A large number of mostly late 2013 and mid 2014 MacBook Pro users are reporting that upgrading to macOS Big Sur is bricking their computers
A large number of late 2013 and mid 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro owners are reporting that the macOS Big Sur update is bricking their machines.
MacRumorsHartley Charlton
Context & Ripple Effects
Big Sur's launch week was already rough: just days before these reports, many Mac users saw apps crawl because Apple's OCSP certificate-validation service choked at launch. Now the same release is reportedly killing machines outright, concentrated on late 2013 and mid 2014 13-inch MacBook Pros.
Bricking on a major OS update is not new territory for Apple — iOS 9.3.2 took down some 9.7-inch iPad Pros with 'Error 56', and a year later Monterey would repeat the pattern. The closest hardware precedent is Apple's repair program for 2011-2013 MacBook Pro video failures, which shows how the company typically absorbs defects clustered in one machine generation.
First-order effects
Owners of late 2013 and mid 2014 13-inch MacBook Pros who installed Big Sur are left with unbootable machines, turning a routine free update into an out-of-pocket repair or replacement event.
Apple's support channels absorb the load immediately: affected users have no software fix to apply themselves, so every report routes through Genius Bar or phone support.
Second-order effects
The cluster-by-generation pattern points toward a formal repair or replacement program like the one Apple ran for 2011-2013 MacBook Pro video failures, converting warranty costs into a known line item.
Users on aging Intel Macs now face a trust discount on Big Sur specifically — some will hold off updating until Apple confirms a fix, which slows adoption of the release and its features.
Third-order effects
If every OS generation produces a bricked cohort — iPad Pros under iOS 9.3.2, T2-era Macs crashing, this, then Monterey a year later — major updates become a recurring reliability liability that pressures Apple toward staged rollouts and faster hotfix paths.
For a 2013/2014 laptop already at the edge of macOS support eligibility, a failed update can be the forcing function that retires the machine early, quietly accelerating hardware churn among holdout Intel-Mac users.
The trend: Each major macOS and iOS release keeps producing a small bricked cohort of users, making big-bang OS updates a recurring reliability problem Apple handles with repair programs rather than preventing outright.
But, to be clear, the Mac doesn't have to go touch-first to justify touch support. Apple Pencil support on macOS, on a drafting table iMac, would fit into all kinds of pro-level workflows currently dominated by Wacom, from illustration to 3D modeling. Absolutely a value-add
I get it that a lot of things are subjective, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, etc, but how can anyone say these alerts with all the text centered look good? Or are even legible? I like Big Sur overall, but this change is just baffling. https://twitter.com/...
“We are willing to go through a multi-year transition on the Mac to use the same chip as the iPad, and do a design overhaul to make macOS icons look touchable, and even let iPad apps run on macOS, but we refuse to make these steps make sense by shipping a Mac with a touchscreen.”
@SmugWeasel There's a big difference between what I think the actual odds are that Apple will release a touchscreen Mac in the next two years (low probability) vs. what I think the public believes about that (much higher probability).
“You see, when you completely rethink it from the ground up, a touch Mac doesn't make sense because then no one would also buy an iPad, since it'd be too obvious that it's just a slower Mac, running the same apps, on a smaller screen, with a keyboard you have to buy separately.” …
macOS would still need dramatic changes if it were ever to go touch-first. Catalyst is not in any way designed to dynamically switch between ‘Mac’ & ‘iOS’ modes — if an app has adopted Catalyst to explicitly make a Mac UI, it would be a *ton* of work to support dynamic switching …
What a trainwreck of dialog-box design on so many levels. Big Sur's design is so fresh and great! As long as you never use alerts or sheets or open/save panels or proxy icons or toolbars. https://twitter.com/...