Their what? They have no support cycle. Their cycle is "we support it until we don't". It's 2022 and it's an absolute joke. Windows, Linux, BSD -- basically everyone -- has published support dates aligned with all OS releases. For example from official documentation you would know that Windows 10 LTSC 2021 is supported until 1/12/2027[1] and FreeBSD 13 is supported until 1/31/2026. Apple is the only one that refuses to publish any dates. The mystique bit is getting old. The Jobs-era magic is gone. macOS will continue to be a toy until they take support seriously and that includes not breaking anything and everything with reckless abandon in every new OS release. No one who does IT with even a modicum of professionalism is okay with looking at Apple's latest critical security updates and suddenly finding out that N OS version was no longer included in the patch set. But that would take the mystery aspect out of it!
> Apple is the only one that refuses to publish any dates.
I don’t mean to defend Apple here, but one reason Apple may do that is because they essentially consider themselves a hardware company, and so the things they support are device models, not software versions.
For me, a good-enough approximation has been that you can consider a macOS version [major dot minor] to be supported until the day [major dot (minor+1)] comes out, or the day [(major+3) dot 1] comes out, whichever happens earlier [1].
(Full disclosure: I’m the author of that merge request.)
> so the things they support are device models, not software versions.
Except they don't publish any support dates with hardware either. Devices support the latest macOS/iOS/etc until they don't. At which point devices become not only obsolete overnight, but are vulnerable as well because the OS suddenly becomes unsupported due to Apple's insistence of bundling feature updates with security updates. Remember, this caused a lot of controversy when Windows 10 moved to this model, but Microsoft had the foresight to publish support dates for when they would stop releasing security patches for the previous release. Unfortunately, Apple's cult-like fan base frequently treats them with kid gloves in this regard, and insists we should just be happy we got free updates until now and we're not running abandoned-support-by-design Android.
I don't expect a device to be supported forever nor do I expect free feature upgrades. All I'm asking for is a published date that "X device or OS will receive security patches until Y date". That's it. It's a relatively simple request that is pretty much standard in the rest of the IT world so you can plan adequately.
Their what? They have no support cycle. Their cycle is "we support it until we don't". It's 2022 and it's an absolute joke. Windows, Linux, BSD -- basically everyone -- has published support dates aligned with all OS releases. For example from official documentation you would know that Windows 10 LTSC 2021 is supported until 1/12/2027[1] and FreeBSD 13 is supported until 1/31/2026. Apple is the only one that refuses to publish any dates. The mystique bit is getting old. The Jobs-era magic is gone. macOS will continue to be a toy until they take support seriously and that includes not breaking anything and everything with reckless abandon in every new OS release. No one who does IT with even a modicum of professionalism is okay with looking at Apple's latest critical security updates and suddenly finding out that N OS version was no longer included in the patch set. But that would take the mystery aspect out of it!
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-...