macOS Big Sur Listed as 'Version 11.0' in System Preferences

[anshuvorty]

Upgrading now

Be prepared for a long download....

 

[dogslobber]

I'm sitting here at only 2 GB/9.5 GB downloaded and macOS is reporting that it will take an additional 6 hours to download the new macOS....gotta love WWDC days!!

Dog slow here too. Why don't they distribute via torrent on WWDC day?

 

[DotCom2]

Did they say what iMacs Big Sur is compatible with?
Oh never mind I found it.

 

[anshuvorty]

Did they say what iMacs Big Sur is compatible with?

Here you go:

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Not really strange, they don’t have to compare against any Intel chips, just other chips running macOS and macOS apps.

Oh, most definitely. You can’t have 32 bit support on a chip that doesn’t support 32 bits Can someone remember to go to the AMD rumor thread and go “No.”?

Yeah, and all it takes is an understanding that if you’re going to make a big change, do it in approximately 20 year chunks. The folks that are in their twenties now will be all excited and on top of what’s going on. As they age into their 40’s and want everything to be like it was in THEIR 20’s, you get the attention of the next group of 20’s.

I’m not sure if it’s the lack of 32bit support in the chip as much as 64bit is a much better environment in terms of security and large memory support. I think it’s more a limit of what Apple wants to support in software and development kits than anything architectural. I’m not sure how MacOS did it, but Windows has WOW, which is Windows in Windows—running an entire set of software libraries in the background to support a legacy app of different bits. It bulks up the OS footprint, requires more legacy support, and takes extra system overhead to run. Not major issues with modern systems, but if Apple’s goal is high performance and low power, cutting legacy overhead is one way to work toward that goal.

 

[tharitm]

I don't know what to make of us this, but MacOS 11 and Apple silicon feels like the end of a chapter. The end the jobs chapter. Finally.

I think this is what Jobs wanted all along, and Intel was more of a detour.

 

[boss.king]

Ugh. The iOSification of MacOS is complete.

Not yet. The last step will be preventing you from running anything that's not from the App Store. Hopefully that day never comes, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it did.

 

[Marx55]

Does macOS 11 Big Sur have Time Machine 2 saving backups into APFS disks?

 

[yurc]

I’m hoping we get Big Sur to work on the venerable Mac Pro 5,1!

Sure, I think Mac Pro 5,1 with OpenCore should be able to install this. Even Catalina which is unsupported, actually it quite effortless with some disk swap and bootargs tricks.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

That's what I'm wondering as well. The way Craig described it, that's the way it sounded.

Won’t that be up to the makers of VirtualBox to port their program? The rest would just depend on if Apple’s chips have virtualization support. I suspect they would, if they will virtualize with Parallels.

TBH, the gaming demo that they showed off wasn't all that impressive. Tomb Raider looked baaaaaaaaad....the shadows were low res, the details were suboptimal. I guess they were running the game at 1080p and low settings to get a decent framerate?

If you thought gaming on Mac was bad, games running on Rosetta 2 to emulate x86 architecture is going to be even worse.

But if we’re just running on the A12Z, that’s not bad at all, IMO. This is a chip designed for passive cooling in an ultra-thin device. Even tweaked for higher clocks, it’s still a ULV architecture. If Apple only demoed stuff on A12Z, then we don’t really know what they intend to power the first generation of ARMacs with. I suspect they will have a new chip, since the A12Z/X is relatively old now.

Here you go:

View attachment 926061

My 2012 mini didn’t make the cut—no surprise since it’s outside the 7 years. I suspect there will be a hack or two to get it working. I have the i7 version (4C/8T), which I believe is more powerful than any 2014 model you could buy!

 

[Janichsan]

Exactly. A similar thing happened at the Intel transition. Photoshop was demoed as native and then Adobe didn't ship a native Intel version for a long time after that.

Also when they demoed Metal at WWDC 2015 with versions of Illustrator and After Effects running on Metal. Took them years to finally release these versions.

 

[nickgovier]

.

 

[mmomega]

At least give credit where due. MS has been attempting an ARM switch since 2012 with windows RT and they also have windows 10 on arm. Being educated before you speak would be a wise thing to do.

The comment is based on Microsoft’s naming scheme, ‘only’, nothing else.
simmer down. I am no blind Apple follower. I am a Microsoft certified mvp since ‘01, have 4 dozen Win10 computers across my businesses that I am Primary support for. Linux is second most, with my Apple products being primarily at home with the family.
it was a little comical comment.

 

[dogslobber]

Release Notes to peruse while waiting for the beta to download.

Apple Developer Documentation

developer.apple.com

 

[cmaier]

macbook is dead to me, i dont want an enlarged ipad

Good thing nobody is making that.

 

[jimbobb24]

I didn’t see any features that justified a 11 update. Seems like should reserve that for serious under the hood changes, not transparency and other visual changes.

 

[smbu2000]

I'm amazed that my late 2012 mac mini with quad core i7 isn't supported but a dual core mac mini from 2014 is, the only reason I can imagine this to be the case is the graphics. But how big of a graphics jump could it have been.

I don’t think it is just about graphics as my late 2012 27” iMac with quad core i7-3770 and 2GB GTX 680MX is also not supported. Even the late 2013 iMac with up to an i7-4771 and 4GB GTX 780M is not supported.
Both of those graphics cards blow away the supported Mac Minis/MBAs and late 2013 MBP video cards.

 

[darngooddesign]

I didn’t see any features that justified a 11 update. Seems like should reserve that for serious under the hood changes, not transparency and other visual changes.

OSX10 = Intel, OSX11 = ARM

 

[bigchief]

My late 2013 Mac Book Pro barely made the cut and it still runs like the day I bought. 😀

 

[DakotaGuy]

Rosetta 2... 2nd wave! Ouch! And Tim said that the Intel code base will be supported for 'years to come'... Ok!

I give Intel support 2-3 years at best. Intel processors were introduced at 10.4.4 and Apple only supported PowerPC until 10.5.8.

If we use history as a guide 11.0 and 11.1 will probably support both Intel and Arm and by 11.2 it'll be Arm only. So Tim's whole "years to come" is likely not that long.

 

[poiihy]

macOS Big Surprise

 

[Velli]

I didn’t see any features that justified a 11 update. Seems like should reserve that for serious under the hood changes, not transparency and other visual changes.

And ARM support surely shouldn’t be considered “serious under the hood changes” 🙄 Also, pretty obvious this is a touchscreen-ready OS...

 

[Jyby]

Science Rules!

 

[paradox00]

Ugh. The iOSification of MacOS is complete.

Also, strange that they didn't share any benchmarks comparing their chip with Intel chips.

Why is it strange that they didn't show benchmarks? The developer kits are running an A12Z aka what the latest iPad Pros have. Those chips: a) have already been benchmarked b) likely won't be the chip running in the first production Macs running ARM and c) Apple rarely shows raw benchmark figures. Once the dev kits are in the wild they will definitely be benchmarked, but there's no conspiracy for why it wasn't a priority for Apple to include in their presentation.

 

[darngooddesign]

OSX is gone by the way it’s macOS now...

LOL. "OSX" is so ingrained in my mind that I typed OSX11 instead of just OS11