Why does macOS slow down with newer versions?

[jonblatho]

I'm also a programmer and would like to think I don't have "slower perception" either. I kept my previous iMac (5K 2014) for just short of 7 years before the fan started going out. Didn't notice any slowdowns in macOS over the years that didn't have a more logical alternative explanation.

In my case: One time I noticed it was running pretty slow for anything heavy on I/O, so I replaced the aging hard drive with an SSD to great success. Another time it was running slow because it was constantly running hot. I popped the display off, took a can of air to it, and that fixed it right up.

 

[Darren.h]

MACOS BLOAT??

FULL VENTURA IS AT LEAST 12.5 GB. REQUIRES 40GB OF SPACE.


MOJAVE IS 5.8 GB. REQUIRES 18 GB OF SPACEI

WINDOWS 11. STILL JUST 4.5 GB.

 

[jagolden]

People replace their hardware because of apple's forced-obsolescence-forced-upgrade policy where machines become "unsupported" (again, meaning apple no longer officially supports it) after a set number of years, and they don't want to lose support, or learn how to "hack" their machines to continue to use newer macOS, so they buy new machines. I am surprised you are just now learning about this. Would've though this was long-standing common knowledge by now, especially among devs/programmers such as yourself.

Look at how many devices have been dropped from support on Ventura:

View attachment 2191363

^^^Those are all very capable machines, with one caveat -- they don't support AVX2 instructions, which is a requirement for Ventura.

Now look at what remains as supported on Ventura:

By thinning the herd -- apple is able to push out more new machines and continue to drive profits.

As I mentioned in my previous post -- there are THOUSANDS of users successfully running modern macOS on older hardware without any issues. iOS on the other hand is a different story.

Let me ask you this -- what machine(s) are you running that are experiencing slowdowns?



I do agree that macOS is far from perfect (and it used to be way better before Timmy became CEO). It does have bugs here and there, and apple has been focusing on bringing more fluff instead of making things more solid lately, but in my experience, that's due to poor programming and rushing to put something out and not apple "intentionally slowing down old machines" the same way that they do with iDevices and iOS.



I strongly agree that your point above applies to iDevices and iOS -- because those devices are what generate the most $$$ for apple, so they need to keep pumping them out, and also keep pushing people to buy them (which should be illegal really). Hence the forced-obsolescence-forced-upgrade BS. However, they don't make nearly as much profit from computers, so it's not the same with macOS

Remember, macOS != iOS.

Strange, my 2017 iMac 27” 5K Retina had no problems whatsoever. So that’s at least partially wrong.
As to the others on the list, look at the years they came out.
Upgrade or run an older MacOS.

 

[Kepha]

I have a 2015 13” MBP running Monterey, while I did see some performance decrease after each major OS upgrade, I haven’t noticed any difference in the patches and updates for Monterey afterwards. Now there were performance drops as I filled up my drive. And can’t forget the newer version of Xcode and how big it has gotten. Last week, I removed Xcode as it was taking up too much space and moved many of my apps to an SD card, and now things are running much faster. Will still be upgrading later this year to a Mx silicon Mac, not because of performance, but because the battery has started to expand on me. (Keyboard is getting thicker.)

Macs need their swap space and software is bloating up. Software bloat is not Apple exclusive. Working in enterprise, I get told to focus on the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and then CI/CD it to satisfaction. New features seem to drive budgets, so less time is given to optimizing and cleaning up old code. To me, this is what makes newer software seem to slow down our devices. So Apple may be able to throw more cash at making the new software versions running fast on old hardware, or put that cash towards newer features that will sell newer hardware. I remember somewhere it was said that Apple is a hardware company not a software company.

 

[prefuse07]

Strange, my 2017 iMac 27” 5K Retina had no problems whatsoever. So that’s at least partially wrong.
As to the others on the list, look at the years they came out.
Upgrade or run an older MacOS.

You seem confused -- perhaps you didn't understand my post?

macOS Ventura is compatible with these computers You can install macOS Ventura on any of these Mac models.

So yeah, your 2017 iMac 27" 5K Retina "had no problems whatsoever" because it's officially supported.

 

[tresmith]

I'd like it to be a kind discussion. I'm expecting this, but saying just in case.

I have an unpopular and perhaps a little controversial opinion that Apple makes old devices obsolete on purpose. Most people I talk about with about this disagree. Most people think that adding features to software makes it slower. I'm a programmer myself and I know this is not the case. Unless this feature works in the background, it has no impact on performance whatsoever.

It's the same with iOS. When we install new versions, our hardware "naturally" becomes more and more obsolete. Or does it not? What is exactly happening in these new versions that use more resources all the time? I remember that before this "battery saving" (yeah, right) scandal blew up, every iOS version made home screen slower on older iPhones. I've been super suspicious about this, because making UI smooth is easy even in resource-hungry environment. It's just the matter of thread priority and Apple clearly didn't want to do this. And even that's assuming that something else used most resources of older iPhones, which I'm quite sure is not the case at all. Luckily, after the scandal they stopped it and now even a few years old iPhones are smooth on home screens.

I opened this topic as macOS thread, as I'm expecting more professionals here than in the iOS thread.

I feel like there are some thinking pattern traps that allow this to happen. One day I realized that it works like that with any software update. Once it's new and branded as "stability improvements", we feel like our software is super stable. Until there's next one - before we install that one, we feel like our previous one is no longer stable and we have bad quality software. But our software never changed! It's not like it got less stable over time. I hope you guys understand my point, because this shows the thinking patterns about hardware too. Many software requirements don't change, because this software remains the same, yet we are always pressured to replace our hardware, because if the new one is released, our becomes "obsolete". This is insane if you think about it. My favorite example are MacBooks, especially the jump from Intel to Apple Silicon. 16" Intel used to be considered a monster, until Apple Silicon came and 16" Intel became instantly "slow", even though the software we use was still the same.

Is anyone with me on that?

Two things I'll say on this topic.

One, in general, you should expect computers to slow down over time as you try to run newer, more powerful
operating systems on aging hardware.

Two, and this is speaks specifically to Apple, as they move away from intel and focus on optimizing thier software for their own silicon you can expect older intel based machines to run slower just cause the software is not written to run efficitently on them.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[antiprotest]

It is unlikely that Apple introduces problems on purpose. I believe that Apple wants to make their products and services the best that they can. But they fail because they are simply THAT incompetent. So with every major update, they bring an avalanche of bugs and performance problems. Then with every minor update, they'd fix one thing and break three things. This happens even with the newest machines and that does not help Apple at all. They are not deliberately sabotaging your machines. They can't help it. They are just fantastically bad at what they do.

Now, they do not need to be that incompetent, but it happens because they do not prioritize quality enough. Perhaps there are diminishing returns in pushing toward higher and higher quality, and Apple must find the equilibrium toward their profits vs. customer satisfaction. The theory that Apple introduces problems on purpose (performance, battery life, etc.) does not give enough consideration to this more simple and direct explanation.

Apple can happily get away with this for at least two reasons. First, there are people like me who still consider Apple the best compared to the alternatives. And second, there are people who would blindly defend Apple no matter what. As more than a few on this site have said, "You are not an Apple engineer. You think you know better?" Well, I can say anything I want as an Apple CUSTOMER.

Within the bounds of current technological and economical realities, if I am not happy, or at least if I don't feel like I am getting what I paid for, then they are not doing their job well enough, and I have a right to complain. It is not my responsibility to be considerate toward "Apple engineers." It is the responsibility of Apple engineers to be considerate of me, the user.

An irrational brand loyalty -- which from the business perspective Apple has wisely established -- is part of the reason why Apple can get away with this. Blind followers and defenders lower the bar of competition and reduce the pressure on Apple and other companies. For this reason, and with obvious irony, they are the very ones holding back Apple, holding back technology, holding back humanity. They are, in effect, criminals of history.

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

🫡

Just sharing the things I observed:

On my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro 13, I can use Mountain Lion to High Sierra comfortably. Since Mojave the fans noise under medium load became noticeable. On Catalina, the time waiting for an app to launch is much longer. I can't put it on my laps because even medium load will spin up the fans, especially when plugged in.

Here is my speculation: Do the daily operations of the new OS push the limits of the computer's processing power, which in turn causes them to take longer to complete? Could this also result in the computer producing more heat?

 

[Moka Akashiya]

IMO reasons are
- Global/local redesigns every few years, which are pushed earlier than being done, so you wait for optimization for a few more macOS versions or to final macOS release (like after 10.9 or 11)
- Same for default apps, devs are have tasks to change something for next WWDC presentation and do not have time/motivation to improve performance on release
- Degraded quality control, same as in most IT industry, probably because investors want more new things, and simple bug fixes does not seem like company move forward, so stocks can fall (and fall even more when such panic starts)
- There is more background services for new integrations with ecosystem, and most of things are cannot be disabled or removed from memory because of Apple's "everything always just works" way
- Much stricter security system in every next year, and strict checks are not free, also background antivirus service can scan everything and easily eat to gigabyte of RAM
- Like in web, GUI development frameworks is mostly moving to easier and faster to develop, not to specific optimizations by more complex apis and manual control of redraws. Afaik, some things in macOS are using React instead of native UI kit currently, sometimes it is required, but it also can save time, if you just draw browser window instead of parsing data from server and show in native ui.

But i cannot be sure if things are worse by CPU/memory usage between specific macOS versions, since i don't want to spend time on upgrading when i have everything working, and any update can brick your mac, so you will need another one to restore it.

 

[kzly]

I am keen to see how far M1s will hold up. Then, we will have some strong evidence to continue this conversation!

 

[mxrider88]

Probably not doing it by design but it is pretty clear that their software engineers aren't very good at coding nowadays, so it might be a consequence of that..

 

[ForkHandles]

@LeeW
I had exactly this with an old iPad, painfully slow to use after years of updates.
My 2011 iMac lasted 10 years, occasionally it would run slowly, but I would take time to clean out the memory/discs and it was back to normal.

My current 2020 M1 laptop shows no such pattern of degradation. Still chugging through FCPx projects as fast as it ever did.

 

[leman]

I have not seen any evidence of “macs getting slower with updates”. Neither for iOS devices for what matters. There were cases of some new features not working as well for older iPhones (mostly because the frameworks were optimized for newer hardware that was 10-20x faster), but that’s it.

As to new versions of software working better on newer hardware, that’s entirely natural. Why would they optimize new code for old hardware?

 

[jagolden]

You seem confused -- perhaps you didn't understand my post?

macOS Ventura is compatible with these computers You can install macOS Ventura on any of these Mac models.

View attachment 2191468


So yeah, your 2017 iMac 27" 5K Retina "had no problems whatsoever" because it's officially supported.

Yup, sorry, major goof on my part.

 

[h.gilbert]

I am a professional macbook user and can discern the difference between 60 and 120Hz, even 60 and 90Hz. Do I qualify as worthy to answer this question OP?

 

[leman]

People replace their hardware because of apple's forced-obsolescence-forced-upgrade policy where machines become "unsupported" (again, meaning apple no longer officially supports it) after a set number of years, and they don't want to lose support, or learn how to "hack" their machines to continue to use newer macOS, so they buy new machines. I am surprised you are just now learning about this. Would've though this was long-standing common knowledge by now, especially among devs/programmers such as yourself.

This is not "forced obsolescence", it's the usual industry practice. Why would a hardware vendor invest resources and time in supporting technically obsolete products? There is nothing planned about this, it's just staying lean and keeping the maintenance and feature bar at a reasonable level. If you expect a vendor to offer extended support then you should be paying them hell a lot more.

By the way, all the obsoleted Macs you have mentioned use hardware that has been declared end of support by its manufacturer. What the 2017 and alter Macs have in common is that they use Intel Kaby Lake or later hardware — which is still supported by Intel. CPUs have bugs that have to be worked around at the OS level. Skylake was particularly notable for the amount of hardware bugs. Why would Apple continue shipping patches for old hardware if the hardware's manufacturer gives up on it? BTW, Windows 11 doesn't officially support Kaby Lake, it's Coffee Lake or later only.

 

[neuropsychguy]

My evidence is my programming knowledge and my experience with Apple devices. My MacBook Air 2018 got significantly slower version by version. I hear complaints even from i9 owners. And it's been a decline even before Apple Silicon was a thing.

This is not scientific evidence. If you want to make a case that macOS slows down existing computers with new releases, you have to provide reproducible benchmarks from dozens of non-battery powered machines (let’s say 30 as a bare minimum to help us be more confident in the results) all configured exactly the same. It’s important not to use battery powered computers because the batteries can degrade over time. Then install the newer version of an OS on all the same machines and run all the same software to benchmark. Then do that again with the next version of the OS. You also likely need to covary for the size of the OS. Newer OS versions will add features, which also needs to be considered. Some of these features are not strictly necessary but others are security-related. These will require resources to manage. The computers should also be free of any other non-Apple software.

Benchmarks could vary but could include start-up times, file copy times, and even benchmark software. What’s best is if any benchmarking software is stable across OS versions and is not affected by low-level algorithmic changes in the OS.

This would be a start to have objective data that Apple slows or does not slow down computers intentionally. Even if there was a “slowing” it would be difficult to argue it was intentional because there are so many factors that could affect performance. Many of these are simply new, more powerful features.

 

[prefuse07]

3. This is unproven and is just a hunch: I think Apple designs their software to maximize the current hardware and is less concerned about making sure old hardware works perfectly. Meaning that a new OS takes advantage of the latest hardware. Apple doesn’t necessarily customize the new software to take advantage of older hardware. Also, it has been my experience that this issue is not apparent with hardware within one generation. Meaning that the newest tech is still written to take advantage of M1 technology just as much as M2.

Yup this is spot on, and actually is PROVEN -- evidence of this can be found through Ventura.

For example: It was designed to only run on machines that support AVX2 instructions, which means newer CPUs. Yes, there are some folks that can get it to work on non AVX machines, but those machines have a really hard time using it, and it runs very unstable.

Sadly, there will come a point where macOS will ONLY run on machines that use ARM architecture (Apple Silicon), and that will for sure be the end of the Intel era.

 

[melliflu]

My recent experience: an old lady next door who bought a shameful 2017 iMac with HDD, it became slow to the point of being unusable when she updated to Ventura. Apple Genius said: no solution, buy a new iMac. I said, let's try an external SSD on usb port ($80), I reinstalled Ventura from recovery screen on the SSD, then 2 hours to transfer old HDD data to SSD, boot from SSD et voila, ten times faster, and the old lady can use her iMac another 5 years.
There are solutions, but Apple will always advise for new purchases and planned obsolescence.

 

[iAppleOrchard]

It doesn't. At least with Big Sur > Monterey > Ventura on Apple Silicon proven with Benchmarks. Bigger updates, maybe would slow it down, but Monterey made the OS a lot faster, and Ventura is on par with Monterey.

 

[LeeW]

They are solutions, but Apple will always advise for new purchases and planned obsolescence.

Apple is only going to advise what you can do within the limitations of their devices. In this case, they were right, nothing could be done with the Device itself. Adding an external SSD is never going to be a suggestion from them because if they suggest it they need to explain how to do it, what to buy, how to reinstall macOS on the external SSD, and so on. Never going to happen.

 

[JuicyGoomba]

Why do people defend a company that actively pulls vital resources from all software development departments to work on some crappy AR headset no one asked for? As soon as they started doing this a few years back, starving departments of vital resources, software quality declined while Apple's demand for new features etc remained constant.

 

[Sn0wLe0pard]

Planned obsolescence. You have to buy new hardware. All software begins to require a certain version of the OS, for example, some kind of VPN client or music player. Any version of Windows, any kind of Linux, BUT! MacOS is strictly starting from Big Sur. Yes, it is difficult for developers to maintain many versions, APIs change, blah blah blah. "Crybaby, go buy a new Mac." Ok. And what about the opposite side, what do Apple see? Bloggers with an open mouth on the preview picture? Crowds wishing to be updated annually? "New Dynamic Island! Johnny, that's AMAZING!" The people eat everything. Do new macbook pros have a slower ssd? Just think, people come up with excuses that the new slower drive is still very good. In the next year, on the M3 Pro, Apple can install the SSD as on Intel Macs. Or HDD. And then there will be a 20-page discussion on the forum why this is not a humiliation, but everything is ok. Well, at a new price, of course. Right now the acceptance stage is going on: "why 15 inch Air on M2 is very good, this chip is a real beast." It hasn't come out yet, but the excuses are ready.

 

[LeeW]

Why do people defend a company that actively pulls vital resources from all software development departments to work on some crappy AR headset no one asked for?

Which is related to this thread how? That aside, I don't see anyone defending Apple in here.

 

[MallardDuck]

New OS versions have new features (and code bloat). New features take more resources. That slows the machine down - simple as that. You can't run Win 7 on an XP machine, or Win 11 on most Win 10 machines for the same reason. Ditto here - Catalina and Big Sur ran fine with 2GB for the host. Monterey was a big jump and really needs 4GB for the host to run well.

The other reason, especially if you use spinning disks, is the switch from HPFS+ to APFS, which is substantially slower on hard drives.