Apple blocks even apps that they define as “too old”.
Like every new version of Macintosh forces every developer to scramble and update their app even though nothing needs to change just so Apple doesn’t block them.
That’s fucked. Normally I can coax just about any windows app to run on even windows 11, and I have to because sometimes I interact with ancient industrial machines with monolithic Configurator apps that need a serial connection and a bunch of weird custom commands that was last used in 1998. I’d be boned without them.
Afaik, Microsoft made it a core principle to not break backward compatibility. Something that mattered to a lot of enterprise users. Applications made in Windows XP era, still work today on Win 11.
It used to be a source of annoyance. So many programs relied on undocumented behavior that MS couldn’t go back and change decisions they made that turned out to be bad ones without potentially breaking things for some programs, even if that decision should have been entirely transparent to end users. So there was a bunch of technical debt being carried in the OS itself, at least until they started adding compatibility layers that allowed the quirks to be moved to there and the OS itself to progress.
But then they started with the enshittification that made those technical debt days look so innocent in comparison. It was a time when MS cared about the quality of its products.
You can run what ever you want, it doesn’t stop you outright, it just asks you a bunch of times and makes you jump through some hoops if the program isn’t from a verified source. It’s annoying for someone who knows what they’re doing, but arguably a good backstop to keep someone clueless from running something hostile. It’s a complicated enough process that someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing won’t be able to run it.
Arguably it’s overkill and them trying to force users to stay in their closed “verified” garden, but it’s not totally unjustified.
I’ve never used a Mac, can you not just write your own app and run it?
I do that on windows all the time.
Apple blocks even apps that they define as “too old”.
Like every new version of Macintosh forces every developer to scramble and update their app even though nothing needs to change just so Apple doesn’t block them.
That’s fucked. Normally I can coax just about any windows app to run on even windows 11, and I have to because sometimes I interact with ancient industrial machines with monolithic Configurator apps that need a serial connection and a bunch of weird custom commands that was last used in 1998. I’d be boned without them.
Afaik, Microsoft made it a core principle to not break backward compatibility. Something that mattered to a lot of enterprise users. Applications made in Windows XP era, still work today on Win 11.
That’s a pretty cool thing ngl. But unfortunately it doesn’t make up for everything else.
It used to be a source of annoyance. So many programs relied on undocumented behavior that MS couldn’t go back and change decisions they made that turned out to be bad ones without potentially breaking things for some programs, even if that decision should have been entirely transparent to end users. So there was a bunch of technical debt being carried in the OS itself, at least until they started adding compatibility layers that allowed the quirks to be moved to there and the OS itself to progress.
But then they started with the enshittification that made those technical debt days look so innocent in comparison. It was a time when MS cared about the quality of its products.
You can run what ever you want, it doesn’t stop you outright, it just asks you a bunch of times and makes you jump through some hoops if the program isn’t from a verified source. It’s annoying for someone who knows what they’re doing, but arguably a good backstop to keep someone clueless from running something hostile. It’s a complicated enough process that someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing won’t be able to run it.
Arguably it’s overkill and them trying to force users to stay in their closed “verified” garden, but it’s not totally unjustified.
For now, that is. Thing is that MacOS is on a trajectory where it becomes more and more locked down.
Pfff get outta here with your differentiated opinions, weighing pros and cons and all that mumbo jumbo. macOS bad!!11
You can. You can also install other package managers like brew.