'Requiring' Mac OS 13+ is not a good move

[Jay Matthews]

I'm using an early Macbook Pro 13" (A1502) on Monterey. Today I update to latest Photoshop Beta 25.0 and Lightroom Classic 15.2 release/Camera Raw 15/5 and get the message:

Mac OS X version 13.4.0 or later is recommended for maximum performance and correct operation of Adobe Photoshop 2024. An earlier version of Mac OS X was detected.

What kind of (lack of) support is this? I and others are being forced to cancel our subscriptions if Adobe cannot maintain support for perfectly fine and fast legacy machines. Please stop resorting to anti-consumer practices (radical obsolesence) for their financial benefit.

There are other systems out there, and the only thing keeping me (and others) loyal is our stubborness to confront the learning curve of a new environment.

[jane-e]

[I] get the message: Mac OS X version 13.4.0 or later is recommended for maximum performance and correct operation of Adobe Photoshop 2024. An earlier version of Mac OS X was detected.

By @Jay Matthews

By my count, this is the fourth or fifth time Apple has made a change to their OS that forced me to buy a new computer. Windows 11 can still run many PS versions that macOS cannot. I've stuck with Mac — but knowing this, I don't blame Adobe. 

BTW, the last version of OSX was macOS 10.15 (Catalina). Then we had 11, 12, 13 and now macOS 14 (Sonoma).

Jane

[ProDesignTools]

Technology is going to keep marching on – that's never going to change. And Adobe moves ahead the OS version requirements in order to take advantage of the latest available capabilities in their newest Creative Cloud releases.

But since the very beginning of Creative Cloud, Adobe has said they would not force customers to upgrade, and by implication, to have to buy new computers. To make good on this promise, subscribers need to be able to access prior releases for older systems (especially Macs) which cannot support the newest CC versions.

In recent years, Adobe has limited this access to only the current release and the one prior. This is called their "N-1" Policy. Now, today, this means that macOS Big Sur (version 11.0) or later is required, since it's the minimum for both CC 2024 and CC 2023. This rules out everybody who, for whatever reason, is running macOS 10.15 Catalina and earlier.

As others have commented above, some older Creative Cloud releases are still available for direct download, but the choice is limited and it is unclear if those links will be available indefinitely.

I think it's not enough to say that folks can keep their old systems and versions in a frozen, isolated bubble, without ever needing to reinstall their apps... "Things happen," components fail, products can need reinstalling. If paying customers do not have ready access to those prior CC releases for their otherwise-perfectly-adequate machines, they are out of luck.

And since Adobe generally does not make complete standalone installers available anymore for CC users (unless you ask), then people aren't aware they need to have in hand the installers that they can no longer get, until it's too late.

I think Adobe urgently needs to do something about this, lest they continue to lose paying customers who can no longer access a Creative Cloud version that will run on their systems. "N-1" should be expanded to a wider window of previous releases (as it used to be), while disavowing all official support on anything older than N-1 and simply asking that any subscribers who need support for those prior releases just come here to the Forums instead.

Adobe of course still has all those older installers, should they decide to make them available – so it's just a policy change, really. I sincerely hope they do something about this soon.