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On Catalina now, should I upgrade to Monterey or wait till next one?
- Thread starter mindquest
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I upgraded my old 2015 MBP to Monterey (from Catalina) and regretted it - there just wasn't enough oomph in the old Broadwell processor and the responsiveness really suffered. But now I have an M1 MBA and am really happy with Monterey. I've even grown to like (accept?) the changes in the UI.
Given the newish-ness of your iMac I'd certainly give it a shot. Assuming you back up regularly you can always roll it back.
Do you have any compelling reasons for upgrading? Are there apps that you need to use that require Monterey?
My 2017 iMac is still on Mojave and will continue for the remainder of its life. I've "upgraded" the internal 1TB mechanical harddrive to an external 1TB SSD and the performance difference has been amazing. (it is dramatically faster now than when I first bought it)
Apple is pretty aggressive with developers in getting them to require the latest version of MacOS as a prerequisite for their apps, and I'm not able to update MS Office and iWork apps as a result of remaining on Mojave, but the stability and performance benefits of staying at Mojave are enough justification for me to stay put.
Thanks for the reply!
There are some apps that will be sunseting Catalina support at the end of the year. I guess I am trying to understand is this as good as Monterey is going to get since the new OSX is right around the corner?
Thanks for the reply!
These days it seems like you have to wait till just before they release the next OS X and go with the prior release because it is the most stable and less buggy.
I have the same machine running 10.15.7 (Catalina). I will not be running any new OS for the life of this computer....."it ain't broke so I'm not fixing it"!!! And just got a new security update for Catalina yesterday
It has seemed for far too long, that Apple's developers have the misconception that the way to prove their worth is to keep feeding us a new OS every year, despite the fact they are always full of bugs, mess up many computers that were running quite well, and that just as they iron out many of the bugs, boom, here's a new "latest & greatest" we should now download! I stuck with Snow Leopard for many years, while reading horror stories of those who've upgraded as every new OS was introduced. Now I'm on Big Sur, on my 2017 27" iMac, and only moved from Mojave to that, due to pressure from Apple's tech people, that some of the issues I was having were likely due to not having the most updated system, which of course, turned out to be just more bs, as it's also been my experience that I rarely get solutions when I call Apple Support, and must seek out answers via the web, instead.
Sadly, I too often feel like I'm using a Windows computer, as I run into problems, whether slowdowns, apps not working properly, sites not working well with Safari, and the always new problems with every "upgrade". The formerly more "intuitive" & "user friendly" Macs I used to love in the 1990s & into the 2000s, is no more. Why can't Apple just wait to release upgrades until they first test them and iron out the bugs BEFORE releasing, or actually unleashing them on their loyal users? smh
Sadly, I too often feel like I'm using a Windows computer, as I run into problems, whether slowdowns, apps not working properly, sites not working well with Safari, and the always new problems with every "upgrade". The formerly more "intuitive" & "user friendly" Macs I used to love in the 1990s & into the 2000s, is no more. Why can't Apple just wait to release upgrades until they first test them and iron out the bugs BEFORE releasing, or actually unleashing them on their loyal users? smh
Like the replies before me said, it depends on what you need to use your iMac for. But I'd like to add that for me, things like Universal Control make it more than worth it to upgrade. I didn't expect it to be that useful, but for me it totally is.
I personally also really like the look of Big Sur/Monterey, and there's barely any difference in responsiveness on my late 2012 Mac Mini compared to Catalina so it was a no brainer for me.
Who knows, maybe you'll come across a feature in Monterey you didn't know you needed!
I personally also really like the look of Big Sur/Monterey, and there's barely any difference in responsiveness on my late 2012 Mac Mini compared to Catalina so it was a no brainer for me.
Who knows, maybe you'll come across a feature in Monterey you didn't know you needed!
Make sure you know that Monterey is what you want. I allowed Catalina to upgrade to Monterey, didn't like the pink & purple locked screen, icon changes, etc. But...had a 20 hour tech support issue when Time Machine failed in the restoration. Thankfully Apple techs got me back, but it was a painful lesson in upgrading without really knowing how hard it might be to go back.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
All good advice above. The one new one I'll offer is you can try it by creating a bootable external, copying your Catalina install to it, booting into it and then upgrading it to Monterey. Use Monterey on it for a while and if you don't like it, you can always boot "native" back into Catalina.
Or vice versa: back up your full Catalina install to an external, boot into it to be sure you have a full bootable backup, shut down (to physically eject), upgrade the internal drive to Monterey and use it for a while. If all seems well, stick with it. If you don't like it, you can downgrade by duplicating Catalina from the external backup back to the internal drive.
Generally, it is a good-to-great idea to ALWAYS do this each time you want to hop up a generation or more. It gives you a definite and relative easy way back if the "upgrade" doesn't actually seem like one when you do it. And/or even after the update and decision to stick with it, maybe you find something that doesn't run well (or at all) but need to be able to use it again. One bootable backup can let you step back and use whatever it is.
The only catch to this is that during the trial period, be more sensitive to new files you create that you would want to preserve if you want to switch back. Also note that if you open an important file(s) in a newer version of some apps (like Apple's Pages/Keynote/Numbers) and then save them, going back may make them unable to be opened in the older version of the same app. So in a scenario like that, you may need to export new file creations to older formats so you can have access again in Catalina.
Or vice versa: back up your full Catalina install to an external, boot into it to be sure you have a full bootable backup, shut down (to physically eject), upgrade the internal drive to Monterey and use it for a while. If all seems well, stick with it. If you don't like it, you can downgrade by duplicating Catalina from the external backup back to the internal drive.
Generally, it is a good-to-great idea to ALWAYS do this each time you want to hop up a generation or more. It gives you a definite and relative easy way back if the "upgrade" doesn't actually seem like one when you do it. And/or even after the update and decision to stick with it, maybe you find something that doesn't run well (or at all) but need to be able to use it again. One bootable backup can let you step back and use whatever it is.
The only catch to this is that during the trial period, be more sensitive to new files you create that you would want to preserve if you want to switch back. Also note that if you open an important file(s) in a newer version of some apps (like Apple's Pages/Keynote/Numbers) and then save them, going back may make them unable to be opened in the older version of the same app. So in a scenario like that, you may need to export new file creations to older formats so you can have access again in Catalina.
updating to Big Sewer or Monterey will also update the firmware on your SSD, so it’ll be at risk of Monterey’s drive failure problem for evermore, even if you downgrade back to Catalina afterward.
Curious…what issue is this? I'm a Mojave holdout cautiously exploring the newer OSes for when the time comes.
Parallels is great for trying out new upgrades. I was reluctant to upgrade from Catalina to Big Sur, so I ran it on Parallels to see what it looked like. I liked it and upgraded. Then I did the same with Monterey - ran it on Parallels for a while. I did't like it and couldn't see much advantage in upgrading, so I've stayed with Big Sur. Parallels is expensive but it's a brilliant way of trying a new OS without having to upgrade and then downgrade. Bear in mind though, that as you will effectively be running two OS's, everything will be a bit slow.