Comprehensive macOS 11.0 Big Sur review: the end of OS X era
Talking With Apple! Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Apple VPs talk M1 Macs, Rosetta 2 translation, and more in new interviews Erik Engheim / The Startup : PC Users in Denial About Apple Silicon Performance John Voorhees / MacStories : macOS Big Sur: The MacStories ReviewJohn Martellaro / The Mac Observer : The Inside Story of Apple'sM1 Chip Macworld : Apple Silicon Macs with M1 chips: Worth the wait? (YouTube video) Joe Rossignol / MacRumors : Universal Apps for Apple Silicon Macs: Pixelmator Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Darkroom, Ulysses, BBEdit, and More Mike Peterson / AppleInsider : Apple VPs talk new M1 Mac development, Intel relationship, and more MacDailyNews : Ars Technica reviews macOS 11.0 Big Sur: Apple makes a statement Michael Tsai : macOS 11.0 Big Sur Released Tweets: James Thomson / @jamesthomson : Weird question, I know, but are anybody else's Dice by PCalc widgets on Big Sur bright yellow? Had a user running into this, on a 2015 5K iMac, and have literally no idea what could be causing it. https://twitter.com/... Darkroom / @usedarkroom : @stroughtonsmith For the most part, we've had to do remarkable few “hacks” around standard behavior (mainly around overwriting the appearance of the window, multi-window behavior, etc), though there are still a few missing components we're waiting for Radars on (d&d to Finder, etc) Adam Tinworth / @adders : First impressions of Big Sur: amazingly fast on my ancient 2013 MacBook Pro. The visual refresh takes a little getting used to, but it's close enough to the current iPad look that it feels fairly familiar. A couple of hours in, and I haven't hit any problems yet. Mike Murphy / @mcwm : @adammmblake yeah i feel like i'm on a giant non-touschreen ipad now Ishan Agarwal / @ishanagarwal24 : It's very stable on my MacBook Pro 13-inch with TouchBar and the machine actually feels faster. I like it. @ow : well my mac died so hard from this update that it's being replaced 🤷♀️ Mike Murphy / @mcwm : actively disliking the new icons in macOS Chris motherfucking Messina / @chrismessina : Xcode 12.2 ushers in the unification of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. I'm super impressed by how Apple has (and will continue to) pulled this off. The early Catalyst versions of the Twitter app were OMG rough. With #macOSBigSur, I now see how these platforms will converge. https://twitter.com/... @ow : I knew I shouldn't have installed Big Sir on launch day and yet here we are https://twitter.com/... Catalin Cimpanu / @campuscodi : I see Apple is having its Vista moment. The amount and nature of bugs reported after the Big Sur launch is hilarious. [grabs popcorn] https://twitter.com/... @arstechnica : A gap of a few weeks between the new iOS and macOS releases in the fall has become normal, but Big Sur was held back so long that the first version we're getting is already version 11.0.1—meaning updating now is more feasible than in normal years. #macOS11 https://arstechnica.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : I'm fascinated to see what the new generation of Mac Catalyst apps is like, now that the technology is more viable and the more-experienced developers are adopting it. There are quite a few macOS 11 Catalyst apps popping up on the Mac App Store, now, like @usedarkroom John Siracusa / @siracusa : Awwww yeah... 🛎 https://arstechnica.com/... https://twitter.com/... Federico Viticci / @viticci : macOS Big Sur is out, and it's a major turning point for the Mac. Here's our in-depth review, featuring visual comparisons, third-party apps, and lots more. macOS Big Sur: The MacStories Review https://www.macstories.net/... https://twitter.com/... John Voorhees / @johnvoorhees : Big Sur is a really big deal; a turning point in the Mac's history that doesn't come along very often. I spent the last several months testing it and here's my review on @Macstoriesnet: Big Sur: The MacStories Review. I hope you enjoy it. https://www.macstories.net/... https://twitter.com/...
The version bump to 11.0 lands simultaneously with Apple's M1 Macs, Rosetta 2 translation, and universal builds from developers like Pixelmator Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and BBEdit, making this the first macOS whose identity is defined by Apple silicon rather than Intel.
First-order effects
Developers named in the coverage — Pixelmator Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Darkroom, Ulysses, BBEdit — must ship universal binaries now, while x86-only apps fall back on Rosetta 2 translation on M1 Macs.
Mac users on Big Sur immediately face the stability complaints and bug reports recorded after launch, on top of an OS migration to new hardware.
Second-order effects
Xcode 12.2's cross-platform tooling pulls macOS, iOS, and iPadOS development closer together, pressuring independent Mac developers to maintain one codebase across all Apple platforms or lose the M1 install base.
The pro-hardware end of the lineup is exposed first: the later Mac Pro discontinuation with no successor planned follows logically once Apple silicon defines the roadmap, leaving workstation buyers with the transition-or-leave choice.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, the 'end of OS X' is structural, not cosmetic: macOS consolidates from a standalone desktop lineage into one runtime shared with iOS and iPadOS, with Apple controlling both chip and OS layers.
Third-party Mac software narrows toward vendors who can keep pace with annual silicon-and-OS transitions, echoing how the 32-bit cutoff already forced an app cull before the architecture switch.
The trend: macOS is completing its move from an Intel-era desktop OS into the desktop layer of a vertically integrated Apple-silicon platform spanning Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Weird question, I know, but are anybody else's Dice by PCalc widgets on Big Sur bright yellow? Had a user running into this, on a 2015 5K iMac, and have literally no idea what could be causing it. https://twitter.com/...
@stroughtonsmith For the most part, we've had to do remarkable few “hacks” around standard behavior (mainly around overwriting the appearance of the window, multi-window behavior, etc), though there are still a few missing components we're waiting for Radars on (d&d to Finder, et…
First impressions of Big Sur: amazingly fast on my ancient 2013 MacBook Pro. The visual refresh takes a little getting used to, but it's close enough to the current iPad look that it feels fairly familiar. A couple of hours in, and I haven't hit any problems yet.
Xcode 12.2 ushers in the unification of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. I'm super impressed by how Apple has (and will continue to) pulled this off. The early Catalyst versions of the Twitter app were OMG rough. With #macOSBigSur, I now see how these platforms will converge. https://twit…
I see Apple is having its Vista moment. The amount and nature of bugs reported after the Big Sur launch is hilarious. [grabs popcorn] https://twitter.com/...
A gap of a few weeks between the new iOS and macOS releases in the fall has become normal, but Big Sur was held back so long that the first version we're getting is already version 11.0.1—meaning updating now is more feasible than in normal years. #macOS11 https://arstechnica.com…
I'm fascinated to see what the new generation of Mac Catalyst apps is like, now that the technology is more viable and the more-experienced developers are adopting it. There are quite a few macOS 11 Catalyst apps popping up on the Mac App Store, now, like @usedarkroom
macOS Big Sur is out, and it's a major turning point for the Mac. Here's our in-depth review, featuring visual comparisons, third-party apps, and lots more. macOS Big Sur: The MacStories Review https://www.macstories.net/... https://twitter.com/...
Tim Millet, VP of Platform Architecture at Apple (silicon team): « now we have a place where people can tinker, and play, and really get access to the bare metal and do interesting things with the platform. » (part of the interview at https://www.youtube.com/... about arm64 macs)
“This means that Apple knows when you're at home. When you're at work. What apps you open there, and how often. They know when you open Premiere over at a friend's house on their Wi-Fi, and they know when you open Tor Browser in a hotel.” 😞 https://sneak.berlin/...
Privacy Is Apple. Unless, you know, you want some actual privacy, like, from Apple. You can't get that why would you want that? https://sneak.berlin/...
I am currently unable to work because macOS sends hashes of every opened executable to some server of theirs and when ‘trustd’ and ‘syspolicyd’ are unable to do so, the entire operating system grinds to a halt. I'm typing this from my phone since the Mac is effectively frozen. ht…
Dear @tim_cook, “It turns out that in the current version of the macOS, the OS sends to Apple a hash (unique identifier) of each and every program you run, when you run it.” Is this true? If so, how can you say you believe “privacy is a human right?” https://sneak.berlin/...
Anyway, here I go again, reading noble intentions into a bullying monopolistic conglomerate that also happens to be the most valuable company in the world. This is the residue of two decades of goodwill built. They're spending it at a ferocious rate though!
TL;DR after the next macOS update, not even Little Snitch will be able to save us from Apple phoning home when, where, and what applications we use on our privately owned computers But don't worry, they insist they are the “privacy-focused” tech company https://sneak.berlin/...
@reneritchie Sensationalist article aside there's some serious issues going on there. Apple designed things with a single point of failure and broke every Mac out there. It's likely that a bad actor/state could take advantage of this and DDOS a large number of Macs in the future.
Well, this is... quite scary. And bad. And creepy. I didn't realize this was a thing, or that iOS/iPadOS (apparently) do the same thing. https://twitter.com/...
Shit like this is also just compounded when you embrace the notion of privacy as publicly as Apple has. Which is one of the things I really like about Apple! But you gotta stay congruent. These statements are not compatible with a phone-home scheme on every app launch. https://tw…
Apple is late to rendering its actions and intentions through the lens of a two-trillion dollar conglomerate with a proven record of using its systems and dominance for anti-competitive behavior. You can't simply go on good intentions any more! Don't think Apple employees realize
Worth noting the technical reason here. I don't think Apple is gathering this data because they want to sell it to advertisers (like a Google or Facebook would). Completely believe that the creators of this system thought they were doing right by users. But that's the conceit...
This seems right to me: by checking every binary launched on macOS with OCSP, Apple has implemented full surveillance of what's going on with your computer, and it lets them track popular apps/etc. Not at all consistent with their privacy guarantees. https://sneak.berlin/...
👀 Even more interesting are the exceptions for system level processes which make firewalling/filtering this traffic difficult @charlesarthur @SteveBellovin @stevesi https://twitter.com/...
Hey Apple users: If you're now experiencing hangs launching apps on the Mac, I figured out the problem using Little Snitch. It's trustd connecting to https://ocsp.apple.com/ Denying that connection fixes it, because OCSP is a soft failure. (Disconnect internet also fixes.) https:…
😅 Looks like, when apps are launched, Gatekeeper is unable to check their validity over the internet, due to overwhelmed Apple servers. So, uh, let's all hang in there! You got this, Apple devops!
“The issues seemed to begin close to the time when Apple began rolling out the new version of macOS, Big Sur—but it affected users of other versions of macOS, like Catalina and Mojave.” https://arstechnica.com/...
On Big Sur, trustd is in Apple's “ContentFilterExclusionList” ....meaning firewalls can't block it! 😭 Welcome to the future? 😱 https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Unimaginable. macOS unable to open any non-Apple application. The joy of Proprietary software. MacOS sends hashes of every executable to Apple server when trustd and syspolicyd cannot do so. The entire macOS stops working. https://twitter.com/...
The huge privacy elephant in the room here is the implication that Apple gets a timestamped call home telling them exactly what program you are running whenever you start one. That's not cricket. There needs to be a way of turning this shite off. https://twitter.com/...
Just upgraded my main machine to Catalina last week, thinking about scheduling my Big Sur upgrade for approximately 12-15 months from now. You guys are clearly more risk tolerant than I am 😂
Holy shit this big sur update must be the worst upgrade experience I have observed. The mac I tried to update to is basically failing to install the update after an awfully slow download and my other mac is now having issues with trustd spinning when I launch apps. The hell apple
You gotta hand it to Apple's third-party dev community to have so many apps Apple-Silicon-native right out of the gate, including beta versions of Microsoft Office. There was always this idea of the ‘app gap’ for Microsoft & its modern efforts, but maybe it's just a developer gap
Speaking of shipping at scale, Apple has now shipped the Apple Silicon versions of its iWork suite, Garageband, Final Cut Pro, Logic, Motion, and Xcode. Compare and contrast with how other platforms have handled their ARM transitions... 🦗🎶 https://twitter.com/...
On two separate Zoom calls we thought the Matrix was glitching because everyone's laptops were crashing simultaneously. No, just Apple: https://twitter.com/...
One more tidbit on Big Sur's design. I know it's not to everyone's tastes, but I think it's fantastic and exactly what the Mac needs for the road ahead. macOS Big Sur: The MacStories Review https://www.macstories.net/... https://twitter.com/...
It fully downloaded and then this happened on iMac Pro. It happened at the same time on another Mac. Server restart on Apples side maybe? https://twitter.com/...