Originally published at: Apple Releases Apple Fitness+, macOS 11.1 Big Sur, iOS 14.3, iPadOS 14.3, watchOS 7.2, and tvOS 14.3 - TidBITS
In yet another feature-focused update to Apple’s entire stable of operating systems, the company introduced support for various new products and promised technologies, including Apple Fitness+, the AirPods Max, the Apple ProRAW image format, and more.
Apple Releases Apple Fitness+, macOS 11.1 Big Sur, iOS 14.3, iPadOS 14.3, watchOS 7.2, and tvOS 14.3
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But my question is still, is it safe to update to Big Sur if you have a late-2013 Retina MacBook Pro? I’m terrified the update is going to brick my machine…
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There are also security updates for Mojave & Catalina:
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Just be sure to back up your drive before you upgrade to Big Sur 11.1 however, I am certain that Big Sur will be the last macOS to run on MBP Late 2013 Retina so if you are content with Catalina which was the last macOS for Early 2013 version of MBP. Based on my experience with iMac 2007 which is running El Capitan 10.11.6 which is kinda sluggish which made me wish I didn’t update to that. I could have stayed with Yosemite 10.10.5 so I bought newer iMac to be able to run above El Capitan without being sluggish. So again, always back up and check compatibility on software before updating to latest OS. see this for example in my case when I had iMac 2007: I have an iMac mid 2007. what can i do to… - Apple Community Hope this helps…
With the iOS 14.3 upgrade the original iPhone X can now also mirror the front camera, so selfies finally look the way they are composed when taking the picture. Mirrored, yes, but not weirdly angled.
Is there any specific information about this update, late-2013 MacBook Pros, and Big Sur anywhere? I appreciate your reply ecantrell but your experience with a 2007 iMac and El Capitan isn’t really relevant to my specific question.
I’d prefer not to update the MacBook Pro to a new machine as it’s otherwise running absolutely fine (I’m a professional graphic designer). But surely Apple can give us some definitive info about whether Big Sur will brick it or not!
It’s clear to me that Apple would not have re-enabled the installer to be able to install on your MBP if they had not solved the previous issues with bricking. They worked through all that with beta testers and there have been no further reports that I have seen during the last few days of testing, so I have to believe the chances of it reoccurring are quite small.
But Apple would be foolish to assure you that there was no chance of that, so my advise is just to wait whatever you feel is the appropriate amount of time to see if there are any such issues reported. I’m certain they will be widely publicized, should they occur in the next few days.
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It was a big deal initially but there sems to be a silence about it of late. It would be nice to have some confirmation.
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Most of the silence was due to Apple disabling the installer for those models affected. Silence over the last four or five days indicate that those who were brave enough to have installed 11.1 (20C69) have not been bricked. I’m not sure what other confirmation you expect at this point. If you need more, all you can do is wait until you are comfortable that you know enough to either update or stick with what you have.
Here’s the confirmation I’d like: “With this update, Apple has fixed the issue that was causing Big Sur to brick Late-2013 MacBook Pros.” Doesn’t seem too much to ask! 
My computer is my livelihood, I can’t afford to take risks with it.
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As I said before, they are not going to do that. It would open them up to a big class action suit if it turned out to be wrong.
There is no such thing as a zero risk update. Way too many variables. If you honestly cannot afford to take any risk then disconnect yourself from the Internet and never apply another update to anything. We all take risk when we update. Just a matter of how much risk are we comfortable taking and what we can afford to replace with a catastrophic event.
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We saw this in the release notes, but couldn’t get it to work in our testing. Everything looked the same whether the setting was on or off. So we decided to punt on mentioning it for now.
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As with so many of the rest of us, you need to take this into consideration.
I would recommend waiting until you have enough time to deal with any possible problems, which may (in a worst-case scenario) involve a trip to an Apple Store. If this means you have to wait a month or two, then so be it.
When you’re ready to move forward, make one or two full bootable backups before the upgrade. If something goes wrong, be prepared to do what it takes to roll-back the upgrade. This may mean booting from (and restoring from) your backup. It might mean running Configurator on another Mac. Or (if catastrophe strikes) visiting an Apple Store.
You can minimize the odds of catastrophy by waiting a few weeks to see if others report problems and make sure you’re connected to a UPS during the upgrade (to protect against a power outage during the upgrade, which could create a real mess if it happens at the wrong time).
All this having been said, I don’t recall any reports of a Big Sur upgrade bricking a computer. The reports I saw describe someone using the Recovery mechanism to wipe a brand new M1 Mac and this bug was (as far as I know) fixed in the 11.0.1 release that shipped soon afterward.
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Several reports related to older MBPs, 2013/14 and such. Caught my attention because I still run a 2013 MBP (on Catalina) on the side.
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Updating to 14.3 on iOS devices, Homepods and Apple TV has not fixed the issue where the Apple TV prevents other devices from Airplaying directly to the Homepods when its default audio output is those Homepods. I suppose this could be considered a desirable feature by some but for me it defeats the advantages of Airplay.
With ATV default to Homepods off:
With ATV default to Homepods on:
To that great advice I would like to add performing a disk repair on the drive the OS is installed on with Disk Utility, before backing up. Then do the same on the backup(s) you created. Disk errors can seriously affect any process that reads and writes to disk, especially upgrades, which do a lot of that.
I also recommend making sure you can actually boot from the backup(s) you created, before proceeding with the upgrade.
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It did work for me.
doug
I wanted the updates to Photos to support Apple Pro Raw - so did the Big Sur 11.1 update from Catalina. Update process went fine but I am experiencing bugs. I need to approve a Parallels extension in Security and Privacy, but it refuses to accept my account password (which does work fine to boot the system). Half my mailboxes in Mail disappeared and had to be restored. This is on a MBP16 (late 2019). I also have an iMac Pro which is still on Catalina and, it seems, will stay that way for a while. I was hoping that 11.1 would have the major glitches fixed…
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According to an Apple Newsroom page of September, 2020, Apple says:
- At launch, Apple Fitness+ will be available in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.
But the newer Apple Newsroom page of December 14, 2020 doesn’t mention anything about that kind of availability. I wonder how Japanese users could think of it.
About the TVos… So I had shelved my AppleTV4K because YouTube channel 4K content was not in 4K. Something about Apple and Google not working together on that YouTube has its own codec for 4K (I think, but that was last I read).
Well, I was going to sell my AppleTV4K on Monday, so I dusted it off, connected it to reset to factory and noticed it there was update from 12.2 to 14.3. Ok. After the update, for some odd whim, I launched Youtube, pulled up a 4K content (Japanese city in 4K) and how about that, it was in 4K! Since I hadn’t reset it, I went to my channels I sub to, and those 4K content were also now in 4K! Maybe this changed after 12.2 OS but whenever, it now seems to me, a reason not to part with it. Too bad I bought a roku Ultra (cyber Monday deal) two weeks ago. Oh well.
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