I'm in charge of a seemingly ever-growing fleet of (now 150) Macs in the K-8 education environment, and there is absolutely no doubt that I've seen substantial upticks in stability issues on all the systems we upgraded to Catalina for testing purposes (thankfully very few). In terms of Big Sur I only have that on 22 new M1 MacBook Airs and those have been an absolute PITA to roll out, with extensive and very nasty problems; from the inability to erase the internal storage without having a second computer running Apple Configurator 2 to completely random Migration Assistant errors. IMHO both Big Sur and Catalina were definitely not ready for prime-time at time of release, and Catalina may be unsuited even NOW, after the development cycle is supposedly over. Hopefully Big Sur ends up being better.
But in keeping with this thread's topic: My biggest concern about Big Sur cements and reinforces the concern I've had for many years now; Apple has gone from a deep understanding of how to build some of the best UIs, to consistently displaying that they have nobody working for them that understands good UI design at all. Note, I am not talking about how "pretty" a UI is, that's subjective and everyone is welcome to like something different in terms of what they think 'looks nice.' I'm talking about usability. Bugs and instability can be fixed, but if a company has fundamentally no idea how to build a good UI, you may be long-term screwed. Just look at Windows over the years; when it has been good it's obviously been purely down to luck, because they immediately screw it all up again with the next release - they have nobody that really understands what they are doing and therefore about half of the time Windows rolls out with a crap UI. So yes, in many ways I too hate Big Sur. I spend easily 50% of my professional life tutoring and teaching users how to use computers, from the very young to the elderly, and I can absolutely guarantee that Big Sur is going to be a disaster for many users. The problem is that these things are key for intuitive and easy use of a computer: 1) UI elements must be CLEARLY LEGIBLE and EASY TO DISTINGUISH. 2) Elements you access repeatedly should move around the screen AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE (this is one to of the key differences that makes the MacOS Menu Bar so much better than the way Windows handles it). 3) Critical elements must be EASY TO SEE AND FIND. 4) Active windows and elements must be CLEARLY DISTINGUISHED from inactive windows and elements. If we go back to Snow Leopard, which I would suggest could be held-up as a pinnacle of MacOS UI design, all four of these (assuming you turn dock magnification off) are spot-on perfect. SL (among other revisions of the MacOS) nailed all 4 of these principles. Big Sur fails everything except point 2, and it fails them *spectacularly* well.
But in keeping with this thread's topic: My biggest concern about Big Sur cements and reinforces the concern I've had for many years now; Apple has gone from a deep understanding of how to build some of the best UIs, to consistently displaying that they have nobody working for them that understands good UI design at all. Note, I am not talking about how "pretty" a UI is, that's subjective and everyone is welcome to like something different in terms of what they think 'looks nice.' I'm talking about usability. Bugs and instability can be fixed, but if a company has fundamentally no idea how to build a good UI, you may be long-term screwed. Just look at Windows over the years; when it has been good it's obviously been purely down to luck, because they immediately screw it all up again with the next release - they have nobody that really understands what they are doing and therefore about half of the time Windows rolls out with a crap UI. So yes, in many ways I too hate Big Sur. I spend easily 50% of my professional life tutoring and teaching users how to use computers, from the very young to the elderly, and I can absolutely guarantee that Big Sur is going to be a disaster for many users. The problem is that these things are key for intuitive and easy use of a computer: 1) UI elements must be CLEARLY LEGIBLE and EASY TO DISTINGUISH. 2) Elements you access repeatedly should move around the screen AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE (this is one to of the key differences that makes the MacOS Menu Bar so much better than the way Windows handles it). 3) Critical elements must be EASY TO SEE AND FIND. 4) Active windows and elements must be CLEARLY DISTINGUISHED from inactive windows and elements. If we go back to Snow Leopard, which I would suggest could be held-up as a pinnacle of MacOS UI design, all four of these (assuming you turn dock magnification off) are spot-on perfect. SL (among other revisions of the MacOS) nailed all 4 of these principles. Big Sur fails everything except point 2, and it fails them *spectacularly* well.
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