It’s Apple operating system release day, so if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, it’s like Christmas morning, but for your devices. The two major platforms are, of course, iOS/iPadOS 18:
iOS 18 adds new customization options for the Home Screen, with the option to arrange apps and widgets with open spaces and add new tints to app icons. Control Center has been entirely overhauled with support for multiple pages, third-party controls, and the option to put controls on the Lock Screen and activate them with the Action Button.
↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors
macOS Sequoia features iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to control and monitor your iPhone right from your Mac. You can use your iPhone’s apps and get your iPhone’s notifications all while your iPhone is tucked away and locked.
Window tiling has been improved to make it easier to arrange multiple windows on your Mac’s display, and there are new keyboard and menu shortcuts for organizing your windows. In Safari, Highlights will now show you the information you want most from websites, and there’s a new Viewer mode for watching videos without distractions.
↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors
It doesn’t stop there, though, as Apple also released watchOS 11, visionOS 2, tvOS 18, and the most import ant most hotly anticipated out of all of Apple’s platforms, HomePod Software 18. It’s genuinely kind of staggering how Apple manages to update all of these various platforms at the same time, each coming with a ton of new features and bugfixes, and ship them out to consumers – generally without any major issues or showstoppers. Especially in the case of iOS and macOS, that’s definitely a major difference with the Windows and Android worlds, where users are confronted with strict hardware requirements, lack of update availability altogether, or just stick with previous versions because the new versions contain tons of privacy or feature regressions.
Do note that Apple’s AI/ML features announced during WWDC aren’t shipping yet, and that iPhone Mirroring is not available in the EU because someone told Tim Cook “no” and he threw a hissy fit.
I am not in the “it all just works” Apple camp. My wife uses macOS and I have had to put A LOT of time into tracking down sudden bad behaviour from the OS many times. I just downgraded her OS recently which of course means having to nuke the drive. Fun. And Apple features just mysteriously do not work from time to time or moment to moment on both iOS ( which I use ) and macOS ( which I am called upon to support ). But I do not really want to debate the “just works” story for anybody that feels this is an accurate description. What I do want to take issue with is the compatibility claim.
@Thom, as per your last sentence, Apple does have the good sense to simply not ship applications or features that are not there yet. This is good. Sometimes they then finally ship them as part of “minor” releases. We do not see all their flailing before this. If Apple was planning Total Recall, we would pretty much not see it until they were ready to drop it on the world.
As for compatibility, Apple only has to support a handful of machines. Even still, they force them into the “incompatible” column at regular intervals. There is a whole sub-culture of returning compatibility to the models that Apple has dropped from their already tiny universe of supported machines. Microsoft ( deservedly ) took major heat for the arbitrary Windows 11 requirements but Apple does exactly the same thing with every single OS release. Windows 11 was released at the end of 2021 and but “Windows” ( in the form of version 10 ) still officially supports even the hardware that Windows 11 will not. Windows 10 still supports hardware well over 10 years old. In contrast, Apple has released macOS 13, 14, 15, and now 16 in that same span of time with each of them dropping hardware support. macOS 13 would support hardware as old as 2013 whereas macOS 16 requires hardware 2018 or newer. And even “supported” Apple hardware is often missing key features–usually for reasons totally unrelated to the hardware capability.
By the time Windows 10 support ends, Apple will be dropping support for macOS 14 and both Windows and macOS will require about the same modernity of hardware for official support. The difference is that Microsoft will probably continue to support this hardware for another decade whereases Apple will continue to drop compatibility for older hardware every year or so.
As an outsider, what I do think Apple gets much better than Microsoft is security ( especially on mobile ). In that arena, I think the Microsoft instinct to stay compatible and Apple’s willingness to break with that are part of the reason why security is better in the Apple ecosystem than with Microsoft’s. It is not the only reason though.
I have to agree that it’s mostly a myth these days. Catalina, in particular, was a nightmare. It broke a multitude of apps. It remained a meme for things not working for years.
The worst by far though was Ventura, which, in its wisdom, broke antivírus compatibility for months. It left our buisness in an awkward position of not being able to buy new macs as they couldn’t meet the security compliance levels required. We (like others) were left scouring sources for old stock that didn’t have the latest OS installed…
Rollout stopped due to devices getting bricked. 100% a myth
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/apple-pauses-ipados-18-rollout-for-m4-ipad-pro-after-bricking-complaints/
Adurbe,
From your link…
(My emphasis).
Wow, replacing hardware for a software update… Unless it caused physical damage, it’s hard to imagine them doing this. What does that update do to warrant a physical replacement? Is the CPU running too hot/too high a voltage? What else could it be that they couldn’t revert the firmware/OS? Some bug depleted the NAND flash lifespan? I’m curious to hear more about this.
> Do note that Apple’s AI/ML features announced during WWDC aren’t shipping yet, and that iPhone Mirroring is not available in the EU because someone told Tim Cook “no” and he threw a hissy fit.
iPhone Mirroring is not available in the EU because iPhone Mirroring only works with macOS, and it’s not at all clear to anybody whether the EU’s interoperability and/or self-dealing requirements would require a Windows, Linux, etc. client, which would obviously be far more difficult for Apple to pull off.
I think it’s entirely appropriate to criticise Apple for stuff like the App Store fee, but I don’t think they’re universally in the wrong. This is an example of an overly vague regulation having a fairly predictable chilling effect – if Apple can’t determine whether a product is legal to offer in the EU, they’re disincentivised from offering it there.
Also, isn’t the Apple Watch only compatible with an iPhone? How is that okay, but the Mirroring is (maybe) not?