>This is the exact reason I use Linux instead of Windows 10 or macOS
Not sure about win10, but macOS won't autoupdate apps if you turned it off.
If the app is not from an app store - it's up to the devs to have option to (auto) update. Most apps allow you to turn autoupdate off (in fact I can't think of single one without this option)
> I've used both Windows and OSX for my professional work and while Windows is the worst offender when it comes to automatic updates, OSX is pretty horrible as well. At least with Windows you can expect some sort of backwards compatibility, while on OSX, one day you have to upgrade your entire OS, otherwise Notes or some stupid application won't launch.
- capableweb
I used to run OS X some time ago. When even Windows supported turning off auto updates. These days I am seeing Github issues saying that they can't use brew, clang etc because there is a update. And most of the time the updates are just huge (even compared to Windows).
Is this not true? Can you put off OS updates for some time (a few hours is enough for me) and keep using XCode, brew etc?
You can turn off auto updates of macOS and Mac App Store apps completely, yes.
I stayed on Mojave for months after Catalina was released and I had a MAS app that broke compatibility with the same companies own (abandoned) self-hosted server software so I just didn’t update it. I’ve since resorted to running that single app (and the abandoned server app) in a High Sierra VM.
The only version issues I know of that sound like what that other person referenced is:
If you update eg iOS to a new major version, sometimes iCloud-linked apps will say they need to upgrade something for new functionality (Notes specifically did this at least once in the last couple of years and iCloud Drive did it a few years ago).
But that is (a) not forced and (b) you’re told exactly what will happen (ie that older macs/iPhones won’t be able to use iCloud until they update too).
Some third party apps will set minimum required OS version (ie to use a new framework or api) but that doesn’t sound like what the other post was talking about?
You can still postpone updates, but yes, they've got more pushy than in the past. The issue is that iOS is the priority, and that has to be updated every year to support new models; so MacOS is also pushed to update in order to keep integrated systems (e.g. notes) in sync. This said, one can simply postpone upgrades indefinitely and just ignore the bits that break. I don't really use most of them, so I'm still not on the latest release despite it having been released some 6 months ago.
Not sure about win10, but macOS won't autoupdate apps if you turned it off.
If the app is not from an app store - it's up to the devs to have option to (auto) update. Most apps allow you to turn autoupdate off (in fact I can't think of single one without this option)