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So, are there ANY compelling reasons to move to Catalina?

SalisburySam

SalisburySam

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 19, 2019
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Salisbury, North Carolina
This forum and other sources have listed lots and lots of issues after moving to Catalina. Other than having the latest macOS, are there 2-3 major and actually useful advantages that Catalina has to compel an upgrade to it? I've not seen any in the marketing but that's not always comprehensive or accurate.
 
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I don't see any reason at all to update at this time. Wait until people say it's getting better. I can't think of many new features that make a difference daily. A release of OS X/macOS used to have a lot of features, but now it's a slow trickle.

Since High Sierra and Mojave are still supported with patches, I would just stay where you are until everything gets straightened out. Too risky.
 
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Sidecar is significant for me. AppleTV+ is likely significant for many, and certainly a big reason why Apple pushed Catalina out. Catalina was released too early, though so were Mojave and Sierra. I'm guessing 2020 will be a "Snow" Catalina year focused on performance and stability rather than new features. I think the same is true for iOS 13.
 
If you want to experiment with Catalina (or any new version of the OS) before committing yourself to it, do this:

a. get an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD (you can get a 120gb SSD for $20 now).
b. install the new OS (Catalina) onto the external SSD
c. now you can boot the Mac using the external drive to fool around with Catalina, but your "main OS" on the internal drive will be "left intact".
 
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Avoid Catalina until it's proven. I stupidly upgraded and I've just spent the last 2 days with customer support and have had to copy/back-up my entire business and wipe my hard drive. Nightmare!!
 
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I use my MBP for fun on my desk at work - browsing; watching YouTube and email, there's almost no difference for me from Mojave. I really like that they split up iTunes though.
 
Total Respray said:
Perturbingly, it’s the only way to backup a phone on iOS 13...
Click to expand...

You can do it on Mojave (and even older MacOS) too using the most recent iTunes version. In fact, I bought an iPhone 11 Pro Max just a week ago and successfully backed up my iPhone X running iOS 13.1.3 and restored it on a new phone using iTunes on Mojave.
 
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Eugr said:
You can do it on Mojave (and even older MacOS) too using the most recent iTunes version. In fact, I bought an iPhone 11 Pro Max just a week ago and successfully backed up my iPhone X running iOS 13.1.3 and restored it on a new phone using iTunes on Mojave.
Click to expand...

Interesting - my MBP (Mojave) wouldn’t let me update my iPhone 7 on iOS 13 and required the Catalina update.
 
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So I won't do it on my macbook pro. My laptop is doing great with Mojave. But I just got a 2013 imac desktop for husband. It came with Mojave and is asking for an upgrade to Catalina. I'm having issues with it shutting down and not staying in sleep mode in Mojave. I had that problem in High Sierra on my macbook pro. Once I went to Mojave, it quit and working fine. I did EVERYTHING suggested on his imac and nothing has fixed it. I re-set everything and the stupid thing still shuts down. So I'm upgrading it right now to Catalina. If it still continues to NOT sleep and just shut down - the computer is going back! I got it new/used re-furb. 90 day warranty. I'm not putting up with it tho. I have read that this issue happened a lot in High Sierra but once people went to Mojave it stopped. His hasn't.
 
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I’d stay on Mojave - unless you have an abiding hate of iTunes and need it off your Mac immediately.

You have dark mode on Mojave already (though dark mode for News is nice).
There’s no improvement in the existing stock catalyst apps like Home.

Having said all of this, I’m on Catalina and it seems fine (I don’t have many 3rd party applications), however Catalina hasn’t materially improved my Mac experience and in retrospect, I’d have waited until I had widespread reports of Catalina being extremely stable.
 
For me Sidecar is useless because Adobe limited on purpouse using iPad as tablet in Photoshop because of some useless crippled beta app they call Photoshop for iPad. Nothing else is really worth the hassle. I installed Catalina on my wife's MB but I don't see any difference when compared to Mojave. It is working without issues though. I will update once Adobe stops being dumb and 10.16.3 version is out. Probably. Mojave has been very stable release so why risk it?
 
Here's the pros and cons from my experience. I don't use Apple Mail so I can't comment on that.

Catalina features:
• Dark mode
• Reminders compatible with iOS 13 Reminders

Catalina woes:
• Display issues galore
• Installation issues
• Remote app for iOS incompatible
• Problems with exporting bold fonts to .pdf
• Kernel panics (mine possibly resolved by unplugging ext. DVD-RW)
• Loss of some iTunes artwork
• User customized views in iTunes gone in Music app. Not surprising, but wish I'd have taken screenshots of my iTunes views
• 32 bit app incompatibility
• Sidebar favorites disappeared. Had to re-add them
• Major app issues with Photoshop CC: RAW editing in ACR barely functional, 'Save As' loses file type suffix
• Loss of many folder icons. Now appearing as document icons

In summary, wait a month or two for stuff to get updated. I don't want the installation woes of going back to Mojave, then back again to Catalina so I'm weathering the storm for a few months.
 
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