Apple quietly disables feature and forces macOS upgrade

6 points by gerdemb 5y ago ↗ HN

I recently noticed that I can no longer collaborate on Numbers.app spreadsheets. This includes old spreadsheets that were already shared as well as collaborating on any new spreadsheets. Numbers helpfully says "It's time to update!" and sends me to the AppStore, but the new version of Numbers requires macOS 10.15 and I cannot upgrade past Mojave (10.14) as I need to keep running some old 32-bit applications.

I don't think it's reasonable to require an OS upgrade to continue using an application feature that was working fine before and I think it's completely unacceptable do so with NO WARNING at all. It's not like I'm even running some super old software, Mojave was released just two years ago and Apple is already disabling features and forcing upgrades?!

No wonder businesses are reluctant to use Apple office software. Not impressed...

/rant over

3 comments

[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 19.9 ms ] thread

stephenr 5y ago ↗

I’m pretty sure this is because whoever “owns” the shared document has upgraded and the new features are not supported in older versions of the app.

gerdemb 5y ago ↗

Yes, I think it’s something like that, but as far as I can tell it’s impossible to undo this “upgrade”....

LarryMade2 5y ago ↗

Time Machine should be able to do it if you have a pre-upgrade backup date available. Otherwise you probably have to reinstall the older OS on a fresh drive (for safety, so you can go back if things go wrong - which don't as much on OSX) then use Migration Assistant to move your data and settings, and selected apps (not the one that's too new) to the new imaged OS.

I've gone backwards on OS installs with that method a couple times,