The bugs are so extreme, and Apple is mute on most of them, pointing us to very generic FAQs that have nothing to do with the problems, rather than acknowledging and trying to work with the community to address them.
I fear this is just the beginning of a new era of problems with Apple software, like the company has become so big and successful it is falling into the traps that hit Microsoft two decades ago that caused so many people to move to OSX and Linux in the first place (among other reasons).
The problem is, we've invested so much in Apple technologies, workflows, the ecosystem, that I don't know if we should just wait it out and keep our fingers crossed, or make a dedicated effort to become less reliant on any single tech provider. I strongly fear that this is a new reality and will be a pattern for a long time.
I'm sure we aren't alone with this -- any thoughts from others?
[0] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250699892
I was totally new to this, not a programmer, and needed guidance. I was about to go with some commercial software called Drumbeat, that ran on top of some Microsoft stuff.
Some experienced programmer said, “Only use truly open source choices, not anything owned by a company, because if the company turns bad or stops upgrading, you'll be screwed.”
So I used PHP and MySQL and that one decision changed my life completely. Years later I swapped out the PHP for Ruby, and switched from MySQL to PostgreSQL, but I was able to because they were all just open solutions. That program called Drumbeat got bought or sold or something and eventually shut down. I'm so glad I wasn't banking my company on them. That one decision back in 1997 has helped save me so much strife over the years.
Just like the comments here (that I've seen so far) there will be a bunch of commercial ecosystem fans saying, “The ecosystem is fine! Just learn to work within their boundaries!” (Don't upgrade until x.1 etc.)
But it sounds like you've hit your freedom moment. Use this frustration to switch to truly open source choices, and never depend on any one company again.
However there does seem to be a pattern of regressions in apple’s products (i put on hold buying a mac pro simply because its specs are very low for the price, the gap being much higher than usual).
What i would do is ask employees what they prefer. Accounting might favour windows, while developers or sysadmins might prefer linux (let them chose the flavour). If your company is non technical the windows might be the only alternative. But either way, breaking away from a single vendor is a good idea.
If everything was working fine on macOS 10.14 and iOS 12 why switch to Linux? I'm sure Android and Linux have their own issues even if they're different from Apple's. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
We finally switched to Linux, we are happy now as Linux is stable and productive, but it took nearly a year of effort to learn and tune linux desktop to our liking.
The biggest difference is that you can tune/fix anything in Linux, but it takes time.
The one thing that is hard on linux is iOS dev, we do not do it anymore. It is possible with hacked VM, but it's a pain.
Why wasn't waiting a few months for stability patches an option?
Once you've switched several of your applications and workflow to open source it will make it easier to switch everything later to Linux or Windows.
Edit: using safari
Also, have you considered downgrading and staying with older versions for a longer time? (https://www.imore.com/how-downgrade-macos)
Will still have to keep an Apple one for work on their platform.
In the meanwhile, start testing Windows or Linux desktops with a few people. If you start planning a changeover now and Apple doesn't get your stuff fixed, it won't be as difficult as trying to rush the company through a ecosystem change.
I'd conservatively estimate our company are currently saving no less than four full time salaries (accountant, purchasing, office admin, sysadmin) and related expenses just on use of webapps. We also use features like auto-translating stuff which makes the multicultural team more cohesive. Not to mention all the RCS/VCS resolved issues with file x version y, file x version y NEW, 'change tracking', oops i deleted it, i forgot to update the version number and all that jazz you can completely sidestep. Totally rife in many companies. My experience is that if you force people to use a decent system it works.
Our stack is currently fastmail + github + digital banks + some internal services on three different cloud providers (all have issues).
It's not perfect though.
What I hate about fastmail: the app and webapp both suck in China and anywhere with slow and spotty connectivity. No image resizing in an app in 2019. The support isn't great.
What I hate about github: charge you for 'seats' even if you remove them. Counts someone you hire and fire as a whole month or year if you're not careful due to this fact. Cross-repo/organization view is new and only basic, not good enough. Wacky access control model. Nutjob system integration policy. API breaks and they don't care.
Unimpressed about banks: many of them suck. Obtuse and backward onboarding policies, random limits, incapacity to provide i18n-capable interfaces or documentation in the year 2020, horrendous fees, non-transparent fee and tax calculations, inability to access your money because (stupid bureaucratic reason #1234), etc.
Unimpressed parts of three different cloud providers: AWS sell you free credits then reneg on the deal and steal your money in 100 ways. Google sell you free credits then reneg on the deal and steal your money in 100 ways. Meanwhile, if you want to pay them and are in China it's impossible either to talk to anyone or do so. Hetzner are truly awesome but often slow from China.
But despite the issues, if you're not on open source, you're truly killing yourself. Things would be worse. Really. Except for some design software, media authoring software and games, there's really no excuse. And IMHO the best part of OSX is iTerm2 + brew, anyway.
Pick a very stable distribution (e.g. Ubuntu targets also Mac Hardware) and never look back again. Next time you need new hardware, just don't buy any overpriced Apple hardware again for your needs. Keep the dependency on Apple as low as possible (e.g. only if you develop for iOS)
My company usually lags a quarter behind the latest OS, it about what it takes for it to pass certification.
You're a company, your machines are tools for making money, treat them with the necessary care.
The same advice was given to professional Apple users ten years ago and twenty years ago: don't update to a new major release right away. Wait several patch releases and several months for an update.
> hit Microsoft two decades ago
Microsoft still has similar problems today. Their recent OS updates were far from smooth.
There's no need for faith or fear. These things are just tools.
Never upgrade your infrastructure or critical devices to a new major release of any vendor's operating system, or an application's major release, until some time after those releases have had time to be experienced by others, and any major issues resolved.
I've not upgraded to Catalina, obviously -- I'm in the process of, over the next few weeks or months, finding and upgrading any 32-bit s/w that now must be 64-bit to work. Until I've validated that, and the bugs have been worked out, I will wait to upgrade.
As for prior comments about using open source or other options, well, I don't see that there aren't issues there as well. I delay upgrades Linux, FreeBSD and even OpenBSD versions until any major issues have been worked out for the same reasons.
Ultimately, there are no safe ways or safe operating systems or safe applications that you can count on not failing after a major version upgrade. Windows releases may be less buggy for a while, but maintaining Windows and using Windows is more of a hassle for me that I'd be trading illusory stability for extra work on an ongoing basis using and managing that OS. I love open source, but there are issues there in usability, interoperability, availability of apps and so on -- configuring a desktop manager, etc. I love open source, always championed it within government, but there are issues and tradeoffs ith it as well.
I use Apple products for my work and other areas because their products generally work well, the ease of use can't be beat in my opinion, and it's worth the tradeoff to me of an occasional hiccup in upgrading. The Catalina upgrade is much more than a hiccup, but still, because I'm waiting it out on macOS and iOS, it won't affect me. And it should not have affected you, if you'd waited it out. Sorry it's causing so much pain for you and your business, but I don't see moving to any other platform is going to solve or resolve similar issues in the future. Mitigate the risks by waiting before upgrading in the future.