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Apple Stops Offering Standalone Update Packages in macOS Big Sur

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Apple appears to have ended its tradition of making standalone updater versions of macOS available to all users, beginning with macOS Big Sur.

macoos-combo-updates.jpg

Apple offers its macOS updates through the Software Update pane in System Preferences, but it usually also lets users download the same updates as standalone installation packages, made available on Apple's downloads website.

However, as noted by Mr. Macintosh and shared by The Eclectic Light Company, Apple hasn't released a standalone updater for macOS 11.1 or 11.0.1, despite providing standalone packages for macOS Catalina and Mojave security updates on December 16.

Standalone packages are useful for administrators who want to update multiple Macs with the same 12GB download, especially given that delta and combo packages come in smaller sizes since they include only the files needed for that particular update.

According to Mr. Macintosh, however, Apple is advising users who need standalone updaters to contact them in an "official capacity," although it's not exactly clear what that means.


Apple hasn't confirmed that it has ended update packages for macOS, but the current lack of standalone installers for Big Sur doesn't look particularly good for users who rely on them.

That said, there is an alternative solution in the Sharing pane in System Preferences in the form of a Content Caching option, which enables one Mac to download updates and other Macs on the same network to download them directly from the local Mac.

Article Link: Apple Stops Offering Standalone Update Packages in macOS Big Sur
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/18/apple-stops-offering-standalone-updates-macos/
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WOW this sucks. I can tell this will be the last Intel OS I will be interested in and will probably stay on.

The arm Macs will all be setup like the Microsoft surfaces which sucks.

How do they expect or call ARM Macs PRO MACHINES?

Mission critical HEAVY digital creators are not going to use ARM Macs if you can't even keep a copy of the OS around.

What A joke. Apple heading in the wrong direction.

ARM Macs are no longer for PRO use. Their are multiple articles on this.

No dedicated GPU. All crappy system on a chip. That blows
 
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This article is getting a bit confused between full and delta installers. Standalone installers are still available via the Mac App Store or via the "softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer" command (new: "softwareupdate --list-full-installers" shows you what you can download with "softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version X.Y").

It's the standalone delta updaters that are no longer being made available by Apple, so you have to download the full 12-13GB each time.
 
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Not good. I have a very slow internet connection at home (less than 1 Mbps) and it can take multiple hours to download these updates. However, at work (where the internet speed is orders of magnitude faster) I can download the updates in a couple of minutes on my PC and then transfer them to a USB thumb drive to load into my Mac. But it looks as though this will end when I update to Big Sur.
 
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robertcoogan said:
I'm sure there is a reason (most likely security) behind this. But "official capacity?" Sounds like a plan that hasn't gelled yet.
Click to expand...
"Official capacity" just means filing feedback (via Feedback assistant), opening an AppleCare OS case, or yelling at your dedicated Apple System Engineer. Apple sometimes needs to be convinced that not all choices are correct and there are use cases that they don't consider when making a decision.
 
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mungo2k said:
It's the standalone delta updaters that are no longer being made available by Apple, so you have to download the full 12-13GB each time.
Click to expand...
OK, that's fine for me then. I keep copies of the standalone installers for my personal archives, but I don't need to have every delta updater. Usually, for my personal purposes, a copy of the last version of the OS is fine. Or perhaps a couple of versions of the OS.
 
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mungo2k said:
This article is getting a bit confused between full and delta installers. Standalone installers are still available via the Mac App Store or via the "softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer" command (new: "softwareupdate --list-full-installers" shows you what you can download with "softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version X.Y").

It's the standalone delta updaters that are no longer being made available by Apple, so you have to download the full 12-13GB each time.
Click to expand...
"Installers" is admittedly a confusing term, so I've changed it to updaters. Sorry for that.
 
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Freeangel1 said:
WOW this sucks. I can tell this will be the last Intel OS I will be interested in and will probably stay on.

The arm Macs will all be setup like the Microsoft surfaces which sucks.

How do they expect or call ARM Macs PRO MACHINES?

Mission critical HEAVY digital creators are not going to use ARM Macs if you can't even keep a copy of the OS around.

What A joke. Apple heading in the wrong direction.

ARM Macs are no longer for PRO use. Their are multiple articles on this.

No dedicated GPU. All crappy system on a chip. That blows
Click to expand...
You really don't seem to know what you're talking ranting about. We can still keep full installs of an OS. Nothing is stopping that. Additionally, Since my M1 MBA is outperforming all the existing MacBook Pro's, I think Pro users will be just fine.
 
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Mac Rumors cannot seem to get away from their habit of Clickbait.
you can still make USB installers, just not of the Delta updates. That’s it, that’s the only thing that’s changed.
there’s no grand conspiracy theory that apples trying to lock down your Mac, they just stop doing it that way there’s a smaller chance of one of these tiny update files being corrupted
 
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there is an alternative solution in the Sharing pane in System Preferences in the form of a Content Caching option, which enables one Mac to download updates and other Macs on the same network to download them directly from the local Mac.
Click to expand...
When I ran a set of labs, this is how I did it. The Mac mini server would download the update and then push it to all of the other Macs on the network. It worked fine and was a lot quicker than each machine having to download an update.
 
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It's probably fine in California with GB internet, but it's a real pain for those of us on slow internet with multiple machines to update and update sizes in the multiples of Gigabytes

I have multiple internet services connected via a load balancing router in order to get half decent internet speed (I live in the UK countryside with pathetically slow internet) and the load balancer plays havoc with MacOS content caching (i.e. it doesn't work properly) so I can't use that either.

In theory, it should be possible to get it working but it would involve having to setup a local DNS server due to my local network effectively having multiple public IP addresses and the fact that they're all dynamic IP addresses creates more issues with that approach
 
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Freeangel1 said:
WOW this sucks. I can tell this will be the last Intel OS I will be interested in and will probably stay on.

The arm Macs will all be setup like the Microsoft surfaces which sucks.
“Have you used an ARM Mac? I very much assure you, it’s nothing like a surface device. In fact, you can barely tell them apart from Intel, other than that they are way, way faster and quieter.”
How do they expect or call ARM Macs PRO MACHINES?

Mission critical HEAVY digital creators are not going to use ARM Macs if you can't even keep a copy of the OS around.
“you can still download Big Sur, and make a physical copy of it. All that’s changing is the Delta updates, not the actual installer.”
What A joke. Apple heading in the wrong direction.
Click to expand...
“if I had a nickel for how many times someone has said that about Apple, I would be richer than the company itself.”
Freeangel1 said:
ARM Macs are no longer for PRO use. Their are multiple articles on this.
Click to expand...
Freeangel1 said:
“ there are also articles showing that ARM Macs are the future of pro customers.”
No dedicated GPU. All crappy system on a chip.
Click to expand...
“Apple is literally rumored to introduce a dedicated GPU for their processors next year, and I highly doubt they’ll be using System on packages for things like the iMac and the Mac Pro. But you cannot bass all of your assumptions of future apple silicon powered macs on just the three that we have now.”
Freeangel1 said:
That blows
Click to expand...
do you know what else blows? Someone who doesn’t do their research.
 
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Freeangel1 said:
WOW this sucks. I can tell this will be the last Intel OS I will be interested in and will probably stay on.

The arm Macs will all be setup like the Microsoft surfaces which sucks.

How do they expect or call ARM Macs PRO MACHINES?

Mission critical HEAVY digital creators are not going to use ARM Macs if you can't even keep a copy of the OS around.

What A joke. Apple heading in the wrong direction.

ARM Macs are no longer for PRO use. Their are multiple articles on this.

No dedicated GPU. All crappy system on a chip. That blows
Click to expand...

1. You don't even understand what the article means.

2. *there are multiple articles on this (no there isn't)
 
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Phil A. said:
It's probably fine in California with GB internet, but it's a real pain for those of us on slow internet with multiple machines to update and update sizes in the multiples of Gigabytes

I have multiple internet services connected via a load balancing router in order to get half decent internet speed (I live in the UK countryside with pathetically slow internet) and the load balancer plays havoc with MacOS content caching (i.e. it doesn't work properly) so I can't use that either.

In theory, it should be possible to get it working but it would involve having to setup a local DNS server due to my local network effectively having multiple public IP addresses and the fact that they're all dynamic IP addresses creates more issues with that approach
Click to expand...
It would definitely be less hassle in the long run if you could get it setup properly, even if they did release delta updates.
 
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