Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> When a new major version of macOS is released macOS developers seem obsessed with quickly releasing a new version of their apps that will only run on the newest operating system.

This is encouraged by Apple to help with their planned obsolescence of old OS versions. With new macOS versions there is often a requirement to rebuild your apps with the latest version of Xcode which ships alongside it. This is because Apple changes lots of its internal APIs etc between OS versions, and only the latest version of Xcode supports those changes.

Also the App stores only allow new and update submissions for apps built with the latest SDK, which in turn must be coded on the latest version of Xcode, which itself cannot be run on older versions of macOS.

Is this all a conspiracy to keep people buying new computers and phones? I cannot say, but if I wanted to keep people bying more of my product this is how I would do it.




I'm not a macOS dev, so not talking from direct experience, but you can select a minimum deployment target in Xcode as low as macOS 10.13, I believe. There must be a reason some devs choose not to support that.


Well he explained the "reason": Apple makes it very easy for devs to choose the option they want, less work from the point of view of devs.

All because they are constantly deprecating API/framework when in general they are just moving things around and nothing really changes. You have to be a hardcore believer to not find issue with the behavior, it's so convenient for their business model.

Meanwhile on the Windows side you can find obscure software from the Vista era and chances are it will work without issues.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: