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Apple props up macOS Catalina with 10.15.1 update

A vocal minority of the committed Apple base has been quick to express dissatisfaction at the move to Catalina from macOS 10.14 Mojave.
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November 01, 2019
Naked Security 32-bit Apple macOS Catalina security updates Windows Vista

Is Apple’s macOS 10.15 Catalina really experiencing a Windows Vista moment?

In the Windows world, the idea of upgrade problems would be laughed off as something that comes with the territory.

Not so for the smaller and committed Apple base, a vocal minority of whom were quick to express dissatisfaction at the move to Catalina from macOS 10.14 Mojave.

Comparing it to Windows Vista from 2006 sounds like an exaggeration (such were its memory-hogging tendencies that just getting that running at all could be a challenge) but there’s no doubt some Mac users have had unexpected issues with Catalina.

These include problems establishing network connections, connecting to Bluetooth accessories, accepting iCloud terms and conditions, and in some cases even installing at all when disk space is low.

Most annoying of all has been the issue of getting older but valued 32-bit applications to work, with a reported 235 affected in total.

Ironically, this is by design and Apple has been posting compatibility warnings to users when they run these apps since at least macOS High Sierra in 2017.

Users can check their app status before starting the upgrade by clicking the Apple symbol in the menu bar, clicking About This Mac > System Report, scrolling to the software list and checking Legacy Software.

Any apps listed here won’t be compatible with Catalina so users need to download 64-bit equivalents where those are available.

Perception is all

If it was just a case of a few miffed users, Catalina would be like every other OS upgrade on just about any platform – some users have problems.

But some of the issues have bordered on silly, for example reports that the Twitter app refuses to accept certain letters when entering passwords, specifically ‘b’, ‘l’, ‘m’, ‘r’, and ‘t’.

Tweeted Twitter inhouse developer Nolan O’Brien on 30 October:

Is macOS becoming more Windows like in its quality control?

In truth, mutterings about Apple’s desktop operating systems has been growing for a while, fuelled by the suspicion in some quarters that in the post-iPhone era the company has lost interest in its older, less profitable business lines.

It’s also the case that operating systems have become more complex since Windows Vista days, both in terms of the services and devices they must support and of the security features necessary to defend them.

In terms of problems, Windows and macOS look very similar these days. What remains a distinguishing feature of Apple’s base is its higher expectations.

Catalina 10.15.1 update

A week after shipping Catalina, Apple released a supplemental update designed to iron out some of its bugs.

This has now been extended with a formal update that adds other fixes to the list plus a raft of routine security updates.

The latter cover 33 CVE-level security vulnerabilities (Happy Birthday, by the way), including several fixes for kernel-level flaws, the CUPS printing subsystem, graphics, and one affecting App Store authentication.

Apple doesn’t comment on the criticality of flaws, but this is an update users will definitely want if they’ve made the jump to Catalina.

If you don’t get updates automatically (as some users don’t because of the issues already discussed) both Catalina and the 10.15.1 update can be found by checking System Preferences > Software Update.

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23 Comments

“fueled by the suspicion in some quarters that in the post-iPhone era the company has lost interest in its older, less profitable business lines.”

If this is true, the smartest thing Apple could do would be to spin off MacOS as a stand alone thing that anyone can buy to install on any Intel/Amd system. Thanks to the amazing Hackintosh community, we already know it will run fine on non-Apple specified hardware. Become a true competitor to Microsoft in that market.

If Apple is having enough problems updating the OS successfully on it’s own limited hardware, what makes you think that spinning the OS off onto Wintel hardware will make the OS any better? If anything it will prove that MS does an amazing job at making an OS that runs on millions of hardware combinations.

I don’t think that’s smart at all, let alone the smartest thing Apple could do. macOS has always functioned well because it is on Apple’s hardware. The same can be said of Windows running on Microsoft’s hardware (Surface). It’s all tightly integrated.

Anyone who has actually used a Hackintosh knows that the experience is not at all refined. It’s makeshift at best.

Why would Apple want to concern itself with supporting the plethora of hardware combinations out their in existence? macOS would crumble. Microsoft cops a lot of flack, is actually a miracle that Windows is able to support the number of devices it does, in light of shockingly poor OEM support.

With just over 100 Legacy 32 bit Apps, I cannot even consider upgrading my iMac Pro. Many of these are essential for my operation and just do not have 64 updates, such as my Document scanner or TrueCrypt. So now I am in a cul-de-sac with my $10k iMac PRO, that cannot ever (?) be kept up to date?

I am seriously UNHAPPY!

Perhaps you shoud be unhappy with the developers of the ancient apps you’re still using that haven’t given any attention to their software for years? I found two apps on my Mac that stopped working – and macOS had been warning me for ages that their end was nigh – and I was delighted to get rid of them and replace them with apps that are still actively being developed and turned out to be way better than the tired old stuff I’d stuck with out of indolence. The replacement apps I found are themselves getting security updates.

If you spent $10,000 on a futuristic iMac Pro, why live in the ancient software past? You can’t run old PPC apps any more, haven’t been able to for years – and how people complained! – and this is just more of the same. As the TrueCrypt website will tell you, in all its non-HTTPS glory, “WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues. This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt.”

Supporting 32-bit apps on a 64-bit operating system *does* increase your attack surface area because you are running two different types of code, with two different sets of run-time libraries, in two differently-organised address spaces, with two different sets of APIs, with two different strengths of ASLR, and so on…

…so you can’t really fault Apple for biting the bullet and moving forwards here by ditching 32-bit support at last.

You shouldn’t be using TrueCrypt, it was abandoned a long time ago. VeraCrypt is it’s audited replacement. Take the blinders off a bit and look for newer solutions.

Thanks for the info about VeraCrypt. I hadn’t heard of it, but will check it out.

Just use FileVault. Apple is pretty jolly good at crypto…

…and has as good a reputation as anyone for not colluding with The Man.

Poor Jobs must be rolling over in his grave to see what’s been done to Apple since his passing!

These bug fixes are certainly welcome. However, as a Mac user that has used iTunes for professional work (for over 14 years) I am only concerned with iTunes XML support going forward. Until then, I am happy with using macOS Mojave until at least September 2023 [when official support for it is scheduled to end]. I’m sure Apple will have something worked out by then.

This mac update has slowed my iMac to a snails pace and safari doesn’t connectito the internet until an age

I have had many issues since updating my 4 month old MacBook Pro 13 to Catalina. It frequently crashes either when going into or out of sleep mode. Having permission hell in a couple of applications, and it has some stability issue with my USB-C docking station, so I have to unplug and then plug back in from time to time. Non of these issues before the Catalina update.

The only thing that has changed about MacOS quality is that there a lot more naive, inexperienced users. Seasoned Mac users know you should NEVER upgrade to a major new version for AT LEAST several months. There are not only the MacOS bugs, but the changes that many app developers have to make to accommodate changes. Personally, when the update comes in the Fall, I wait till the next Summer to let things settle out.

I am a seasoned macOS user. (I won’t accept “fanbuoy” but I suspect I might be closer than I admit.) I have installed the last several years of updates *as soon as I have the network bandwidth to do so*, within hours of the security advisory email, if possible.

I try to pick apps from vendors I know aren’t laggards and will almost invariably support the new system the day it arrives. My opinion is that these apps will almost certainly get day-to-day software fixes promptly, too. I have never, ever had any problems doing this.

When Catalina came out, there was only one app that I like a lot but had trouble with. That was ZeroBrane Studio, a lean, mean and clean Lua programmer’s IDE and debugger that still had a 32-bit shared library in it. It’s basically the hobbyist work of one guy, and so I had to manage without it for a week or two until he shipped the Catalina-friendly version, which worked just fine right away. A good enough compromise for me – the actual debugger in ZeroBrane still worked fine, so I had to run it gdb-command-line style for a few days, so what?

Bigger macOS-friendly developers are generally ahead of the game – it’s IMO when you are mired in legacy code that you might have a problem, and that is hardly Apple’s fault.

Indeed, part of my “update at once” approach is that it forces me to avoid living in the cybersecurity past. On the rare occasions that Mac updates have stopped some of my old software working, I have used it as an impetus to do what I know I should have done years ago, namely search and find a still-being-developed alternative. I’ve always swiftly found a newer equivalent that I immediately liked better anyway.

My 2p.

I cannot use Catalina as it does not allow 3rd party email searches. The core of my business is communicated through text and email communications and I need to dig down to find months old emails sometimes, I find Apple Mail search fairly useless and frustrating. So I use a variety of 3rd party apps to search through my emails. Most notably HoudahSpot but due to “security” issues you can no longer search emails with 3rd party apps in Catalina. Mac has been slowly becoming a little too proprietary. What good is a souped-up Mac if you can’t run your business with it.

So as it turns out my newly purchased Epson scanner Perfection V370 is only compatible with OS 10.13, and running through all the Epson help drones and their website there are NO drivers available for OS 10.15.1 Catalina. Praise Amazon that I can return this one, but I’d bought one for my other office in March that is also a brick now. Utterly disappointing that I’m unable to discern from the various manufacturers’ websites if ANY of their flatbed scanners will be compatible, they simply don’t bother to mention Mac at all. The Apple store doesn’t have a Mac made scanner, they recommend HP ScanJet Pro 2500 f1 Flatbed Desktop Scanner. Checking it on Amazon a 2018 review states: “When I spoke with a representative because an Apple driver for my computer was not available to download on line, he admitted that none was available and might not be for two years.” So, can anyone here recommend a scanner I CAN use with Catalina? I’m a graphic artist, I’m dependent on being able to scan.

Stay on/go back to Mojave. We have no other choice. According to CleanMyMac X, I have 91 apps that are 32 bit, so Mojave is the end of the line for me for some time!

Well as it turns out Epson updated their install files and they worked TODAY. I was successful in downloading them. The links LOOK exactly the same on their website, but instead of the error messages I’ve been getting all week all of a sudden they downloaded and the software works, both scanners are now working. Maybe my nagging caused them to do a real update for OS 10.15…… it does work now.

I’m going to reply to my own post here, after being unable to get a compatible scanner I opted to get a Brother color inkjet all-in-one that has a scanner. More than I needed, but it does have all the OS 10.15 drivers online ready to go, and I’ve got a Brother black ink laser printer that has been a good product. So I’m hoping that when Amazon delivers it this will be truly compatible and work.

OK, I take it back. As an excuse Epson told me my Mac had a virus, but it was happening on two machines….. finally after a week of downloading the software and having no luck TODAY I was able to get the scanners up and running at both locations. I suspect that EITHER THEY JUST NOW MADE SOME KIND OF FIX ON THE FILES OR because they were linked machines it was necessary to remove all the old Epson software in both machines before it would let me load the new software back in. Whatever the case today I have everything running and it seems compatible with OS Catalina. And people who have no malingering old Epson software might not encounter any issues at all.

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