They forgot to mention that the growing software library is also shrinking as they deprecate support for older OS versions and hardware. On the one hand they go to heroic lengths (fat binaries, Rosetta 2) to enable a migration to a new hardware platform but get bored in ~5 years and drop support.

"Growing software library" it ain't.

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raw_anon_1111 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The ARM chips in later iPhones and all M series Macs physically don’t have the hardware to run 32 bit software.

Should they still be supporting PPC software? 68K software? Why not old Apple // software for good measure?

Right now the last time I counted in 2012, there were 12 ways to define a string in Windows and you had to convert back and forth between them depending on which API you are calling. There are so many one off hacks to keep Windows running (see Raymond Chen’s blog) it’s a house of cards

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al_borland 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t think dropping legacy support is due to boredom. It what allows them to keep moving forward without being saddled by every decision from the past.

How long should they have kept PPC or Classic support?

Microsoft is in a funny position. Backward compatibility is seen as a competitive advantage, especially in the enterprise market. However, it’s that very compatibility that makes people avoid adopting new technologies, because why bother? We see Microsoft throw so many things against the wall, and almost nothing sticks. Meanwhile, Apple tells devs to jump and they ask how high. Devs know Apple is going to cut support, so its update your apps or be left behind.

To really make a change, a person needs to be all-in. Dual booting Windows and Linux/macOS, for example. This is a sign a person isn’t all-in and they don’t really make the change, or it takes significantly longer. When a person goes all-in and burns the boats, they are forced to find new solutions and make the changes needed to make the new thing actually work.

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renewiltord 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s been half a century of Apple. At this point if FireWire, Flash, and a half dozen other things didn’t convince you that Apple deprecates then removes old functionality pretty rapidly I don’t know what to say.

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titzer 10 hours ago | parent [-]

If only those trillions of dollars of market cap and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue could support...a couple dozen small teams maintaining legacy support. For the old hardware, pretty decent open source emulators exist that can run older versions, like all the way back to MacOS 7. It can't be that hard to keep the pilot light on for those old things.

	▲	raw_anon_1111 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You just can’t imagine my lost from not being able to use my 7 device deep SCSI chain including my Zip and Jaz drive
	▲	renewiltord 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's a product choice. If you want long-term backwards compatibility, Windows is probably the best option, perhaps the Win32 API on Linux via WINE. Overall, backwards compatibility is a drag on future development. In general, I prefer to drop it myself unless that's the crucial feature. In this case, I'd say I'd make the same choice. Those last few bps of users can simply remain on old software/hardware.