MacOSX 10.1/10.2 MarketShare split
MacOSX 10.1/10.2 MarketShare split
- Subject: MacOSX 10.1/10.2 MarketShare split
- From: Lance Drake <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 19:19:24 -0600
Hi Gary,
This same question has come up for me on several occasions. Frankly,
supporting an old rev of the OS is a big timehole in that things are
broken that have since been fixed, new stuff has been added which isn't
in the old version and you have to create the old software with the old
tools - often lacking in features, functional and robustness when
compared to the newer stuff.
There is a website in Germany which purports to create some sort
of annual reporting of the split in installed versions of the MacOS.
Then there's the anecdotal stuff that comes back from people who are
also developers. The last time I heard anything, it was that 10.2
versus 10.1 was an 90/10 split.
The fact that 10.2 is a paid upgrade has caused the company I work
for to decide that 10% of the potential market was still too much to
discount and discard, so we came up with a 10.1.5 compatible version.
Since you can upgrade for free from 10.1 thru 10.5 over the net,
insisting the bug-set be limited to 10.1.5 seemed a reasonable demand.
If their OS version is less than 10.1.5, we suggest they upgrade via
the Preference Pane.
When first launched, we find out what is the OS version, then
branch to and launch the correct version of our app, abandoning the
little 10.1 compatible frontend and heading off to either the 10.2 or
10.1.5 versions of our apps.
It IS a pain but it turns out the incompatibilities we have to
support are not all THAT pervasive and most of our codebase is common.
We figure that, at some point, 10.3 (or 11 or whatever) will become the
'new' thing and that we'll still be supporting 10.2 as the 'old' thing.
So, getting our build environment, SCC and overall-mindset primed to
support more than one version of the OS was probably not a bad idea.
G'Luck in your decision process.
Lance Drake
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian Schmitz sent me this... from September 2002.
It's not the latest news but it does confirm that 10.2 is
quite dominant over 10.1 - even back last fall.
Christian's eMail: email@hidden (Christian Schmitz)
---------------------------------
Some websites like macgadget.de make polls every year about the OS
versions of their readers.
<
http://www.macgadget.de/umfragen/umfrage.php3?nr=75>
Mac OS X 10.2 2762 (41,09 %)
Mac OS X 10.1 220 (3,27 %)
Mac OS X 10.0 5 (0,07 %)
Mac OS 9.x 3367 (50,09 %) <--- LD sez: THIS # SEEMS SIGNIFICANT!
Mac OS 8.5/8.6 210 (3,12 %)
Mac OS 8.0/8.1 48 (0,71 %)
Mac OS 7.5/7.6 110 (1,64 %)
It's not perfect, as not everyone is online with his Mac, but it's a
hint.
I for myself create CFM application to have my application available for
Mac OS 9.x and Mac OS X with some parts only enabled for 10.2.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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