Idea for a future release, please consider -
Since apps like VLC Media Player have been able to keep the Minimum OS version requirements at 10.7.5 even for their latest releases that work up to macOS 26, would it be possible to lower the OS requirement for Mp3Tag Mac? It seems like a straightforward enough app that should not have more dependencies than VLC would, so I believe compiling it with a lower minimum target technically should be possible.
Users still using stable older hardware (like Mac Pro 5,1’s) for pro audio/video editing like myself would really like to be able to run Mp3Tag natively, not having to use a Windows VM or wine if possible. I have access to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and Mountain Lion 10.8.5 with XCode for both if you needed help with testing or compiling etc. Even if there was a “Legacy” version (compiled on a lower OS) that covered 10.6-10.13 then the regular version that was 10.14+… that might be worth considering. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
just some thoughts/assessment
- mp3tag is not opensource, i don’t think he’ll give you a copy of his coden, even not with nda
- backward compatibility isn’t easy all time but the important point is that this would increase complexity of testing (speacialy on mac…. yea, for testing you’re able to create osx virtual machines but it’s not allowed)
Hey, thanks for the reply! Good point about being closed source so yes of course nda would be part of it but I’m game to help out with testing/compiling if that’s something @Florian wanted to explore to widen the market to the older mac machine crowd and selfishly it would directly benefit me as one of these people lol.
about virtual machines testing not being allowed, not sure I understand your comment there are you saying that one is not not allowed to make virtual machines of older OSX versions, or testing your apps on virtual machines is illegal somehow? If so, who is dictating that? Either way I have the real versions of the OS’s installed on older hardware so thats not an issue.
Hi, about using OSX in virtual machines, from EULA of osX Sieraa:
”The grants set forth in this License do not permit you to, and you
agree not to, install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to
enable others to do so”
”The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or
instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal
sharing or other similar types of services.”
I am not a lawyer, but that also the information I got if we had a OSX project on our last company.
Well, I know doing this for development or testing ist almost common, but I had a quick view inside, for example you need to add an devicekey "ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc", that means you need to bypass hardware restrictions…
For private “just for fun” yea, you may do - nobody will care about - but for an comercial product … well …. Better to use just on real (expensive) apple hardware.
But in that case you need to have hardware for all old versions… that’s intersting… how to handle that? That’s why I’m sure, virtualization of OSX is common on development and testing 
—-
Even overalll, the biggest problem would be the testing effort for every new mp3tag version.
Every change could mess up functionallity on old OSX and may need unequal treatment for different OS versions.
regards
Peter
Thanks for your interest in Mp3tag and in putting your elderly Macs to good use. Unfortunately, supporting even older versions of macOS is not in line with what I want for Mp3tag for Mac.
In fact, I might drop support for Mojave, Catalina, and even Big Sur, at some point in the future. As SDKs are progressing, it's becoming more and more difficult to support all the different variants. Moreover, there are specific APIs that become deprecated and even removed, which makes it necessary to test the different code paths on their respective versions.
I still have my Intel MBP from 2008, running Catalina (and Mojave in a VM). It's slowly giving up and I don't plan on buying new old hardware. I currently don't have a test environment for Big Sur — but for everything above (macOS 12 Monterey, macOS 13 Ventura, macOS 14 Sonoma, macOS 15 Sequoia, macOS 26 Tahoe, and latest macOS 26.1 Beta 4).
As for virtualization, I think it's fine to run macOS in a VM as long as you run it on Apple hardware and you have the appropriate license. It's not allowed to rent access to this VM, except if you're MacStadium, AWS, or someone else with a special contract.
understood. thanks for the reply, for including 10.14 in the releases thus far, and for all your hard work.