Yep... my mid-2012 MBP is still on Mojave over some 32-bit software, and reluctance to sink any $ into it to convert the HD to SSD at this point. Mojave can run like molasses on it because of the rotational drive, so Catalina seemed out of the question. I only use it offline at this point except once in awhile when I learn that Apple has released a security update for Mojave (which they just did again the other day, actually),
In the eventual case you do decide to take the SSD plunge for that unibody, it can be a cheap way to really speed it up, especially with post-APFS macOS builds. The speed bump is so effective that there are folks on the early Intel forum who are running Catalina and Big Sur on
early 2008 MacBook Pros equipped with SSDs.
I don't have your aversion to the glass mobiles (although I sure liked a couple of my clamshell type phones, in particular a purple LG CU-515 and was charmed by the tiny Juke phone / mp3 player). But having moved on to the iPhones and iPad world, now I'm always having to prowl around to find out which new OS versions will behave nicely with which iOS versions.
I was also a big fan of the candy bar form factor, and I miss those phones. I still think about the Sony Ericsson T610 I used to use and remember how the only thing holding it back was the low-res colour LCD.
I think it would be nice for iPhone models to readily use other operating systems, but Apple have seen to it since, well, the second-gen in 2008 that this cannot happen and must not happen at all cost — without serious hoop-jumping on the side of the end-user who is willing to try. I’m also not enamoured with the removal of a headphone jack, as this seriously limited what could be used with one. Coupled with the notion of disposable electronics at a time when waste diversion simply isn’t enough, I’ve never grasped why Apple have doubled-down with developing and promoting AirPods, as they are not recyclable, nor can they be replenished in any way at all. I find it frustrating on so many levels.
Seems to me that Apple used to be more backwards-compatible on stuff, but I suppose it does get more and more complicated to do that with so many product lines and fairly generous support for older models of most of that gear. It was definitely easier for them to focus on staying backwards-compatible before mobiles popped into the scene.
Well-built, rugged mobile devices would have a much longer use-life than what manufacturers are willing to settle for, since the computing power within these far outshine even laptops made only a few years ago (and new-phone prices reflect that computing power advancement, too). With Moore’s law basically coming to an end, new-gen devices aren’t making the generational computing leaps they once did. To build devices which are not designed to be rugged and which are not modular in any way whatsoever (which really crept up on everyone over this last decade), manufacturers like Apple can use that as leverage to press consumers toward replacing/cycling through their current devices as soon as possible — optimally within 18–36 months, because this is what yields the largest profit margin (as opposed to the most
sustainable profit margin).
Yes, it was a better experience all-round for end-users when Apple were focussed on both backward-compatibility and future-proofing their hardware. Then at some point, they realized the removal of these features in exchange for selling non-modular systems (and systems which could not be serviced easily) would generate more revenue with greater obligatorily returning customers who ran into typical usage issues of using hardware (which in the past could be serviced and given much more use-life). But now, it’s hardware which can’t be repaired.
And a lot of what Apple and other manufacturers realized with their phones (i.e., don’t make them rugged or modular) could be applied to every other aspect of their consumer and prosumer hardware.
But since that time, and speaking now only of software issues, I know I'm not the only one sometimes gets concerned about a drift towards iOS in some of the OS apps.
That feature-drift toward the iOS-ification of Mac OS X/macOS has been slow in the making ever since Lion, taking additional leaps with Yosemite and then Catalina. I have resisted that push ever since, well, since Lion came out. I still remember buying my 2011 MacBook Pro in August that year, and within an hour after opening the box, I yanked out the 10.7 drive which came bundled with the system and put in the hard drive with 10.6.8 from the laptop it replaced.
Lately though I also wonder about apparent indifference to the OS side of the separate components of the old iTunes application. I've mentioned elsewhere in these forums that their attention to the MacOS version of Books app w/ respect to audiobooks is practically nil.
For Apple, their money-making is all in their iPortables, and that shift changed the DNA of the company.
If you launch an audiobook, you get a miniplayer embedded in the lower lefthand corner of Books library window and that's all there is... no way even to make it into a standalone mini player window. Ludicrous.
