doesn't get it was the author...
It just makes it all the more confusing and misplaced, so I'm guessing the one person that doesn't get it was the author...
I think most people get that reference (and I don't know shit about poetry).
Correction: most native English speakers :). I for one didn't.
Correction: most native English speakers :). I for one didn't.
I agree. I still don't know what the article is talking about.
OS fragmentation? Call MG!
I kid, but it's interesting to see a few warts in the Apple ecosystem. Nobody can argue that they don't make awesome products, but as they slip into the "mainstream" we're going to see that it's more and more difficult to maintain a flawless complexion.
First, they remove the "can't get a virus!" ad, now this, within weeks. Being unable to upgrade your OS is no minor quibble. "It just works" indeed.
I kid, but it's interesting to see a few warts in the Apple ecosystem. Nobody can argue that they don't make awesome products, but as they slip into the "mainstream" we're going to see that it's more and more difficult to maintain a flawless complexion.
First, they remove the "can't get a virus!" ad, now this, within weeks. Being unable to upgrade your OS is no minor quibble. "It just works" indeed.
Consistently, strategically EOL-ing/deprecating technologies, even through some painful transitions, is no small part of why Apple are in a good position today. There's no way they could've pushed the iPhone out the door in 2007 if they were obsessively keeping all of their Mac software compatible across Intel/PPC or providing support to OS9 users (not that those are completely meritless).
The de-emphasis of backward compatibility has been a tactical advantage against Microsoft.
On the other end of the spectrum, I work with lab equipment that are more than 15 years old but still work great. The software which interfaces with it is old, but still works with Windows. Would such a thing be possible with Apple, or would Apple's insistence on upgrading every few years force the lab equipment to be replaced at significantly greater cost?
(parent here)
I completely agree and that's a very valid scenario. Apple tactical advantage is that consumers have completely different usage patterns and expectations than the enterprise/lab (which Apple essentially ignores). If %95 of consumers either (a) upgrade within five years or (b) are completely perplexed by the notion of updating their operating system at all, then Apple are at a huge efficiency advantage EOL-ing technologies around the five year mark. As opposed to having top engineers work on maintaining compatibility with deprecated APIs, old hardware, etc. for 15 year old software.
I completely agree and that's a very valid scenario. Apple tactical advantage is that consumers have completely different usage patterns and expectations than the enterprise/lab (which Apple essentially ignores). If %95 of consumers either (a) upgrade within five years or (b) are completely perplexed by the notion of updating their operating system at all, then Apple are at a huge efficiency advantage EOL-ing technologies around the five year mark. As opposed to having top engineers work on maintaining compatibility with deprecated APIs, old hardware, etc. for 15 year old software.
Macs have never really been appropriate for embedded computation, and it doesn't come up much in practice.
I work with people who work with lab software which is happily running OS X 10.2 Jaguar. It's no different than the XP box in the corner, as long as everyone understands that the checkbook has to come out when it breaks.
On the other hand, the quarter million dollar cytometer is going to be running Windows NT 4 Embedded, and when that ATA-66 hard drive fails or the software becomes unable to talk properly with the modern world anymore, it's on the vendor to make it work again. The support typically blows, but it's their problem to handle and none of them are going to be relying on Apple's memory-hole platform.
I work with people who work with lab software which is happily running OS X 10.2 Jaguar. It's no different than the XP box in the corner, as long as everyone understands that the checkbook has to come out when it breaks.
On the other hand, the quarter million dollar cytometer is going to be running Windows NT 4 Embedded, and when that ATA-66 hard drive fails or the software becomes unable to talk properly with the modern world anymore, it's on the vendor to make it work again. The support typically blows, but it's their problem to handle and none of them are going to be relying on Apple's memory-hole platform.
They're not gonna come and take your lab equipments away, you know... Leave them on OS X Lion for a century and you'll be okay. Just like many have left their lab computers on Windows XP for a decade.
As long as Lion gets security updates (2 years, minimum), there's absolutely no need for an upgrade. After that, you can just disconnect it from the Internet and use an stronger password.
As long as Lion gets security updates (2 years, minimum), there's absolutely no need for an upgrade. After that, you can just disconnect it from the Internet and use an stronger password.
Because using a stronger password somehow nullifies security holes in an OS?
Sorry, I said a stupid thing. You shouldn't comment when you're sleepy... I meant you can restrict remote access to them to be more safe (from trojans, etc), but somehow a stupid point about restricting "physical access" made its way into my comment and made it look ridiculous :)
Apple maintained Classic compatibility from ~1984-2006 and Carbon PPC compatibility from ~2000-2010. It's a long time but it's not forever.
I read this all the time but I don't buy it.
Hiring some maintenance programmers to take care of 10.6 or 10.7 security for X more years (and announcing that EOL date!) sounds pretty harmless. How would that hold Apple back at all? They have mountains of cash in the bank and those programmers wouldn't get into the way of 10.8 or 10.9 at all.
Hiring some maintenance programmers to take care of 10.6 or 10.7 security for X more years (and announcing that EOL date!) sounds pretty harmless. How would that hold Apple back at all? They have mountains of cash in the bank and those programmers wouldn't get into the way of 10.8 or 10.9 at all.
That is the brute-force approach Microsoft uses. Corporations love it. I find the problem is that the "matrix" of possibilities you have to keep in mind as a programmer keeps getting bigger and bigger. You end up with the Adobe Flash effect (least common denominator) within your own OS or program or whatever. I would call that a very high price indeed.
Security patches, while not trivial or cheap, are vastly simpler than either the backward compatibility problems I described or the issue at hand with incompatible video drivers.
You can't just add programmers to mate cutting edge OS kernel features (ie leveraging recent videocards) with old hardware. None of us can speak authoritatively on the case in point, but it seems painfully optimistic to think you can pull this off without introducing a lot of complexity. And then, what happens if the 10.8 team tweaks the kernel during a point update? Yep, better double or triple the testing team.
"Oh, it looks like it'll take some work to get 10.8 working with all of our old AMD chipsets - either we delay release until fall (after Windows 8, unfortunately) or we put some of our "A" engineers on it."
Complexity is the keyword. Complexity and mediocrity go hand in hand. Backward compatibility is a noble goal in many ways, but every generation back of software/hardware you try to maintain exponentially increases the complexity you deal with instead of putting a better new product in user's hands.
You can't just add programmers to mate cutting edge OS kernel features (ie leveraging recent videocards) with old hardware. None of us can speak authoritatively on the case in point, but it seems painfully optimistic to think you can pull this off without introducing a lot of complexity. And then, what happens if the 10.8 team tweaks the kernel during a point update? Yep, better double or triple the testing team.
"Oh, it looks like it'll take some work to get 10.8 working with all of our old AMD chipsets - either we delay release until fall (after Windows 8, unfortunately) or we put some of our "A" engineers on it."
Complexity is the keyword. Complexity and mediocrity go hand in hand. Backward compatibility is a noble goal in many ways, but every generation back of software/hardware you try to maintain exponentially increases the complexity you deal with instead of putting a better new product in user's hands.
I was only thinking of security updates, new features can often be added by third parties and that leads to a healthy market that will fill the gaps on older OS versions.
HN completely ignores the class of computer users who only need Safari, Mail and some variation of Word, and then live in these apps for years without any major upgrade. In my experience, these people don't even feel entitled to any upgrade and they don't add any complexity to any testing matrix. All they need are baseline security updates, and existing services better don't stop without a plausible reason (see MobileMe). I'm not thinking of MegaCorp here, but rather my own and friends' close relatives.
The machine that got excluded from 10.8 after only 4 years was not a rev-A MacBook Air in the hands of some early adopters but a Mac Mini, the most traditional Mac money can buy. That really leaves little hope that all my "slow adopter" relatives will ever leave the Windowsverse.
HN completely ignores the class of computer users who only need Safari, Mail and some variation of Word, and then live in these apps for years without any major upgrade. In my experience, these people don't even feel entitled to any upgrade and they don't add any complexity to any testing matrix. All they need are baseline security updates, and existing services better don't stop without a plausible reason (see MobileMe). I'm not thinking of MegaCorp here, but rather my own and friends' close relatives.
The machine that got excluded from 10.8 after only 4 years was not a rev-A MacBook Air in the hands of some early adopters but a Mac Mini, the most traditional Mac money can buy. That really leaves little hope that all my "slow adopter" relatives will ever leave the Windowsverse.
If you can hire qualified systems programmers, you can put them to much more productive use than maintaining Mac OS 10.6 for another decade.
They've been doing this since Mac OS X 10.3 or so. It's nothing new.
I didn't realize that. Then why is this news? And why is it news when a phone company decides it's not worth the trouble to build out ICS for a 2 year old phone?
Honest questions. As people in this thread with more knowledge than myself have stated, there's a tradeoff in introducing new technology and maintaining legacy hardware support. OS fragmentation seems natural. And the better our tech gets (longer life of devices), the worse the problem will get. Considering how fast phone technology works, why is/was Android fragmentation such an issue?
Honest questions. As people in this thread with more knowledge than myself have stated, there's a tradeoff in introducing new technology and maintaining legacy hardware support. OS fragmentation seems natural. And the better our tech gets (longer life of devices), the worse the problem will get. Considering how fast phone technology works, why is/was Android fragmentation such an issue?
I don't think the problem people are complaining about Android fragmentation is a phone company decides it's not worth the trouble to build out ICS for a 2 year old phone but rather there's still brand new Android 2.x on sale today with no upgrade path.
Optimus L3 was released earlier this year, ships with 2.3 with no foreseeable upgrade path (thanks to its low price). The software is outdated the moment it was released.
I'm looking for Android phone today and still undecided of what to get (inclined to get HTC One X) because I'm unsure whether it will get a 4.1 update or not.
Optimus L3 was released earlier this year, ships with 2.3 with no foreseeable upgrade path (thanks to its low price). The software is outdated the moment it was released.
I'm looking for Android phone today and still undecided of what to get (inclined to get HTC One X) because I'm unsure whether it will get a 4.1 update or not.
>"but rather there's still brand new Android 2.x on sale today with no upgrade path."
But the fact that there is still an Android with 2.2 available, brand new is what gives Android it's market advantage: cheap phones. For all people who aren't really techies, Android 2.2 does everything you need, and far more than my original Motorola RAZR. That's bad for Android?
But the fact that there is still an Android with 2.2 available, brand new is what gives Android it's market advantage: cheap phones. For all people who aren't really techies, Android 2.2 does everything you need, and far more than my original Motorola RAZR. That's bad for Android?
HTC has a good track record of updating their phones, at one time they were the manufacturer that was best at updating their androids.
Because (as far as I know), lots of currently shipping phones ship with old versions of Android. Everything that Apple currently ships will be upgradeable to iOS 6 or Mountain Lion.
It's one thing to drop support for computers that are several years past the end of their extended warranties, based on mostly sound technical reasoning, and another thing entirely to stop issuing updates for phones that are still under contract. And I say this as someone who waited for the update to 64-bit CPUs and then got screwed with 32-bit only firmware. If I had been paying a subscription for my Mac or if the OS updates were as expensive as Windows used to be, I would very upset at Apple's decision to never overhaul the firmware on my Mac, but as it is I'm just disappointed in Apple and Intel for not having a 64-bit EFI ready when the Core 2 processors shipped.
I'd say six years of OS upgrades before being EOLed is a pretty good deal. That said, my primary machine at home is an 07 Macbook so I have a little bit of envy going on.
Of course, EOL is a huge exaggeration.
I've been running a machine with 10.5.4 on it for 3 years, and just 2 days ago got a brand new Air with 10.7.x
I notice some differences, sure, but nothing that makes my old laptop "obsolete" or "EOL" compared to the new one. The real difference is the new machine has twelve times more storage, 4 times more RAM and another CPU core.
I've been running a machine with 10.5.4 on it for 3 years, and just 2 days ago got a brand new Air with 10.7.x
I notice some differences, sure, but nothing that makes my old laptop "obsolete" or "EOL" compared to the new one. The real difference is the new machine has twelve times more storage, 4 times more RAM and another CPU core.
If you bought a 2008 Mac Mini, you are not so lucky. But how bad the effect of the new requirements is, remains to be seen. If Apple provides security updates for Snow Leopard and Lion for some years and if software remains compatible with those versions, it's not so bad.
Early 2008 MBP is ok for ML. I guess I was a bit lucky there since I got 64-bit EFI in it.
I've got an 2007 15" 2.4 Ghz MacBook Pro and it is still supported by Mountain Lion...
It is still my primary machine (well, I've got two of them actually).
It is still my primary machine (well, I've got two of them actually).
I have a brand new MBP (Retina) and I won't be upgrading to ML anytime soon (even though I get a free copy). I'm still bitter at the Lion upgrade process. It was a nightmare for me. And at that time I considered Lion to be Apple's trash OS. It's gotten better, After like 8 major updates. :)
Hell I tried to downgrade to SL, but that's not possible due to drivers.
Lesson learned. Also,I'm STILL being forced to download the OS from the App Store. I wouldn't mind that so much if the Store didn't have performance issues.
Hell I tried to downgrade to SL, but that's not possible due to drivers.
Lesson learned. Also,I'm STILL being forced to download the OS from the App Store. I wouldn't mind that so much if the Store didn't have performance issues.
Mountain Lion brings a lot of enhancements specifically for that Mac, I would strongly suggest getting it. Eg the Smart Sleep feature and using Core Animation in Safari, making it a lot faster.
You can bring your MacBook to an Apple Store to download Mountain Lion faster.
FWIW: I didn't encounter any crases in any recent ML builds. Since Apple is on a one year release schedule now, the differences between versions will (probably) not be as big as before.
Also, I never had any problems downloading Lion or Mountain Lion from the App Store. The downloads were always fast (I am on a 120 MBit downstream connection).
One would expect that they also release it on a USB stick as before (or DIY).
Also, I never had any problems downloading Lion or Mountain Lion from the App Store. The downloads were always fast (I am on a 120 MBit downstream connection).
One would expect that they also release it on a USB stick as before (or DIY).
Welcome to every Mac OS upgrade I've ever encountered.
Although, I can't place the blame entirely on Apple. I find that for any consolidated release OS, a reformat is ALWAYS the way to go (after waiting a good long time for all the bugs to be ironed out). Hopefully one day Apple will drive the cost of their software down so much that they'll just go to rolling release.
Although, I can't place the blame entirely on Apple. I find that for any consolidated release OS, a reformat is ALWAYS the way to go (after waiting a good long time for all the bugs to be ironed out). Hopefully one day Apple will drive the cost of their software down so much that they'll just go to rolling release.
Ok, setiously guys, what are you doing wrong?
I have updated 3 personal Macs to Lion. Some upgraded, some a clean install. Didnt have a problem with any of them.
What broke for you? Drivers for exotic hardware? (on that front, I use Wacom tablets, Midi controllers and external FW audio cards and had no probems with either in Lion).
On the other hand I refuse to install ANY haxie.
Seriously want to know what broke for you -- and I dont mean stuff like "I prefered old Expose better"....
I have updated 3 personal Macs to Lion. Some upgraded, some a clean install. Didnt have a problem with any of them.
What broke for you? Drivers for exotic hardware? (on that front, I use Wacom tablets, Midi controllers and external FW audio cards and had no probems with either in Lion).
On the other hand I refuse to install ANY haxie.
Seriously want to know what broke for you -- and I dont mean stuff like "I prefered old Expose better"....
I love me some Apple, but drama does occur. Off the top of my head:
- silent DVD-ROM read errors causing perma-botched upgrades, even though everything should be CRCed and nothing throws any errors at any point along the way
- pathologically long install stall-outs (40 minutes+)
- pathologically slow performance at first restart, usually on older RAM-constrained machines trying to re-thumbnail everything
- Significant keychain issues requiring creation of an entirely new keychain
- Spotlight issues requiring a first or second re-index
- Mail.app upgrades are quite problematic, especially when moving to V2 layout or accessing previously configured accounts
- Now-missing JVMs causing significant problems during first boot
- Lion download progress bars blowing some internal math and going for that 235905329052 gigabyte
The biggest hassle I think is exploding third-party software at first logon. Things like garbage rinter+scanner managers freaking out because drivers got moved around underneath them cause a flurry of popups that frustrate techs and freak out novices.
- silent DVD-ROM read errors causing perma-botched upgrades, even though everything should be CRCed and nothing throws any errors at any point along the way
- pathologically long install stall-outs (40 minutes+)
- pathologically slow performance at first restart, usually on older RAM-constrained machines trying to re-thumbnail everything
- Significant keychain issues requiring creation of an entirely new keychain
- Spotlight issues requiring a first or second re-index
- Mail.app upgrades are quite problematic, especially when moving to V2 layout or accessing previously configured accounts
- Now-missing JVMs causing significant problems during first boot
- Lion download progress bars blowing some internal math and going for that 235905329052 gigabyte
The biggest hassle I think is exploding third-party software at first logon. Things like garbage rinter+scanner managers freaking out because drivers got moved around underneath them cause a flurry of popups that frustrate techs and freak out novices.
Of those, I've seen spotlight needing re-indexing after an upgrade. But it's something so minor and easily fixed that I don't even consider it a fault of the OS (actually, it could have as well been DESIGNED to do that, e.g to update the indexes to some new on-disk format).
Silent DVD errors, install stalls, keychain and Mail accounts missing sound like genuine bugs.
As for the rest,
>- pathologically slow performance at first restart, usually on older RAM-constrained machines trying to re-thumbnail everything
This doesn't sound like an OS bug, more like something to be expected.
>- Now-missing JVMs causing significant problems during first boot
Sure, but what uses Java at boot?
The above and third party printer/scanner managers freaking out, sound like totally orthogonal issues to OS bugginess.
If anything, I would _expect_ to have to install new third party drivers with an major OS update.
Silent DVD errors, install stalls, keychain and Mail accounts missing sound like genuine bugs.
As for the rest,
>- pathologically slow performance at first restart, usually on older RAM-constrained machines trying to re-thumbnail everything
This doesn't sound like an OS bug, more like something to be expected.
>- Now-missing JVMs causing significant problems during first boot
Sure, but what uses Java at boot?
The above and third party printer/scanner managers freaking out, sound like totally orthogonal issues to OS bugginess.
If anything, I would _expect_ to have to install new third party drivers with an major OS update.
I thought the general consensus was that ML is more stable than Lion?
Mountain Lion is a much improved version of Lion, no more. That’s great.
I don’t see any roadblocks to installing it. It already works much better than Lion.
I don’t see any roadblocks to installing it. It already works much better than Lion.
It's always such a double-edged sword -- slough off legacy support to enhance present hardware's experience; schlep a dated portion (in this case a 32bit portion) of a code base and be inclusive.
Apple has always pushed for letting go of the past in order to reach for the future. I mean, come-on, the original Apple Macs had no arrow keys...
Apple has always pushed for letting go of the past in order to reach for the future. I mean, come-on, the original Apple Macs had no arrow keys...
I was quite surprised that my now 5-year-old MacBook Pro will still be supported. Maybe it's time to fork out for that SSD upgrade and scrape one more year out of it after all.
I got a 7 years old desktop which will get updated to Win 8. I would be surprised if i would NOT be able to update....
I think that's what has left a lot of Windows Phone users completely surprised. Buy a top end Windows Phone right now and it won't work with WP8 in 5 months.
That said, I have an HTC Titan and don't really care.
[edit for typos]
That said, I have an HTC Titan and don't really care.
[edit for typos]
They’ve obviously never had a Windows Mobile device before then. If you got a single update you were lucky.
I had an HP that didn't even work properly with a clean install of Windows 7 Pro (it came with 7 Home...). Audio over HDMI would bug out after a while with any drivers that didn't come on that HP "restore" partition.
Is there somewhere I can go to check if my Macbook is one of those? I have to start buttering up my boss if I need a new one. (Xcode updates sure force upgrades. I was just fine with Snow Leopard, except iOS 5.1 wouldn't build without the latest Xcode, which is Lion only. Grrr.) Now this.
iMac:~ Flow$ ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi
| | "firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">
iMac:~ Flow$
EFI64 means ok for ML.If you have Lion, go to the Apple menu -> About this Mac. Then click on the "More Info…" button. The model year should be listed under the model, on the right.
If you don't have Lion, I think you can still get that info from the window that comes up when you click "More Info…", but I forget where (and don't have a machine running Snow Leopard handy ATM).
EDIT: The required models are listed by Apple (linked in the article): http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/
If you don't have Lion, I think you can still get that info from the window that comes up when you click "More Info…", but I forget where (and don't have a machine running Snow Leopard handy ATM).
EDIT: The required models are listed by Apple (linked in the article): http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/
[deleted]
With this type behavior I'm really happy to only spend money in OEM hardware and be able to select what OS to install and when to upgrade.
This has nothing to do with hardware, this is an OS issue. You can still install Windows 8 or Linux on these machines.
You are right, but I would be not happy with these constraints after paying so much for Apple hardware.
[deleted]
While I'm typically excited for upgrades to anything (OS, Individual apps, etc) I really have no desire to upgrade to Mountain Lion.
I see no reason to spend the money to replace my currently 3 year old MBP in the foreseeable future. Barring breakages, I will probably be using this thing in to 2015, even if it isn't getting OS updates by then. I wonder how long Apple keep stock of replacement batteries for older models.
Seven years, all models everywhere. Special considerations possible in the state of California.
It is still possible to boot the 64 bit kernel and install ML by using a non-Apple bootloader (eg Chameleon), basically turning your Mac Pro into a 100% Apple hackintosh.