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fehhkk

macrumors 6502a
Jun 11, 2009
750
235
Chicago, IL
I think it's alright, but it'll take a few uses to get used to it. Overall seems OK, and I like the new style of icons. Menu fonts and spacing looks good, however.
 

chinchillas

macrumors regular
Apr 3, 2015
135
30
I am on Mojave, should I just update to Catalina? I personally dislike Catalina for its flaws and all but I feel like Mojave is getting old.
You're probably lacking basic security patches by using such an old OS. I have almost none of the problems reported on Catalina. Only Music is a little trouble with artwork, dragging folders, etc. I'm using a 2015 MBP packed originally with El Capitan. That OS was so pretty.
 

Jack Neill

macrumors 68020
Sep 13, 2015
2,272
2,308
San Antonio Texas
I like the new UI, seems snappy and stable. New music app fixed artwork issue with the external drive and library I have. Photos saw my iPhone without having to sync it first.

I dislike the white menu bar, the control center, the hard drive icons.

I installed it on a 2020 MBA and now I want a new MacBook Air with a M1..
 
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Kung gu

Suspended
Oct 20, 2018
1,379
2,434
I like the new UI, seems snappy and stable. New music app fixed artwork issue with the external drive and library I have. Photos saw my iPhone without having to sync it first.

I dislike the white menu bar, the control center, the hard drive icons.

I installed it on a 2020 MBA and now I want a new MacBook Air with a M1..
Use Big Sur in Dark mode, much better
 

tonyr6

macrumors 68000
Oct 13, 2011
1,739
733
Brooklyn NY
It looks great. Much better than Windows 10 which looks dated. It performs good. I just had one issue when I had to search on how to get the battery icon to show the percentage. Also none of my external drive or USB flash drive will work using the dongle until I plugged the power into the dongle. It worked without power with Catilina. It however runs faster when connected to power which also charges the notebook.
 

Natzoo

macrumors 68020
Sep 16, 2014
2,016
646
Yes, Catalina was rock solid for me the last few months.
Thanks, will definitely consider upgrading to Catalina. Big Sur doesn’t seem too friendly for laptop users, bunch of aesthetics and removal of functionality.
 

jedivulcan

macrumors 6502
May 15, 2007
427
61
I don't like it at all. There's some stuttering in the animations. Even typing lags a little on my 16" Pro.

Will do some troubleshooting and then a fresh install. Iconography and the rounded corners are a bit jarring.
 
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decypher44

macrumors 68000
Feb 24, 2007
1,812
2,987
Orange County, CA
I'm not in love with the UI. I prefer Catalina. But I'm getting used to it. Dark Mode ONLY.

I installed it on my old late-2013 rMBP to test out. So far, everything seems to be working. Of course, I planned to spend the whole day testing, but the update snafu ruined that. I'll test it out for a little while longer before I decide to update my 2020 27" iMac.

As long as functionality is there, it'll be fine. UI you can get used to. Things not working, not so much.
 
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deannnnn

macrumors 68020
Jun 4, 2007
2,094
632
New York City
I don't mind the new look, I think it'll take some getting used to but I can appreciate what they were going for ...EXCEPT for the new app icons. I really hate them, they're very unprofessional for such a major OS.
 
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decypher44

macrumors 68000
Feb 24, 2007
1,812
2,987
Orange County, CA
I find it beautiful and, so far, fast as hell!

I'm on a 2020 27" iMac so I have the real estate to spare, but I agree w many people that there is too much 'dead space' at the top of many of the windows...

That being said, damn this is sexy...
That's great to hear! I was checking out the iMac forum section to see what others have experienced, but that section doesn't tend to see a lot of action.

Everything working so far? Safari playing 4k?
 

chipsandsalsa

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2020
501
2,168
Its very snappy on my Mid 2015 MBP, so far I have not run into the dread GPU slowdown after sleep mode. I don't have Youtube in 4k on Safari, but maybe I'm missing something?
 

decypher44

macrumors 68000
Feb 24, 2007
1,812
2,987
Orange County, CA
Its very snappy on my Mid 2015 MBP, so far I have not run into the dread GPU slowdown after sleep mode. I don't have Youtube in 4k on Safari, but maybe I'm missing something?
I didn't have that either, but my 2013 rMBP doesn't have a 4k-capable screen. Maybe that's why?
 
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Heat_Fan89

macrumors 68030
Feb 23, 2016
2,884
3,742
I like it!

It's definitely different and a nice change of pace but it looks pretty slick. I created a USB installer but for some reason I wasn't able to boot off of it. I booted off the internal SSD and and when I plugged in the USB drive it mounted but it did not show in the "Startup Disk" menu. So I just updated within Catalina. But overall it looks nice. I'm bummed I can now only select 4 cities in my Clock widget. I follow Formula 1 and I had pretty much every City listed in the clock app but now I'm maxed out at 4, oh well.

Notification Center is functional but the Widgets slide over menu is useful. It looks cleaner than the previous NC prior to Big Sur. It will take some getting used to but my first impression is quite good.

It does appear that on my 4K monitor the system (2018 Mini) is a little more smoother. I do notice that it uses more memory. With just one tab open in Safari, macOS 11 is now using almost 10GB. Good thing I decided to upgrade to 32GB.
 

Mikeeee

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2017
552
534
I like it!

It's definitely different and a nice change of pace but it looks pretty slick. I created a USB installer but for some reason I wasn't able to boot off of it. I booted off the internal SSD and and when I plugged in the USB drive it mounted but it did not show in the "Startup Disk" menu. So I just updated within Catalina. But overall it looks nice. I'm bummed I can now only select 4 cities in my Clock widget. I follow Formula 1 and I had pretty much every City listed in the clock app but now I'm maxed out at 4, oh well.

Notification Center is functional but the Widgets slide over menu is useful. It looks cleaner than the previous NC prior to Big Sur. It will take some getting used to but my first impression is quite good.

It does appear that on my 4K monitor the system (2018 Mini) is a little more smoother. I do notice that it uses more memory. With just one tab open in Safari, macOS 11 is now using almost 10GB. Good thing I decided to upgrade to 32GB.

I agree that it’s using more memory. I’ve been tracking my memory usage For the last month. On a Catalina reboot I’m typically starting with 6-7 GB in use. With Mojave 10 gb and it’s leaking memory much more. I’m currently at 18 gb after only a couple of hours of usage. It would normally take a day for me to get there.
 

Chevysales

macrumors 6502
Sep 30, 2019
352
324
love the change..visually its nicest one to date... seems much snappier (than Catalina) on my 16" loaded MBP... not one issue on download or install. no issue with my 15k music library either and I say that as the Catalina update was only one that screwed up my music library and embedded artwork badly.
 

sebfrey

macrumors member
Jun 14, 2007
40
81
Aptos, CA
Running a 2018 MacBookPro 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 w/16 GB of RAM. It took a number of tries over many hours to finally download it today, but it seems to be running smoother and faster than Catalina. Dare I say, Safari in particular feels snappy. I think it looks fine (I run it in Dark mode), it's not really that much of a change, probably easy for most people to get used to after a while.
 
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