7 ms·

> To conclude, I don’t understand why hdiutil needs to be deprecated when the same functionality will live on in diskutil. For some reason, Apple seems intent o

> To conclude, I don’t understand why hdiutil needs to be deprecated when the same functionality will live on in diskutil. For some reason, Apple seems intent on breaking longtime workflows and scripts. Brother, it’s Apple. Any backwards compatibility is purely incidental.

steve_adams_86 25d ago
Haven’t they actually done a relatively good job in this regard in many ways? I can still use my 12 year old MacBook Air. It’s not super current and not all apps work, but it’s actually still a decent Apple experience. Same with our old iPad. They kept it updated way longer than I expected.
- pudgywalsh 25d ago
  > Haven’t they actually done a relatively good job in this regard in many ways? No. Can't run current versions of any apps including Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Meanwhile the hardware is perfectly fine and could run a supported version of Windows or Linux. Call me when Apple has a "LTSC" version of their OS. (Spoiler: they won't, ever. Supporting Apple in an enterprise is nothing short of a nightmare.)
  - cosmic_cheese 25d ago
    This is partially on third-party devs' shoulders. There are community-maintained backports of Chromium and Mozilla for old versions of macOS, which means it isn't strictly impossible, but Google and Mozilla just don't bother and cut off compatibility earlier there than on other platforms. It's even possible to build Mac apps to run on everything from OS X 10.4 (2005) through macOS 27 (2026) across PowerPC, Intel, and Apple Silicon in a single binary. See XLD[0], which does exactly that. [0]: https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html
    - WesolyKubeczek 25d ago
      Command-line tools are fine like this; a full-fledged GUI apps, not so much on account of how Cocoa/AppKit/UIKit evolved. Your x86_64 slice would have to deal with all shenanigans between 10.7 and 26, and I suspect it’s not fun at all.
      - cosmic_cheese 24d ago
        It's certainly more challenging for user-facing apps with UIs, but still doable. XLD does it. The key is to keep the UI simple, avoid chasing design trends, and avoid custom widgets.
  - jtbayly 25d ago
    I have had to get rid of several computers recently that will not run Windows 11. They weren’t 12 years old.
- bigyabai 25d ago
  > It’s not super current and not all apps work That's an enormous concession, relative to Windows or Linux.
  - select1 25d ago
    [flagged]
    - bel8 25d ago
      That's another goalpost. That's because DRM doesn't go well with Open source.
    - bigyabai 25d ago
      Correct, you have just successfully identified the reason why Windows exists. Well done!
    - fragmede 25d ago
      Netflix works, just not 4k. Blender and Davinci Resolve say there's commercial software, just not actual Photoshop.
      - deleted 25d ago
        [deleted]
    - deathanatos 25d ago
      I play a number of commercial games on Linux. The best behaved ones are the native ones (Factorio, Stardew, Celeste), though the Proton/Wine-based ones (Noita, Enter the Gungeon) usually do alright as well. Netflix's problem is Netflix's problem. There is no technical reason why 1080p (and probably 4k) can't work on Linux, today. That's just plain ole head-up-DRM-ass, and Linux can't fix stupid.
      - select1 24d ago
        [dead]
- VCFundedGenYer 25d ago
  Your comment is irrelevant because your MBA left support eras ago and is riddled with bugs and security vulnerabilities at this point. Apple also does a poor job at long term software support or granting users the ability to run Linux, especially the newer the systems get.
  - cindyllm 25d ago
    [dead]
  - steve_adams_86 25d ago
    The comment is a question; I’m not sure why one answer or another would make it irrelevant.
kdkdkwjfkw 25d ago
[flagged]
deleted 25d ago
[deleted]
detourdog 25d ago
Diskutil has been around for over a decade and slowly getting features that hdiutil was missing. Things change but this is hardly some sort of sudden rug pull by Apple.
varispeed 25d ago
Any reason to "upgrade"? I am still on Sonoma and don't see a point updating the system.
II2II 25d ago
Given Apple's reputation as of late, I was mildly shocked to learn that I could connect a SATA optical drive to my Mac with a USB-SATA bridge, right click on an image in the Finder, and tell it to burn the image to DVD. This is under the latest beta of macOS. You can call it incidental if you want, but it generally takes some effort to ensure everything works. That's especially true when you consider how much has changed since optical drives were common. As for other forms of disk images, such as software distribution, those are still a common thing in macOS.
- cosmic_cheese 25d ago
  iPods and AirPort Express units from 20+ years ago still work in modern macOS too. Things have been shuffled around some (iPods are now managed with the Finder instead of in Music.app) but they still work. I would agree with the idea that they're not bothered about breaking workflows, particularly those involving command line tools, but hardware compatibility isn't nearly as bad as the internet might have one think. Source compatibility isn't all that bad either, many ancient Objective-C/AppKit codebases can be made to compile in an evening. It's mainly binaries that break.
  - philistine 25d ago
    Yeah, Apple is very weary of breaking user functionality. They'll just break your app's ability to run.
    - cosmic_cheese 25d ago
      Frankly, I don't think it's practical to expect operating systems to continue to run binaries perfectly in perpetuity. It's an enormously burdensome expectation that holds development of the platform hostage. Usually all it takes to keep one's software running on macOS is compiling against the latest SDK once every ~5 years. Depending on the nature of the app, source changes often aren't even required. As a dev I don't think that's too much to ask.
      - 25d ago
amelius 25d ago
Consumer electronics, what do you expect ...

steve_adams_86 25d ago

Haven’t they actually done a relatively good job in this regard in many ways? I can still use my 12 year old MacBook Air. It’s not super current and not all apps work, but it’s actually still a decent Apple experience. Same with our old iPad. They kept it updated way longer than I expected.

pudgywalsh 25d ago
> Haven’t they actually done a relatively good job in this regard in many ways? No. Can't run current versions of any apps including Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Meanwhile the hardware is perfectly fine and could run a supported version of Windows or Linux. Call me when Apple has a "LTSC" version of their OS. (Spoiler: they won't, ever. Supporting Apple in an enterprise is nothing short of a nightmare.)
- cosmic_cheese 25d ago
  This is partially on third-party devs' shoulders. There are community-maintained backports of Chromium and Mozilla for old versions of macOS, which means it isn't strictly impossible, but Google and Mozilla just don't bother and cut off compatibility earlier there than on other platforms. It's even possible to build Mac apps to run on everything from OS X 10.4 (2005) through macOS 27 (2026) across PowerPC, Intel, and Apple Silicon in a single binary. See XLD[0], which does exactly that. [0]: https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html
  - WesolyKubeczek 25d ago
    Command-line tools are fine like this; a full-fledged GUI apps, not so much on account of how Cocoa/AppKit/UIKit evolved. Your x86_64 slice would have to deal with all shenanigans between 10.7 and 26, and I suspect it’s not fun at all.
    - cosmic_cheese 24d ago
      It's certainly more challenging for user-facing apps with UIs, but still doable. XLD does it. The key is to keep the UI simple, avoid chasing design trends, and avoid custom widgets.
- jtbayly 25d ago
  I have had to get rid of several computers recently that will not run Windows 11. They weren’t 12 years old.
bigyabai 25d ago
> It’s not super current and not all apps work That's an enormous concession, relative to Windows or Linux.
- select1 25d ago
  [flagged]
  - bel8 25d ago
    That's another goalpost. That's because DRM doesn't go well with Open source.
  - bigyabai 25d ago
    Correct, you have just successfully identified the reason why Windows exists. Well done!
  - fragmede 25d ago
    Netflix works, just not 4k. Blender and Davinci Resolve say there's commercial software, just not actual Photoshop.
    - deleted 25d ago
      [deleted]
  - deathanatos 25d ago
    I play a number of commercial games on Linux. The best behaved ones are the native ones (Factorio, Stardew, Celeste), though the Proton/Wine-based ones (Noita, Enter the Gungeon) usually do alright as well. Netflix's problem is Netflix's problem. There is no technical reason why 1080p (and probably 4k) can't work on Linux, today. That's just plain ole head-up-DRM-ass, and Linux can't fix stupid.
    - select1 24d ago
      [dead]
VCFundedGenYer 25d ago
Your comment is irrelevant because your MBA left support eras ago and is riddled with bugs and security vulnerabilities at this point. Apple also does a poor job at long term software support or granting users the ability to run Linux, especially the newer the systems get.
- cindyllm 25d ago
  [dead]
- steve_adams_86 25d ago
  The comment is a question; I’m not sure why one answer or another would make it irrelevant.

kdkdkwjfkw 25d ago

[flagged]

deleted 25d ago

[deleted]

detourdog 25d ago

Diskutil has been around for over a decade and slowly getting features that hdiutil was missing. Things change but this is hardly some sort of sudden rug pull by Apple.

varispeed 25d ago

Any reason to "upgrade"? I am still on Sonoma and don't see a point updating the system.

II2II 25d ago

Given Apple's reputation as of late, I was mildly shocked to learn that I could connect a SATA optical drive to my Mac with a USB-SATA bridge, right click on an image in the Finder, and tell it to burn the image to DVD. This is under the latest beta of macOS. You can call it incidental if you want, but it generally takes some effort to ensure everything works. That's especially true when you consider how much has changed since optical drives were common. As for other forms of disk images, such as software distribution, those are still a common thing in macOS.

cosmic_cheese 25d ago
iPods and AirPort Express units from 20+ years ago still work in modern macOS too. Things have been shuffled around some (iPods are now managed with the Finder instead of in Music.app) but they still work. I would agree with the idea that they're not bothered about breaking workflows, particularly those involving command line tools, but hardware compatibility isn't nearly as bad as the internet might have one think. Source compatibility isn't all that bad either, many ancient Objective-C/AppKit codebases can be made to compile in an evening. It's mainly binaries that break.
- philistine 25d ago
  Yeah, Apple is very weary of breaking user functionality. They'll just break your app's ability to run.
  - cosmic_cheese 25d ago
    Frankly, I don't think it's practical to expect operating systems to continue to run binaries perfectly in perpetuity. It's an enormously burdensome expectation that holds development of the platform hostage. Usually all it takes to keep one's software running on macOS is compiling against the latest SDK once every ~5 years. Depending on the nature of the app, source changes often aren't even required. As a dev I don't think that's too much to ask.
    - 25d ago

amelius 25d ago

Consumer electronics, what do you expect ...