* The Official macOS Big Sur thread *

Reuben klang · 14 Nov 2020 at 10:02

Updated yesterday, no problem or issue at all.

I'm kind of still on the fence with it. Haven't had any issues with using it in general.

Barks · 14 Nov 2020 at 11:14

Throrik said:
Do you have cross-site tracking enabled? I've not run into this, but then again I don't see adverts at all.

Prevent cross-site tracking is enabled but Instagram are far too clever for that. They use fingerprinting and other techniques to keep tabs on you.

Barks · 14 Nov 2020 at 11:18

Does anyone know if it's possible to hide all the third party apps from the menu bar? Apple stuff seems to be configurable.

Feek · 14 Nov 2020 at 11:42

Barks said:
Does anyone know if it's possible to hide all the third party apps from the menu bar? Apple stuff seems to be configurable.

Bartender.

Barks · 14 Nov 2020 at 13:17

Feek said:
Bartender.

Fantastic, many thanks for the heads up. Looks so much better even just hiding everything until you hover the mouse over it.

Considering how obsessed Apple are with minimalism it amazes me they don't offer this functionality out the box.

Throrik · 14 Nov 2020 at 13:20

Barks said:
Prevent cross-site tracking is enabled but Instagram are far too clever for that. They use fingerprinting and other techniques to keep tabs on you.

I'm showing my age, I don't do these new-fangled Social Medias haha.

Barks · 14 Nov 2020 at 15:02

Throrik said:
I'm showing my age, I don't do these new-fangled Social Medias haha.

Honestly, good for you. They're an addictive drug and few seem to escape the toxic effect Instagram has on your mental health (and wallet).

Vita · 14 Nov 2020 at 16:23

Barks said:
Honestly, good for you. They're an addictive drug and few seem to escape the toxic effect Instagram has on your mental health (and wallet).

Instagram/Snapchat and that tiktok.

Feek · 15 Nov 2020 at 15:28

Finally.

Feek · 15 Nov 2020 at 22:48

Useful tip because with a dark wallpaper, I didn't like the black menu.

I loaded my wallpaper into photoshop, adjusted the canvas size by 44 pixels height and set the absolute position of the image to centre bottom with the background set to white. That saved my background image at 44 pixels taller with a white bar along the top.

Changed my desktop wallpaper to point at that image and bingo, I've got a white menu bar bar with no need to faff around with reduced contrast.

Bluecube · 15 Nov 2020 at 23:39

But... but... it’s still BLACK! Makes it look like it’s crashed out

Combat squirrel · 16 Nov 2020 at 11:32

So far Big Sur has destroyed my battery on MBP 2016 15" - it constantly sits at 85c now and battery is flat in under 2 hours - very annoyed, its been on since launch day, id have thought it would have finished sorting its file system etc out by now.

I'm suspicious apple has nerfed older intel laptops on purpose - before the update id get 7-8 hours easily and sub 40 temps when running on battery (apart from when loading the cpu of course)

alex24 · 16 Nov 2020 at 11:39

Combat squirrel said:
So far Big Sur has destroyed my battery on MBP 2016 15" - it constantly sits at 85c now and battery is flat in under 2 hours - very annoyed, its been on since launch day, id have thought it would have finished sorting its file system etc out by now.

I'm suspicious apple has nerfed older intel laptops on purpose - before the update id get 7-8 hours easily and sub 40 temps when running on battery (apart from when loading the cpu of course)

Sounds like a genuine bug or issue going on that's using your system resources and draining battery. I don't think your CPU would idle at 85c so something must be going on. I'm not an expert but maybe worth checking activity monitor or something to look for the culprit.

I have the Mid 2014 MBP and performance is on par with Catalina. I highly doubt they would create deliberate performance issues for older Intel based MacBooks. The gradual addition of more features may impact performance versus older versions of MacOS, though. I think it's more likely we'll see an increasing number of Apple Silicon exclusive features/apps as time goes on. I think their support for older models is admirable and this is a good reason to buy a MacBook as you know it will still have good value second hand many years on. I don't think they would jeopardise that.

Feek · 16 Nov 2020 at 12:04

Combat squirrel said:
So far Big Sur has destroyed my battery on MBP 2016 15" - it constantly sits at 85c now and battery is flat in under 2 hours - very annoyed, its been on since launch day, id have thought it would have finished sorting its file system etc out by now.

Have you looked in Activity Monitor (or just run 'top' in terminal) to see what's loading it up? You've got a rogue process somewhere that's thrashing it.

I did my 2016 12" MB last week and I've not noticed any difference in performance issues or battery life between Big Sur and Catalina.

ChrisD. · 16 Nov 2020 at 12:05

Combat squirrel said:
I'm suspicious apple has nerfed older intel laptops on purpose

lol

Combat squirrel · 16 Nov 2020 at 12:23

Feek said:
Have you looked in Activity Monitor (or just run 'top' in terminal) to see what's loading it up? You've got a rogue process somewhere that's thrashing it.

I did my 2016 12" MB last week and I've not noticed any difference in performance issues or battery life between Big Sur and Catalina.

Yeah had a look but it keeps changing between 'routined', 'photoanylsisid' and 'photolibraryd' sometimes its high use but not its not, ill keep an eye on it

squerble · 16 Nov 2020 at 12:56

Combat squirrel said:
So far Big Sur has destroyed my battery on MBP 2016 15" - it constantly sits at 85c now and battery is flat in under 2 hours - very annoyed, its been on since launch day, id have thought it would have finished sorting its file system etc out by now.

I'm suspicious apple has nerfed older intel laptops on purpose - before the update id get 7-8 hours easily and sub 40 temps when running on battery (apart from when loading the cpu of course)

They haven't nerfed anything, there's just something wrong with your install. I'm running on a 13" Late-2013 MBP and used barely 15% in an hour+ Zoom call last night, so everything is good here. Worth noting I was a completely clean install from USB pen though, not an upgrade.

Combat squirrel · 16 Nov 2020 at 13:30

I've kept an eye on it and it doesn't seem to be anything in particular - safari, twitter, messages, various safari pages - MBP is sitting around 70-80c - nothing else is obviously spiking, these apps all using 1-10% cpu constantly - I have MX4 thermal paste on this MBP recently done so its not the physical thermals - after applying that I got much lower than previous temps.

Activity monitor uses 7-10% cpu also when running as the main window.

EDIT: Using notepad to make notes uses 14% CPU - 'brave browser helper' jumped to 26% usage.

WEIRD !! Anything that's running seems to use abnormally high processing power all of a sudden?

ChrisD. · 16 Nov 2020 at 13:51

Combat squirrel said:
Anything that's running seems to use abnormally high processing power all of a sudden?

It must be that Apple magic to kill off older CPUs.

visibleman · 16 Nov 2020 at 15:24

Combat squirrel said:
So far Big Sur has destroyed my battery on MBP 2016 15"....

Backup data, reinstall and see how it goes. If it's still naffed then revert back to 10.15 and wait for the minor update to fix all the bugs (that's typically how this goes).

*** The Official macOS Big Sur thread ***

* The Official macOS Big Sur thread *