When do you think Mac OS Big Sur will be released?

[Yebubbleman]

I know that Big Sur does have a bit more under the hood that needs testing. It's Early October and we're on Beta 9. Catalina had at least a Beta 10 (and honestly should've had a Beta 20 with how buggy it STILL is in 10.15.7). There's a lot more for Apple to test (and I'm not even talking about any of the elements of the Apple Silicon native version of Big Sur) still. So, given this, when do you think Big Sur's release date will be and when do you think we'll know about it? I'm sincerely hoping that Apple doesn't pull the shenanigans it did with Developers by only giving them a single day with the GM release of both Big Sur and the Xcode release supporting it. That was seriously not cool of them. But, even with a 10-16 day window, the release has to be soon approaching.

It should also be noted that since Apple Silicon Macs won't be shipping with Catalina (as there won't be a public-facing version of Catalina or earlier native to Apple Silicon), and since it will be highly unlikely that an Apple Silicon Mac running the Apple Silicon version of Big Sur will be publicly available before the Intel version of Big Sur is officially released, we will likely not see Apple Silicon Macs announced prior to the announcement of the official launch of the Intel version of Big Sur.

Predictions? Thoughts? Let's hear 'em!

 

[ghboard2010]

October, November, December? The initial release date is not all that important to me, as I won't touch any part of it at least 'til its fourth iteration { the .3 }. Even then should I decide to indulge it will be with no small degree of trepidation.

 

[Yebubbleman]

October, November, December? The initial release date is not all that important to me, as I won't touch any part of it at least 'til its fourth iteration { the .3 }. Even then should I decide to indulge it will be with no small degree of trepidation.

I think that this time around, it's important from the standpoint of Apple Silicon Mac availability. Otherwise, I'm finding the current Big Sur Public Beta to be more stable than the current macOS Catalina release (though, I recognize that the bar is set VERY low there).

 

[MCKLMT]

I vote for next week even if I am surprise to not see a new beta this week.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

You probably (also) meant Catalina. Like the 10.15.4 update and so....

Anyone waiting for 10.15.7.1? Didn't Apple do that in the days before OSx? Have updates of updates of updates that pushed into four decimal places. I seem to remember that. *shrug* It could be worse...

 

[Monotremata]

Anyone waiting for 10.15.7.1? Didn't Apple do that in the days before OSx?

No.

 

[TheGeneralist]

Anyone waiting for 10.15.7.1? Didn't Apple do that in the days before OSx? Have updates of updates of updates that pushed into four decimal places. I seem to remember that. *shrug* It could be worse...

Yes, they do just that - although their numbering system is in my opinion less transparent than "10.15.7.1" would be, as they just call the sub-updates "supplemental updates" (which one you have can then only be derived from the build number). For example 10.15.6 had two sub-versions of it, others have even more.
And: yes, of course I am waiting for an update to 10.15.7, as it is not running stable at all - at least the problem with the accountsd-process blocking the whole system and the frequent Safari crashes should be patched within days.
The other numerous bugs still persistent in 10.15.7 should of course also be patched, but I guess they will just not do that, but leave Catalina in its current doubtful state. If we're lucky, maybe some fixes come with Bug Sur...ahem, I mean Big Sur of course

 

[honestone33]

No.

Neither am I. OS 10.15.7 seems fine to me. Not having any issues at all.

 

[TheGeneralist]

Neither am I. OS 10.15.7 seems fine to me. Not having any issues at all.

Looks like you most likely have a pretty exotic use case / configuration. Adding the number of daily problems occuring on my rig to the experiences many other people are still having with Catalina makes it appear very unlikely that it is even possible to use this OS without having any issues at all...

 

[honestone33]

Looks like you most likely have a pretty exotic use case / configuration. Adding the number of daily problems occuring on my rig to the experiences many other people are still having with Catalina makes it appear very unlikely that it is even possible to use this OS without having any issues at all...

Not really. The software I use, all third party, does not "stress out" either of my Macs much, but I suspect my cleaning/maintenance/backup tasks/efforts help a lot. Most folks do not put in the time and/or effort to do some (maybe all?) of those tasks.

As I have said many times previously, taking care of a Mac is just like taking care of an automobile. There are some simple things one can do for an automobile, and the same is true for Macs.

 

[TheGeneralist]

...cleaning/maintenance/backup tasks/efforts help a lot...

Well, this is clearly contradictory to what I originally bought the Mac for - main reason for me was to have a stable system without the need of a high invest of my personal time into solving frequently occurring problems (...like Windows) or configuration and troubleshooting (...like Linux).
Curious anyway, as measures I underwent with Catalina like a clean install on a completely re-partitioned Macintosh HD did not help at all - which actions were helpful on your system?

 

[honestone33]

Well, this is clearly contradictory to what I originally bought the Mac for - main reason for me was to have a stable system without the need of a high invest of my personal time into solving frequently occurring problems (...like Windows) or configuration and troubleshooting (...like Linux).
Curious anyway, as measures I underwent with Catalina like a clean install on a completely re-partitioned Macintosh HD did not help at all - which actions were helpful on your system?

Would/do you do the same for an automobile? If you do, you are asking for trouble. Mac are no different. In actuality, such cleanup/maintenance efforts are needed for many everyday life "things": cleaning one's place (I refuse to live in a pig pen!), cleaning and maintaining items like vacuum cleaners, etc.

As for what I do specifically with my Macs, here is a list:

1. On a daily basis, and at numerous times during the day, I permanently remove deleted EMails. I use Thunderbird as my EMail software, and it is easy to do that. Definitely saves space.

2. I make a concerted effort to keep up to date with all the software I use. Whenever I download and install a newer version of a program I use, I "store" it in another location on my SSD, and immediately get rid of the prior stored version. Some programs I keep 2 versions, so when I get a new one, I subsequently remove not the prior version, but the one before that.

3. Every Saturday I run Onyx and Tech Tool Pro for more cleaning and maintenance efforts. Also, Tech Tool Pro can do repairs, but I rarely need them. After that, I run SuperDuper! and make 2 backups/clones to 2 separate external SSDs. While that is going on, I am cleaning our townhome, ie, multi-tasking, and thus not wasting any time. (I actually will begin that soon).

4. Whenever I want to remove an application, I first use the excellent freeware program AppDelete, which gets rid of most files/folders, etc. associated with an app (along, of course, with the app itself). I then run another excellent freeware program EasyFind, and put the app name (or most of it) in the Search bar. That process finds more files I can get rid of.

Besides mitigating almost all software issues, my efforts also lead to my internal SSDs having a lot of free space, which of course is a proven benefit.

To sum up, all of this is second nature to me, does not take that much time and effort, and definitely goes a long, long way to keeping my Macs "lean, mean, and clean".

 

[TheGeneralist]

Thank you for sharing! 👍
Indeed these items seem to make sense and don't look like they have to be very time-consuming.

• Concerning your number 1, I currently use Spark as an alternative Mail client, as Apple Mail has severe problems with the iCloud IMAP Servers on my system. Don't know if emptying the trash on a regular basis improves much, but it sounds like a good idea.
• About 2 I recommend using homebrew, makes it easy to keep your non-App-Store-Tools up to date
• My strategy about 3 is to use 2 alternating, physical separate Time Machine backup media. This has its weaknesses, as Time Machine frequently deals with bugs and problems, but at least it offers a high compatibility to macOS, which is not always true for 3rd party backup tools.
  Will have a look into the tools you recommended! Currently I'm not using any cleanup tools regularly...
• For 4 I use AppCleaner, would assume it works similar to AppDelete

[Edit]: well, it seems that Onyx was able to resolve the synchronisation issue between Apple Mail and iCloud mentioned above by deleting the Mail Index and re-building it - at least for now.
I had this problem for several months now, Apple Support was not able to resolve it although they gave me a lot of advice, including a complete clean reinstall of Catalina.

So your advice was definitely helpful to me, thanks a lot! 💪

 

[ghostface147]

October 23rd. GM on Tuesday.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Looks like you most likely have a pretty exotic use case / configuration. Adding the number of daily problems occuring on my rig to the experiences many other people are still having with Catalina makes it appear very unlikely that it is even possible to use this OS without having any issues at all...

Oh, I remember having an error at the university I worked at. If I did A, and B, and then C, the system (IIcx) would crash. If I did A, then C, and then B, no crash. I could do A, W, X, Y, and Z, and then B and C, and get a crash.

The campus rep thought I was insane. I could reproduce the crash, at will, but the campus rep said 'no one runs that software, and I'm not reporting it'. Well, thanks for that. Eventually Apple DID fix it, but the rep had been replaced (he was a butt head, don't know if that's why he was 'replaced').

I was in awe of the complexity of the system, to have three unrelated programs (no, I can't remember what they were now) like that could cause a crash. I started rebooting after running the programs consecutively, just in case. After the update, I all of the sudden realized that I did A, and B, and was starting C, and expected a crash. Nope.

I killed Vista Windows Update, and even Microsoft couldn't fix it. We 'reinstalled the Windows update core', and it wouldn't work. I didn't like Vista, but I killed part of it! Yikes. I'm so omnipotent! Windows and old Mac System X, bow to me!!!😆😆😆😆

 

[honestone33]

Thank you for sharing! 👍
Indeed these items seem to make sense and don't look like they have to be very time-consuming.

• Concerning your number 1, I currently use Spark as an alternative Mail client, as Apple Mail has severe problems with the iCloud IMAP Servers on my system. Don't know if emptying the trash on a regular basis improves much, but it sounds like a good idea.
• About 2 I recommend using homebrew, makes it easy to keep your non-App-Store-Tools up to date
• My strategy about 3 is to use 2 alternating, physical separate Time Machine backup media. This has its weaknesses, as Time Machine frequently deals with bugs and problems, but at least it offers a high compatibility to macOS, which is not always true for 3rd party backup tools.
  Will have a look into the tools you recommended! Currently I'm not using any cleanup tools regularly...
• For 4 I use AppCleaner, would assume it works similar to AppDelete

[Edit]: well, it seems that Onyx was able to resolve the synchronisation issue between Apple Mail and iCloud mentioned above by deleting the Mail Index and re-building it - at least for now.
I had this problem for several months now, Apple Support was not able to resolve it although they gave me a lot of advice, including a complete clean reinstall of Catalina.

So your advice was definitely helpful to me, thanks a lot! 💪

You're welcome. Glad to share.

Regarding what you do:

1. Don't know about Spark, but in Thunderbird, when I delete an EMial, it goes into the "Deleted" folder. I can then right click on that folder, and one of the options is "Empty Deleted". Selecting that permanently removes all those EMails in that folder.

2. For #2, I visit the site https://www.macupdate.com/ a number of times each day. Also, I individually check on some apps myself to see about updates. How "automatic" is homebrew?

3. I think you did not quite understand what I was saying. Using Onyx and Tech Tool Pro does some additional cleanup/maintenance tasks. When I am done with them, I then have "as clean a system as possible" before doing the 2 SuperDuper! backups.

4. For #4, I made a typo. I use AppCleaner, so it looks like you are familiar with its benefits. However, I have found that it does not catch everything, and thus why I then use EasyFind to get the rest of them.

 

[honestone33]

October 23rd. GM on Tuesday.

What is your source of that information?

I just did a google search of "When will Big Sur GM be released?", and here are all the "hits":

🔎 When will Big Sur GM be released? - Google Search

www.google.com

Note that very first one. It says 12 October for Big Sur itself.

 

[Benz63amg]

How much better is Big Sur compared to catalina?

 

[honestone33]

How much better is Big Sur compared to catalina?

Not sure a valid comparison can be made now, as Catalina is fully matured, and Big Sur has not even been released yet. As based on history, the first few versions of Big Sur will contain bugs. Usually most of them are gone by the .3 release. So, that might be a good time to ask that question.

 

[Benz63amg]

Not sure a valid comparison can be made now, as Catalina is fully matured, and Big Sur has not even been released yet. As based on history, the first few versions of Big Sur will contain bugs. Usually most of them are gone by the .3 release. So, that might be a good time to ask that question.

I agree, just installed a fresh copy of latest version of catalina on my new 2017 MacBook Pro (purchased used) and I figured catalina is mature and stable by now. I also did an Erase and formatted the SSD drive to APFS as opposed to Mac OS X extended, APFS is better right?

 

[honestone33]

I agree, just installed a fresh copy of latest version of catalina on my new 2017 MacBook Pro (purchased used) and I figured catalina is mature and stable by now. I also did an Erase and formatted the SSD drive to APFS as opposed to Mac OS X extended, APFS is better right?

It is actually required. If you had first formatted it as Mac OS Extended, and then started the clean installation, the SSD would have been re-formatted as APFS, and then the installation would have proceeded like normal.

 

[ghostface147]

What is your source of that information?

I just did a google search of "When will Big Sur GM be released?", and here are all the "hits":

🔎 When will Big Sur GM be released? - Google Search

www.google.com

Note that very first one. It says 12 October for Big Sur itself.

I have no source. This thread is when do you think it will be released and this is what I think. It’s just an opinion.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I think that Big Sur will be officially released just before the ARM Mac is released. Maybe in November.

 

[TheGeneralist]

2. For #2, I visit the site https://www.macupdate.com/ a number of times each day. Also, I individually check on some apps myself to see about updates. How "automatic" is homebrew?

homebrew (see brew.sh) is often mentioned as "the app store for the command line". It has no GUI and is entirely based on terminal commands. Its origin is as a central easy-to-use means to keep all command line tools up to date, but later on they also included GUI-based tools as so-called "casks" (for example Onyx can also be installed as a cask via homebrew). Keeping all tools up to date is indeed easy: one single command "brew upgrade" enables a batch run which updates all of the tools you installed via homebrew to their most current versions.

BTW, the bug in Apple Mail (not being able to move emails into iCloud IMAP Folders) re-appeared. Easy to temporarily fix again via Onyx, but it looks like this is still a persisting bug in Catalina 10.15.7.

 

[honestone33]

I have no source. This thread is when do you think it will be released and this is what I think. It’s just an opinion.

So just pick a date out of the air, with nothing factual to back it up? Yeah right!