Simply speaking - are you enjoying Big Sur?

[andyngo]

Just installed the Public Beta yesterday and after 24 hours here are some of my findings:

- new UI refresh is nice, thought I'd have a stronger reaction to the icon changes but it's been quite pleasant
- CPU usage seems to be hovering between 30-50% most of the time, mds_store and kernelmanagerd seem to be the culprit here.
- Karabiner / Karabiner-Elements is completely broken in Big Sur, so if you rely on it a lot I would suggest that you hold off upgrading and wait for Karabiner to be updated
- everyday software seems to work fine. And work-related software for design and dev run fine (Figma, Tower, MacVim, etc)

 

[bugFinder]

UI and icons are simply way too ugly: Everything is pale white and the entire UI is like a whiteout.

Some apps become snappier, but some functions become slower: System preferences in particular feels slower. I saw some people say the start-up is faster, but I feel that it is not true: The process after log-in gets faster, but the process before log-in (start-up sound and the apple icon) takes much longer time. The overall start-up time is similar to Catalina, if not longer.

I do like the added menubar icon for Music and the fact that we can play 4k video on Safari now. The decoder is ridiculously resource-efficient: playing 4k YouTube video on external 4k monitor poses almost no stress on CPU/GPU. Kudos to VTDecoderXPCService. I tried the same YouTube 4k video in Chrome and the performance is not even comparable.

 

[memo90061]

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.

I did this! lol. I didn't want to the other OS because of the new Finder. Big Sur has been pretty good so far.

 

[AAPLGeek]

UI and icons are simply way too ugly: Everything is pale white and the entire UI is like a whiteout.

Some apps become snappier, but some functions become slower: System preferences in particular feels slower. I saw some people say the start-up is faster, but I feel that it is not true: The process after log-in gets faster, but the process before log-in (start-up sound and the apple icon) takes much longer time. The overall start-up time is similar to Catalina, if not longer.

I do like the added menubar icon for Music and the fact that we can play 4k video on Safari now. The decoder is ridiculously resource-efficient: playing 4k YouTube video on external 4k monitor poses almost no stress on CPU/GPU. Kudos to VTDecoderXPCService. I tried the same YouTube 4k video in Chrome and the performance is not even comparable.

+1

The boot up time has progressively gotten slower over the years, especially after the APFS switch.

Laughable that a decade old Mac running Snow Leopard boots and shuts down faster than any modern day Mac with an ultra high speed SSD.

 

[LFC2020]

+1

The boot up time has progressively gotten slower over the years, especially after the APFS switch.

Laughable that a decade old Mac running Snow Leopard boots and shuts down faster than any modern day Mac with an ultra high speed SSD.

Apple silicon macs should fix this problem. 😊

 

[tekboi]

I feel like it's a step backwards in terms of design. Instead of fine-tuning an already existing MacOS design, they opted to go for a more iOS-like design. I am not 100% sure how I feel about this at the moment to be perfectly honest. I Feel like fonts are a tiny bit on the small side. The background image has these weird notches within the waves. I'm not sure if that was a purposeful design choice or just a mistake in design, but it's one of those mildly infuriating things because I can't help but keep looking at it and it doesn't look good.

from a performance perspective, I haven't run across any real issues yet.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

I'm mixed here. I like the ambitious changes in Big Sur, but I do feel the UI is a bit too dumbed down in some areas. It's a bit hard to navigate around because of the lack of contrast in some areas, and System Preferences is a bit confusing to navigate now, although that's probably something I'll get used to.

One thing that really bothers me, though, is the small, iOS-style messages in Finder, asking for confirmation or whatnot. It's too small for a Mac screen, and can be easy to miss. Nothing was really wrong with the "old" dialogs; they felt more properly Mac-like.

Other than that, Big Sur's UI isn't that bad. Running it on a rMBP 13" 2015 with an i7 and 16GB of RAM is pretty good, although widgets are a bit sluggish and jerky, although I'm chalking that up to it being a beta.

 

[jdoyle]

I have a late 2015 iMac 27inch. Catalina ran terribly on it and it really shouldn't. Made me return to Mojave. I have Big Sur Beta on a partition and I dual boot to have a play with it. Beta 4 is already way better than Catalina in terms of performance and zippiness. As for the UI, Its kinda nice to have a refresh but I think it needs some polish. The finder windows are a bit awkwardly laid out along the top. I also don't care for the translucent menu bar either. Looking forward to some tweaks before it is released.

 

[StrangeNoises]

anyone else getting this thing where Safari quits quietly after closing the last window? And then when opening a link to another app it opens again but with a second dock icon (if the first is "kept" in the dock)?

 

[antonypg]

Really impressed with Big Sur so far. Running full time on my MacBook Pro 2016 for a few days, everything works, haven't actually noticed any problems yet.

I do really like the new design, it grows on you quite quickly. The one thing I didn't like too much is the menu bar, I couldn't get used to the transparency. I have created myself a wallpaper with a solid white rectangle at the top which has made the menu bar so much clearer.

 

[itsmeaustend]

Some of those icons... (e.g. Messages...) Just awful... what was Apple thinking?

fix the icons and it’s pretty decent.

 

[SRQrws]

Installed public beta on current model MBA (i5, 8GB) yesterday. Some observations and opinions:
- Install process was painless. Up and running in less than an hour.
- Have used MS Word, Excel, Outlook and Remote Desktop so far with no issues.
- No issues with Firefox, Pixelmator (not Pro, the cheap version) or mSecure so far.
- Had some issues with iCloud. I sync across an iPhone 11Pro, iPad Pro, iMac Pro and the MBA. Notes, Contacts, Photos came up fine. On Calendar I had FOUR of the same iCloud calendars listed in the sidebar. After a while, three of them disappeared. Also could not get iCloud Drive to sync files. I made changes to a file on the iPhone and on the iMac and they did not sync over. Eventually I signed out of iCloud and back in and that got the sync going. IMHO this is an ongoing iCloud issue that has been around for years and not a Big Sur problem. I just wish Apple would get it right....
- No noticeable difference in boot or shutdown times.
- After the install, battery went from 95% to 65% in about an hour, but I attribute this to indexing. I charged up and spent some time on it this morning and battery drain seems normal.
- Do not like the default wallpaper. Reminds me of what my vision is like just before a migraine. Changed to the Big Sur wallpaper.
- Control center is nice to have, but not really needed.
- New icons are okay. Kinda like emojis.....I don't get real excited about them. More interested in usability.
- Safari seems fast and the privacy report is interesting.

That's about it after one day. Overall pretty pleased.

 

[Cyprusian]

.......I like the new APFS-based time machine especially; that's going to speed up the performance of TM backups big time.

I'm really intrigued by the mention of a new version of Time Machine, which I've seen no other mention of in this thread to date.

As one who has experienced many issues with using Time Machine to backup to a NAS, I would be very interested if anyone else has comments on this functionality in Big Sur.

 

[ksgant]

I like it. I like the design changes. The only thing so far that has hit me hard, but it's my fault, is that Little Snitch currently doesn't work with it...but I forgot that they already said it wouldn't, and that Little Snitch 5 will work with Big Sur.

Also, I'm finding that tabs in Firefox are crashing for no apparent reason. I like the new Safari though. I like the look and feel of it too. But then again, I've liked most of the UI changes over the years all the way back from System 6 to System 7 etc.

 

[andyngo]

anyone else getting this thing where Safari quits quietly after closing the last window? And then when opening a link to another app it opens again but with a second dock icon (if the first is "kept" in the dock)?

Can confirm that this is happening to me as well with Safari Technology Preview (instead of the regular Safari). Can't seem to replicate this consistently though.

 

[CLS7]

Some of those icons... (e.g. Messages...) Just awful... what was Apple thinking?

fix the icons and it’s pretty decent.

The system folder is awful, why those "3D" design? it's only looking awful!

 

[CLS7]

I returned back to Mojave yesterday night. This was my bad experience:

Too much spacing between menu icons and hardly to read.

The system icons looks so awful, I hate it!

The two biggest reason that I went back to Mojave was the Spotlight it didn't work for me, and the second reason was when I tried to start my iMac in safe mode the hole screen was yellow colored and I could not see the login screen at all.

Maybe I will give Big Sur a new try when it has been released in final version. Until then I will run Mojave.

 

[fisherking]

I returned back to Mojave yesterday night. This was my bad experience:

Too much spacing between menu icons and hardly to read.

The system icons looks so awful, I hate it!

The two biggest reason that I went back to Mojave was the Spotlight it didn't work for me, and the second reason was when I tried to start my iMac in safe mode the hole screen was yellow colored and I could not see the login screen at all.

Maybe I will give Big Sur a new try when it has been released in final version. Until then I will run Mojave.

zzzz. it's a beta, what were you expecting? and instead of looking for fixes, or waiting for the next release, you've gone back to mojave?

stressing over icon spacing or icon graphics seems so... small. how often do you spend looking at system icons?

anyway, i don't get what people expect from a beta, and how fast they'll revert to a comfort zone... instead of facing the moment. but we do what we choose to do.

 

[Hunter5117]

After the install, battery went from 95% to 65% in about an hour, but I attribute this to indexing. I charged up and spent some time on it this morning and battery drain seems normal.

Anyone else noticing excess battery drain issues. My late 2013 15" MBP has sucked down a fairly new battery 2x now since I upgraded. I just noticed this comment about indexing and I will check that but just wondering?

 

[redgreenski]

I have a late 2015 iMac 27inch. Catalina ran terribly on it and it really shouldn't. Made me return to Mojave. I have Big Sur Beta on a partition and I dual boot to have a play with it. Beta 4 is already way better than Catalina in terms of performance and zippiness. As for the UI, Its kinda nice to have a refresh but I think it needs some polish. The finder windows are a bit awkwardly laid out along the top. I also don't care for the translucent menu bar either. Looking forward to some tweaks before it is released.

You pretty much summed up my impressions. UI will need few versions to get polished out.

 

[StrangeNoises]

Can confirm that this is happening to me as well with Safari Technology Preview (instead of the regular Safari). Can't seem to replicate this consistently though.

that's right, it's inconsistent, but frequent enough that you just need to be paying attention and you'll see it. If you keep the Dock hidden all the time tbh it would be easy to miss what's going on in there, because apart from that it all appears to work, but something's clearly wrong.

 

[Yendog]

well good to see this news... I've had every OS since 2001 and Catalina is far and away the worst one I've used... from the beginning till now actually.

 

[fisherking]

well good to see this news... I've had every OS since 2001 and Catalina is far and away the worst one I've used... from the beginning till now actually.

nteresting how different we all our, and how different our experiences are. i had no issues in catalina, found it excellent.

big sur is in early beta, and feels like it. so am looking forward to the OS moving forward...

 

[Bluepig45]

This caught my eye when skimming, but I just wanted to say that I can with damn near absolute certainty say that they would absolutely never want to "win over Microsoft converts" by mirroring windows functionality. I really could never see apple caring about that at all. There's been a few times in interviews where they've clarified they don't care about market share but making the best product.. and I remember Steve jobs said something about PC's or windows I think, but he in that realm of comparison, said he'd rather sell dog ****. So I think it would be a huge stretch for them to want to mirror windows functionality to win over market share. But I guess I'm sure someone on this forum could bring up an example and say they did.

Sorry to hear your frustration with Apple moving on from ARM (although as you should probably already know, Intel isn't going anywhere for at least 5 years or so id imagine, the transition itself still taking 2 years, and support's still coming for years after that) and the hot expensive oldish style intel laptops.

Ironic that you speak as a rep for what Apple does and does not want. I was at IDC in 2002 "if memory serves" in Vegas when both Steve's were discussing market share specifically to Marketing and Business Development professionals. Both said that 4.5% is not a great place to be, and "our growth has to come from converts." Of course at this time, or 17 years removed from when Woz left Apple, he and Job's were playing nice as part of a professional round table. While both men had substantially different focuses, when Woz was asked about the future of Apple, he said "Growth through adoption and advancements." Job's, when asked about the ten year forecast said he'd like to see a 10% Apple market share, and it would have to come from new markets and as Steve (Woz) said, adoption.

I remember the statement (dog ****) from Job's about Microsoft, but it was funny to have them both (Gates/Jobs) in the same room singing each others praises not too long before Steve died in a sit down interview. I also remember that statement got him in a good bit of trouble with share holders.

Frustration is probably a good term to define my situation, but I've been doing this since 88 and I know all too well the next shiny thing is just around the corner. The problem with this conversion back to an ARM architecture is one of trust. I don't trust Apple, no more than I trust Microsoft, but had I kept the new Macbook Pro 2020, I would have had to trust they would maintain both platforms for a reasonable lifecycle on the laptop (3-5 years).

The problem is solved, I returned the Macbook to Bestbuy, and it's return was expedited by the fact I got 5 hours on the first use, and 4.5 on the second. I was running Xcode, and browser, and Youtube videos that called out coding suggestions. Plus my lap was on fire, so I'm now looking forward, with no risk, to the new ARM architecture, hoping it hits the Macbook first.

 

[Bluepig45]

Relax..take a deep breath and read this:

I have the exact same laptop as you except it has 1Tb of SSD drive. My previous(and still in use Lenovo Yoga3) only has a 128Gb SSD hard drive so i went hog wild the other way. So, are you worried about the fact that your new laptop will be obsolete this year? Seriously? Apple just released the new intel based iMac 27". Your laptop will be supported for years to come(IMHO 5-7 years if not more) .

Form Factor: yep it's dated(Yoga3 has a touch screen as well as being convertible to a Windows "pad"-used it a few times that way, always went back to my iPad-). I don't mind the dated look, it's the internals that count. Volkswagen built the "beetle" from the 1940's thru the late 1980's. And they always sold well..

As far as MacOS vs Windows, it is what it is. Personally I've used Windows since the 3.1 days. And prior to purchasing my current laptop, MacOS 9.0 was the last MacOS that I've used. I don't know if you've ever used MacOS before but I'm guessing you haven't so you'll have to adjust to the current OS. It's not that hard just a different way to get to what you want. Don't forget you can load Win10 using parallels desktop to run AT THE SAME TIME as MacOS. At this moment the new ARM processors can't do that. Or you can partition the drive using Boot Camp. Can't do that on the new ARM processors.

Final Take: You have a great laptop. Enjoy it! Get used to MacOS, it's not that hard to adjust. And..you can always run Win10. For years down the road.....

P.S. I totally dig that my laptop chats with my iPhone and iPad. Blows Windows totally out of the water-even with their Android piggy back system. I know, could never get my Yoga3 to integrate with my Galaxy S9 for squat-sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't.

P.P.S. Dell XPS 15" looks pretty nice too.....

Thanks. I returned the Macbook Pro today, and will ride out the storm with my old Macbook, that is until the new architecture comes out. The more intense functions I'll perform on my Mac Mini. If ARM comes to the Mac Mini, I'll be on that like paint too. As far as being or getting used to the OS/X environment, I'm OK but would like to understand it better. I do most of the stuff I do for OS/X behind the scenes as a developer to specific applications. So aside from clicking a few icons to launch programs, I do mail, messages, Office Suite, calendar, and contacts (primarily). By the way, I got 5 hours on my first charge, and 4.5 on my second. I was running Xcode, Safari, and Youtube for code suggestions. I could have cooked an egg on it.