Apple Big Sur OS

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Why do you think Addison Wesley published the book? Because Apple paid them to publish it, because it represented an ideal to which Apple aspired, and to which they wished to promote the idea that all software developed for the platform should aspire/conform.

Proving my point; it was important enough to them at the time, apparently not so much now.

Others simply produced poorly executed copies of the original, because they lacked the same dedication to the vision and ideals.

 

[Godfrey]

Proving my point; it was important enough to them at the time, apparently not so much now.
...

Not really: Apple self-publishes the guidelines (like all their other documentation) now via the web. Nobody wants expensive paper books on these subjects anymore, there's no profit in it for either Apple or A-W, it goes out of date too rapidly, and it costs a bloody fortune.

See "The Developer's Guide to the Human Interface Guidelines"

Two of my colleagues (I worked for Developer Publications for five years) were the primary authors of the HIG, as of 2014-2016. It's an ongoing publication effort.

The biggest issue in the development of conformant HIG now is that the A-W published HIG of the past was rooted in only desktop and laptop operating system practices and notions. That is an insufficient scope when you are creating and building devices spanning from smart mobile phones to television/broadcast access to tablets to low-medium level workstation capable systems, and certainly inadequate when the expectations and competition from that huge spectrum of systems and devices needs to be met, and new innovation is essential to continued survival. The HIG are therefore not just one codified thing, they are plenary.

G

 

[splitimageview]

See "The Developer's Guide to the Human Interface Guidelines"

If only Apple would 'see' and follow their own publications like they used to. 😀

 

[Godfrey]

If only Apple would 'see' and follow their own publications like they used to. 😀

That was part and parcel of my discussions with Apple engineering from as long ago as 1985. The HIG were never implemented to perfect fidelity... by anyone, even the people who created them. They were always "guidelines" to be interpreted...

LOL!

G

 

[willie_901]

I agree the Restore options make bootable backups less important.

The time required to restore a system using Thunderbolt devices with an appropriate Thunderbolt cable is shockingly short.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

I agree the Restore options make bootable backups less important.

The time required to restore a system using Thunderbolt devices with an appropriate Thunderbolt cable is shockingly short.

This might depend on individual situations.
Where I live, internet download speeds are 7MB/s on a good day, and 5MB/s or so on a less good day. We don’t have fiber optic cable as is available in Cupertino and elsewhere, which may be coloring thinking about how “quick and easy” the Apple way is.
If I need to download a clean copy of the current OS, which for Big Sur was around 16GB if I recall correctly, it’s a long overnight process. If I have made a copy of the OS and kept it on a thumb drive, as has been suggested, and is certainly one way to do this, to boot from that and use that in combination with Time Machine, the only way I can keep the thumb drive as current as my bootable backup current is to keep erasing that thumb drive over and over and over and repopulating it with the newest version, which again takes forever to download, where I am. PITA.
Then, at least when I have done it this way, starting with what the computer thinks is a new OS and Migration Assistant, I am starting with telling it what language I want to use, what Time Zone, etc. Perhaps there is a workaround.
PITA. It’s anything but shockingly short.

And let’s suppose that the reason my Mac crashed and became unresponsive to any and all administrations available in the Apple handbook is that I yesterday had downloaded Iranian goat porn which contained a worm which was excited when I tried to access my nuclear codes. If I don’t have a clean bootable backup of the system I made when it was operating perfectly , and, instead, spend 8 hours downloading a clean copy of the Current OS and then use Time Machine to repopulate all my files, then the computer is still going to have the goat porn on it, because it is completely up to date, which is a potential issue with using Time Machine, which I am hardly the first one to mention, though that is not unavoidable.

If, otoh, I have a cloned, bootable backup, I am up in minutes, and not many minutes, and the OS is as up to date, with all the current security updates, as well, because it’s a clone of the system and files, made when there were no issues. I will likely have lost a bit of work done right before I made the backup, but that’s the tradeoff I am more than glad to make, in my case.
If someone isn’t limited to 5-7 MB/s internet speeds, and most are not, then starting over from scratch can certainly make more sense. It’s nice to have workable and approved options, instead of being told by 30 something year old coders, that live in the land of GB internet speeds that “You shalt not!”. I’d rather that Apple allowed Time Machine to make bootable backups, but, again, am sure they have their reasons. I’m also sure they could make this happen if they chose to, because they have the best computers, and the best minds, “creatives” as they keep reminding me. Surely it’s just a matter of time, as soon as they move some people over who are currently busy in the emoji department.

 

[splitimageview]

😀

I too am not hooked up to Google Fiber and gigabits per second. At least until my Starlink arrives (Elon, what's the tracking number please?)

Hence, the first thing I do when updating the OS after installing, is immediately make a bootable backup onto an SD card. This gets stored in a drawer that formerly housed MacOS install CDs.

Since it's a clean install on both the Mac, and the SD card, there is zero chance of any nefarious-ware being installed.

Apple doesn't make bootable SD cards a simple process, luckily there are a few intrepid bloggers who do that hard work of publishing a how-to, so I don't have to commit the process to memory.

I don't use Time Machine, rather, Super Duper (paid $28, May 25, 2006.) It makes it easy to create 'sparse bundle' disk images which are quite efficient.

Since I'm still on Catalina, and won't be getting an M1 machine for quite a while, it works just fine.

Hopefully those emoji-creatives will soon have time to resurrect the original, decades-established Save As... functionality to the file menu as the default, instead of requiring the use of the option key, which alters Duplicate into Save As... 😎

 

[Doug]

...If, otoh, I have a cloned, bootable backup, I am up in minutes, and not many minutes, and the OS is as up to date, with all the current security updates, as well, because it’s a clone of the system and files, made when there were no issues. I will likely have lost a bit of work done right before I made the backup, but that’s the tradeoff I am more than glad to make, in my case. ...

I too live in a rural area without fiber to the door, so a bootable backup is most useful. For double safety I use both Time Machine and a CCC bootable clone for backup.
A few months ago I noticed that some of my frequently used files were out of date, not showing recent revisions. I soon discovered that for several days I'd been running on the backup volume refreshed a bit earlier. My iMac's internal hybrid drive had failed overnight and I had not even noticed! I used Time Machine to bring back those out-of-date files.
After the internal drive was replaced, data was restored to it from the CCC backup. Back in business! (on Mojave)

Edit: The Apple-authorized repair facility where the drive was replaced is a 90-minute drive away. As an alternative, the nearest Apple retail store is two-hours drive over a snowy mountain pass, so it helps to be reasonably self-sufficient.

 

[Godfrey]

I know this won't work for many due to access and distance, but if you have poor internet IO and need to download the macOS installer, you can always just go to an Apple Retail Store and download it there using their super-high-speed Publicly accessible WiFi.

I did that once when it was taking too long at home ... The OS installer downloaded in less than five minutes. The folks at all the local Stores are happy to help out too, if you need any assistance.

It is a viable option for many, if not for all. 🙂

G

 

[willie_901]

This might depend on individual situations.
Where I live, internet download speeds are 7MB/s on a good day, and 5MB/s or so on a less good day. We don’t have fiber optic cable as is available in Cupertino and elsewhere, which may be coloring thinking about how “quick and easy” the Apple way is.

Having a clean DMG of OS X is useful when your internet resources are out limited. You don't have to be in Cupertino to access fats internet. I live in a small suburb near Charlotte NC and get 100 GB download speeds using a wired (ethernet) connection to an ATT Fiber modem. (and upload). Often the bps transfer rate exceeds the remote servers' abilities. Two exceptions are Apple and Microsoft. I get 275 - 300 Gb per second downloads from Microsoft's Xbox servers.

It’s anything but shockingly short.

What's shockingly short is the amount of time required to transfer 1 Tb of data from a local back up device. The time required to answer a few questions to initiate the restore process is nothing compared to transferring a Tb of data using old USB technologies.

 

[Richard G]

I just upgraded my mid-2014 MacBook Pro to Big Sur 11.2.2. Safari is blazing fast. There is one work client program I can no longer use and I have to buy a later version of FileMaker Pro - still using version 12 on other machines. A recurring old password problem unfixable has now gone. I am very happy with the new OS. A six or seven year old computer that is running perfectly on the latest OS.

My main work Mac is now 11 years old, 27 inch iMac with a new SSD a few years ago. Not required, just seemed a good idea. My business critical computers are much newer locally built PCs, on account of my main software and Apple's new OS's never playing nicely together.

I really liked Mike Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner ten years ago and more and ran my backups with it. I now use Time machine periodically for my Macs and in parallel CrashPlan cloud backup for the critical stuff.