Hacker News Reader

Comment by BitwiseFool | Hacker News Reader

On the day Big Sur came out we got an email from IT saying that under no circumstances should any employee install it. I'm glad out IT knew about this release's problems so early.

View on HN

I don't think they were that prescient. They probably just followed what should be standard common sense by now: Never, ever, install a new OS on a machine that you can't afford to lose that very same day. Always wait for reports from early adopters or victims of bushy-tailed curiosity.

Even if the upgrade was smooth they could end up with a ton of support calls asking how to change it back or how to turn off Bluetooth.

'Bushy-tailed' well that's a new word that TIL, on a lighter note. :)

"Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" is the usual phrase, creatively altered by the parent. (See https://wordhistories.net/2018/07/01/brighteyed-bushytailed-... for an in-depth etymology)

Your diction is outstanding.

Most likely they just applied common sense which goes for any release of any major software, don't upgrade on day 1, especially in a professional environment where you need the equipment to work most of the time.

That's just standard IT policy at most companies. Favour tested stability over being on the newest stack.

Especially when that "stack" is just your operating system. Like, what feature does a new OS like Big Sur include that was previously denied to you on a previous version of OS X? I don't get the eagerness to upgrade, especially after Catalina had proven to be somewhat bug-ridden as well.

Apple often ties their whole pipeline to OS updates for developers.

In the past it's been that developing on the latest iPhone needed the latest version of Xcode and the latest version of Xcode needed the latest version of the OS.

We also got an email from IT telling us not to update to Big Sur, but not because of any specific problem. Our IT department blocks all major OS updates for a few months while they do post-launch testing.

Big Sur has fewer foundational changes than Catalina did. Most the changes are just UI changes (though I think there were some changes that affect Audio processing apps).

Apple has a pretty loose approach to backwards compatibility on macOS, compared to Microsoft with Windows.

But even with Windows, bugs always happen and goal of IT is to keep your system and tools up, not chase after latest hotness. If IT allows immediate upgrade to a new OS, they’re playing with fire and waiting for an upgrade that bricks significant % of devices and brings company operations to the halt. Heads will roll as a result, especially if that’s in a remote work setup.

Why is your IT department allowing personal system-updates and need to write emails about it?

In my experience, this is the standard rule and not a response to any specific issue. I've been told not to upgrade work machines to new OS releases for damn close to a decade now.

Interestingly enough, our IT doesn't send out alerts for Windows 10 feature updates. I suspect that because so many executives use Macs that this is the reason why the alert went out.

I believe there are more tools to manage updates across a fleet of Windows machines, so one can flip a switch and prevent all the windows laptops in the company from running major updates until you’re ready.

Yes it's called Group Policy. Companies can manage when every Windows machine gets updated and what gets updated on a granular level.

I think it's just common sense to wait for the bugs to get ironed out of new software when you are working with mission critical software and hardware.

As a developer I don't think I'll switch to Big Sur until I they stop supporting Mojave (i.e. the version behind Catalina, which is the version behind Big Sur).

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

I don't understand why Apple makes it so difficult to ignore major OS upgrades at least for some time. Most users would be better off waiting at least a couple for a point release of Big Sur. Being responsible for a couple of Macs in my family this makes me quite angry actually.

What’s so hard to ignore? Apart from the little red dot if you have settings in your dock and maybe one notice it’s not like it’s nagging you like windows does.

I can ignore it no problem. But less proficient users, like my mother, will not know or remeber this advice.

What's also (in)convenient is that unrelated security updates, like the one for Safari that was released the same day as Big Sur, are well hidden UI wise. You have to click a small link below the Big Sur upgrade notification to get to those important security updates.

If you have auto updates enabled it nags you every day with a popup notification window asking to update, exactly the same way Windows does it (at least on my machines).

On a clean install you’ll get one notification. If you ignore that, you won’t see anything outside of the software update panel and automatic updates for everything else will continue to be installed.

I have auto updates and have only gotten one nag about it.

meh, I upgraded my work mbp on release day and everything works completely perfectly, I suspect you'd probably be fine... :}

Reply on news.ycombinator.com