Happy Friday the 13th to those who celebrate it.
This week Apple finally released macOS 11 Big Sur, and surprisingly, the initial public release version was 11.0.1, not 11.0. This is a good thing, because 11.0.1 fixes a serious flaw that prevented third-party backup apps from making bootable duplicates. Some such apps (including Carbon Copy Cloner) already have beta versions available that can create duplicates under 11.0.1; for others, we may have to wait a bit for updates. In any case, I was concerned that Big Sur might permanently disable bootable duplicates, and I’m relieved to learn that is not so.
Along with the public Big Sur release, we published updated versions of two of my books: Take Control of Big Sur version 1.1 and Take Control of iCloud version 7.1. More updated books will be coming soon!
The other big announcement this week was of course the first Macs to use Apple-designed M1 processors. I ordered one immediately so I can start testing and writing about topics like backing up, maintaining, and troubleshooting Macs with the new architecture. It should arrive before the end of the month.
Apart from continued work on new and updated books, I’m dealing with the same things everyone else is, including anxiety about the pandemic and the not-quite-settled U.S. elections. These situations are distracting and a real drag on productivity, but I’m pressing on as best I can, and hoping that progress in these areas produces a burst of optimism in the next month or two.