macOS and PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab macOS topics
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I am posting this because I read a lot of complaints that DXO drops support for older macOS versions.

Thing is: You are addressing the wrong people.

I am pretty sure that the developers at DXO do their utmost to deliver a properly functioning piece of software. And I guess they have much less manpower at hand than companies like Microsoft or Adobe do. Companies that actually do the same thing – they drop support for older versions of macOS.

Since it is Apple who have decided to deliver a “new” version of their OS every single frigging year – what do you expect a software company to do? End operations? Drop support for macOS?

I guess it is much easier for DXO to keep a steady development line on Windows. And I am thankful that they still keep delivering for macOS. Despite the massive investment this must mean for their operations compared to the Windows version. Thank you for doing this.

Long story short: If you don’t like Apple dropping support for “oldish” hardware – don’t buy Apple. This is what Apple have been doing for years now. This poses a problem for you AND for DXO. Direct your anger at Apple – not DXO.

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Simple answer to most “problems” people have:

  • make your choice, pay your price and stop complaining.
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Donc messieurs Platypus et glanzundpatina sont gênés qu’on soit gêné par le refus de DxO de fournir une version de PL5 compatible avec MacOS Mojave ! Qu’est-ce que ça peut bien leur faire, puisqu’ils ne sont pas concernés !
Les donneurs de leçon qui se permettent des reflexions du genre de :

se prennent pour plus malins qu’ils ne sont, et l’on n’a guère besoin d’eux…

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How far back an OS would you like PhotoLab to support? I ask because before I retired I spent years working as a software engineer/architect and ran into these questions over and over again. Most companies that I worked with who did this kind of application only were willing to support 2 or perhaps 3 OS releases back due to the increasing difficulty of supporting OS’s further back than that. So I am curious.

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Ah, but I don’t require anything!
Mr DxO doesn’t do what it takes to get my money? Well, he won’t get my money! It’s that simple !

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No issues for you then😀

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That’s a perfectly reasonable question. I would just say look at what DxO’s competitors are doing, as I explained here. Or take a look at Affinity Photo, that still supports an 8 year old OS X release. Admittedly not as comparable as C1 and Exposure in function, but you don’t hear many people complaining about Serif’s macOS support since by the time you run into that you almost surely want new/need hardware anyway. It’s the opposite with DxO: perfectly usable hardware may need upgrading to be able to run a macOS that PL supports, so for me the current/obvious solution is just to use C1 and Exposure instead. All of these applications are perfectly usable, with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Maybe it only strings me out another year, but I’ll take what I can get and reevaluate in another year.

As it is, DxO looks to be worst in class with macOS support.

Of course, DxO may well have made a well-founded financial decision that it’s not in their best interests to put more effort into improved/competitive macOS support, and that’s their decision. (The way some of their employees “like” posts that are supportive of the status quo and ignore ones that question it gives me that impression, even though I’m well aware that individual employees posting on a forum site don’t speak for the company.) I’m not so sure it’s a winner in the long run since it foments the kind of ill will you see around macOS support. Either make it competitive or drop it. It feels a bit like the PL browser that’s still mediocre after three major releases: there for the marketing bullet, but far from the best.

Of course, this also has to do with Apple’s business model since they’re in the business of selling hardware, but I think the 8-ish years they support most of their hardware with new macOS releases is quite reasonable. Which is not to say I haven’t been screwed by them in the past: I bought a PowerMac Q4 before the switch to Intel that fairly quickly became a doorstop. That taught me not to buy expensive Macs, and as far as I’ve gone since then is the Mac Mini. (Obviously there are those with a real need for more powerful hardware, but I’m not one of them.) Now, with Apple’s disposable approach, in which nothing is replaceable by the user, I’m even less inclined to buy a new Mac. An M1 Mini with 16 GB of ram is probably as far as I will go, but I’ve had two disposable laptops die in the past 18 months, so I’m really not keen on any machine that won’t let me replace the SSD and ram.

Personally, I’m not adverse to the idea of installing Windows on one of my home-built computers and running my imaging software on that instead, but I have a lot invested in Unix-based computers over many years, and switching often just replaces one set of problems with another. (Mac/Windows differences in PL anyone?) Windows Subsystem for Linux has me thinking though, since that may let me continue to use my current backup solution (and more) on a hardware platform that gets more love from the likes of DxO and Capture One.

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If Affinity decides to develop software for a platform that Apple does not provide security updates for, it is their decision to take that path.

But the average user has to understand that it is not safe to run a computer on a network and/or the internet running an OS that does not receive security updates.

It is not safe for the user himself, it is not safe for other users. Guess DXO needs to explain that to its users. But it is really not their problem, it’s Apple’s.

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The latest version of LR and PS are also not compatible with Mojave

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At the moment, the whole Mac world is in a bit of turmoil due to the introduction of, first 64-bit only macOS, followed by their own silicon. This has necessitated major changes to the programming APIs that us developers use to make software work, especially for low level stuff like image rendering.

I have had to start my, as yet unreleased, app with Catalina, simply because new thumbnail loading and rendering turned my browser from something that was painful to use, because it was so slow, into a much better experience where thumbnails are loaded in the background and drawn as soon as they become available.

Yes, I could have written my own faster thumbnail loading code, but it would have meant relying on a third-party library, which means having to rely, not only on Apple’s plans but, also, those of the third-party developer - one more possible cause of unwanted technical support nightmares.

A few years back, I wrote a sophisticated iPad app for private pilots. All was going well until Apple announced the move to 64 bit only code. At which point, my client had to abandon two years of hard (and well paid for me) work because the third-party compiler that we relied on, being a lone developer, couldn’t support 64 bit in the timescale thats we had before release date.

It is other factors like this that DxO have to consider when deciding whether or not to support older versions because of the future possibility of something that they rely on raising similar problems.

Those who claim that DxO is only supporting current version - 1 just don’t seem too appreciate that, were it not for a few days difference in release dates, Monterey had to be considered “current version”, otherwise there would have been a massive brouhaha about why DxO wasn’t supporting Monterey as soon as it was released only a couple of days after PL5.

I must say it is very unfair to criticise DxO for this decision when it is almost totally driven by Apple’s update policies. Apple can afford to do what they do; I suspect DxO doesn’t have anywhere the funding that Apple has and had to make decisions for a future, where Apple is very much in charge and, with their new chips, are once again changing how the world does computing.

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Yes, Apple does like turning things upside down now and again. I’m not saying they’re not part of it.

I don’t think it’s too unfair. My point is that DxO is more aggressive in dropping macOS versions than some of their competitors. (LR and PS I admittedly knew nothing about since I’m not interested in subscription.) They look to drop one version per release as a matter of routine, while others like Capture One and Exposure and Serif don’t, although Capture One isn’t too far behind. Exposure is certainly not a big operation (smaller than DxO if some recent posts can be believed), and I’ve been impressed by what they’ve packed into releases since I bought into X5.

The consequence for users like me is just that we go elsewhere. Obviously not enough of a loss for DxO to care, but I support the developers that give me what I feel is better value. At this point, that isn’t Apple either, but I’m not so new to the game that I think the grass is necessarily greener on the other side, just different, although hardware/OS support certainly looks better in the Windows world.

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Tout à fait…

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I don’t know if users know much about the issues involved with trying to keep up with changing OS versions. While this is a bit off topic I am reminded about one project at one of the large corporations (which shall remain nameless) that I worked at. The project manager made a point of saying that they would go through all of the required documentation and keep up with all of the OS releases. They would not fail to support the latest OS release.

The project had a 12 month (I think) deadline and when, after 3 years, they had not released even a beta version the company shut down the project and laid off most of the engineers involved. Their problem, of course, was that they actually tried to make sure they could support each and every new update and it was an impossible job with the resources they were allocated.

It is not impossible to do, given a large and experienced enough number of engineers and sufficient funding, but it is very, very difficult for small companies. This company was a large international corporation but the project was just not given enough funding and enough engineers to do what they wanted to do.

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Due to this limitation on my Mac Pro 2009 I have 2 SSD :

  • 1 for Catalina for DxO PL5 and major of my usage

  • 1 for High Sierra for my 32 bits applications

then I solved all my issues.

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Sounds like a plan :nerd_face:

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“Since it is Apple who have decided to deliver a “new” version of their OS every single frigging year – what do you expect a software company to do? End operations? Drop support for macOS?”

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It is only safe to run unsupported system software on a machine that is not connected to a network.
If it isn’t – go on. Just informing here.

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I ended up doing exactly this, and now mount my image archive as a network share that I export from a Linux server with samba. Works very nicely, keeps my backup issues in the Unix world I’m used to, and makes me fairly platform-agnostic for photo editing. Now it’ll be Windows instead of Mac for me, but so far it’s been less painful than I expected (not at all really, despite not having used Windows in many, many years), and has saved me a boatload of money for new hardware that I don’t need/want, or even like when nothing is replaceable/upgradeable in the new Macs.

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I used to use Parallels on my Mac to run some old Windows software, but removed it when I realized that I had not actually started it for the last year or so. Still I suppose it is one way to use the Windows version of PL and still upgrade to the lastest Mac OS.

Is anyone doing this?

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Microsoft just dropped support for Mojave:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/upgrade-macos-to-continue-receiving-microsoft-365-and-office-for-mac-updates-16b8414f-08ec-4b24-8c91-10a918f649f8