On Tuesday, August 19, 2003, at 07:34 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 19 Aug 2003 at 19:20, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On Tuesday, August 19, 2003, at 06:55 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
And what really matters is not an OS version's *release* date, but the last date at which it was available on machines.
That's the key difference between Macs and PCs. Macs always ship with the most up-to-date version of the OS. As soon as OS 9 came out, Apple stopped selling machines with OS 8.6. Apple hasn't shipped a machine with OS 8.6 on it since January 10th, 1999.
That's only a little more than 4 years ago.
What? It's well over four and a half years ago. Seven months is not "a little more."
And how long were those machines in the supply pipeline?
Zero days. When OS updates occur, all third-party retailers are obliged to update the OS on the machines they currently have in stock. On January 10th, 1999, it was (theoretically) impossible to buy a Mac with OS 8.6 on it. (If a retailer was selling one, he was in violation of his agreement with Apple.) Also, Apple has a software up-to-date policy, where if you buy a new Mac within 30 days of an OS upgrade, you get the upgrade for a nominal fee ($20, I think it is, including shipping).
My point stands -- it makes no difference whether Apple ceases to make machines with the old OS when the new OS is released. There are still plenty of people who've bought machines with the older OS a short time before the release of the next version.
And they are covered by the up-to-date policy.
Again, it's when the OS *stopped* being current, not when it was released, that should control how long it's supported by software makers, simply because otherwise, they'd be abandoning large numbers of their potential users.
OS 8.6 effectively stopped being current the day OS 9 was released. You very quickly saw a number of applications -- the original iTunes, for instance, and all the iTools stuff -- that required OS 9.
I know this isn't the way it works in the PC world, and I'm not saying that what Apple does is good or fair, just that it's long-standing practice and at this point it really shouldn't surprise anyone that Coda is no longer supporting an OS that hasn't been current for over four and a half years.
- Darcy
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