This summary isn’t quite as big as last week’s, but very close.
This week many people got their hands on the first Macs with Apple silicon M1 chips. The reviews and benchmarks are in and it looks as if Apple wasn’t over promising. Many software vendors are shipping updates for Big Sur and Universal app support. This is definitely an interesting and busy time.
Whether your organisation can dive head-first into Big Sur and Apple silicon deployment or you have to (or want to) hold back for a while, there will be articles in here to help you.
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💻Apple Silicon M1 Macs
- Parallels Desktop for Mac with Apple M1 chip – Parallels Blog
- Installing Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs – Graham Gilbert
- Does it ARM (list of apps with their current status of Apple Silicon support)
- How to Reinstall macOS on your Apple Silicon Mac. Everything you Need to Know – Mr. Macintosh
- Apple Silicon M1 Full macOS Restore IPSW Firmware Files Database – Mr. Macintosh
- The 2020 Mac Mini Unleashed: Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test – Andrei Frumusanu, AnandTech
- Installing Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs – Rich Trouton
- Restore macOS Firmware on an Apple Silicon Mac + Boot to DFU Mode – Mr. Macintosh
- Okay, I’m on the bandwagon – Apple Silicon is officially cool – Jeremy White, CodeWeavers Blogs
- Dropbox with Apple Silicon Mac (M1) — François Levaux-Tiffreau
- M1 MacBook Teardowns: Something Old, Something New – Sam Goldheart, iFixit
🌅macOS 11 Big Sur
- Big Sur – Shirt Pocket Watch
- Big Sur Is Here, but We Suggest You Say “No Sir” for Now – Josh Centers, TidBITS
- macOS Big Sur on VMWare Fusion 12 – Frederick Abeloos (also see these intructions)
- Comment bloquer l’installation de macOS Big Sur – Guillaume Géte (How to block the installation of macOS Big Sur (French), use the new Safari Translation feature)
- Blocking macOS Big Sur – Ben Toms
- Apple Apps That Require Big Sur Appear in Catalina App Store – Stephen Hacket, 512 Pixels
- Hiding Apple’s Big Sur Upgrade Badges – Adama Engst, TidBITS
- FileVault, SecureToken and Bootstrap in macOS 11.0.1 Big Sur – Frederick Abeloos
- Deploying the Big Sur Installer Application – Scripting OS X
⚙️macOS and iOS Updates
- What’s New in macOS Big Sur 11.1 Beta (20C5048k)? – Mr. Macintosh
- Eric Holtam: “Heads up macadmins. A new full installer of Big Sur 11.0.1 (20B50) landed today. The previous version (20B29) incorrectly targeted MacBookPro11,1 (13-inch Late 2013) with boardID Mac-189A3D4F975D5FFC to be eligilble. You’ll want to grab 20B50 if you have an offline copy.”
- Big Sur 11.0.1 (20B50) Released to Block Install for 2013-14 13″ MBPro’s – Mr. Macintosh
- iOS 14.2.1 (iPhone 12 [mini] and 12 Pro [max])
🐦MacAdmins on Twitter
- Laura Rösler: “Every fifth Mac is on Big Sur. After 5 days (including initial crash of Apple services, weekend and issues with macOS 11 Internet Recovery) we’re up to more than 5800 Macs with macOS 11.”
- macshome: “Remember that if you don’t have installer packages that declare arm64 support then the Installer will trigger the Rosetta 2 install as well. Even if the contents are universal.”
- Rich Trouton: “Need the model numbers for the new Apple Silicon Macs? Mac Mini: Macmini9,1 MacBook Pro: MacBookPro17,1 MacBook Air: MacBookAir10,1 Developer Transition Kit: ADP3,2”
- Nathaniel Strauss: “‘If upgrading from macOS Sierra or later, macOS Big Sur requires 35.5GB of available storage to upgrade. If upgrading from an earlier release, macOS Big Sur requires up to 44.5GB of available storage.’ Nearly 1/3 of a 120 GB SSD. “
🐞Bugs and Security
- Apple Developer ID OCSP – Jeff Johnson
- Does Apple really log every app you run? A technical look – Jacopo Jannone
- A hole in the wall – Norbert Heger, Objective Development
🔨Support and HowTos
- On Managed Software Updates for macOS – Ben Toms
- Apple Business Manager Terms Update – December 3, 2020 – Ben Toms
- Apple School Manager Terms Update – December 3, 2020 – Ben Toms
- Getting unnotarized apps out of quarantine – Howard Oakley
- Final Cut Pro Proxy Workflow – DAM SAN
🍏Apple Support
- macOS Big Sur – Technical Specifications
- Fonts included with macOS Big Sur
- Use Quick Start to transfer data to a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (scroll to the end to learn how to do this over cable with a Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adaptor)
- Safely open apps on your Mac (added section at the end with future plans to address the OCSP concerns)
- Transfer files between a Mac with Apple silicon and another Mac (“Mac Sharing Mode” is the Apple Silicon equivalent of Target Disk Mode)
- Revive or restore a Mac with Apple silicon with Apple Configurator 2
- If you need to install Rosetta on your Mac
- Manage macOS updates with Mobile Device Management (MDM)
- Revive or restore a Mac with Apple silicon with Apple Configurator 2
- Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon
- Change your Mac startup disk
- Use external monitors with your Mac
- If you can’t install macOS Big Sur on certain 13-inch MacBook Pro computers from 2013 and 2014
♻️Updates and Releases
- Fusion 12.1 Now Shipping – VMware Fusion Blog (Release Notes)
- SUS Inspector 2.0 beta 1
- Hosted Munki Integration – SimpleMDM
- Jamf Pro 10.25.2
- Munki 5.2 Release Candidate 3
🎧To Listen
- VMWorld and the future – Mac Admins Podcast
- EveryWorld Conference for Everyone – MacDevOpsYVR
- Know When To Fold Em’ — Command-Control-Power
🎈Just for Fun
- Mac OS 9 Wallpapers in 5K Resolution – Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels (Stephen also has an archive of all Mac OS X/macOS default wallpapers)
📚 Support
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