How long are Mac Operating Systems supported?

[jbw]

I'm currently on Yosemite 10.10.5 and was considering an upgrade to El Capitan, mainly because as I understand it you can control MIDI with an iPad over a wired connection with El Capitan.

Then again, I'm kind of content with where I am for the simple reason that everything works.

So what I'm wondering is how long can I remain on Yosemite? Are there security concerns or anything else I have to watch out for?

[BertKoor]

I gathered some basic info from Wikipedia:

* 10.8 (Mountain Lion - Jul 2012) and all versions prior to that are completely out of support
* 10.9 (Mavericks - Oct 2013) & 10.10 (Yosemite - oct 2014) have support status "security updates and printer drivers only"
* 10.11 (El Capitan - Sep 2015) is the current with status "supported"
* 10.12 (Sierra - ??? 2016? ) is still under development

So the pattern I see is:
* on average a new release each year
* the two versions prior to the current still get security updates

And that extrapolates to:
* Once 10.12 - Sierra gets released (somewhere late this year) then 10.9 - Mavericks will be out of support.
* Once 10.13 gets released (late 2017?) then 10.10 - Yosemite will be out of support.

Note that this concerns only security updates of the OS itself. Each application you use has its own lifecycle and does updates for security issues. Software manufacturers probably will drop support for an OS if the OS manufacturer itself has dropped support for it.

But this is all risk management: guard yourself against known and unknown issues. If you for instance use the mac for studio work only with network disabled, what risk is there really and why should you be nervous about being up to date?

Another thing you should be aware of is that there are currently a massive amount of issues with El Capitan and audio programs, all due to the switch to a new graphics sub-system. It might take some time until all software developers have ironed this out. That might be an argument to wait a bit.

[sprnva]

Apple support the current OS and the previous two. Once Sierra launches later in the year they'll drop support for Mavericks. Next year it'll be Yosemite's turn.

I'm on Yosemite now but ran Snow Leopard up until a year ago. Running an unsupported OS isn't the end of the world. Just keep Java and Flash up-to-date or preferrably don't install them at all. Java is needed by some programs but so long as you don't allow it in the browser it's ok.

The issue with Apple is they have a habit of breaking all sorts of stuff every year with their updates. The last time I tried El Capitan I was still getting the occasional audio dropout thanks to them screwing up the USB stack. But historically the odd-numbered releases have been the least popular, so I'm hoping Sierra will fix up what El Capitan broke. In the early Yosemite days I never would have thought I'd consider it "solid" but I do now. It's not Snow Leopard stable, but I doubt anything ever will be with this annual obsession to change for the sake of change.

You can get third party options to stream MIDI and audio over USB. Like studiomux and musicIO. Also, I didn't find WiFi streaming to be too bad when I tried it.

[jbw]

Thanks for the replies!

Running an unsupported OS isn't the end of the world. Just keep Java and Flash up-to-date or preferrably don't install them at all.

I guess this is the main thing I'm wondering, whether or not it's okay to run an unsupported OS. I take all the precautions I can: don't have Java or Flash installed, use Private Browsing with Ad Blocker, and even use a VPN service.

I may just eventually get a cheap system for online only.