Is your business ready for macOS Catalina and the move to all 64-bit applications? The following article discusses the move and how it will affect users of the Connected Accounting and ERP Software.

macOS Catalina and the 64-bit Application

Apple introduced its latest macOS update at the 2019 WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) in June. The update, macOS Catalina version 10.15, is coming next month (October 2019).

Update (10/10/2019): Connected 10.1 is the only supported version for macOS Catalina.   Click this link to request the update.

This new version of the macOS operating system will only support 64-bit applications. Many software companies have already moved to this new platform. For example, Microsoft has been using a 64-bit structure for its Office product (Excel, Outlook, Word…etc)

How does macOS 10.15 affect users of Connected Accounting and ERP?

Scroll down to skip to the good news.

Connected users that have been running macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or macOS 10.14 (Mojave) will have seen some messages when the Connected 8.x application is started. A sample of this “app compatibility” message is shown below:

“Connected 8.x is not optimized for your Mac.
This app needs to be updated by its developer to improve compatibility”

Users of Connected 8.x can click OK to bypass these messages and keep working. This message is basically a warning that a 32-bit application, like Connected 8.x, will no longer be compatible with future macOS versions. That version of macOS, is finally coming this Fall, as stated earlier.

However, when macOS Catalina arrives this Fall, Connected 8.x and all other programs that are based on a 32-bit architecture will no longer run at all. That means no more access to your Connected database on that new or updated machine with that version of Connected.

Good News: Connected 10, released in April, is 64-bit

The Connected Development team has been conscious of this change for some time and was able to get ahead of the curve with the release of Connected 10 in April 2019. Connected 10 is a major update with many new features but the underlying architecture is 64-bit. This means that all the app compatibility messages are gone and Connected is already revved for the next generation of macOS, including Retina display support.

Good News Update: Connected 10.1, released in October 2019, contains additional fixes and compatibility for macOS 10.15 (Catalina).  In other words, all systems go for users that want to update or convert from apps that are unable to make the transition.

Being long time Mac developers, we would always advise caution with upgrading to a new macOS. In the case of our desktop version of the Connected Accounting and ERP Software, it is possible that there will be a quirk or issue that requires us to code a fix. However, these issues, if there are any, would be trivial in comparison to a complete app block because of the underlying 32-bit architecture.