My Gob Has been Truly Smacked

After months of waiting I was delighted to see the Mac OS version had been updated. However when I went to the App Store I was amazed to find FarSight have raised the required OS needed from 10.6.8 to 10.7. I could not believe my eyes when I read it. This is something you NEVER do. Their Mac Team seems badly lacking. Luckily Mountain Lion is coming out. Only another few weeks to wait. My love for the company is dimming by the day.

They said snow leopard doesn't support in app purchases.

Yeah, I know it's an Apple issue, but it's a bummer nonetheless. Upgrading past SL would break a bunch of stuff I need for work, so unless they decide to make a standalone (non-App Store) version (unlikely), I'm SOL as well.

A strange thing to say since PA is based on DLC. Lion was released along time before PA. So why make it run on Snow Leopard if it will not allow DLC. As I said in my first post their Mac Team seams to be less than cutting edge. Plus there is the demo fiasco.

George Klepacz said:

They said snow leopard doesn't support in app purchases.

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I'm not happy about it either, but those are Apple's App Store rules, not Farsight's.

It's really sad for developers like Farsight that this boneheaded 'forced' upgrade path deemed necessary by Apple means I can no longer support them. That an app that's essentially a grown up iPhone/Pad app can't run on a 12-core machine because of an arbitrary software "hook" is ludicrous. The only reason this exists is to force Lion adoption.

If Apple could get the myriad of performance/stability/external hardware/multiple display/multiple file issues that Lion has brought to the table (and aren't likely to be fixed in ML), lots of us would gladly upgrade, though I realize we're in the minority. However, every other piece of software I have outside the App Store garden (this is the only one) updates or works with DLC just fine, even with Mountain Lion on the horizon, and that's not about to change. We have 20 Mac Pros in the agency I work for. We handle multi-million dollar clients, so a volume license or $29 a seat isn't exactly a big deal, but when time is money/stability is paramount, Lion simply does not cut it.

I use my home machine for a lot of heavy lifting, and sorry, a $10 pinball app kinda takes a back seat to "what I need my computer to do."

what on earth are you doing at home on your Mac that doesn’t work in Lion?

Every OS update can introduce new bugs and stability issues, as rivalschools mentioned. If he's earning a living on this machine, I can fully understand him not wanting to upgrade (until the specific bugs are fixed). Adobe apps and OSX upgrades are a especially dangerous mix from what I've heard.

And I've been soured on OS upgrades ever since an iOS update turned my formerly butter smooth iPod Touch into a stuttering, clunky mess. As long as everything works for him right now, it's pretty natural that he doesn't want to upgrade.

Apple is know for dropping support for older hardware/software very fast. They are not supporting old versions as long as Microsoft does. However, I never got any real problems when upgrading. But i also don't have any Adobe products... And I also know of some professional Software for print layouting which is not (officially) supporting the latest Mac System.

mmmagnetic said:

Every OS update can introduce new bugs and stability issues, as rivalschools mentioned. If he's earning a living on this machine, I can fully understand him not wanting to upgrade (until the specific bugs are fixed). Adobe apps and OSX upgrades are a especially dangerous mix from what I've heard.

And I've been soured on OS upgrades ever since an iOS update turned my formerly butter smooth iPod Touch into a stuttering, clunky mess. As long as everything works for him right now, it's pretty natural that he doesn't want to upgrade.

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sure i know all that but Lion isn’t exactly “new” anymore in about 2 weeks Mountain Lion is out.then i understand if you don’t want to update immediately, must be something special and I’m just curious.

J_R said:

what on earth are you doing at home on your Mac that doesn’t work in Lion?

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Keep in mind Apple dropped support for Rosetta in 10.7 (Lion), so any old non-Intel app won't work anymore. That was a major reason keeping me from upgrading to Lion, but I finally changed over a few months ago. Luckily I have multiple computers, so I can still run any Rosetta app on one of my other computers.

Hehe, I'm still on Leopard. I was left behind years ago.

J_R said:

what on earth are you doing at home on your Mac that doesn’t work in Lion?

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Graphic design (routinely Photoshop files measured in tens of gigs), editing commercials and brand films, recording music, using expensive pieces of external/internal A/V hardware that don't play nice with Lion, etc. You know, just browsin' Facebook at the coffee shop.

Also, things like Versions (a nightmare in very specific organization/naming schemes), hit/miss multi display support, previously easily accessible files/libraries hidden, and generally poorer performance on the same hardware = why is the latest and greatest just adding more annoyance to my workflow?

Even Adobe admits that CS5.5 was not coded with Lion in mind, and that users will experience more issues. Assuming this has all been resolved with CS6 coming out in the last couple months, but again, despite the fact that we're knee deep in using these things every day, "NEW NEW NEW" is not necessarily a good thing. My 2010 MP still runs like a beast (and whatever incremental updates were made to this go-round of recent upgrades drops right in). It does everything I need it to do, software-wise. Other than working with extremely large Illustrator files, I have ZERO stability issues.

Friends of mine on Lion are griping daily about how much better Snow Leopard is/was in terms of stability and raw performance, what incentive do I have to upgrade? From the looks of the ML preview, a few superflous features like Twitter integration, and iOS-like apps that I'll open once, say "wow neat," and probably never use again.

ANYWAYS, this isn't Farsight's deal, it's Apple's. I'm not exactly their target consumer locked into a 1-2 year hardware/OS upgrade cycle, so until this machine needs replacement several years down the road, I gotta deal with it.

About half of Apple's install base is still on Snow Leopard, so just using this forum as a message to the developers and any others considering hopping in, that completely locking yourself into the App Store, while great for visibility, might not be the way to go just yet for desktop/laptop apps.

There's always a contingent of users that gripes when you raise a system requirement. However, raising it in this case should have been expected, because only OS X Lion supports in-app purchases, and Pinball Arcade is focused on DLC.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about the change in OS spec is that lots of people will be left with a game that will not get any bug fixes or graphics improvements. They bought the game in good faith and that faith was misplaced. As previously mentioned more than half of Macs still use Snow Leopard. That is an awful lot of people that have been let down. I'm sorry saying it's Apple's fault does does not cut it. FarSight have not even commented on the situation.

I don't know where this "more than half" Snow Leopard figure is coming from, but Net Applications shows Lion with the majority of the Mac install base. Among Macs that can actually run Pinball Arcade, I'd expect the number to be even higher. Adoption rates on Apple platforms are typically greater than other platforms, so I think it's a safe move for Farsight to make.

It's really a pointless debate, as in-app purchases are only supported on OS X Lion, and Pinball Arcade's business model is centered on DLC.

80 percent of the people who gripe about upgrading to Lion don't want to pull the trigger because they're married to an ancient version of Quicken.

Howard Sayles said:

Perhaps the most shocking thing about the change in OS spec is that lots of people will be left with a game that will not get any bug fixes or graphics improvements. They bought the game in good faith and that faith was misplaced. As previously mentioned more than half of Macs still use Snow Leopard. That is an awful lot of people that have been let down. I'm sorry saying it's Apple's fault does does not cut it. FarSight have not even commented on the situation.

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Those that still use Snow Leopard will still be able to download and install improvements and bug fixes to the core game and tables (you had a previous update already), they just won't be able to purchase any DLC tables.

bonch said:

There's always a contingent of users that gripes when you raise a system requirement. However, raising it in this case should have been expected, because only OS X Lion supports in-app purchases, and Pinball Arcade is focused on DLC.

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I consider myself to be up-to-date when it comes to Mac info, and this is the first I've heard that in-app purchases can only be done with Lion. I'm sure most people had no idea of the limitation.

PiN WiZ said:

Those that still use Snow Leopard will still be able to download and install improvements and bug fixes to the core game and tables (you had a previous update already), they just won't be able to purchase any DLC tables.

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The minimum system requirement is 10.7 with the latest update.

It would be good if 10.6 owners could get bug fixes etc. In April ZD Net stated Lion was catching up with Snow Leopard, "Its share figures are Snow Leopard 43 percent, Lion 40 percent, Leopard 14 and Tiger 14 percent". There is still a lot of complaints about Lion and I have been very happy with Snow Leopard.
However I will be purchasing Mountain Lion on its release so that I can buy the DLC. I hope it is an improvement on Lion.