Malcolm Owen
Apple has made available to developers a second build of the macOS Big Sur 11.3 beta.
The latest betas and configuration profiles can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center, with subsequent changes available as over-the-air updates on enrolled devices.
Apple issued the first beta version of macOS 11.3 on February 2, following after the first betas of Apple's other major operating systems.
Release notes for the first beta advised of changes including redesigned Apple News+ tabs, a Made for You shortcut and live events in Listen Now for Apple Music, sorting changes in Reminders, and bug fixes and improvements.
AppleInsider, and Apple itself, strongly advise users don't install betas on highly-important or primary devices, due to the potential for data loss or other issues. Instead, it is recommended to install betas onto secondary or non-essential devices, and to ensure there are sufficient backups of important data beforehand.
Find any changes in the new betas? Reach out to us on Twitter at @AppleInsider or @Andrew_OSU, or send Andrew an email at andrew@AppleInsider.com.
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
2 Comments
It's taking a long time to update on my M1 Mac mini.
I recently has issues with OS V11.2 and the newest version of Tech Tool Pro, V13.0.2 on my late 2018 Intel-based Mac Mini. I could not create an e Drive, even though I have plenty of space. On another site that I visit, when I made a post about this issue, an individual did post this:
"I have no experience with Big Sur on Intel Macs and there are definite differences, but from posts I have seen on other product support, web sites macOS 11.2 apparently broke some things associated with external boot drives that were working in 11.1. It appears the problem revolves around changes in the utility used to bless a boot drive. I have also seen reports similar to yours about the version of Disk Utility used to erase a volume. In both cases, early results indicate both issues are fixed in the current macOS 11.3 beta. Given macOS 11 is the biggest rework of Apple's OS since Mac OS X, you may have made the switch one update too soon."
So, am anxiously awaiting the official release of OS 11.3. Meanwhile, it seems that having the Tech Tool Pro Protection Preference Pane installed, it does create Tech Tool Pro Snapshots, which of course take up space. I actually do not need them, and have been deleting them. Also, I have revised how often they are created, and how long they are retained. On the Micromat forums about this eDrive issue, the snapshots were mentioned as a possible culprit.
I also do not create any other snapshots, as I use SuperDuper! for my backups. Of course when I move to Big Sur permanently, I will need to obtain Carbon Copy Cloner, as its latest version does work "normally" with Intel-based Macs and Big Sur. Really wish Shirt Pocket Software could come up with such a version for SuperDuper! (there is a way of doing it, but it is "clunky" at best. I much prefer the straight forward approach).