Unfortunately you have the PR of Apple to deal with too.
I manage hundreds of Macs and the users are constantly howling about not being able to use Big Sur yet. I can explain there are still many dealbreaking bugs (the 11.2 upgrade space problem caused major headaches taking hours to fix in my testing!), it's slower and more screenspace wasteful but they keep wanting it because of Apple's snazzy PR. There's also a major issue with AD accounts getting completely blocked after the upgrade.
Of course what doesn't help is that new Macs come with Big Sur by default and can't really be downgraded. So we have to support it at least for new machines.
- AD accounts get completely broken after the update (can't log in due to an MDM profile intended for local accounts now applies to AD mobile accounts as well). Confirmed by Apple support but still pending a fix
- Apple keeps introducing bugs, I was close to push the button for mass upgrades with 11.2 but then they introduced the space bug which caused macs to be locked in a bootloop that can't be fixed without another Mac present with an older OS version: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/15/macos-big-sur-11-2-1-re... . This really should never have made it through QA.
- Our VPN still has issues with random disconnects that are still being investigated (they switched over to network extensions so this was a big rewrite for them)
- Our antivirus only supports Big Sur as of about 1 month ago. So this was a blocking point for a long time that's only just been resolved. This was also due to the system extension thing mainly (and yes they could have done this sooner as this was already on the cards with Catalina, absolutely)
All in all this is not at a level I call "stable" and that's not all third-party compatibility issues either, some of them are pure Apple.
When I say that it's slower and wastes more screen space, that's a matter of opinion (at least of the impact of these things). But these are not a reason for me to block the upgrade, it's just something I would mention to explain why it's not such a big deal that they can't have it yet :) I will allow it when it actually works reliably.
As the article explains, Apple's PR is not always aligned with reality. Updates are indeed slower and I often hear the fan running hard since Big Sur when it wouldn't before. Especially the WindowServer process uses a lot of CPU now for some reason.
Add to the list, screen sharing became very very spotty and no longer works on a headless Mac without first waking it up and restarting the screen share process. There’s no way they actually qa’d this.
Another fun one, refresh rates will sometimes go back to 60 but the drop down shows the higher rate and only fixes once you toggle. Never had this happen before Big Sur.
Aha I have not even noticed this issue, I will have a look. But we don't use the built-in screen sharing in production. Some of my test boxes have it though, but they're also on an IP KVM luckily.
Don't hold your breath for Box Sync to be fixed--it wasn't working right previous to Big Sur being delivered. Box Drive seems to be the only software that works semi-reliably these days.
Which is why they: do WWDC, provide Xcode for free, put machine learning acceleration into the M1, created a brand new Virtualization framework, demoed Linux on the M1 Macs, develop their own professional software for Macs (Final Cut, Logic)..?
They force you to use it to develop any app for iOS and macOS - it's a significant financial investment to get there ( you need a mac, a developer account), if you had to pay for Xcode as well... ( to be fair, you probably pay for it in a way with the developer account)
I manage hundreds of Macs and the users are constantly howling about not being able to use Big Sur yet. I can explain there are still many dealbreaking bugs (the 11.2 upgrade space problem caused major headaches taking hours to fix in my testing!), it's slower and more screenspace wasteful but they keep wanting it because of Apple's snazzy PR. There's also a major issue with AD accounts getting completely blocked after the upgrade.
Of course what doesn't help is that new Macs come with Big Sur by default and can't really be downgraded. So we have to support it at least for new machines.