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- Apr 20, 2021
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I upgraded to Big Sur and have since regretted doing so; I am seriously considering downgrading to Catalina. I am willing to consider upgrading to Monterrey, but after my bad experiences with Big Sur, I'm chary of that option. I'd like to hear opinions on what I should do. I've rummaged through recent discussions here about Big Sur, Catalina, and Monterrey, and haven't seen any discussions of the issues that concern me (although there have been some discussions of the beach ball's appearance.)
First, my Mac: iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017), 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4. OS 11.6
Second, me: I'm not a power user. I've been using Macs since I bought one of the very first 128K Macs back in 1984, but I've lost interest in keeping up with all the latest, greatest techie tricks. I have too many other things I need to get done. I've been writing programs for Mac in Pascal, C++, and Java.
Now, my complaints:
I'll start with a trivial one that nevertheless bothers me. At some point, Apple introduced a feature that reduced the blue content of the display in the evening. This reflected the discovery that bright blue light in the evening interferes with a good night's sleep. With Catalina, my impression is that, at some point in the evening, the OS would simply shift to the low-blue scheme, and would revert to the standard-blue scheme in the morning.
But Big Sur seems unable to make up its mind. For several hours in the morning, it randomly shifts from low-blue to standard-blue. It's a trivial problem, but it's irritating to know that they screwed this up.
Another minor problem comes with an old program I insist on continuing to use: Sandvox. There is simply no website editor that has crucial features that Sandvox boasts. I'd love to move on to a more modern website editor, but there's nothing as good as Sandvox. Yet Big Sur mucks up part of the display in Sandvox. It's not enough to make Sandvox unusable, but it's irritating. This is one reason why I am reluctant to upgrade to Monterrey: it might well make Sandvox unusable.
Another irritating problem: I can't fix the stupid system sound accompanying screenshots. C'mon, Apple, how in the world did you come to the conclusion that an unrecognizable "blurp" sound is better than a camera shutter sound? And why did you make it impossible to go back to the better sound?
But now I come to a serious problem: the random beach ball. Several times a day, the OS begins some kind of meditations that remove it from active existence. The beach ball will spin for up to twenty seconds, then it will return to consciousness as if nothing happened. I have noticed a few regularities: adding a bookmark in Safari reliably puts the Mac to sleep for at least ten seconds. But this is not the only such case; sometimes the Mac just stops for no apparent reason. My best guess is that this is some sort of internal housekeeping task that the OS decides to do for hidden reasons.
I have installed iStat menus on my system, and I consult its tiny displays whenever the OS goes to sleep, but I have not been able to discern the reason for the OS narcosis.
So, what do the assembled worthies here recommend I do? Here are some of the options I am considering:
1. Downgrade to Catalina. This is risky; some of my apps have surely upgraded to Big Sur and will likely blow their tops trying to run under Catalina. Am I certain that I'll be able to get every one of them operating under Catalina? Could data formats on files have been altered to work with Big Sur, rendering them inaccessible in Catalina? Worry, worry, worry.
2. Hunker down and stick with Big Sur. It works. I can live with those irritating flaws. Grrr, grrr, grrr.
3. Lean into the problem and upgrade to Monterrey. It will fix all these problems and eliminate my bad breath, too. Yeah, right.
So, what say ye?
First, my Mac: iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017), 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4. OS 11.6
Second, me: I'm not a power user. I've been using Macs since I bought one of the very first 128K Macs back in 1984, but I've lost interest in keeping up with all the latest, greatest techie tricks. I have too many other things I need to get done. I've been writing programs for Mac in Pascal, C++, and Java.
Now, my complaints:
I'll start with a trivial one that nevertheless bothers me. At some point, Apple introduced a feature that reduced the blue content of the display in the evening. This reflected the discovery that bright blue light in the evening interferes with a good night's sleep. With Catalina, my impression is that, at some point in the evening, the OS would simply shift to the low-blue scheme, and would revert to the standard-blue scheme in the morning.
But Big Sur seems unable to make up its mind. For several hours in the morning, it randomly shifts from low-blue to standard-blue. It's a trivial problem, but it's irritating to know that they screwed this up.
Another minor problem comes with an old program I insist on continuing to use: Sandvox. There is simply no website editor that has crucial features that Sandvox boasts. I'd love to move on to a more modern website editor, but there's nothing as good as Sandvox. Yet Big Sur mucks up part of the display in Sandvox. It's not enough to make Sandvox unusable, but it's irritating. This is one reason why I am reluctant to upgrade to Monterrey: it might well make Sandvox unusable.
Another irritating problem: I can't fix the stupid system sound accompanying screenshots. C'mon, Apple, how in the world did you come to the conclusion that an unrecognizable "blurp" sound is better than a camera shutter sound? And why did you make it impossible to go back to the better sound?
But now I come to a serious problem: the random beach ball. Several times a day, the OS begins some kind of meditations that remove it from active existence. The beach ball will spin for up to twenty seconds, then it will return to consciousness as if nothing happened. I have noticed a few regularities: adding a bookmark in Safari reliably puts the Mac to sleep for at least ten seconds. But this is not the only such case; sometimes the Mac just stops for no apparent reason. My best guess is that this is some sort of internal housekeeping task that the OS decides to do for hidden reasons.
I have installed iStat menus on my system, and I consult its tiny displays whenever the OS goes to sleep, but I have not been able to discern the reason for the OS narcosis.
So, what do the assembled worthies here recommend I do? Here are some of the options I am considering:
1. Downgrade to Catalina. This is risky; some of my apps have surely upgraded to Big Sur and will likely blow their tops trying to run under Catalina. Am I certain that I'll be able to get every one of them operating under Catalina? Could data formats on files have been altered to work with Big Sur, rendering them inaccessible in Catalina? Worry, worry, worry.
2. Hunker down and stick with Big Sur. It works. I can live with those irritating flaws. Grrr, grrr, grrr.
3. Lean into the problem and upgrade to Monterrey. It will fix all these problems and eliminate my bad breath, too. Yeah, right.
So, what say ye?
