Teller Me More Mac OS

• Teller Me More Mac Os Catalina
• Tell Me More Mac Os X
• Tell Me Mac Music
• Tell Me More Mac Os Sierra
• Tell Me More Mac Os Catalina

I am the first to wonder whether it makes sense to write yet another part of this little saga, when Catalina is basically entering its last two months of active duty. But Catalina remains, I think, one of the most (if not the most) controversial Mac OS X releases, and now that I have finally had direct experience with it on a new machine I'm using just for testing, I can confirm. But first things first.

Feedback update

Mac OS X is the name of the operating system that runs on Apple's Mac computers. It's pre-installed on your Mac, so when you're interacting with your computer you're getting the experience Apple's.

When I wrote Part 3 back in February, the feedback amounted to 107 emails. Of those, 96 were negative, 7 neutral, and only 4 positive. As a reminder, by ‘neutral' I mean emails from people who wrote to tell me that they updated to Catalina and things kept going on in a business-as-usual fashion. ‘Positive' feedback means emails from people explicitly telling me their experience since updating was better than before, for a reason or another (performance; a new feature of Catalina they found especially useful; etc.).

Tell me why my system administrator, who mainly works in windows and has a handful of certs relevant to windows and has worked in the field for 20 years, has a macbook pro. Tell me why my manager who has worked in Java and linux based systems for 10 years has a macbook pro. Tell me why Amazon gives most of their devs for AWS Apple products. I have been using Mac for almost five years now, and I can honestly say that Mac represents the most reliable operating system you can buy - I would NOT switch back to a Windows PC. Most of the well known software available for Windows, also exists for Mac today, and Mac OS X is essentially virus-free. Disadvantages, Mac systems can be a little pricey compared to Windows alternatives, but.

If you really want to get ambitious, you could install Bluestacks — a free PC- and Mac-compatible program that lets you run Android apps within a more traditional desktop operating system. The little blue circle used to go white when you watched a program, now it doesn't, it just stays blue. You can right click and tell the show that it's been watched but this update is supposed to be a step forward and not a step back, message to Apple on the way, again!

As of this morning, the email count is at 370. The negative-neutral-positive ratio has essentially remained the same, with 309 negative-feedback emails, 29 neutral, and 32 positive. And once again let me stress the fact that I'm not trying to use this data to prove anything — it's all very anecdotal.

At the same time, I can't but remark that it's all very suggestive, too. Back in October 2019, when I wrote Part 1 of this accidental series of posts, I never expressly solicited readers to send me emails and tell me their tales, whether of woe or joy. And yet, I've never received such amount of feedback about any other Mac OS X release, or any other topic I've ever written about in the 15 years I've kept a tech blog. And while there is the occasional terse email, and the occasional message that goes off-topic and simply criticises my articles (I've left these emails outside the Catalina-feedback pile, of course), most emails are detailed accounts of what went wrong since updating to Catalina — or what Catalina does right in the case of positive feedback messages.

When a couple of articles from this series on Catalina reached Hacker News in the past months, a lot of quips I got as response were from people who dismissed the problem altogether with remarks along the lines of These nerds must always find something to complain/whine about. There's nothing wrong with Catalina. Well, that's simply not the impression I've had and continue to have. And not because I have 309 emails of negative feedback and horror stories to prove it, but because this volume of feedback itself is an indicator, in my private sphere, of a larger discussion that has been going on publicly (in online forums and specialised mailing lists) since Catalina was released last autumn.

Finally updating to Catalina: my first impressions

I closed Part 1 by writing:

So, to conclude, do I plan to stay on High Sierra or Mojave indefinitely? It's hard to say and too soon to tell. Both my main Macs are really working flawlessly at the moment, and Catalina is beta-quality software that's likely to give me headaches I don't need right now. Who knows, maybe down the road I could acquire a cheap used Mac that can run Catalina (something like a 2014 Mac mini) and use it as a test machine. As things are now, I absolutely do not want Catalina to mess with my current setups and data. The cost for me would be higher than getting a second-hand Mac mini.

Recently, a very kind soul from the UK gave me the opportunity to acquire such a test machine, but it ended up being a far better deal than a 2014 Mac mini. For a really low price given its specs, I was sent an Early 2015 13-inch retina MacBook Pro, with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of flash storage. The Mac is in overall very good condition, save for a blemish on the display (which can be ignored in normal use, fortunately), and a well-used battery with more than 1,250 cycles (but still working well and giving me plenty of hours of use).

The machine arrived completely wiped and reset, with a clean install of OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan. My plan was to perform a clean install of Catalina, take a look at it for a while, then move on to the Big Sur betas.

What I was eager to test was something I'd been thinking about while reading all the feedback emails on Catalina. My simple hypothesis was that clean installs of Catalina tended to be less problematic than mere updates from High Sierra or Mojave. I know, nothing particularly original or astute. But even in my limited sample I could see a pattern forming:

Teller Me More Mac Os Catalina

• Many negative emails were from people who were attempting to upgrade, and Catalina gave them trouble both during the update process and afterwards;
• Very few negative emails complained about having issues with Catalina after a clean install (currently only 8 emails out of 309);
• About half of the positive emails were from people who, after I enquired, told me they had performed a clean install of Catalina.

These points strongly suggested that the less the system was cluttered with preexistent crap, the better Catalina would behave.

And so, after a few days spent on El Capitan to see if everything was working fine on this ‘new' MacBook Pro — and it was — I downloaded and installed Catalina. Unfortunately, as I wrote on Twitter, I haven't had much time to tinker with it or to inspect it more closely due to a very high workload I was subjected to for the past three weeks. The only things I've noticed so far are these:

• After installation, there were a few constantly-running processes that kept the CPU busy all the time. This seriously impacted the MacBook Pro's battery life, and its general performance. I found a solution to the problem by searching online, and it probably wasn't something a regular user would know how to apply.
• After installation, and recalling other people's accounts, I expected a barrage of security and permission-related dialog boxes. I haven't really seen one so far. Probably because it was a fresh install and not an update?
• I can't say anything about data loss because it's a fresh install on a new machine for me, so I had no data to lose in the first place. But there were things that didn't download/update after installation (Dictionary app without dictionaries, App Store app without updates, etc.)
• Just out of curiosity, I installed the Steam client and took a look at my games' library. Less than one third of them are Catalina-ready. I know games aren't critical apps, but I would have been really bummed to discover this if I had rushed to update my main Macs. I've been told that, a lot of times, despite the warning that a certain game is not compatible with Catalina, it turns out that it's not the case, and the game runs fine. But in my case I have verified that most of the games in my library really won't run in Catalina.
• On a slightly less serious note, by installing Catalina on this MacBook Pro, I finally had the opportunity to try Dark Mode for the UI (remember, my main Macs are still on High Sierra, so I hadn't experienced it yet), and I immediately reverted to Light Mode. Dark Mode feels like possibly the most overhyped feature in the history of Mac OS X. I think the traditional light UI with Night Shift or f.lux is much easier on the eyes when working at night.
• Another issue that seems to plague this MacBook Pro since installing Catalina is related to sleep. In a nutshell, sleep has become unreliable. I put the MacBook to sleep either by selecting Apple menu → Sleep, or by just closing the lid, and sometimes the Mac goes to sleep correctly and stays hibernated, but sometimes it does not. You get the bitter surprise the day after you fully charged the MacBook before putting it to sleep, when you wake it up and discover the battery charge has fallen to 65–70%. I have tried several solutions and workarounds but nothing definitive so far. I'll have to thoroughly check the sleep/wake logs to find which process(es) interfere with the MacBook's sleep^[1].
• Finally, Time Machine backups keep failing. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

After these preliminary findings, I can say that even with the cleanest of installs Mac OS Catalina can be problematic. This is disappointing, but a part of me is somewhat not surprised.

All in all, I'm glad I have this new MacBook Pro to use as guinea pig, because I still don't feel comfortable updating my production Macs. I haven't even logged into iCloud in this Catalina installation, for fear it might mess things up. But again, as I said, I haven't had the time to explore Catalina properly yet, and at this point I don't even know if I will, because as soon as I've dealt with this demanding workload, I will install the Big Sur betas.

Previously:

Tell Me More Mac Os X

• 1. The pulsating sleep light was such a nifty visual clue that your Mac was effectively sleeping when you told it to. Now it's a guessing game. ↩︎

Tell Me Mac Music

macOS Big Sur elevates the most advanced desktop operating system in the world to a new level of power and beauty. Experience Mac to the fullest with a refined new design. Enjoy the biggest Safari update ever. Discover new features for Maps and Messages. And get even more transparency around your privacy.

Check compatibility

macOS Big Sur is compatible with these computers:

MacBook introduced in 2015 or later
MacBook Air introduced in 2013 or later
MacBook Pro introduced in late 2013 or later
Mac mini introduced in 2014 or later
iMac introduced in 2014 or later
iMac Pro
Mac Pro introduced in 2013 or later
View the complete list of compatible computers.

If upgrading from macOS Sierra or later, macOS Big Sur requires 35.5GB of available storage to upgrade. If upgrading from an earlier release, macOS Big Sur requires up to 44.5GB of available storage. To upgrade from OS X Mountain Lion, first upgrade to OS X El Capitan, then upgrade to macOS Big Sur.

Make a backup

Before installing any upgrade, it's a good idea to back up your Mac. Time Machine makes it simple, and other backup methods are also available. Learn how to back up your Mac.

Get connected

It takes time to download and install macOS, so make sure that you have a reliable Internet connection. If you're using a Mac notebook computer, plug it into AC power.

Download macOS Big Sur

If you're using macOS Mojave or later, get macOS Big Sur via Software Update: Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Software Update.

Or use this link to open the macOS Big Sur page on the App Store: Get macOS Big Sur. Then click the Get button or iCloud download icon.

Begin installation

Tell Me More Mac Os Sierra

After downloading, the installer opens automatically.

Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions. You might find it easiest to begin installation in the evening so that it can complete overnight, if needed.

If the installer asks for permission to install a helper tool, enter the administrator name and password that you use to log in to your Mac, then click Add Helper.

Allow installation to complete

Tell Me More Mac Os Catalina

Please allow installation to complete without putting your Mac to sleep or closing its lid. Your Mac might restart, show a progress bar, or show a blank screen several times as it installs both macOS and related updates to your Mac firmware.

Stay up to date

After installing macOS Big Sur, you will be notified when updates to macOS Big Sur are available. You can also use Software Update to check for updates: Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Software Update.

Or get macOS Big Sur automatically

If you're using OS X El Capitan v10.11.5 or later and your App Store preferences or Software Update preferences are set to download new updates when available, macOS Big Sur will download conveniently in the background, making it even easier to upgrade. A notification will inform you when macOS Big Sur is ready to be installed. Click Install to get started, or dismiss the notification to install later. When you're ready to install, just open the file named Install macOS Big Sur from your Applications folder.

Learn more

• If the installer shows a list of apps that are not optimized for your Mac, learn about 32-bit app compatibility, then choose whether to proceed with the installation.
• For the strongest security and latest features, upgrade to macOS Big Sur. If you have hardware or software that isn't compatible with Big Sur, you might be able to install an earlier macOS.
• You can also use macOS Recovery to reinstall the macOS you're using now, upgrade to the latest compatible macOS, or install the macOS that came with your Mac.