Apple will announce at their Worldwide Developer Conference that this fall we will see the availability of macOS 10.15.

This is a pretty big deal, so let’s examine why.

Users of macOS 10.14 (Mojave) have been seeing regular popup windows about the need to upgrade applications as they will not be supported under the next version of macOS. Translating this into English means that macOS 10.15 will NOT support 32 bit applications. By the time that macOS 10.15 actually ships, major software will be up to spec, but some utilities and certainly some drivers will not be ready. I would be particularly concerned about things like printer drivers as historically these things are left too late and printer manufacturers suck at updating drivers generally.

If you have been participating in the Apple Customer Beta Program for macOS, now would be a good time to sign out of this to prevent auto install of any 10.15 betas. I am doing this myself on all my machines.

When macOS 10.15 does release in the fall, you will be prompted to upgrade. New software versions always sound exciting because the vendors make a big deal about all the new stuff. My recommendation for creatives is to hold fast on 10.14 for a while until you know for sure that all the software that you depend upon will continue to work properly. For those who use scripts and actions inside Photoshop things should be fine, but plugins and third party apps will all need upgrades to be solely 64 bit. Think of things like Nik, or Topaz or any of the other myriad plugins that can run standalone. They are all going to need upgrades and those upgrades will not likely be at no charge, so be prepared. I have seen the design specs, and to be blunt, I have not seen anything that is going to be of enormous advantage to the majority of real world users.

Being planful when entering an upgrade window makes a lot of sense.

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