Good info, but why do folks stay at 10.15 (or other old release) unless their Mac hardware no longer supports an OS upgrade? Version 11 seems totally stable and currently is at 11.6.1.
lots of reason.
People usually gain their income by working - not by 'playing around' with tools. Why throw away a hammer every now and then?
Often, the cad system is not yet ready for a new os, the cad-dongle won't work, busy work needs all attention - lots more (don't forget about licensing models). For planners, architects, their cad-system is the thing to earn money - and sometimes, time is too short for updating a well running system (that is still supported)...
I left my working machine on 10.14 until fm 19.4 came out - now, I'm on big sur on that machine (and my vocabulary for 4-letter words got some new entries). Some of my servers are on 10.15, some on older os (to run older versions of fms)
If a new os comes out, we need to wait some time until we do the upgrade. If there is too much work to be done, we do not have the time to play with a system - THAT is still SUPPORTED and is running smooth. So, a year can pass just by (maybe 2..)
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11.6.1 has been out for quite a while now. I hardly consider that upgrade, at this point, "playing around with tools'.
In any case, it was just a question I was asking.
To your point, however, I understand there can be memory leaks for non-M1 machines for the latest version (12), so I am holding off until at least 12.1.
Thanks
on my early days with macOS (well.. was the 'classic' os) I updated as soon as a release was available, under the early osx' I also loaded betas.
Under the classic macOS some things been easier to manage - I got internal zip-drives, letting me do the 'go back' to the previous system very easily, on the fly - and faaaast.
Today, I'm running my own business, dealing with updates/installs by my own. I do not have the time for playing around with some fancy stuff that does not help at all with my daily tasks... That said, I got test machines that run the latest macOS - but monterey is not yet installed..
As long as a system is supported and security-updates are available (and the latest FM version can be installed..), there is no big risk - but a time-saver. Updates here require backups, checks (test-systems..) - nothing to do just with a mouse-click
You won't believe how fast a year passes by at a certain age )-:
We are working for customers who are ISO certified, 27'001 for example. There, we must test a new system, we have to call user-groups for predefined tests... there are times in a year where You just can not find users who have enough time to test (and much more)
I was hired as a Word processing specialist for a law firm in 2012. Office 2010 had been out for a while. Imagine my dismay to have to adjust back to Office 2002!!! The company had developed a complete suite of tools to standardize document production, not only at the Revision and translation dept, but across the whole company. Lawyers and paralegals were all trained to proper use of documents tools.
Those measures supported conformity and played a major part in streamlining document production and keeping the associated production costs as low as possible. The caveat was that upgrading to 2010 required to build the tools for the new ribbon environment and training all 500+ employees to use it properly.
Companies need to absorb these costs to remain profitable. Time is their best ally in this case.
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I totally agree that new versions of Mac OS rarely have anything a developer like me is waiting for. However, if an older version of Mac OS is keeping something I need from working, then I would upgrade. Mac OS 11 has been out for over a year so that's plenty of time for stuff to be worked out.
Since I've had problems like some of my programs not working as expected after a Mac update, I no longer "upgrade" the day of the release.
maybe improved automation faster AppleScript execution and ShortCuts integration ..
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Nope. Been burned too many times ... I'm a Mac guy, but I don't use technologies that lock me into a single platform like AppleScript. 
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shortcuts could be so cool... if they would just work... I got a small FM app that even supports the Apple watch, utilizing shortcuts to handle it on iOS/iPad - and Watch, what is really handy here (was...)
unfortunately, after the latest WatchOS, shortcuts can no longer handle http/https requests. (Apple support did not help, btw)
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I don't know if this could work for you, but have you considered Keyboard Maestro? I use that for all kinds of personal automation on the Mac. When I bought it several versions ago, I wasn't sure I'd even use it. But now I have over 100 macros that run all the time. And, yes, a couple do HTTPS Requests. Again, this might not work in your case, but this program is one I always update when a new version comes out. Lots of ways to trigger a macro. To me, the trigger options alone are amazing.
Check out the cool video on their home page:
https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/
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I got a license of keyboard maestro for years, way cool! But does not work on iOS or WatchOS...
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Hope you get it all worked out. Please post back when you do as this is an interesting discussion.
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as earlier said, my working machine was on 10.14 until last week. On my MacBook, there is bigsur running - but most of the work here is done on the desktop machine, a Mini 2019, i7. We got also some Mac's on monterey, but not yet productive systems)
I forgot about one thing (well, because of fm 19.4 I had to upgrade, sooner or later):
- 10.14 supports fm18 100%
- bigsur has issues with fm18 (inspector, some options are no longer visible)
- we got quite some customers running fm18 for several reason *
- if critical, we are running the same version as the customer (means 16, 18 or newer - 12-15 and 17 are no longer supported this way, if needed, we have to run fm16 resp. 18)
further, I got about 2 dozans of starter files to have a quick access to the customer solutions we are working on, really handy - became a 'must'. Those starters are small xojo-files, opening the solution via url-calls. Every starter for 18 has to be corrected for fmp19. I was just waiting fo that bit of work, in theese days...
Those 'xojo'-Starters are fast - one gets immediately a feedback (main reason to use that).
"*" Reason that some customers can not go 19 (among other reason mentioned earlier):
- customer has planned upgrading the fleet, for compatibility reason over the fleet, they are on 18 until the minimum installed os version runs newer fm (also the financial departement is part of the decision...)
- 'governement' customers... they will not get a new fm version every second year
We got virtual machines here for older os' - but somewhat unsure when moving to Apple Silicon..
So, Windows is the only solution. Apple??
btw. bigsur will display the menubar-text in black - even when the desktop theme is daytime dependant (and really dark at nighttimes), so that feature is no longer usable (I loved those themes...)
Happy updating (-:
btw. and OffTopic: Our biggest problem at the moment with large installations is that those customer lost their 'spirit' for FileMaker. No Claris office in the german part of EU, new campaigns are for those customers 'in question' (low code / no code... nobody pays hourly rates for 'no code', younger developers are not easy to find) and much more - makes it more difficult to keep them upgrading. On my desk are 3 evaluation papers from 3 different customers. Required ('must') DB systems are MS SQL or Oracle. No FileMaker - even if they been running FM solutions for more than 20 years - and they been really happy (but they need to plan for more than 5 years). sigh...
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I find your 'OffTopic' comments to be the norm now also. 
I found a client who would be a good match for FileMaker, but he wouldn't consider it. He's going with MS CRM/SQL Server. I'm thus focusing more on these technologies.
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some of my colleagues are quite familiar with ruby/rails (et all) for that reason. Unfortunately, that's not MS and some of the customers want pur MS technologies
it's a fact, but 😶🌫️
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Yep. Ruby/rails was extremely popular. I suppose it still is but I'm no longer on a project that needed to integrate with RR. SQL Server is an incredible database. No doubt about that. And, reasonable non-subscription pricing options for any number of users. Hard to beat that.
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I have a number of clients who resist the endless upgrades. I keep a 17"MBPro (gosh I love that machine!) for FMP16 clients, have a 27"iMac from 2012 for even older ones and my primary work laptop is running Catalina. Also have a corporate laptop running BigSur. The FMP19.4 upgrade broke 2Empower DA plugin (since sorted) so I went back to 19.3. That 19.4 update sure started a lot of fires on the Claris Community (sometimes feels like a Beta-tester site).
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