hoakley December 17, 2020 Macs, Technology

Apple has stopped providing standalone installers for macOS updates

Apple released macOS Big Sur 11.1 on 14 December. Although yesterday it finally posted standalone installers for the two concomitant security updates to Catalina and Mojave, no standalone updaters for Big Sur have appeared yet. Neither has it made available a standalone updater for macOS 11.0.1, which was released over a month ago.

If you feel that you “have a need for individual downloads for Big Sur delta/combo updaters”, please let Apple know. In the strongest possible terms, via Feedback, Apple Support and any other means available.

Unless a strong case is made for the reinstatement of standalone installer versions of Big Sur updates, it’s most likely that none will be provided for download – as has already happened with the 11.0.1 and 11.1 updates.

(I am very grateful to Mr Macintosh for drawing my attention to this issue. This article has been amended since publication. The original reported accurately a tweet which may not have fully reflected the situation. I hope this rewritten version is more helpful to all concerned.)

Postscript

Several users have asked why these updaters are so important. Here are some good reasons for us needing them:

Reinstalling Safari, which isn’t on the protected System volume, but on the Data volume and can therefore become corrupted without breaking the seal. Without an updater, the only way of reinstalling Safari is within the latest full macOS installer. That’s a download of around 13 GB and a lengthy install process, all for a browser.
To create any release of that major version of macOS. What I normally do is save the initial .0 release of each major release of macOS. If I then need to go back to any earlier version of the major release, all I have to do is install the .0 release and apply the relevant Combo update. This is important for developers, security researchers, and for any user who might encounter problems with a particular release of macOS. Without standalone installers, they would have to download and save every single release of the major version of macOS.
An effective panacea for some system problems. Although most of each update is installed on the protected System volume, and therefore now ‘guaranteed’ to be intact and not corrupted, there is also quite a lot of the system (in addition to Safari) which is mutable, and installed outside that protection, on the Data volume. Installing the latest Combo updater has long been an effective means of fixing some macOS problems, and there’s no evidence that has suddenly changed.

I’m sure you can think of others. Please make your case to Apple so that this valuable service can be reinstated quickly.

46Comments

Add yours

1

prairiewalker on December 17, 2020 at 5:18 pm

Yesterday I installed 11.1 over my 10.15.7 Supplemental OS and am running 11.1 just fine. Everything I use seems to be operating well.
Since I did not install 11.0 or 11.0.1, is my system missing anything? Or do I just not understand what a standalone updater for macOS means?

LikeLiked by 1 person
- 2
  
  hoakley on December 17, 2020 at 5:23 pm
  
  Thank you. You’re fine.
  Standalone updaters are Installer packages which allow you to update a Mac, e.g. from 11.0.1 to 11.1, without having to download the update through Software Update, or to download the whole 13 GB of the full 11.1 installer app.
  They have many uses, the most important of which is for users with more than one Mac. They then allow them to download one installer at, say, 3 GB and update all their Macs using that. Here, I’ve had to update 4 separate Macs, each downloading 3-4 GB over several hours on rural broadband.
  As a convenience to the user, Apple apparently doesn’t see their point.
  Howard.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - 3
    
    Antonio on December 17, 2020 at 7:13 pm
    
    This is why Apple offers Asset Content Caching service on System Preferences > Sharing > Content cache. Just enable this in one of your Macs and you will see a world of difference. You don’t need to do anything else, just enable it. You can enable it on multiple Macs if you want. I have it enabled on an always-on Mac Mini
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 4
      
      hoakley on December 17, 2020 at 7:45 pm
      
      Thank you.
      For many multiple Mac setups, that may be ideal. For someone with 2-5 Macs, none of which is running all the time, it’s less than ideal. It’s also an incredible waste of storage – that’s why servers were invented.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
  - 5
    
    Antonio on December 18, 2020 at 2:06 pm
    
    It’s not a waste of storage because it doesn’t actually “use space” at all.
    
    macOS treats your storage space as if you didn’t have any caching enabled. You can still go do everything you want and it won’t hold you back regardless of how much space you use. macOS decreases (and increases) the cache usage automatically according to how much free space you have. But it still treats all of the used cache space as free space, not “can’t use it because of caching”.
    
    If you suddenly decide to use all of your storage for something, you won’t even notice caching was enabled because macOS will just purge the corresponding amount of cache and do what you asked it to do, even if it means purging the whole cache. This default behavior is customizable but I like it that way.
    
    Your situation warrants an always on Mac with as much free space as possible and cache enabled (preferably one on which you would not decide to suddenly use all remaining space) not only because of system updates, but everything Apple related. Though it works best if it’s always-on, you can also just enable it on all of the Macs for convenience and keep using them as you already do and not worry about it.
    
    People who have Macs may also have iPhones and iPads, Apple TVs etc, or use iCloud Drive and other iCloud features. App updates, photos, all user content… all of this gets cached (common data and account-specific data) and after it’s cached you don’t have to worry about spending an awfully long time downloading it, while also not giving away your free space.
    
    In my network, a bit over 70% of the content served from the Mac Mini was served from cache.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 6
      
      hoakley on December 18, 2020 at 4:44 pm
      
      Thank you.
      I’m delighted that you find the content server so useful, but I’m afraid that it’s useless for me. I’d also be grateful to explain how it might solve any of the three use cases I have given above without actually using any space at all, and working on a rural broadband connection delivering 4.5 Mb/s at best.
      Howard.
      
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  - 7
    
    Antonio on December 18, 2020 at 10:44 pm
    
    Technically it does use space, but macOS still reports the space used by caching as free space, therefore “doesn’t use space” because it won’t prevent you to use the space at all, it’s seamless. Keep in mind cache will be purged to free the amount of space you need if you do try to use the space. Which is why I recommended one always-on Mac with as much free space as possible (space which you don’t intend to use). But it’s not strictly necessary, you still get benefits from having cache enabled on all of your Macs and continuing to use as you already do. It just won’t be as great as an always-on Mac.
    
    The cache server doesn’t care much about your download speed. It will download from Apple at first, and then cache it locally so all downloads will come from the cache server. You can set up different algorithms to decide how the cache data flows from one caching Mac to another to suit your needs.
    
    Use case 1:
    – if you try to download the full 13GB install, it will be very fast because it comes from a cache server on your local network. Also, you could reboot the Mac and choose “reinstall macOS” which should also reinstall Safari and everything will come from cache. Reinstalling fixes the system and changes nothing else. It is so seamless you won’t even notice it happened unless you know it was reinstalled (and a working Safari!).
    
    Use case 2:
    – Thinking about this to answer your question: the standalone updaters you want to download are actually also cached by the caching server. Which gives me an idea: just download the standalone updates from the caching server! You can log the URLs for the downloads by the server, so when updating macOS, use the URL provided by the caching server to download the standalone updater.
    
    But you need to start doing this now otherwise it might be harder to get an specific URL if you don’t know when it was downloaded/cached.
    
    Use case 3:
    – Reinstalling the system (reboot with [command] + [R]) is just as effective. This uses the caching server and saves you from downloading, therefore it’s faster.
    
    These should help you and either alleviate or fix your concerns. To be honest, I think most of your issues are highly hypothetical (I’ve never had a Mac corrupting anything in 10 years and counting), and all but one of them are fixed by just reinstalling macOS from the recovery partition, which is covered by the cache server.
    
    The only use case I think other people would actually have is 2: installing specific macOS versions. The cache server allows you to have an workaround: download the standalone installers from the URLs logged by the cache server.
    
    Personally I would prefer to just roll back the previous macOS version from a Time Machine backup in case I encounter problems with a newer version. But this doesn’t help researchers, so standalone installers would be better in this case.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 8
      
      hoakley on December 18, 2020 at 11:39 pm
      
      Thank you.
      I love the way that 13 GB installers open instantly from a server which requires no space and no bandwidth! On my current rural broadband, 13 GB is an overnight download at best. As it usually coincides with an Xcode update, that’s another 12+ GB, and then there’s Final Cut Pro and all the other Apple updates, plus other devices. How many days would it take for the content server to catch up with that lot, every couple of months?
      So the installer has to come from somewhere, and take time to download. And when your server has got it, it either takes up space in its cache or has to be downloaded again. It can’t take up no space and be instantly available. It’s like snapshots – they too don’t take up permanent space, but they still grow over time and either have to be deleted in maintenance or you start getting low on free disk space.
      The incremental updates which Big Sur receives aren’t the same as standalone updaters at all. This is the problem: because of the way that Big Sur’s sealed System volume works, Apple can’t produce standalone updaters in the way that it used to. So I’ll be very interested to see whether your content server works the way that you think it will for Big Sur.
      These are not hypothetical issues at all. I’ve been supporting Mac users since 1989, mainly in Q&A pages in magazines such as the UK title (sadly gone now) MacUser, and currently MacFormat and Mac|Life. These are everyday necessities for many Mac users. Many of them don’t even keep backups!
      As a matter of interest, just to look at the options in the Big Sur content server, I turned it on, on my M1 mini. By default it was going to take up to the whole free space – over 400 GB – for caching. I also couldn’t find any control over what it cached, which I could use to restrict it to system updates, for instance. Given the huge number of App Store apps which I have, that alone would be disaster.
      But I’m glad that you’re very happy with it. Please don’t assume that other users can be, though.
      Howard.
      
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  - 9
    
    Antonio on December 18, 2020 at 10:51 pm
    
    You are very polite. I’m sorry if I don’t seem as polite as you are. I don’t mean to be rude at all. I’m just trying to help.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 10
      
      hoakley on December 18, 2020 at 11:44 pm
      
      Thank you. You’re not rude in the slightest. I like polite: we should be able to have a frank discussion, disagree if we need, without being rude to one another. You’re always most welcome to express your opinions here, and I hope we all respect those, and how they may differ.
      I also greatly welcome everyone who tries to help – it’s the best we can do for one another. So please don’t feel restrained, so long as we stay friends and are polite.
      Howard.
      
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  - 11
    
    Antonio on December 19, 2020 at 12:49 pm
    
    Thank you for all the kind words.
    
    The caching service does not have a GUI for its settings. 98% of the settings are only available through the terminal. Maybe you could find the settings you want there:
    https://support.apple.com/en-asia/guide/mac-help/mchl91e7141a/mac
    
    I didn’t mean it’s “magical” in the sense that it doesn’t actually use space (or internet), it just presents itself that way on the GUI*. I thought I didn’t need to say this because you certainly know how caching works. I said you don’t need to worry about it using all the free space because unlike snapshots, it will automatically be purged when you try to use the space (this is the behavior on my Mac Mini running Catalina) like it wasn’t there. But you can configure it to prevent automatic purging or change how much space you want it to use.
    
    Hold [option] then click the advanced/options and it will give you more options on the GUI. However, it’s best to use the terminal for full customization.
    
    * “About this Max > storage” does not report the space used by cache (well, it didn’t report it last time I checked). Other GUI also hide the space used by the cache, reporting it as free or free+purgeable.
    
    In practice, this is how it should work:
    The first time any Apple device tries to download something from Apple’s servers, it will ask the cache server to download it. The device won’t download it, but the cache server will, and will relay it to the device that asked for it. After downloaded, it gets cached. Subsequent requests for the data will come from cache, not internet. This means nothing will change for you for the first download of everything, but you have many devices. The first one will use the internet, but subsequent requests will be as fast as your local network/HDD/SSD/etc can handle. Which means it’s very similar to manually downloading the installers then copying to other Macs, but transparent (without having to manually do this).
    
    For the first few days/weeks (and every new OS update), it will download everything from Apple/internet as usual. But it would also be like this for the standalone updater. It’s impossible to get the update without downloading it from somewhere that has it. But once you have it cached, it comes from the cache. Once most of the things you use get cached, everything becomes so much faster I think it’s definitely worth it, specially on slow internet connections.
    
    I happen to have an unlimited data, 120mbps internet connection and I still use the cache server because my local network is still a lot faster than the internet connection. I get data from the cache server at about 600mbps (wireless). Which means even to me, the cache is usually 5 times faster for about 70% of the things (the things that come from cache).
    
    It’s probably not the best option for everyone (e.g.: the researchers case, etc), but I guess unless you try it, how will you know it doesn’t work for you?
    
    I was not aware of the difference from the partial installers on Big Sur. It seems you do, so perhaps by looking at the caching documentation and logs you will be able to figure out a better way to do things in the meantime until Apple provides some statement on the Standalone installers.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 12
      
      hoakley on December 19, 2020 at 9:12 pm
      
      Thank you.
      I have now enabled Content Caching on this iMac Pro, and will see how I get on.
      When they were still new, and we then had satellite broadband, I ran an Xserve with Mac OS X Server to do essentially the same task. When Apple brought out the Content Caching feature in OS X, I tried that too. Of course in those days, it also offered standalone updates too, so I never relied on either for macOS updates.
      I’ll be reporting back.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
13

prairiewalker on December 17, 2020 at 5:45 pm

I will let Apple know my thoughts. I help at various levels 4-5 family & friends keep their Macs running smoothly and on occasion have walked in with an Apple macOS update of the standalone variety. My broadband download speed has varied widely over the past 20 years and less is always better.
Thanks

LikeLiked by 1 person
14

John Hay on December 17, 2020 at 6:45 pm

I’m trying to keep myself in the habit of saving at least each initial installer file, just in case I need to reinstall an older OS in somewhere in the future. I just save a copy to DropBox.

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- 15
  
  hoakley on December 17, 2020 at 7:48 pm
  
  Thank you.
  That strategy used to work well when Apple provided standalone updaters. You could then install the .0 version and update it to any subsequent release. Without those updaters, you can only update that .0 release to the current release, none in between.
  Howard.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - 16
    
    Marc Wilson on December 20, 2020 at 5:01 pm
    
    This is why you use something like MacAdmins installinstallmacos.py and archive prior installers. I make sure I have the installer for each point release of each major release archived. Apple sometimes re-spins installers (the “supplemental updates”), and I make sure to have grabbed those too.
    
    You never could trust Apple’s delta updater’s anyway, so that’s no loss. I will miss the combo updaters after I eventually install Big Sur a year or so from now.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 17
      
      hoakley on December 20, 2020 at 5:05 pm
      
      Do those utilities work for Big Sur updates too?
      Howard
      
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    - 18
      
      hoakley on December 20, 2020 at 10:57 pm
      
      Thank you. I’ve looked at this in more detail and confirm that this appears feasible only with the full Big Sur installers, of around 12.2 GB each. It’s easy to do in the Finder – you don’t need a script, but this means that in addition to installing each update, you also need to download its full installer and save that somewhere. Repeat that on tens of millions of Macs around the world, and that doesn’t seem good use of storage space.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
19

Michele Galvagno on December 17, 2020 at 6:53 pm

I sincerely hope not… Is there a way via Terminal to download the installer and save it separately?

Grazie

Michele Galvagno

LikeLiked by 1 person
- 20
  
  hoakley on December 17, 2020 at 7:46 pm
  
  Thank you.
  Not that I know of, although I am looking at it! You can try this (once only, I’m afraid) using SilentKnight or LockRattler, but whether the ‘installer’ you’d get would be installable on other Macs I just don’t know.
  Howard.
  
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- 21
  
  Marc Wilson on December 21, 2020 at 12:19 am
  
  The complete installer or the update? The complete installer, sure. Use installinstallmacosx.py.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  - 22
    
    hoakley on December 21, 2020 at 12:28 am
    
    Thank you. It’s easy to get the full installers, though. That’s not the problem.
    Howard
    
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23

Chris Backas (@cbackas) on December 17, 2020 at 7:17 pm

Is this not the thing you’re looking for?
cbackas@Oscar ~> softwareupdate –list-full-installers
Finding available software
Software Update found the following full installers:
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.1, Size: 12202442268K
* Title: macOS Catalina, Version: 10.15.7, Size: 8248985973K
* Title: macOS Catalina, Version: 10.15.7, Size: 8248854894K
* Title: macOS Catalina, Version: 10.15.6, Size: 8248781171K
* Title: macOS Mojave, Version: 10.14.6, Size: 6038419486K
* Title: macOS High Sierra, Version: 10.13.6, Size: 5221689433K

LikeLiked by 1 person
- 24
  
  hoakley on December 17, 2020 at 7:43 pm
  
  Thank you, but no.
  Since as long as I can remember, I think since the first update to Mac OS X, Apple has provided standalone updater packages which can be downloaded and installed using the Installer app. These come in two forms: the ‘delta’, which updates only from the last release version, and the Combo, which updates from the last major release. The first is similar in size to the update installed by Software Update, and a small fraction of the size of the whole installer app.
  They also allow a user to reinstall Safari without having to install the whole of macOS, to update multiple Macs from a single download, and to recreate any previous version of macOS from a copy of its .0 installer.
  Howard.
  
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  - 25
    
    Chris Backas (@cbackas) on December 17, 2020 at 8:16 pm
    
    I see, you’re primarily looking for the “Delta” updater as its own download.
    
    The full installers should be available and remain so, and they do provide many of the benefits you mention. But obviously it does require a lot more machines to update to break even bandwidth-wise so that’s a bummer.
    
    Part of the problem here is that prior to Big Sur, Delta updates were essentially just a package with the files that changed since some baseline. Like, if you had a delta from 10.15.6 to 10.15.7 it would just include the stuff that changed between those releases – straight forward/obvious right? But if there were “supplemental” or security updates in between, well, it’d re-include all of that and just stomp on them because it didn’t really hurt to do. Could make the delta itself bigger than it strictly needed to be though because it might include changes you already had.
    
    As of Big Sur a number of things have complicated the story. Because the system volume is cryptographically signed/sealed, you can’t have a byte out of place after an update. You can’t have the updates be “sloppy” or potentially include or leave behind extra stuff, because that’ll break the seal. Big Sur also supports true patching, a large file that has 2 bytes out of 500MB changed will occupy about 2 bytes in the update instead of 500MB for instance. But doing that requires that the target you’re patching is EXACTLY what you think it is. There’s other related factors, but it all means that “Which delta update?” is a tougher question than before and a universal one that can apply to any Mac isn’t very practical anymore.
    
    Which is why the full installer is still offered, because that CAN deal with anything you point it at (since it always has the full data available) and you can make bootable thumbsticks from it.
    
    But you’re right that it’s a drawback for the situation you’re describing based on your other comments.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 26
      
      hoakley on December 17, 2020 at 10:02 pm
      
      Thank you, Chris.
      I do appreciate that the new SSV poses many difficulties in this respect. However, Apple made the decision to introduce this in Big Sur at least a year ago, I’m sure. At no time since then, or (as far as I can discover) at WWDC in the summer has it asked developers or users whether providing Combo and ‘delta’ standalone updates was important to them. It has simply stopped providing them, waiting for its customers to complain and make the case for their reinstatement.
      I’m sorry, but that’s not the way that any company should treat its customers. If that was Apple’s intention, then why did this not get aired at WWDC? Did Apple think we just wouldn’t notice the omission?
      Any good engineering design would have included the provision of these updaters from the outset, and provided a seamless transition to the new system architecture. Was this just a bid to save on engineering effort and cost, at the user’s expense?
      Howard.
      
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  - 27
    
    Chris Backas (@cbackas) on December 17, 2020 at 10:47 pm
    
    I can’t speak to when what decisions got made why and how of course. But I wouldn’t attribute either malice or bad faith to any of it.
    
    Engineering is always tradeoffs. For instance, the way Big Sur handles delta updates is a win for the majority by making the deltas considerably smaller than they otherwise would be (and otherwise were on prior releases). Whether or not that was weighed against increasing the difficult of distribution in the particular case you’re seeing I don’t know. It’s possible it wasn’t considered, or it’s possible that it was felt improving access to the “Full installer” (You don’t have to muddle around in the App Store anymore!) for “sneaker net” or local installs would cover the institutional case, with Cache server handling the remainder. I really don’t know. I’m sure however that making lives harder was not anybody’s actual goal.
    
    And as for saving money on engineering, let’s just say if that was a goal somewhere it failed spectacularly. I can’t be specific of course, but why would you think it’d be about saving money? Update packages were generated automatically, it didn’t cost anything to author them. And as far as testing goes, there’s MORE delta packages to test than before because they’re so much more specific. If anything the new scheme costs more than the old.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 28
      
      hoakley on December 18, 2020 at 12:40 am
      
      Thank you.
      I worked for a very large organisation (the UK Ministry of Defence) for much of my working life, and I understand how isolated they become from the world outside. With the best of intentions, decisions are then made on the basis of corporate assessments which turn out to be very different from user perceptions.
      I was lucky: as a medical practitioner, we had to build a system of clinical governance which consulted with our patients over proposed changes. Everything that we did had to be transparent and consulted. At first it seemed very tedious and people thought it would prevent use from achieving our objectives. In fact, it did exactly the opposite: our patients/users often had very perceptive approaches as to how we could improve the services we delivered. They were actually on our side.
      I don’t know what consultations Apple has with its users, but in the more than thirty years that I’ve been using, writing about (MacUser and now MacFormat) and developing on Macs, I don’t think that I’ve ever been asked for an opinion about this sort of change, which has a big impact on users. It’s not malice or bad faith, but that pervasive corporate isolation which causes this sort of problem.
      Download a 12 GB installer? Yes, in urban California that’ll a few minutes and cost essentially nothing. Here in rural England, I can only download Xcode overnight, as it usually takes upwards of 6 hours. In other parts of the world, it takes even longer. The difference between a 3 GB update and a 12 GB installer is upwards of four hours, for each one of my four active Macs. Those are the tradeoffs of engineering here, which Apple appears oblivious to.
      My reference to saving cost wasn’t in the context of the introduction of the SSV – of which I am a great enthusiast – but not including a successor to the existing mechanism for delivering ‘delta’ and Combo updaters.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
29

Michael Tsai - Blog - No More Downloadable macOS Updates on December 17, 2020 at 9:43 pm

[…] Howard Oakley: […]

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30

RobertF on December 18, 2020 at 9:43 am

@Chris Backas, with respect I don’t follow your argument. You said “Because the system volume is cryptographically signed/sealed, you can’t have a byte out of place after an update” and “doing that requires that the target you’re patching is EXACTLY what you think it is”. That’s exactly the point of the cryptographic seal on the system volume: you can’t have a byte out of place BEFORE the update, otherwise the seal is broken. And if the seal is broken, the best an updater could do is what it has done for all versions of macOS prior to Big Sur – replace the entirety of all the files that have changed or, more reliably, replace the entire system volume and re-seal it.

Apple knows exactly every byte of a sealed system volume, and exactly where every byte is located. So it seems to me that patching a sealed system volume should actually be easier: replace the data necessary to update the volume “image” from it’s pre-update state to its post-update state, verify the cryptographic hashes all the way up the tree to the final volume seal, then make a new snapshot. I appreciate that task may not be so easy on a live system, but I can’t see any obvious reason why this could not be done by a stand-alone installer as easily as by the system update process.

Like Howard, I greatly value the stand-alone installers. I provide IT support to a large number of small non-profit organisations. None of them now have Apple servers, they have mostly moved to cloud-based services. They have laptops and desktop computers which are turned on and off as needed by their users, so asset content cacheing doesn’t help. A few of them are in offices which still have ADSL connections – even in London fibre broadband is not available everywhere, and many small organisations cannot afford the cost of a dedicated fibre Ethernet connection. Combo updaters make my life a lot easier!

Howard, you suggest making the case to Apple – is there an obvious way to do this which might reach the right ears?

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- 31
  
  hoakley on December 18, 2020 at 11:27 am
  
  Thank you.
  Feedback is the best way, unless you already have a channel direct to someone with influence. There are already several Feedback reports which have been filed – another will always help the cause, please.
  Howard.
  
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32

Chris Schram on December 18, 2020 at 12:03 pm

In our rural community, the “last mile” of our internet service is 60-year-old copper wire from the phone company. When a single system update can take hours to download, it’s a major pain in the butt to have to repeat that process for the multiple Macs in the house.

LikeLiked by 1 person
33

Frank on December 18, 2020 at 1:14 pm

Thank you Howard for this, as you said in the article, please everyone interested report this to Apple ‘in the strongest possible terms, via Feedback, Apple Support and any other means available.’ This is very important.

LikeLiked by 1 person
34

CZ on December 19, 2020 at 1:10 am

IMHO, this is yet another move by Apple to ignore the real-world and institute policies\processes that make zero sense for those of us in the field. Other factors such as this endless train of requiring HW upgrades every 2-5 years, determining RAM requirements at initial purchase, removing easy to use and access log functionality, the lame move to merge tiny mobile with larger PC UX, etc., I think the time is coming (if not already here) where Linux + lower-cost PC hardware will become a real consideration in the minds of existing Mac users (think ElementaryOS, PopOS, etc.). I know it is for me.

I long for the days when Steve Jobs would say “It just works!!!” and I could believe that to be true – for me that is no longer the case. For me, Apple has truly become derailed…

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- 35
  
  hoakley on December 19, 2020 at 7:31 am
  
  If you want to jump ship to Linux, you’re most welcome. I’d rather spend my time getting on with what I want to do, not all the tinkering that Linux demands. Compared to any other major OS, macOS does still ‘just work’, thankfully.
  Also many of your reasons don’t seem correct – your comments about the unified log, for example. Sure, Console is next to useless, but Ulbow works fine for me, thank you.
  Howard.
  
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36

antbee on December 20, 2020 at 12:32 am

Thank you for mentioning the software update for 11.1, Howard. If I had not come onto your site this evening, there is no telling when I would have known there was an update, with very much needed bug fixes one would hope.
I have my iMac set for automatic updates or notifying me of a available updates. Perhaps have not been patient and not given Apple’s servers time enough to notify me? Oh, well.
Thank you, again, Howard!

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37

FusionPilot on December 28, 2020 at 9:04 pm

Upgraded to Big Sur 11.1 today. Seems to have cured the TextEdit issues, at least so far.

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- 38
  
  hoakley on December 29, 2020 at 12:32 am
  
  Well done.
  Howard.
  
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39

macOS Big Sur 11.2 Update (20D64) is Live! What’s New? - Mr. Macintosh on February 1, 2021 at 6:28 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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40

macOS 11.2 Big Sur Improves Bluetooth, Squashes Bugs - TidBITS on February 1, 2021 at 9:30 pm

[…] The macOS 11.2 update advertises itself as being a 3.25 GB download on both an Intel-based iMac and an M1-based MacBook Air, although the latter Mac’s download window inexplicably reports 4.18 GB instead. You can install the update using Software Update; Apple appears to have stopped releasing standalone downloads for Big Sur updates. […]

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macOS Big Sur 11.2.1 Update (20D74) is Live! What’s New? on February 9, 2021 at 7:40 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 Update (20D80) is Live! What’s New? on March 4, 2021 at 11:30 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 Update (20D91) is Live! What’s New? on March 8, 2021 at 7:50 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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macOS Big Sur 11.3 Update (20E232) is Live! What’s New? - on April 26, 2021 at 6:42 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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macOS Big Sur 11.3.1 Update (20E241) is Live! What’s New? on May 3, 2021 at 6:40 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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46

macOS Big Sur 11.4 Update (20F71) is Live! What’s New? - Mr. Macintosh on May 24, 2021 at 6:55 pm

[…] More Info – eclecticlight.co/2020/12/17/apple-has-stopped-providing-standalone-installers-for-macos-updates/ […]

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