A significant update for Macs is coming very soon from Apple, and we are recommending that Mac users do not update to this right away.

The incoming update for macOS (the Mac operating system) is called Big Sur and is the very first update for version 11.0. The previous version change of this significance was way back in March 2001, when Apple released version 10.0. All versions since have been incremental, e.g. the most recent being Catalina version 10.15.

Big Sur makes a very significant change to how the Mac operating system works, which impacts all third party (i.e. non-Apple) software. Not everyone is ready for this, even massive companies and providers, so not everything is yet compatible.

Our recommendation is to wait until the major applications and services have caught up and released their own updates to work with Big Sur. And also, to wait for any general initial teething problems to be ironed out – which is always our recommendation with such significant operating system changes.

If you have already updated to Big Sur early (the official release hasn’t happened quite yet), this won’t be a problem for your Mac, but some of your non-Apple software and/or services may not work properly or may work in a reduced state – until they are fully compatible. We estimate this should be by the end of October, generally speaking.

To see more technical information on the significant change in how macOS works, please see Apple’s information here: support.apple.com/en-us/HT210999

To find out more on Big Sur and what new features it will bring, please see Apple’s information here: apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview