[Chongo]

$&*&$#! Well I just discovered my late 2013 27” iMac did not make the Big Sur cut. How long does Apple support previous OS versions? A new iMac Pro would be nice, but not needed at the moment.

[OreoCookie]

Typically about 7 years, so the cutoff is in line with that. It always sucks, but if I were you, I'd wait until Apple releases an ARM-based iMac. That'll run circles around your current machine.

[reader50]

The usual hackers are trying to patch Big Sur to run on earlier Macs. I think they're taking longer than usual, not sure why.

Anyway though, your late-2013 iMac can run Big Sur without modification. If you have a fusion drive setup, that will experience a performance hit, but no other known issues.

You just need to bypass the installer blocks. Easiest way is to install to an external drive on a supported Mac, then boot your iMac from that drive.

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Typically about 7 years, so the cutoff is in line with that. It always sucks, but if I were you, I'd wait until Apple releases an ARM-based iMac. That'll run circles around your current machine.

I’m going to wait until the new iMacs are released. I’ll donate my current Mac to my mother. My last donation, 20” 2007, has been limping along on an external hard drive. The backlighting is starting to die. Hopefully it will last until the new ARM iMac arrives. She will be happy with the jump to a 27” screen.

[Laminar]

How much of a drag is Big Sur going to be on my 2013 MBA? I upgraded from High Sierra to Mojave pretty soon after it came out and it turned the thing into a dog. It's gotten better (or my standards have dropped?) but I haven't bothered going to Catalina. Is Big Sur going to be more of a resource hog or will it be optimized for better performance?

I suppose I should double check for any 32 bit programs I'll lose access to if I ditch Mojave. The thing is mostly for web browsing and running various flavors of Windows in VirtualBox.

[ghporter]

I’m still on Mojave on my MBP; it is still pretty snappy, what with the SSD and everything.

I didn’t go to High Sierra, basically because I didn’t see anything in it I “needed,” and it was almost certain to break some of the apps I still use from them olden days.

So what is the draw for Big Sur? “What’s in it for me?”

[Doc HM]

Sorry posted the in wrong thread. Should have been in here as its Big Sur related.

So far I have migrated 2 customer machines using Big Sur. The process was horrendous on both machines in identical ways.
On both Migration assistant spent literally hours indexing read receipts followed by a long pause where it indicated it would take 17 hours to migrate the data. (around 700MB in case 1 and 1.2TB in case 2 - both using external Ssd's over USB 3 to an internal SSD). Both machines revised this to 47 minutes (why the same figure?) after an hour or so and then hung there for about a day while the files copied count ticked up. Both migration paused every time the iMac screen went to sleep and both finished with the proud boast "Your files have been successfully migrated" before going on to make both the now migrated machine hang on boot.

Nice!

[Brien]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I’m still on Mojave on my MBP; it is still pretty snappy, what with the SSD and everything.

I didn’t go to High Sierra, basically because I didn’t see anything in it I “needed,” and it was almost certain to break some of the apps I still use from them olden days.

So what is the draw for Big Sur? “What’s in it for me?”

It looks like a iPad

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Brien 

It looks like a iPad

I have an iPad. I want a computer that “feels” more full-featured than an iPad. And the new OS obviously won’t turn my MBP into a touch screen machine, nor magically give it Touch ID either...

So... I still don’t see a need to move away from Mojave on my MBP.

Now, if/when I buy a new Mac, Big Sur is what’s expected, and is what the new machine will be built for. But for what I have (all Intel silicon), I’m holding pat.

{insert “get off my lawn” meme here if appropriate}

[Thorzdad]

In case you're having trouble updating Big Sur to 11.1, you're not alone.
Your Mac may be requesting 11.0.1 instead of 11.1.

There is no fix at this time. Well, other than completely reinstalling Big Sur from the App Store.

[Doc HM]

So far I hate Big Sur more than ANY previous Mac OS update. Oh, sure it works ok, it looks ok (if you like iOS) but f**k me, Apple's quality assurance seems to have exited the building.

I HATE migration assistant. It works at about a tenth of the speed of previous versions. It take an age to prepare to migrate, it gets stuck on various times that bear no relation to the amount of time it will eventually take. The progress bar data is pure fantasy. AND it fails to actually migrate half the time.

In the last two weeks the number of customers who have migrated to BS and promptly had massive and fatal hard drive failures once they have installed BS is in frightening.

Not a fan.

[OreoCookie]

I'm having persistent trouble with the window manager: it seems to (partially?) crash so that I am no longer able to use Exposé or make windows full screen. Very annoying.

Plugging in or unplugging a monitor or external power also leads to hick-ups. Sometimes it takes 30 seconds or longer until the windows have stopped dancing and I can work again. Not great. And I am using a current-gen machine (16" MacBook Pro from 2019). Ugh.

I agree with you on quality control, this is very annoying.