Dear Apple (and Microsoft), please ship operating systems only when they are finished and a bit polished. Stop shipping half-baked, inconsistent, incomplete operating systems just to meet artificial annual deadlines.
My initial thoughts on what Apple now calls Mac OS Big Sur Version 11:
Interface Thoughts
- Default screen wallpapers are hideous, possibly the worst wallpaper ever in any operating system.
- Icons in applications often look too similar and lack contrast against the gray menu bars.
- Menu bars and title bars are too close to the same color as application windows.
- Application icons look like they belong on the iPhone or iPad, and I personally never liked the “tile” approach to icons.
- Transparency annoys me when I’m trying to read dialog boxes and control panels.
- Dialog, alerts, sheets, and other pop-ups are huge, and phone-line, too.
- Notifications are much better, with alerts stacked by application and widgets nicely arranged.
- Control Center borrows some of the better design ideas from the iOS platforms.
The interface has evolved too much since the first releases of Mac OS X, in my not-so-humble opinion. When the Big Sur system starts that first time and you see the nightmarish colors from blue to red, with bright orange in the middle, it’s enough to make you put on sunglasses.
I never want to see the default Big Sur color waves and swirls. There are articles on websites detailing how to change this image, which defaults to the wallpaper on lock and login screens. That people are hacking the OS to change this wallpaper proves how bad it is. Fix this Apple, please. Let users change the wallpaper for the lock and login.
I miss the original dock platform look of OS X, with a glass shelf holding icons. Let us customize the dock, at least. The new rounded rectangle is bland. The icons, with their tile-like squareness, are also bland. I customize my dock with My Documents, Applications, Downloads, and a Favorites folder. The left-side features must-have apps.
Even with the dock, I launch a lot of programs via Spotlight. I’ll type Command+Space (my Spotlight shortcut) and type the first few letters of the application name. I’m a keyboard user whenever possible.
Control Center looks much nicer and places the controls I need in a convenient container. When I’m using my MacBook Pro docked, the function keys access features like speaker volume and screen brightness. Still, I like the Control Center’s inclusion of WiFi and Bluetooth enough that I can finally remove the individual controls from my menu bar.
Core Applications
- Finder is sluggish, sometimes showing the original file name after you rename an item.
- Mail is almost back to itself with improved usability thanks to the return of resizable and sortable columns.
- Calendar and Reminders are still mediocre, so use replacements if you need a great calendar.
- Safari is faster, much faster, and the security options work nicely.
- Time Machine is worse than slow for some reason, so you might use a new drive, formatted in the new APFS format just for Time Machine volumes.
Finder
One of my screens (or virtual desktops) always displays a Finder window. I dislike Finder and have tried various replacement file managers over the years. In the end, Finder works without being attractive.
Tabs were an interesting idea, but I usually want to see the contents of two folders at once. When copying from one directory to another, it seems better to have two panes. Because Apple doesn’t support two panes directly, the easiest solution is to open two or more Finder windows and place them side-by-side or above and below each other.
The icons in the Favorites sidebar should be distinct. They aren’t. They’re as bad as the icons on the main toolbar. Come on, Apple, make icons distinct and easier to locate quickly. After updating to Big Sur, I have a long list of blue icons along the left of the sidebar.
Yes, finally! Mail is back to being usable.
In Catalina, Apple removed the sortable and resizable column view. In Big Sur, the mailboxes once again display in a sortable view. Thank goodness. I receive a lot of messages, especially when I’m teaching. The Catalina sort option was okay, but it didn’t always sort as anticipated.
This seems confusing, but I use sorting daily.
Consider wanting messages sorted first by sender, and then by message subject. I can do that, again, with Big Sur, as long as you click on the headings in the reverse order of your final sort. As an example, I might click “subject” and that first alphabetizes the subject field. Then, I click “from” to sort by sender. Now, messages from each person are in alphabetical order. I can just as easily sort by date, then person, to group each individual’s emails by date.
Right-clicking on the column headings allows you to add or remove any column from the display. For some reason, attachment icons, flags, priority, and size aren’t enabled by default. I turn on quite a few of the columns.
Big Sur’s email undoes some of the bad choices made in Catalina. Thank goodness. If Big Sur had remained like Catalina, or if it had turned into the iPhone Mail app, I’d be switching to Outlook or something else.
Calendar, Reminders, and Notes
Apple’s Calendar and Reminders apps are mediocre. They need to be reimagined and integrated better. Apple’s apps are too disconnected.
I use BusyCal and BusyContacts instead of the default Apple Calendar and Contacts. The Menu bar applet for BusyCal is wonderful. If you stay within BusyCal, its to-do items migrate in the Calendar and offer more features than Reminders.
Sadly, Apply broke integration with Reminders and BusyCal in macOS 10.15, when Apple shifted to a proprietary database for the reminder entries. Apple also stopped allowing apps like BusyContacts from showing email messages associated with contacts and events. One reason people use Outlook is that it is a true PIM: personal information manager.
It’s annoying that Apple stopped allowing integration functionality in all third-party calendar, contact, and email programs.
The only Apple information management took I like is Notes.
Notes is good and getting better with each update. Notes has evolved steadily since replacing “Sticky Notes” on the Mac. I like Notes more than Reminders, finding that a checklist in Notes works much better for me. The really big changes to Notes were in the Mojave and Catalina. The only new feature I’ve found and tested: lists of pinned notes.
I love “pins” in Notes, Messages, and in any app that lets me put things at the top of a list. Shopping list? Pin it. Home improvement list? Pin it. Such a minor feature, yet it makes using Notes that much better.
Safari
Safari 14 looks a lot like Finder, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Gray-on-gray with icons that force me to stare at them for a moment to identify what they do. Once I rearranged the toolbar to resemble the order in which I have features in Chrome, FireFox, and Edge, it was much easier to rely on ingrained memory to use Safari.
The default toolbar features and order were illogical. I still need to print pages, if only to PDF. Share and bookmark should be near the URL (search) field. I like to click “Home” and return to a blank search page. I’m a creature of habit.
There’s a “Start Page” feature in Safari, but I haven’t tested this. Google Search is my “start page.” Maybe I’ll give the new Safari feature a try.
The tabs feel faster. The “tab preview” is pretty nice if you keep pages loaded that refresh in the background. So far, some pages seem to refresh fine, updating the thumbnail image as well. Other pages don’t seem to update when they aren’t the front-most tab. Chrome updates all pages, but it’s also slow and a memory hog lately.
The data privacy features of Safari make it my preferred browser. It has better pop-up blocking, nice tracking reports, and easy controls to set privacy preferences by website. Since some of my favorite news websites won’t load unless you allow ads and trackers, I set those pages accordingly within Safari.
Safari continues to be my preferred browser, even as Chrome continues to dominate workplaces. Apple recognizes this, with support for Chrome extensions within Safari.
Photos
From the moment I launched iPhoto, sometime in 2002, Apple’s bundled Photos application became my primary photo management tool. Yes, there was Aperture (which my wife used) and Adobe’s Lightroom offers more features, but Apple’s Photos app meets my needs. Yes, I have Lightroom and use it, but I it isn’t my default management tool for quick photos taken with my iPhone or iPad.
Big Sur’s update to Photos is minor. The “Retouch” tool works better and there are more effects you can apply to images. The addition of “captions” for images doesn’t add much value for me. I use Keywords (tags) and ratings to sort my images.
Messages
Hey, look, it’s the iPhone app on my Mac. Using their “Catalyst” tools, Apple ported the iOS version of Messages to Big Sur. I suppose that’s good if you like the iOS app. Differences remain, largely because there is more screen space on a computer. It’s nice that the Mac version no longer trails behind since I’m often messaging people while I work.
Maps
And another app migrates from iOS: the new Maps release in Big Sur. Finally, finally, finally you can save locations as “favorites” on the Mac. I’d like Maps to compete more with Google Maps, but it isn’t there yet.
Other Opinions
With macOS Big Sur, Apple has moved on from the “X” and “10.x” numbering to indicate some of the major changes to their operating system. Big Sur (which uses Darwin 20.1 for the first release) seems stable, but also not quite finished.
Reviews are generally positive for macOS Big Sur, although there are some criticisms. Some reviews worth reading:
- PC Magazine. Apple macOS Big Sur Review: Apple turns macOS up to 11. (November 12, 2020)
- The Verge. Apple macOS 11 Big Sur Review: A Long Time Coming. This is what the future of the Mac looks like (November 16, 2020)
- CNet. MacOS Big Sur review: The other half of the Mac’s 2020 rebirth. (November 13, 2020)
- Macworld. macOS 11 Big Sur: Apple releases a major update for your Mac. (November 12, 2020)
- 9to5Mac. macOS Big Sur 11 top features. (November 12, 2020)
Overall, the migration to Big Sur was much easier than the migration from Mojave to Catalina. Apple’s macOS Catalina (Mac OS X 10.15 for those clinging to 2001 naming) never felt “finished” even with multiple patches and updates. The final Catalina release brought the version numbers to 10.15.7 (or Darwin 19.6).
With Catalina, I experienced a number of software incompatibilities, which were not Apple’s fault. The move from 32-bit to 64-bit apps brought some favorite applications to a standstill on macOS Catalina. I had been cautious about upgrading to Catalina because I know the transition to 64-bit-only was going to be disruptive.
Big Sur marks the migration of Apple from Intel to Apple Silicon. However, few of us care what’s inside a computer if the box does what we need it to do.
Overall, macOS Big Sur, Version 11, does what I expect it to do. It didn’t break any applications I need. It even restored some features that went missing or were well-hidden in Catalina.
But that name? macOS Big Sur Version 11.
Apple, please choose a name for the operating system and stick with it. Apple changes its operating system naming conventions somewhat randomly. I came to like the interface of Mac OS 9.2.2, the last of the Classic Mac OS operating systems. I loved System 7, but I still reject the naming change from System 7.5 to Mac OS 7.6, a change that could have waited until Mac OS 8 or 9.
Next year, Apple should focus on refining Big Sur.