Still On The Fence With Which OS

[jparker402]

Have an early 2015 MacBook Air with about 195 mb free out of 250ish. Running Catalina. Still on the fence about switching to Big Sur and now see a Monterrey OS is coming out!! I really don't do anything fancy. Do have an iPhone 8 and not impressed with widgets. Questions at moment are (1) if I don't upgrade to Big Sur can I later go directly from Catalina to Monterrey? And if I buy a new MacBook Air in a year or two, should my files transfer seamlessly from Catalina to Monterrey? Thanks!

 

[casperes1996]

Pretty much yes on both fronts. However, I will say this; I would upgrade the OS if I were you. Big Sur, in my opinion, has been a much, much, much nicer experience than Catalina, and for beta 1, Monterey is looking to wind up a very good release as a well. Not excitingly feature-packed or anything. Just solid with under-the-hood improvements to things like the Swift runtime

 

[deef]

I agree with the last post. Big Sur has been an improvement in many ways for my MBP 2016.

 

[fisherking]

here's what happens...

person A updates to big sur; all their apps work (perhaps some need to be updated); the experience is a good one. so they post here "apple got this right, the move to big sur was painless. am glad i updated"

person B updates to big sur; 2 important apps, even updated, don't seem to work. the update was long, messy. they post: "apple really dropped the ball on this; the move to big sur was a nightmare. am sorry i updated".

and so on. there's just no one answer for everyone. the trick (i think) is to research your needed apps (check with developers, or ask other users on this forum), and to look into people on your exact mac who've updated.

then, you clone your current setup (ie with carbon copy cloner), and... go for it, preferably when you have a day or two to sort things out if need be.

but for most people, it's person A or B; diving in, and then, if there are problems, complaining endlessly on forums like this one. most people don't want to own their behaviors, they want the universe to 'magically' fix everything (& here, the universe could mean God, the gods, saint lovelace, or... apple.)

end rant 🤷‍♂️

 

[pshufd]

I find Monterey good for my production stuff. It has a lot of niceties and doesn't have the GUI performance issues of Big Sur. My ranked list from best to worst:

1. Monterey
2. Mojave
3. Catalina
4. Big Sur

I'm running on a Catalina Docker VM right now and am trying to figure out how to run Monterey in a VM on my Windows desktop until I can get an M1 or M1X system. I'm running Monterey on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 on external drive and it's seriously great. I plan to move it onto the internal drive soon. I plan to put it on my 2014 MacBook Pro 15 in a week or so.

 

[tornado99]

Catalina for me. I can't stand the harsh white GUI of more recent versions. I'd have to keep it in dark mode the whole day

 

[fisherking]

Catalina for me. I can't stand the harsh white GUI of more recent versions. I'd have to keep it in dark mode the whole day

amazing that some people rate operating systems based, not on the performance, but on the GUI (also, dark mode all day? i've been on dark mode since it was first introduced... all day).

my new car runs so well, but i'm going to keep driving my old car, which doesn't run as well, because the dashboard looks better on the older car... 🤔

 

[tornado99]

Define what you mean by performance? I'm fairly sure that calculating 1 million digits of Pi won't be any faster on Big Sur.

 

[fisherking]

OS development is about a lot of different things, many of which take place 'under the hood'; new features, and the GUI, are simply the most visible aspects of a new OS.

i care a great deal about aesthetics, but generally like the new look of each new mac OS; for me, apple seems to be on the 'cutting edge' of graphics (not always, lol). but i adapt to each new system, and focus on my real work (the apps i depend on, email, the web, the interaction with the OS).

we can do what we want, think what we want; i get that. but i personally prefer how my OS works to how icons, or the menubar, for example, look.

 

[jparker402]

The deed is done! Just finished loading Big Sur. So far I know that my keyboard has slowed, had notification that Flash Player is not compatible, and the screen picture is different. Other than that, haven't run into anything mind boggling. Guess I am now ready for Monterey when it comes along.

 

[casperes1996]

Flash Player has long been a security risk now and has been officially deprecated for a while by Adobe, it’s creators, and has been entirely removed from any kind of support, security or otherwise, in 2020. Using it with any OS is not advisable.

 

[jparker402]

Flash Player has long been a security risk now and has been officially deprecated for a while by Adobe, it’s creators, and has been entirely removed from any kind of support, security or otherwise, in 2020. Using it with any OS is not advisable.

Thanks! Was concerned that maybe some old home movies would not play, but they work just fine without it. (Although I don't know what program is playing them.)

 

[fisherking]

Thanks! Was concerned that maybe some old home movies would not play, but they work just fine without it. (Although I don't know what program is playing them.)

home movies on a webpage? or files you have on your mac? in which case... when one is open, the app (ie 'quicktime') will show next to the apple in the menubar...

 

[jparker402]

home movies on a webpage? or files you have on your mac? in which case... when one is open, the app (ie 'quicktime') will show next to the apple in the menubar...

8mm home movies I had digitized (by someone) and downloaded into Photos. Believe I used VLC to do the downloading.

 

[fisherking]

8mm home movies I had digitized (by someone) and downloaded into Photos. Believe I used VLC to do the downloading.

then they're playing in quicktime. flash, and safari, has nothing to do with it... so you're good.

EDIT: my dad had an 8mm camera (no sound). he has endless footage of his grandmother mouthing 'i don't know what to say' or 'i don't know what to do'. brilliant! 🤣

 

[Heat_Fan89]

here's what happens...

person A updates to big sur; all their apps work (perhaps some need to be updated); the experience is a good one. so they post here "apple got this right, the move to big sur was painless. am glad i updated"

person B updates to big sur; 2 important apps, even updated, don't seem to work. the update was long, messy. they post: "apple really dropped the ball on this; the move to big sur was a nightmare. am sorry i updated".

and so on. there's just no one answer for everyone. the trick (i think) is to research your needed apps (check with developers, or ask other users on this forum), and to look into people on your exact mac who've updated.

then, you clone your current setup (ie with carbon copy cloner), and... go for it, preferably when you have a day or two to sort things out if need be.

but for most people, it's person A or B; diving in, and then, if there are problems, complaining endlessly on forums like this one. most people don't want to own their behaviors, they want the universe to 'magically' fix everything (& here, the universe could mean God, the gods, saint lovelace, or... apple.)

end rant 🤷‍♂️

Maybe someone will start a thread on why MacOS Monterrey is still ugly and why the icons still don't look right.

 

[fisherking]

Maybe someone will start a thread on why MacOS Monterrey is still ugly and why the icons still don't look right.

not 'maybe'..... 🤣

 

[tornado99]

Are we just supposed to accept that each new iteration of OS X must be better than the previous? Personally, I think a few interesting new features appear with each release, but the GUI peaked with High Sierra, and they perfected dark mode with Catalina.

Another thing, in recent releases they started stripping out sub-pixel text anti-aliasing. So if you're running OS X on an external non Retina monitor, your text quality has gotten worse, not better.

I would say actually Mojave was the best release: stable, can run 32-bit apps, dark mode, subpixel antialiasing. Can't think of a single feature that I desparately need from more recent versions.

 

[fisherking]

Are we just supposed to accept that each new iteration of OS X must be better than the previous? Personally, I think a few interesting new features appear with each release, but the GUI peaked with High Sierra, and they perfected dark mode with Catalina.

Another thing, in recent releases they started stripping out sub-pixel text anti-aliasing. So if you're running OS X on an external non Retina monitor, your text quality has gotten worse, not better.

I would say actually Mojave was the best release: stable, can run 32-bit apps, dark mode, subpixel antialiasing. Can't think of a single feature that I desparately need from more recent versions.

discussion is a great thing, and opinions are always valid... as opinions. whining is tiresome (but hey! that's just my opinion).

if you're happy on mojave, am happy for you. 👍

 

[tornado99]

I'm also happy for people to make the case for Big Sur etc. But if your argument is just that "Apple always makes good decisions" or "newer is better" or "it has 20 new features" that's somewhat weak.

Describe a task you literally couldn't do before, or is a lot easier to accomplish now, and I would be interested.

 

[fisherking]

I'm also happy for people to make the case for Big Sur etc. But if your argument is just that "Apple always makes good decisions" or "newer is better" or "it has 20 new features" that's somewhat weak.

Describe a task you literally couldn't do before, or is a lot easier to accomplish now, and I would be interested.

not sure who you're addressing? i personally have never claiimed that 'Apple always makes good decisions' etc. so, someone else needs to chime in (if they want).

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Another thing, in recent releases they started stripping out sub-pixel text anti-aliasing. So if you're running OS X on an external non Retina monitor, your text quality has gotten worse, not better.

I would say actually Mojave was the best release: stable, can run 32-bit apps, dark mode, subpixel antialiasing. Can't think of a single feature that I desparately need from more recent versions.

I have a 4k monitor and an Alienware 1080p gaming monitor and macOS looks good both in FHD as well as 4K. The difference is the higher pixel count. But I really have no complaints running macOS in 1080p. It looks really good and no adjustments are needed.

 

[mikecwest]

here's what happens...

person A updates to big sur; all their apps work (perhaps some need to be updated); the experience is a good one. so they post here "apple got this right, the move to big sur was painless. am glad i updated"

person B updates to big sur; 2 important apps, even updated, don't seem to work. the update was long, messy. they post: "apple really dropped the ball on this; the move to big sur was a nightmare. am sorry i updated".

and so on. there's just no one answer for everyone. the trick (i think) is to research your needed apps (check with developers, or ask other users on this forum), and to look into people on your exact mac who've updated.

then, you clone your current setup (ie with carbon copy cloner), and... go for it, preferably when you have a day or two to sort things out if need be.

but for most people, it's person A or B; diving in, and then, if there are problems, complaining endlessly on forums like this one. most people don't want to own their behaviors, they want the universe to 'magically' fix everything (& here, the universe could mean God, the gods, saint lovelace, or... apple.)

end rant 🤷‍♂️

An important step before updating is to check if your must have apps are working correctly. For me, that is Parallels with USB support (several times USB support was broken on DP1 releases) and Dropbox.

that’s what this forum is for. People like you are always helpful in that regard.