[The DJ]

Hi there.

I was wondering how many people still use 10.1
We are considering dropping support for it, since a lot has changed since then and keeping a 'linux' style application compatible is proving to be very difficult if it has as many depandencies as VLC has.
Also, 10.2 and up allows you to use a non-binary form of .nibs, which are much easier if you are maintaing your program in a CVS and a SVN.

[chris_h]

I'd bet that nobody is still using 10.1

At least, noone with the togetherness to use VLC would still be using 10.1

I say drop it like a sack of pig sh!t

[L E]

Originally posted by chris_h:
I'd bet that nobody is still using 10.1

At least, noone with the togetherness to use VLC would still be using 10.1

I say drop it like a sack of pig sh!t

oh hay

[Chuckit]

I was using 10.1 on my main computer up until Panther came out, but Expose, Xcode and Panther's Safari finally persuaded me to upgrade.

Of course, you have to realize that the people who frequent MacNN forums are generally going to be a lot more cutting-edge than the average user. A lot of people here were using 10.3 before it was even released.

That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to drop 10.1 support in future builds. Just leave a frozen, 10.1-compatible version of VLC available and I don't think anybody will complain too much.

[chris v]

I've got a friend who bought an orig. iMac G4 that shipped with 10.1.5 on it, and he refuses, despite my entreaties and assurances, to borrow my 10.3 CDs and upgrade the thing. There are people out there who get to a certain level of proficiency with their computers, but are afraid of learning much about fixing, upgrading or maintaining the things. Of course, those aren't the kind of people who frequent this type of message boards...

CV

[ryju]

I'm using better than 10.3

10.3.3

[/corny]

[nickm]

You can have no doubt that there are people still running 10.1 out there. Heck, Apple says that 60% of their userbase is not even running OS X. Still, I suspect the people running 10.1 are also people who aren't big consumers of software. Very few of them, if any, will be hurt by software vendors dropping support for 10.1.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by chris v:
I've got a friend who bought an orig. iMac G4 that shipped with 10.1.5 on it, and he refuses, despite my entreaties and assurances, to borrow my 10.3 CDs and upgrade the thing. There are people out there who get to a certain level of proficiency with their computers, but are afraid of learning much about fixing, upgrading or maintaining the things. Of course, those aren't the kind of people who frequent this type of message boards...

CV

But he's unlikely the kind of person who would use VLC, however.

[CharlesS]

I dropped support for 10.1 for a while... and kept getting e-mails from 10.1 users asking for older versions until I decided to just put it back in again. So they are out there...

[Eug Wanker]

My friend still uses X.1, but he would never bother installing VLC.

The key point is that MS supports X.1 with Office, and thus lots of n00bs don't bother upgrading.

OTOH, almost everyone else (including Apple) these days is requiring X.2 or later though with their software. For an app like VLC, X.2 support or later is fine, esp. considering it's a free app, and you guys have other things to do.

I've always thought of X.1 as a beta OS anyways. Any self-respecting app should support the non-beta X.2 (X.2.3?) or later though IMO. I find it lame that Apple requires Panther just to run iChatAV.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Any self-respecting app should support the non-beta X.2 (X.2.3?) or later though IMO. I find it lame that Apple requires Panther just to run iChatAV.

Well, the problem is that the new Bindings and NSController features in Cocoa are only available in Panther, as well as some *really* handy methods in other classes. Also, Apple has deprecated the methods used to get and set the selection in table views in favor of new methods, which incidentally are only available in Panther. But especially because of the bindings issue, I would just advise you not to be surprised when no Cocoa apps support 10.2 after a while...

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Well, the problem is that the new Bindings and NSController features in Cocoa are only available in Panther, as well as some *really* handy methods in other classes. Also, Apple has deprecated the methods used to get and set the selection in table views in favor of new methods, which incidentally are only available in Panther. But especially because of the bindings issue, I would just advise you not to be surprised when no Cocoa apps support 10.2 after a while...

Yes, I realize there must be techinical reasons for this, but notwithstanding that, from a user standpoint it's not really easily justifiable.

Basically Apple is saying that the X.2 users don't matter to them, and are forcing its customers to pay the yearly registration fee that so many user complain about with other OSes. Indeed, had users not raised a stink about it, Apple would likely not even be issuing security updates for Jag, despite the fact that Panther is not even a year old.

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by The DJ:
Hi there.

I was wondering how many people still use 10.1
We are considering dropping support for it, since a lot has changed since then and keeping a 'linux' style application compatible is proving to be very difficult if it has as many depandencies as VLC has.
Also, 10.2 and up allows you to use a non-binary form of .nibs, which are much easier if you are maintaing your program in a CVS and a SVN.

Yes, one of my machine still using 10.1.
In fact my "main" machine (which I uses for email and some web browsing) is still on OS 9.1!
The machine that I am using to type this message uses 10.2 (pre-installed on my PowerBook)

Not sure why dropping support for 10.1, when Microcrap decided to drop Windoze 98 support but then forced to support again due to too many users still haven't migrate after 5 years... (10.1 only about 2.5 years old)

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Yes, I realize there must be techinical reasons for this, but notwithstanding that, from a user standpoint it's not really easily justifiable.

Basically Apple is saying that the X.2 users don't matter to them, and are forcing its customers to pay the yearly registration fee that so many user complain about with other OSes. Indeed, had users not raised a stink about it, Apple would likely not even be issuing security updates for Jag, despite the fact that Panther is not even a year old.

Really, try to write a Cocoa app and you will immediately see how much faster you will be able to do it with Bindings, which are only available for 10.3 and are a huge new feature. I seriously wish so much of my userbase wasn't using 10.2, so I could use them myself.

As for 10.1. That thing is hard to support, especially if you do any multi-threading. 10.1 has no easy mechanism to send messages to the main thread from a worker thread, so you have to set up a Distributed Objects system, as if you were writing a networked app. It's not that bad, I guess, but it is a huge pain in the ass when you compare it to doing the same thing in 10.2. Pacifist supports 10.1, because I wrote all the stuff when 10.1 was still the latest and greatest and therefore might as well leave it in there since the work's already done, but there's no way that any new app I write is going to support 10.1.

These big things, plus many other niceties scattered here and there that are only available with 10.2 or 10.3... like having decent control over open dialog boxes, and other stuff make it more apparent how major these upgrades really are to developers than to end users, I guess. All I have to say, I guess, is that trust me, if you start writing Cocoa apps, you will understand why a lot of software doesn't support 10.1, and why more and more of it is not supporting 10.2 anymore either.

[mitchell_pgh]

I see a ton of OS 10.2 out there...
obviously OS 9 is still popular...

The thing is, the "pro" or "addict" level Mac users are the ones surfing the web all day etc. And they all demand the latest and greatest.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Really, try to write a Cocoa app and you will immediately see how much faster you will be able to do it with Bindings, which are only available for 10.3 and are a huge new feature. I seriously wish so much of my userbase wasn't using 10.2, so I could use them myself.

As for 10.1. That thing is hard to support, especially if you do any multi-threading. 10.1 has no easy mechanism to send messages to the main thread from a worker thread, so you have to set up a Distributed Objects system, as if you were writing a networked app. It's not that bad, I guess, but it is a huge pain in the ass when you compare it to doing the same thing in 10.2. Pacifist supports 10.1, because I wrote all the stuff when 10.1 was still the latest and greatest and therefore might as well leave it in there since the work's already done, but there's no way that any new app I write is going to support 10.1.

These big things, plus many other niceties scattered here and there that are only available with 10.2 or 10.3... like having decent control over open dialog boxes, and other stuff make it more apparent how major these upgrades really are to developers than to end users, I guess. All I have to say, I guess, is that trust me, if you start writing Cocoa apps, you will understand why a lot of software doesn't support 10.1, and why more and more of it is not supporting 10.2 anymore either.

All excellent points.

I also think that Apple is still rapidly developing the OS. They are willing to piss a few customers off by only supporting the latest and greatest in helping out developers and keeping the eye candy to a maximum.

[The DJ]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Really, try to write a Cocoa app and you will immediately see how much faster you will be able to do it with Bindings, which are only available for 10.3 and are a huge new feature. I seriously wish so much of my userbase wasn't using 10.2, so I could use them myself.

As for 10.1. That thing is hard to support, especially if you do any multi-threading. 10.1 has no easy mechanism to send messages to the main thread from a worker thread, so you have to set up a Distributed Objects system, as if you were writing a networked app. It's not that bad, I guess, but it is a huge pain in the ass when you compare it to doing the same thing in 10.2. Pacifist supports 10.1, because I wrote all the stuff when 10.1 was still the latest and greatest and therefore might as well leave it in there since the work's already done, but there's no way that any new app I write is going to support 10.1.

These big things, plus many other niceties scattered here and there that are only available with 10.2 or 10.3... like having decent control over open dialog boxes, and other stuff make it more apparent how major these upgrades really are to developers than to end users, I guess. All I have to say, I guess, is that trust me, if you start writing Cocoa apps, you will understand why a lot of software doesn't support 10.1, and why more and more of it is not supporting 10.2 anymore either.

You are totally right. However for VLC the issue is even bigger. VLC is actually a unix application, with some hacked up Cocoa in between. VLC being dependant on about 20 external libraries makes backwords compatibility very difficult. For instance earlier OS versions were FreeBSD 4.* layer based, the latest version is FreeBSD 5.* based.
Since VLC cannot use the building methods of Cocoa, we can also not make use of it's methods to compile against older SDK's. This means all libraries need to be patched to use the deprecated methods and not the newer API's. This can be a lot of work.

[jasong]

We better be careful about who sees this poll, someone is likely to come in and say Mac OS X 10.0 has a 0% market share . . .

-- Jason

[voodoo]

Originally posted by jasong:
We better be careful about who sees this poll, someone is likely to come in and say Mac OS X 10.0 has a 0% market share . . .

-- Jason

Mac OS X 10.0 HAS A 0% MARKET SHARE!!!

Too late

(it had to be done ok)

[typoon]

Couldn't you just stop supporting 10.1 and leave a version up for download that is the last version that is supported by 10.1. Then just move everything to 10.2 and later. I know there are a few developers who do that.

If supporting 10.1 is holding back further development of VLC I would say drop it and keep going.

[Mrjinglesusa]

If this says anything, I was able to sell a 9.2 CD, OS X Public Beta, 10.0 CD, and 10.1 CD for $50 on ebay. Maybe it was just for the 9.2 CD but someone wanted them!