Simply speaking - are you enjoying Big Sur?

[Moonloop]

The best Safari features are speed and built in Translation but now I discover I live in the wrong part of this multilingual planet and therefore am unworthy of Translation! A dead heat in being both ridiculous and pathetic!

M

 

[nathansz]

i don’t love all of t design changes, though i supppse i may get used to them

it definitely feels faster than catalina

 

[BeatCrazy]

I installed it last night, and I like it. I like all the UI changes, although the app icons (their shadowing, really) are rather distracting. But I'm sure I'll adjust.

Feels fast on boot, and no hang ups at all.

 

[JohnnyRockets31]

What's the point of needing to change everything anyway? Why not just make improvements to the interface and OS? Why was it necessary to change the locations of the Icons in System Preferences?

Sure it is nice to have some changes, but this seems like the interface team is missing Jony Ive. My overall impression of the Big Sur OS is that of an kindergarden - elementary school interface. It's lost some of the prior OS' professional appearance.

And, I really do not care for the rounded corners on the windows.

 

[Naalsi]

Installed since first dev beta on a 2018 15" MBP (i9/32/1TB) and has been flawless.

I do enjoy the updated UI, feels like I'm the future.

 

[StrangeNoises]

Is it my imagination or did we have a transparent menubar before, and then it was decided against?

I'm not sure if this is a memory of an earlier version of MacOSX, or it might have been on Linux, in Gnome and/or Unity on Ubuntu, either way a few years ago now. This experiment has been tried before, and whichever platform it was on, they changed their mind and disabled it on the next release. Because it's OK as long as the background is co-operative (as with the default on Big Sur, of course), but with too many other backgrounds it just gets messy and indistinct if what's behind the menubar is too busy.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I havent messed with any of the betas, I'm incredibly careful when upgrading OS for my laptops. I kept my 2016 NTB on Sierra the whole time, and only have Catalina because my 2020 Air shipped with it. Though I was ready for some up to date ness since that one was becoming long in the tooth (though I appreciate 32-bit support still on my other machine, and there are certain things I just dont want to mess with, especially now that I have another machine).

--

anyways, my tendencies aside are you enjoying Big Sur?

I'm ambivalent on the design elements. They're different enough to be different and for difference's sake. But not enough to make me feel like it's a whole new operating system (and for being 11, especially after a game changing 20 years of 10). I know it's important to Apple as it marks the first OS on their own chips, but it doesn't feel worthy of "11" so far.

That said, it really seems about as smooth and stable as Mojave was so far. It's definitely not the mess that Catalina is so far. I think that, as far as Catalina is concerned, it is already a massive improvement.

As for keeping 32-bit support, I highly recommend you at least move to Mojave. Much more stable than Sierra, in my opinion. Plus, you're gonna get security update support for another year.

Is it my imagination or did we have a transparent menubar before, and then it was decided against?

I'm not sure if this is a memory of an earlier version of MacOSX, or it might have been on Linux, in Gnome and/or Unity on Ubuntu, either way a few years ago now. This experiment has been tried before, and whichever platform it was on, they changed their mind and disabled it on the next release. Because it's OK as long as the background is co-operative (as with the default on Big Sur, of course), but with too many other backgrounds it just gets messy and indistinct if what's behind the menubar is too busy.

You're not mis-remembering it, pre-Yosemite (10.10.x) and dating as far back as Leopard (so, 10.5.0 to 10.9.5), the menu bar was SOMEWHAT translucent. Not to this degree, but definitely more than it was pre-Leopard and post-Mavericks.

 

[StrangeNoises]

You're not mis-remembering it, pre-Yosemite (10.10.x) and dating as far back as Leopard (so, 10.5.0 to 10.9.5), the menu bar was SOMEWHAT translucent. Not to this degree, but definitely more than it was pre-Leopard and post-Mavericks.

And it was Ubuntu, and not so long ago as I thought either:

(Oh look at that icon theme too. They changed their mind about that as well 😉 although they kept the grid of nine for the application launcher...)

At least at the time it was a setting; you could change the opacity if you had a background that it really didn't suit. But Gnome devs hate settings, which I always thought would be OK if the defaults were well enough designed and thought through that you didn't feel the need to fiddle... you know, like Apple do.

So this is a bit of a weird look into the past. Weirder too: I'm saying all this and I actually like the Big Sur look; I'm not even complaining.

 

[q64ceo]

I like the direction its going, but I still feel that it needs more polishing. The menubar for example is driving me crazy. I dont want roundrects when I click on File, Edit, View, Window, etc etc. I want the accent color brought back, too; the light gray introduced just recently is difficult to see.

 

[Loismustdie1]

At least in my experience, it was almost laughable that macOS Big Sur would run better on my 16in than Catalina did. Personally, Catalina was a nightmare, right up there with Mac OS X Lion.

I really like the transparency effects and how familiar the interface is. There are some icons that need to be tweaked, and there are the random bugs here or there, but otherwise, it's a smooth ride. I understand at any time things could go south, but I have high hopes that this OS will prove to be much better than Catalina. I feel bad for those whose systems won't support the new macOS.

 

[kb2755]

I loaded the public beta on my 2020 13” MacBook Pro, really enjoying it! New safari and mail designs are great and I’m liking the new control center. Haven’t noticed any issues with stability, just one app not working for me: Google Drive Backup and Sync

 

[KennyJr]

Catalina on my 27" 2017 iMac was glitchy. I was about to re-load it when the Big Sur public beta announcement came. So I loaded Big Sur. It solved my glitch problems, it runs beautifully, and I love seeing that bright and sunny Big Sur when I boot up as opposed to the gloomy views of Catalina. And .. I very much appreciate the fact that 'messages' links cleanly with, and runs like iOS messages. Messages was near worthless 'til now on my iMac. My greatest frustration on loading Big Sur was my inability to find widgets (EVERY demo video was done on some version of MacBook - different procedure). I dug pretty hard before I learned that all I had to do was click on the toolbar 'time'. Good feature. Finally I'm appreciating the look and feel of the new Safari, but it looks like there's more to learn .. We'll see.

Oh .. The downside for Apple .. I was seriously considering trading this Mac in for one for the new iMacs. Not any more. Big Sur brought new life to this old machine.

 

[Sodner]

Loving it! Zero issues so far.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

Performance is pretty bad on my top spec 27” 2017 iMac and there’s a critical bug that keeps freezing my usb mouse, but overall I think that the new look, while imperfect and unpolished in several places, is taking the Mac in a healthy direction. Also, the new Messages app is welcome, even if it still doesn’t support Apple Pay.

 

[jchap]

The best Safari features are speed and built in Translation but now I discover I live in the wrong part of this multilingual planet and therefore am unworthy of Translation!

You mean, they don’t support your language yet, or your region/location does not support the translation feature at all?

If it’s language support, I suppose they eventually will add more languages. They’re just getting started with it.

I haven’t used the latest version of Safari or Big Sur yet, but I’m not sure how it could measure up to the breadth and scope of Google Translate yet, in terms of languages covered and corpus size. Apple may be tying their Siri technology into the Safari translation matrix to help process natural language, so they may eventually have something worthwhile to compete with Google. It may take a good while, though.

 

[upandown]

Big fan of the UI update. It needs polishing but that’s okay. It will take time. I don’t understand how people say it’s buggy or unstable. It’s easily the most stable Mac beta I’ve experienced. That goes for iOS as well.

I do have one question. What’s up with Siri’s voice in macOS? It sounds really dated, not the modern Siri voice.

 

[jchap]

I understand at any time things could go south, but I have high hopes that this OS will prove to be much better than Catalina. I feel bad for those whose systems won't support the new macOS.

I wouldn’t feel sorry. If your system is too old to support Big Sur, it might not run well on that hardware to begin with. It’s a tricky game, designing software that supports old and new hardware. At some point in time, support for older hardware, slower CPUs and GPUs and systems with far less RAM than we use nowadays has to be sacrificed. Of course, there are people who still try...

 

[Smoovejayy]

I just installed on this loaner 16" MacBook Pro and I'm liking it. I notice it is way faster. I don't like some of the UI elements but it doesn't bother me that much. It already feels way better than Catalina. The real test will be how it is on my actual 13" MBP, when it gets shipped back.

 

[panther925]

Apple still does not support DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport, which is a shame. Lots of docks use this now to drive multiple displays. They have the hardware in their latest gear but still do not enable it on the software.

 

[AustinIllini]

I like it overall but the icons are terrible.

 

[Shirasaki]

I installed big Sur on my test SSD. My MacBook Air is a 11.6” one so screen is definitely small. The interface doesn’t inspire me to use more, though a lot of Aero Glass effects do give some premium-ish eye candies when moving certain app windows around.

Since it is a fresh install, the speed is ok. Tested app compatibility and it is not super great, which for me is understandable as lots of my apps are either not upgraded for a long time or discontinued for newer major versions.

Having said that, I am still on high Sierra, which will lose security updates on September. Given that i still have devices that can use iTunes 12.5.6.3, and i still manage apps that way, I am unlikely to go to Big Sur even if my Mac is supported. I guess i might eventually get the latest version of MacOS if i happen to get the chance to get one of those ASi macs.

 

[simonmaclean]

Early impressions are good. It appears fast and stable. Overall I like the new look, although I could live without the rounded corners, as I tend to run most app at full screen size on my MBP 16".

As others have mentioned the gaps between menu bar items is more than I would like, but the new Control Centre icon helps, as I have moved several menu bar items into that.

Have had two issues;

1. Parallels Desktop 15 with Windows 10 does not work. I can launch Parallels using a work around on the Cleverbridge website, but Windows 10 crashes every time. Cleverbridge are aware of this.
2. Movies Explorer Pro runs, but none of the thumbnails show.

Otherwise, everything appears to run fine.

 

[patschwarz]

I can't enjoy it !!!! I have to use InDesign and Illustrator and both don't work on Big Sur - so will have to wait for a fix or wait until the release...

 

[makeintosh]

I had no bugs in Catalina, hard to beat that

Love that! "I had no bugs in Catalina..." therefore none exist. QED.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I'm still running on High Sierra, but I'm wondering if I might skip Mojave and go straight to Big Sur. I have come to terms I will have to part with Adobe CS6.