Simply speaking - are you enjoying Big Sur?

[AppliedMicro]

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Increased toolbar and row height (sidebars) are a step backwards, leaving less space for content.
As is decreased contrast and lost colour for toolbar icons.
And increased windows corner radii were uncalled for as well.

I was concerned about the increased transparency which I don't care for at all and disliked in previous versions of Mac OS. Installing the beta today, I made sure to choose "decrease transparency" as the only customisation during the install process. Happy to report that looks good enough for me.

All in all, I'll get used to it.

Can't wait to run iPad / iOS apps on the Mac (though I'm sure some developers won't offer them for "segmentation" purposes).

 

[ramallite]

I like it but I appear to have a couple of bugs that are not mentioned in the release notes right off the bat (2018 15" MacBook Pro), and since I haven't seen them anywhere else, seems specific to my Mac.

First, I got a notification on initial startup that Apple Pay is disabled because 'somebody else added a card'. My 2 credit cards are still in Wallet but each with the message "Card is unavailable to use with Apple Pay - Apple Pay has been disabled because the security settings of this Mac have been modified" even though the recovery disk and the Secure Boot is still on the "Highest" setting. There is also some cryptic message that "Apple Pay is already configured on this Mac for another disk. Only one disk can be used with Apple Pay." ?!?

Second, screensavers do not work; it gives me a "no photos" message even though the folders still exist.

Otherwise, it's quite zippy. The translucency reminds me a bit of the first MacOS X versions (Cheetah–Panther).

 

[sevoneone]

I’m liking everything except the menus/menu bar. Something there is off and I can’t really identify any specific things, they just are not as pleasant to use as the old menus...

I’m really coming around to everything else though.

 

[Joemikeb]

Big Sur is on my production 2018 Mac mini. I have encountered a few issues with Safari, but I had already seen some of those in Safari Technology Preview running on Catalina. While I have encountered a few isolated issues in apps, the only outright failures so far have been the inability to create a bootable clone (I have tried CCC, TinkerTool System, and TechTool Pro) and although my SoftRAID array is still working the SoftRAID app reports an internal error on launch and will not run.

It took me a few hours to accustom myself to the UI changes, but the more I use it the better I like it. The menu bar, the toolbar in Apple apps, and the new icons are cleaner and easier to pick up and the entire look seems more open and crisp. This has been an almost flawless Public Beta 1, much better than Catalina.

 

[Bluepig45]

I've decided I don't care for the iOS-like design. I think Apple should have released a less buggy version of Catalina.

I think Apple is working real hard at making everything look the same across all platforms. When they drop the new Silicone into systems outside of the iPhone and iPads, things are going to get interesting. Personally I prefer the desktop (IOS) experience, and am not a big fan of the phone, and sold my 2020 iPad Pro 12.9 because it was not and won't be a desktop/laptop experience for some time if ever. It is starting to seem like Apple is lowering the bar to squeeze everything into the same box.

 

[fisherking]

I think Apple is working real hard at making everything look the same across all platforms. When they drop the new Silicone into systems outside of the iPhone and iPads, things are going to get interesting. Personally I prefer the desktop (IOS) experience, and am not a big fan of the phone, and sold my 2020 iPad Pro 12.9 because it was not and won't be a desktop/laptop experience for some time if ever. It is starting to seem like Apple is lowering the bar to squeeze everything into the same box.

let's stick to silicon in future macs, and silicone in breast enhancements (or vice versa).

 

[Bluepig45]

Well I took the leap to Big Sir public beta 4. Aside from the initial error telling me I did not have enough disk space, the install took a while and is complete. The look and feel is iPhone 11 to me, and that's not a good thing, but I understand why. With Apple pushing for true OS unification, things are going to have to be standardized a lot more. Plus unification will help Apple reduce development costs, and they will push that savings down to us users in the form of ....? I have quite a few friends up in the Park City/Deer Valley area who are heavy duty Apple developers, and one or two at Adobe who are working on TS Apple projects, I wonder how they are going to feel about having their $26,000 to $51,000 dual Vega Mac Pro's turned into iPads?

I've been a huge fan of platform standardization for years. If it's my jump rig I want as much as I can get from PD, if I'm shooting 9mm I want carbines and pistols, if I'm going to run Windows or Mac I want everything I touch to run that OS (sorry, no more Window phones).

In the end I'm sure Apple will make sure everyone understands their vision, and by God you will like it whatever the cost.

 

[andyngo]

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.

Fair point, I just wish it was more reproducible so that I can at least make a screen recording to be submitted to Apple.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Two things I'm loving so far:

1. Skeuomorphism is returning!!! (finally! after almost 8 years!)

2. Dark mode finally works automatically (was broken/inconsistent since Catalina)

Only issues so far:

1. TG Pro doesn't work (not showing in menu, not showing as an app any longer)

2. Battery Medic also broken (not an app in the launchpad, no longer a widget available)

3. Mcafee Antivirus is broken somewhat (it goes from 'secure' to 'at risk' every 5 seconds. Loading Total Protection Console shows firewall disabled, enabled, disabled over and over again)

Other than that it's a nice departure from Jonathan Ivy Syndrome that's been present since Yosemite.

 

[Bandaman]

3. Mcafee Antivirus is broken somewhat (it goes from 'secure' to 'at risk' every 5 seconds. Loading Total Protection Console shows firewall disabled, enabled, disabled over and over again)

This is perfect because McAfee is hot garbage and shouldn't be on your computer anyway.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Works ok for me. You're entitled to your opinion. I've had more serious issues with Norton 360 taking over systems entirely and being un-uninstallable. McAfee has never caused me any headaches.

 

[Bandaman]

Works ok for me. You're entitled to your opinion. I've had more serious issues with Norton 360 taking over systems entirely and being un-uninstallable. McAfee has never caused me any headaches.

Norton is also hot garbage.

 

[fisherking]

Two things I'm loving so far:

1. Skeuomorphism is returning!!! (finally! after almost 8 years!)

2. Dark mode finally works automatically (was broken/inconsistent since Catalina)

Only issues so far:

1. TG Pro doesn't work (not showing in menu, not showing as an app any longer)

2. Battery Medic also broken (not an app in the launchpad, no longer a widget available)

3. Mcafee Antivirus is broken somewhat (it goes from 'secure' to 'at risk' every 5 seconds. Loading Total Protection Console shows firewall disabled, enabled, disabled over and over again)

Other than that it's a nice departure from Jonathan Ivy Syndrome that's been present since Yosemite.

wait, where are you seeing skeumorphism? it's not here on my install of big sur. & dark mode was awesome on catalina; it's just darker now, more consistent.

also, yes, get rid of mcafee, it's bad news....

 

[||\||]

What is idling RAM usage like on a clean install?

 

[Mr. Dee]

From the sound of things, it looks like Big Sur is the new Mac OS 10.0, probably best to wait until things smooth out with 11.3 or 11.4, lol. Who knows, after 11.0, Apple might issue an interim 11.1 update that fixes a lot of the early adopter issues.

 

[throAU]

Don't have it yet but I'm keen.

I haven't installed a developer beta because that would mean upgrading the phone and iPad as well (for all of the integration to work as intended), and there's always application breakage across at least one of the platforms.

I've done the developer beta thing many times before, I'm happy to wait until the applications catch up I really don't want Waze to break on the iPhone for example as I use that heavily for CarPlay (I can't live without speed camera / police / debris warnings )

 

[duanepatrick]

Not sure. I haven't updated mine. Too scared to upgrade. I keep thinking if a bug will appear out of nowhere (since it is still beta).

 

[Jeeg]

I've been using Big Sur public beta on my 16" Macbook, it's been really stable for me. I haven't noticed much difference between Big Sur and Catalina except for the visual changes.

 

[MacSafe]

how is the performance? for old Mac

 

[andyngo]

how is the performance? for old Mac

How old are we looking at here? I'm running the 4th Public Beta on my mid-2014 MacBook Pro 13" with 16gb of RAM and haven't noticed any slowdowns compared to Catalina. Battery life is quite severely impacted, though.

 

[LFC2020]

Battery life is quite severely impacted, though.

Noticed that also on my late 2016 13” MacBook Pro, hopefully it’s just a bug that will get ironed out soon.

 

[andyngo]

Noticed that also on my late 2016 13” MacBook Pro, hopefully it’s just a bug that will get ironed out soon.

I really hope so. At this rate my MBP is gonna stay tethered to the power outlet 24/7.

 

[StrangeNoises]

Fair point, I just wish it was more reproducible so that I can at least make a screen recording to be submitted to Apple.

I did submit to apple with a screen *shot* and a fuller description. The screenshot showed two safari icons in the dock, the one in the "keep in dock" section on the left not running, a fresh one on the right that was running. That alone is clearly wrong, given there are not two copies of Safari on the system, not that I can see anyway, nor that show up in the default browser menu.

Of course as usual with these things as far as I know the report just dropped into a black hole...

 

[LFC2020]

I did submit to apple with a screen *shot* and a fuller description. The screenshot showed two safari icons in the dock, the one in the "keep in dock" section on the left not running, a fresh one on the right that was running. That alone is clearly wrong, given there are not two copies of Safari on the system, not that I can see anyway, nor that show up in the default browser menu.

Of course as usual with these things as far as I know the report just dropped into a black hole...

same thing happened to me once, removed the one on the far right haven't seen it since.

 

[jsamuelson]

Really like it. It's faster and smoother than Catalina on my MacBook. Zero issues so far apart from a heart-stopper when I clicked on Documents to see it empty (it unchecked syncing in iCloud settings and created a "local" Documents folder for some reason, iCloud Documents was still there and full of all my files).