Apple supports iTunes longer on W7 than OS X?

[BarkingGhostar]

I have Windows 7 Pro installed, a version of Windows that is six (6) years old haven been released on 10/22/2009. My wife's late 2011 iMac has the original OS X 10.7 Lion installed, which is four years old, haven been released on 7/20/2011.

This week I installed the iTunes update 12.4 on my Windows 7 Pro, an operating system that has been in service for six (6) years. W7 was released on 10/22/2009. As a comparison, OS X 10.7 Lion is four (4) years old and released on 7/20/2011.

On my PC, I was prompted this week to install the iTunes update of 12.4. The funny thing is that I cannot do this on OS X 10.7 Lion. Since when is it easier to support an older version of the competition than your own, Apple?

BTW, I discovered this when I attempted to setup the wife's new iPhone SE on the iMac. All other iDevices are setup on it. I got a message saying that the iPhone SE required iTunes 12.4, which of course isn't supported on OS X 10.7.5 or earlier.

 

[Rakehellion]

It's much easier to upgrade to a new version of Mac OS X than to a new version of Windows. Apple is all for obsoleting their old products.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

No one is questioning the ease of upgrading an operating system, but rather supporting older versions of the competition's platforms than their own. BTW, I want to upgrae the wife's iMac from Lion to El Capitan, but posting about predication on outcome, getting advice from Apple store and support employees, etc. left me less confident than upgrading a Windows platform.

 

[TheStu]

I don't know what people told you, but... if you were expecting every single person to tell you that it is a 100% bulletproof process then you'll never hear that and you shouldn't expect it.

I've had Macs for about 10 years now, and have NEVER had an upgrade issue, even when jumping from beta to beta. Back up the data anyway (oh hey, Time Machine is built in!), let the upgrade happen.

Apple doesn't support 10.7 period, so there's no reason for them to support software on that platform. They make it easy and free to upgrade from one version THAT THEY CREATE to another version THAT THEY CREATE. Apple has no control over the fact that MS continues to support Win7 after 6+ years, but since they do, and many of their customer (possibly more?) are using it compared to OS X, it gets some amount of development resources to continue support. There's also the business aspect of it. Lots of businesses use iPhones, and a lot of businesses are still running Win7 (to my understanding, I am not in corporate IT).

 

[nerp]

This is the world of Mac. You can't expect reliable support. Buying an apple product should come with the expectation that it will be unsupported before you are ready for it. This is OK for Apple. It's scornworthy for Microsoft.

 

[Phynaz]

This is the world of Mac. You can't expect reliable support. Buying an apple product should come with the expectation that it will be unsupported before you are ready for it. This is OK for Apple. It's scornworthy for Microsoft.

We get it, for some reason you hate Apple. That's not a reason to post false information.

 

[Rakehellion]

BTW, I want to upgrae the wife's iMac from Lion to El Capitan, but posting about predication on outcome, getting advice from Apple store and support employees, etc. left me less confident than upgrading a Windows platform.

It'll be fine. Get a SSD.

 

[Rakehellion]

This is the world of Mac. You can't expect reliable support. Buying an apple product should come with the expectation that it will be unsupported before you are ready for it. This is OK for Apple. It's scornworthy for Microsoft.

Yeah, no.

Maybe try being helpful and communicating why you actually dislike Apple instead of making up bullcrap.

 

[Childs]

Historically Windows major updates have been slower than Mac OS X, and Microsoft maintains better backward compatibility. Part of that is the majority of Windows users (business) don't upgrade to major releases for awhile. A significant portion of Windows users are still on Windows 7. Apple deprecates frameworks so fast that it becomes a headache to support older OSes, even for their own software.

 

[TheStu]

It'll be fine. Get a SSD.

Yea, upgrade the iMac to an SSD, that'll be a cake-walk. OP isn't upgrading because they haven't received a notarized letter from Tim Cook stating that everything will go swimmingly, you really think they're going to crack open their iMac? I probably wouldn't crack it open.

Maybe try being helpful and communicating why you actually dislike Apple instead of making up bullcrap.

Nerp should have been more clear, but they were almost certainly talking about software support. Apple drops older OSes like they're going out of style. They can get away with it because they continue to support 2-3 versions back, AND nowadays they're free. AND they haven't done a Win8/10 style massive style switch.