[Eric Brody Participant Posts: 69]

Computers & Displays

on: September 20, 2019 at 12:43 pm

I’m posting this question here as well as on LULA since I’m not sure who’s here vs there. Over the years I have received much valuable advice from contributors at LULA. I was not happy but also not knowledgeable regarding the politics or finances of the “takeover” by Josh Reichmann. People such as Mark Segal and others are an invaluable resource to us all. I’ve always enjoyed Kevin Raber’s comments as well.

Does anyone know if Mojave will still be available as an upgrade once Catalina is released? If not, I might upgrade to Mojave now to delay solving the 32 bit app problem. Like many photographers, I tend to stay a bit behind with OS upgrades. My 2013 Mac Pro is currently happily running High Sierra. Catalina will no longer run 32 bit apps, not a problem for Lightroom and Photoshop, but an issue with Microsoft Office 2011. 32 bit apps do run currently on Mojave.

Thanks for any advice on this issue.

Eric

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #1 on: September 20, 2019 at 2:34 pm

Happily, Mark contributes here, and of course Kevin owns the site.

I would doubt that the Mojave installer will remain readily available once Catalina is released, although cunning people always appear able to find old installers somehow. However, there’s no reason to upgrade to Mojave if you don’t want to: just download the installer now, from the App Store, and keep it ready for use in the future.

The MS 2011 issue is one which concerns me. I’m used to that version of Word and some features, such as easy running of AppleScripts and a floating “formatting” toolbar, aren’t available in more recent versions. At present, I’m planning when I get a Mac which will only run Catalina (the anticipated 16″ MacBook Pro, for example) to buy Parallels and to run Office 2011 under Mojave in a virtual machine.

Jeremy

[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1311]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #2 on: September 20, 2019 at 4:45 pm

Frankly, I’d upgrade now to Mojave.  I have had no issues with it and the security updates, as well as better use of processors, is worth it.  Gone are the days to wait and see what is happening with an OS. I have long abandoned MS products as my everyday tool for those from APPLE.  They all open and read MS files easily.  A lot of the latest RAW processors work better with new OS’s too.  Bottom line get Mojave now and you’ll be fine.  Keeping up with the times is important and the fears of incompatibility etc are not so much an issue if any.  Especially when the benefits are there for security and better operations.

I just updated my iPhone to IOS 13 and love it.  Major changes and I can’t wait to do the same for my iPads.

Relax and upgrade. P.S. I have been hearing about Jeremy updating for years now.  I am holding him to the new MacBook Pro and a Sony a7riv.  Tick – tock.

Kevin Raber
Owner and Publisher of photoPXL

[Eric Brody Participant Posts: 69]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #3 on: September 20, 2019 at 5:43 pm

Thanks Jeremy and Kevin for your prompt and helpful replies. I’m still pondering whether to go ahead with Mojave. It’s likely I will since many of my photo friends have upgraded without problems. However, caution is always indicated in these matters.

Eric

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #4 on: September 21, 2019 at 3:56 am

Eric, like Kevin I had almost no problems when I moved to Mojave. An auto-responder AppleScript that was triggered by a rule in Mail stopped working, but that was about it. You’ll get lots of tedious messages about 32-bit apps that won’t work in the future, but they only happen once per application.

Kevin, the clock is indeed ticking. I gather the 16-inch MBP is expected at the end of next month. How do you like the A7Riv?

Jeremy

[Eric Brody Participant Posts: 69]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #5 on: September 21, 2019 at 2:30 pm

Related question…If I purchase a new machine with Catalina in the near future, will I be able to use the installer to “downgrade” that machine to Mojave?

[Jeremy Roussak]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #6 on: September 21, 2019 at 2:59 pm

Eric Brody wrote:

Related question…If I purchase a new machine with Catalina in the near future, will I be able to use the installer to “downgrade” that machine to Mojave?

Maybe.

If you buy an old model, a machine which is now sold with Mojave installed, but which because Catalina has been released is sold with Catalina installed, such as a currently-available iMac, then probably, yes.

If you buy a new model, such as the 16″ MBP or the new Mac Pro, probably not. Mojave won’t understand its hardware and probably won’t run.

That’s how it has generally worked in the past, anyway. New models require the OS which is current when they are first sold. There are some clever hacks which have been used in the past to persuade them to run older OSs, but it’s not recommended and quite likely to be unstable. If you want to run an OS which is older than the Mac, virtualisation is your only real option.

Jeremy

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Jeremy Roussak.

[Christopher Sanderson]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #7 on: September 22, 2019 at 12:39 pm

Apologize to LULA readers for the double post but…

Lloyd Chambers wrote an excellent piece on the potential problems with OSX Catalina.

https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2019/20190906_2100-macOS-SoftwareUpdate-preferences.html

Lloyd is often spot on with his aggressive criticisms of Apple hardware and software even if he comes off as a bit strident. I’ve never quite understood the folks who update software the moment it’s available eg iOS 13. They seem to be asking for problems and rarely need the alleged improvements. But, to each his own.

I agree with and always do what Larry Angier sugests about using a spare drive, cloning the system and running that until one is happy that things like printers and older software work in a satisfactory fashion.

Eric

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Christopher Sanderson. Reason: Removed unnecessary html

[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1311]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #8 on: September 22, 2019 at 2:24 pm

Eric, I run numerous Mac and IOS devices and phones and have not had any issues with any software or OS.  Maybe I am just lucky but my motto is to upgrade and keep moving forward.  Each to their own.  I have found only 3 apps so far on my iPhone with IOS 13 that don’t run properly.  They are not essential and I am sure they will be upgraded.  Just my 10 cents.

Kevin Raber
Owner and Publisher of photoPXL

[Eric Brody Participant Posts: 69]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #9 on: September 22, 2019 at 2:58 pm

Kevin, I wish you the best with your strategy. I’m just a bit more cautious. Your friend and mine, Charlie Cramer is still on Sierra and has started considering the change to High Sierra!

Eric

[Wayne Fox Silver Member Posts: 11]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #10 on: October 16, 2019 at 9:48 pm

Lloyd’s anti apple rantings lately have been excessive.  His criticism of 32 bit apps, and the idea that it will be expensive to “upgrade” is bordering on ridiculous.  Apple announced several versions ago this would occur, and for the last year Mojave has warned users.  Any developer who didn’t get it fixed before Catalina is either small time or doesn’t care, personally I don’t want to be using apps from developers like that.

At this point the ONLY app I had that didn’t already have a Catalina compatible update is Colorthink Pro, which according to an email I received directly from them will fixed shortly. I rarely use it, if I need it I can boot from the clone I made before I upgraded.  All my Adobe apps are running fine, Capture One is running great, Epson printer and scanner drivers have all been updated and printing is no problem, even NEC SpectraView II has been updated.  I understand the hesitancy of adopting a new OS, but to me it’s more about a major “bug”.  There was one with Catalina, anyone who tried to install it without sufficient room on their drive ran into problems, but why would you ever upgrade an OS on a drive without a significant amount of free space? (It has been fixed.)

I’ve been running Catalina as well as well as iOS 13 for several days now.  LR is running slightly faster, no problem with Photoshop other than a few droplets had to be rebuilt (which I could have done a year ago, Adobe had already addressed that droplets were only 32 bit).  My external GPU with Radeon RX Vega 56 is running great, graphics are even faster.  Several of the new features I like.

 

[Eric Brody Participant Posts: 69]

Re: advice about Mojave upgrade

Reply #11 on: October 17, 2019 at 2:45 pm

Hi Wayne,

I appreciate your response to my concerns. I agree that Lloyd sometimes goes a bit overboard with his criticism, eg “Apple core rot,” but sometimes there are hidden gems. He always makes me think even when I disagree with him. Even pro-Apple sites like Mac Rumors have said that both Catalina and IOS 13 were rushed to market and that caution is advised. At this point I’m running Mojave without any problems and awaiting the next dot iteration of IOS 13 before I commit my phone and iPad to it. Like many, I’m selectively cheap. I buy great cameras and lenses, and lots of hard drives for careful backup but hesitate to buy the new Office because I don’t do much with it, though I prefer Excel and Word to Numbers and Pages, possibly because I’ve been using MS Office on the Mac forever.

There appear to be at least two schools of thought on Apple “upgrades,” those like me, who are cautious, and those who plunge right in, like Kevin and perhaps you. I suspect there’s no absolute truth to either. Thanks.

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