Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ValentineC 273 days ago
What's worse about the Apple ecosystem is that because of how tightly coupled it is, a bug fix for Photos would only come as part of a macOS update.

Which means that if that bug has been present since the (now unsupported) Mavericks, tough luck!
2 comments
thewebguyd 273 days ago
I still don't under stand why Apple limits updates to their first party apps to OS updates.

They could really benefit from how Google does it on Android and decouple it. Push updates to their first party apps via the app store like everyone else, and let the OS update on its own separate schedule.

link
novok 273 days ago
A lot of them are also the library surface for a lot of internal foundational libraries. Photos is also PhotoKit, similarly with email. It's essentially over coupled.
link
ValentineC 273 days ago
They somehow separate out certain apps, like Safari (on occasion), the iWork suite, and the Pro apps, but I have no idea why they insist on coupling apps like Photos and Music to OS updates.
link
TomaszZielinski 273 days ago
Safari is interesting. It's been separate, except for major macOS updates, which had it bundled. But if you had a newer Safari on an older macOS, and upgraded macOS to anything else that the latest version, then your Safari was downgraded, often causing data loss..

In Sonoma or Sequoia they started bundling all Safari updates with macOS, but right now Safari 26 appeared as a separate update in Sonoma/Sequoia—-and it will likely stay that way.

Each thing separately can be explained, but when put together it’s somewhat messy..

link
dlcarrier 273 days ago
Google used to keep it coupled on Chrome OS, and older Chromebooks can only run insecure versions of Chrome.
link
JKCalhoun 273 days ago
MacOS updates are several per year though. If a fixes found (and the bug considered a high enough priority) it could show up before 2025 is up.
link
conductr 273 days ago
It’s a way to force you to update those apps. They don’t want you on the latest OS and on an old Music or Photos.
link
ValentineC 272 days ago
Sure, but I want to be on an older macOS and be given the option to use the latest Music or Photos.

For example, I'm probably not going to be upgrading to Tahoe until Sequoia's close to end of support life. I just upgraded to Sequoia last month from Ventura (decided to skip Sonoma since the various anecdotes of Sequoia made it sound like Sonoma-with-AI, with few apps breaking because of some new API change).

link
Gigachad 273 days ago
It’s more a problem for Macs not supported with OS updates like the 2019 13” models right now.
link