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macOS Big Sur Features: Everything New in Today's Release

G5isAlive said:
Would love to see what you think is better :)
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Screenshot 2020-11-12 at 17.43.37.png
 
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CJ Dorschel said:
[...] Apple should return to 2 year OS release cycles as they did before making OS X a free annual release. OS X 10.4 - 10.6 when Bertrand Serlet was the head of engineering were by far the best OS’s Apple released. We had to wipe down our drives every two weeks when a new beta was released to ensure third party apps and plugins weren’t causing problems with debugging the core OS and it allowed developers to better update their apps. Now it’s a rushed release cycle to match iOS and iPadOS development only meant to entice more into macOS and increase mac App Store revenue while producing lackluster and much buggier releases. I’d rather pay $129 for a solid OS every 2-3 years than a free OS that is a shadow of former versions.
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I only updated Catalina to get native RAW support for my YI-M1 mirrorless camera. This could certainly be offered as a Mojave minor update instead of requiring a full OS upgrade.
 
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halofan56 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't prior to OS X Mavericks, Apple did that? I just think they are biting more than they can chew when rolling out osMAC annually. Tight window of one year, leads to more bugs.
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I believe 10.7 Lion was the first to move to a free annual release cycle.

And absolutely agree.
 
ozziegn said:
I generally never update to the latest and greatest OS but I want to with Big Sur. I just hope I don't end up regretting it. My MacBook Pro has been running flawlessly since day one.
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You won't regreat it. I've been using the public beta and it's been great. I feel it's a great release with a much needed interface change built for the future.
 
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Krieg121 said:
I still have yet to see any reason to upgrade. Big Sur seems like a big pile of **** imo. Yet another mediocre release by a increasingly irrelevant company.
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Well, I'm hoping it will correct a minor bug in crash reporting from Catalina. I've been with Apple since Mavericks. Never had any real problems with and OS X or osMAC software upgrade. I went from a late 2013 MBP to late 2019 27" iMac.
 
coldsweat said:
So should I upgrade straight from catalina, or do a complete fresh install to destroy all traces of the abomination of the previous Mac OS ?
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I would do an upgrade personally. Doing a fresh install could be a lot of work reinstalling your apps or restoring from back up but up to you.
 
CJ Dorschel said:
I believe 10.7 Lion was the first to move to a free annual release cycle.

And absolutely agree.
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I remember paying for Lion. (I think it's still in my purchase history in the app store.) Pretty sure it was part of a progression of less-and-less expensive upgrades; Mountain Lion was even less expensive, and Mavericks became a free upgrade.

But I do recall Lion being the first version that was released without any physical media by default; you needed to pay extra to receive it on physical media. And it was the first version to provide a separate recovery partition (even on existing upgraded systems), so that you wouldn't need physical media even if you had to re-install the OS if something went wrong.
 
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This might be the first time I won't upgrade. There's a lot to like about this update. But I was seriously P.O.'d about losing support for 32-bit apps with the update to Catalina. And now even more of my apps won't be able to make the transition to AMD - including Boot Camp - which I am now using because Catalina broke support for 32-bit apps on the macOS side. :/
 
Mac_tech said:
I would do an upgrade personally. Doing a fresh install could be a lot of work reinstalling your apps or restoring from back up but up to you.
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If your machine is pretty clean, and you had no issues with prior osMACs installs, then go for it. Just make sure you have a Time Machine backup in case something goes wrong.
 
Has Apple updated the minimum system requirements to run Big Sur at all? I have a "Late 2013" iMac that has 8GB RAM and 1TB Fusion Drive but I'm still not sure I'll even be able to install Big Sur.
 
goosnarrggh said:
I remember paying for Lion. (I think it's still in my purchase history in the app store.) Pretty sure it was part of a progression of less-and-less expensive upgrades; Mountain Lion was even less expensive, and Mavericks became a free upgrade.

But I do recall Lion being the first version that was released without any physical media by default; you needed to pay extra to receive it on physical media. And it was the first version to provide a separate recovery partition (even on existing upgraded systems), so that you wouldn't need physical media even if you had to re-install the OS if something went wrong.
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You are correct. wow, I cannot believe it’s been so long! I can’t keep up anymore. It was $29.99 and was the first OS X update offered in the Mac App Store with a USB option available later for $69 as a lot of people had problems downloading the update.
 
I consider most products Apple releases publicly now as public betas, initially (especially software). The number of iterations and "bug fix" after a general release is increasing, as are the bugs they apparently don't catch in QA. From what I've read, Big Sur has a ways to go still. So if you have the extra time, load it up -- otherwise, I consider it a beta and will likely wait and see how it performs, what "bugs" they didn't catch and that includes the new M1 chip. Jobs is rolling in his grave at warp speed.
 
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Well this laptop mbp2019 16' that I picked up in October 2020 (hardly used with only 2 battery cycle times for $1400 for which I am proud of my annoying persuasive power ) , I have nothing on it really, so will upgrade against my better judgement on the 1st day I suppose.
 
CJ Dorschel said:
In roughly 20 years using Mac’s I’ve always updated to the latest OS. Catalina was the first time I never updated my Mac Pro’s. Being a developer I needed to run Big Sur on my MacBook Pro.

I loathe it. The UI is terrible. No matter how much I adjusted the contrast and brightness of my displays it always looked washed out and more difficult to navigate. I know Apple wants more unification between the operating systems of their devices yet this is a desktop OS and iOS/iPadOS UI elements just don’t work for me. Add in further extending security measures that make access to root difficult for third-party apps such as TotalSpaces (a great utility I’ve used since Apple ditched ”Spaces” but requires root access - normally I always disable SIP and GateKeeper yet I take other precautions and average consumers should not do so unless they are aware of the risks, etc), Catalina and Big Sur are just headaches.

I may roll back my Mac Pro’s to Mojave as it seems Apple has even dropped “Time Machine” features that have been around since day one such as retrieving individually deleted emails and contacts. When I updated to Catalina I noticed I could not open Mail and Contacts and retrieve lost items. I spent weeks reading forums and working with Apple engineers and it seems this is a feature, not a bug. Apple only allows recovering lost items in their core apps by fully restoring an entire Mail or Contacts backup point which defeats a big advantage to “Time Machine” and you lose any current data.

During Big Sur development I filed bug reports on “Time Machine” and none of them were addressed. Many of us did. I’ve used .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud and Time Machine together for years yet Apple claims iCloud syncing and local Time Machine backups of iCloud services won’t be working moving forward. Meaning restoring individual emails, contacts, etc from Time Machine backups won’t work anymore.

I found a work around for Contacts.

- Open Contacts on your Mac
- Export them in a VCF file
- Disable iCloud Contacts syncing
- Import the VCF file into Contacts
- On My Mac should show in Contacts
- Turn Contacts back on in iCloud

Now you’ll have iCloud and local contacts. I had to select each contact and link it to the other as two of each will show as doubles. If I delete a contact by mistake or I lose my iCloud contacts I can restore the local one on my Mac simply by dragging it to the iCloud group. If I delete both iCloud and local contacts I can also open up Contacts then click on “Time Machine” and restore it as before.

This decision and the others above and more have made Big Sur a Big Mess.

Apple should return to 2 year OS release cycles as they did before making OS X a free annual release. OS X 10.4 - 10.6 when Bertrand Serlet was the head of engineering were by far the best OS’s Apple released. We had to wipe down our drives every two weeks when a new beta was released to ensure third party apps and plugins weren’t causing problems with debugging the core OS and it allowed developers to better update their apps. Now it’s a rushed release cycle to match iOS and iPadOS development only meant to entice more into macOS and increase mac App Store revenue while producing lackluster and much buggier releases. I’d rather pay $129 for a solid OS every 2-3 years than a free OS that is a shadow of former versions.
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Man, I feel your pain. I went through a very similar process with Apple engineering and senior tech support for 2 months this summer, and got nowhere with Time Machine. It's the redheaded stepchild in the walled garden. I also much prefer everything you listed, and am (mostly) happily still on Mojave. Sierra felt like the last OS I really truly enjoyed (and it also supported NVIDIA GPU's). I hope the iOSification of macOS is just a phase but it feels like more of a path.
 
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Apple Freak said:
Has Apple updated the minimum system requirements to run Big Sur at all? I have a "Late 2013" iMac that has 8GB RAM and 1TB Fusion Drive but I'm still not sure I'll even be able to install Big Sur.
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Go to Apple's website under Big Sur, look at the compatibility list. At 8 GB, it may be a little sluggish.
 
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