One important thing I noticed (and that you also mentioned once) is that if your Mac is not the newest (mine is from 2016) and it’s SSD has less than 200gb apparently free, it will start to have all sort of mysterious issues (which Apple advises to solve through a clean reinstall). But it’s now ten months since Apple started providing installers and updaters for Big Sur to large numbers of users, and their pain and grief aren’t going away. It is rich with bug fixes, and has extensive release notes. The 11.3 update addresses many of our concerns. If you want to take the 11.3 update to your elderly parents or a close friend, then bad luck, it can’t be done. Updating my four Macs from 11.2.3 to 11.3 required almost 9 GB from Apple – that’s nearly twice the size of the whole Sierra installer. For anyone with more than one Mac that’s now a no-brainer, but Big Sur updates are still hefty, as each M1 Mac has to download around 1 GB direct from Apple’s server rather than any local cache. Instead of a user being able to download a delta update package of perhaps 6.5 GB for 11.3, that means 12.4 GB instead.Īpple’s response is no doubt to refer us to its Content Caching Server. These were abandoned the moment that Big Sur was released: if you can’t update a Mac using Software Update, the only option now is to download a full installer app for that version of Big Sur. Neither has Apple reinstated its previous longstanding service of providing standalone updaters. So far, there’s no sign of Apple doing anything to reduce overheads such as a complete set of current firmware installers for Intel Macs, and the dyld cache which is freshly provided in every macOS update. ![]() Watching each new update to Big Sur push its lines up the chart is not too different from seeing your local or national Covid case rates rising: you know this is only going to escalate until someone does something about it. Apple is now on track to release a total of more than 40 GB of updates to Big Sur for Intel Macs, and 60 GB for M1 Macs – you know, the models which are selling like hot cakes.Īt the moment, we’re all rather too familiar with charts like that, from waves of Covid-19. The red and yellow regression lines aren’t quite as steep as they were at the time of 11.2.3, but only halfway through the cycle, Big Sur’s updates have already surpassed those of the whole year of Mojave, and are reaching the final releases of Catalina, which was hardly slimline. In that article, I showed a chart of cumulative sizes of macOS updates for Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur. Our problem is that Big Sur updates are, as I warned, spiralling out of control. Even those who follow the pack by a couple of versions might feel the need is overwhelming. In any case, Apple takes pride in the previously high take-up of updates, and if there’s one feature that’s guaranteed to induce users to update, it’s a compelling security fix. ![]() Although this could help some who only want the former, in practice the inevitable overhead imposed by Big Sur probably wouldn’t help much. One solution could be for Apple to start releasing Big Sur updates in two streams: security updates only, and full updates. Is it better to run the risk of updating now, or that of malware making your Mac a victim? Using the popular strategy of waiting a few weeks after each update before installing it yourself now turns into a quandary. If you fail to update now and don’t use BlockBlock, then the first time your Mac encounters malware exploiting this vulnerability, it will fall victim to it. The only real alternative is to install and use his free BlockBlock. ![]() Patrick Wardle’s detailed explanation of this vulnerability is prefaced by the exhortation: “But first, go update your macOS systems to 11.3”. Choosing to stay on macOS 11.2.3 means that a lot of malware out there can completely bypass your Mac’s primary protection, Gatekeeper. But for those who are more cautious and don’t rush to update, it poses a serious problem: buried in its avalanche of fixes and improvements is one to address a serious security vulnerability, which makes updating an urgent need. ![]() For most of us, its sheer size has at least been compensated for by the relative brevity of updating. The trouble with getting what you want are the unintended consequences.įor a few, the 11.3 update has proved disastrous, with a clean re-install their only hope of salvation. The largest macOS update ever, a good gigabyte bigger than even the Catalina 10.15.1 update, and more than most major releases of Mac OS X, the Big Sur 11.3 update gives us what we’ve all been asking for: it fixes a lot of bugs.
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