Apple drops macOS Big Sur on the world – and it arrives with a thud, sound of breaking glass, sirens in the distance...

Apple on Thursday released macOS Big Sur, the latest iteration of its desktop operating system. Designed to support the iPhone giant's new line of Apple Silicon devices, scheduled to ship next week, the operating system upgrade didn't quite go as planned. Efforts to download the software overwhelmed Apple's servers, leading …

[Tim99]

Anecdote

Mine failed. An hour later I tried again and it downloaded a small update file, then it downloaded the 12GB+ upgrade. So far, fingers crossed, it’s "Working OK".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Anecdote

I believe your "Anecdote". This article gets recycled every time Apple does an update, and I don't know anyone who actually had a problem.

Maybe these people are just not Apple fans, and are making stuff up?

[Sentinel59]

Re: Anecdote

I couldn't update for over six hours. It finally worked and I am enjoying Big Sur more than Catalina. I never had this issue before and have been using OS X since it was released about 20 years ago.

[chivo243]

Done and dusted

I hit update before bed last night, today Big Sur Golden Master is installed this morning*, this is a non story... People getting their thong up their ass over something new and free should get a life. I saw one thread in the screenshots in the article, of someone trying to install Big Sur on a 2005 model? Masochist?

* I've been running the beta since it came out, I only noticed one minor issue the whole time.

[tip pc]

Big improvement over the previous rubbish

I’ve been running the beta for months, updated 11.0.1 b1 to b2 on Wednesday, took hours but no idea why.

Sur has has always run better than Catalina, the release candidates have been great for me.

[trevorde]

But if only...

... they'd hosted the downloads on Microsoft Azure (or AWS)

[chivo243]

Re: But if only...

I think Apple uses Akamai?

[Korev]

Re: But if only...

To be fair to Apple, those Xserves are probably getting a bit old and slow by now...

[chivo243]

Re: But if only...

Have an upvote, but Xserves? Everything is running off of a massive cluster of MacMinis, the ones with the external power (massive) object.

[macjules]

Simple solution

sudo vi /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 ocsp.apple.com

[petefoth]

Re: Simple solution

Will that solution eliminate the problem described in this article by Jeffrey Paul: https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

(Serious question - I'm trying to decide whether or not to 'upgrade' our Apple laptops)

[Warm Braw]

Efforts to download the software overwhelmed Apple's servers

Given that Apple* is not exactly renowned for its smooth, glitch-free OS upgrade process, who are all these people who didn't perhaps think it might be wiser to give it a week or so?

*Not that it is unique in this respect

[DoctorNine]

Re: Efforts to download the software overwhelmed Apple's servers

You know, I think anyone without a direct need to install it, has probably been told by someone, somewhere, that it's generally a bad idea to be the first sheep to enter an open field. The chance of becoming stew meat is measurably higher amongst bold Bovidae. Just saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

A pity some software still isn't ready for it

Such as Norton Internet Security (which I am required to use). There is something on their forum to say a Norton 365 _may_ make it compatible.

[Tessier-Ashpool]

Re: A pity some software still isn't ready for it

I feel for you. Do you also have to wear a funny white hat and red smock, like in The Handmaid's Tale?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A pity some software still isn't ready for it

I do, but that's much easier to live with under "Work from home".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A pity some software still isn't ready for it

Looks like it's finally been released - https://community.norton.com/en/blogs/product-update-announcements/norton-security-mac-86-has-been-released

A lot of people switched else where during the beta program to products that had support.

[coconuthead]

Big Sur well named

It's big, and it went south.

[Oh Matron!]

Safari

You'd be surprised at just how good it is at blocking trackers....

El Reg, for example, has DoubleClick, Google, etc, all blocked. Go to superdrug.com and see how many trackers it has. Hilarious!

[Tessier-Ashpool]

Re: Safari

Yes, there's always a warm feeling when dirty trackers are given the cold shoulder.

Unfortunately, the real threat is through device profiling. You can bet your bottom dollar you are being tracked by the big operators (who should be your most concern), no matter the number of blockers you have.

Check out how visible you are at Panopticlick.

[Sentinel59]

Re: Safari

Thanks for the link. That was useful. I'm using Brave and apparently it's doing a pretty good job.

[Real Ale is Best]

Unfortunately, my macbook succeeded to download and install Big Sur.

It rebooted, and all I've seen since is a black screen.

Thanks, Apple.

[coconuthead]

You're not alone. There are similar reports on Macrumors and Apple's own forums, with several people being told Apple will take their machine and return it fixed in a couple of weeks,

It looks like I dodged a bullet, since I had intended to put Big Sur on my machine this weekend, and was only stopped by reports of the downloading problems. I would normally wait until .1, but I think the new UI look is a big improvement, and I've been having problems with Catalina coming out of sleep.

[Binraider]

Unless you’re a developer, what’s the rush? The last 5 OSX upgrades near inevitably bork existing applications and/or drivers for your external hardware. Even if you could download it. Remind me in 6 months or so once the bugs have been ironed out.

Still curious here to how far removed RISC OS is from 64bit... (Very.)