Catalina UI and stability was peak Mac OS

[BigPotatoLobbyist]

UI: loved the round icons, sure. But most importantly the goddamn contrast and text legibility was excellent while retaining a
modern feel. I think animation could've used some work but still great. Seldom felt eye strain and began to feel accustomed to the menu bar's position in my vision, having not used MacOS as a daily driver in a while at this (past) point in time. Dark mode was also fantastic, felt properly distributed across the UI and lacked an overdose of transparency.

Stability: Really, after discovering the number of iCloud bloatware threads (Photos app, files etc) and sheer quantitative size of those tasks running - and disabling them - it was 80% of Windows 10 in this regard. That is to say it was one of the more stable operating systems I've used. Probably controlling on personal ****ery inside the OS and frequency of use, this metric would only improve.

I've been using Windows variations and MacOS variations since 2011, and this was undoubtedly one of the top MacOS (I refuse to avoid capitalizing) releases.


RIP sweet prince lol

 

[macintoshmac]

Catalina was good, but I found Big Sur to be better. And this is on a humble MBA 2017. Now, macOS 12 feels equally good.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Gonna drop the Snow Leopard bomb before someone else does

Honestly though, having used Macs since the late 90s, I've been amazed at the stability and solid feeling of every OS X release (except Tiger in its early days, man that was a trip). I haven't had much of any reason to fear OS updates in decades now, and it's been a good time. In the 18 years since I started using OS X (I switched from 9 to Panther), I've only had a handful of major system instability issues.

 

[planteater]

I avoided Catalina until recently due to all the negative mentions of stability problems. Other than giving up 32 bit apps, I’ve really liked it. Perfectly stable. As good of an experience as I’ve had with Mojave. I’ll be on it as long as I end up keeping my existing MBP.

 

[Schismz]

Mojave was super-stable for me, on both Mac Pro 5,1 and iMac Pro.
Catalina flip-flopped from stable to really bad on Mac Pro 7,1 (which was the only release it could run). Overall Catalina was a mostly beta-release quality OS (in my own subjective experience. Not a big fan).
Big Sur has been totally stable for me so far with no issues.

 

[BigPotatoLobbyist]

Catalina was good, but I found Big Sur to be better. And this is on a humble MBA 2017. Now, macOS 12 feels equally good.

I completely get it, N=1 with all this stuff haha

 

[LaEnsalada]

Although Big Sur has some choppy animations and the boot up is slower than Catalina in my mbp 2015, I find it less buggy and overall I've got better battery with it than with Catalina

 

[Jack Neill]

Catalina was a train wreck for me until .4 or .5 and then it was fine. Although I am still salty about how terrible the Music app was and is and continues to be on Big Sur. I have a soft spot for Mojave and always will. That first time turning on Dark Mode was incredible and Mojave was rock solid for me on multiple 2012ish era machines. My order of favorites is Tiger, Snow Leopard, El Capitan and Mojave.

 

[dazzer21-2]

I've got a 2008 iMac running Snow Leopard. I think that the number of crashes or lockups it's had doesn't even dip into double figures in the 13 years I've had it! My Mojave and Catalina Macs have gone way over that already...