Hi fellow posters!
If you could choose all over again, now that you have experienced the good features and the accessibility bugs in each of these operating systems, which would you choose today? Monterey, Big Sur, or Catalina?
The reason I'm asking is that I know Big Sur, and I know Catalina, but I don't know Monterey, and I'm trying to decide whether to upgrade my 2016 Macbook Pro from Catalina to Big sur or to Monterey, or just stick with Catalina. I also have the option of cloning my 2016 Macbook Pro to my slightly newer 2017 iMac Pro that has Big Sur on it, or vice versa, or I could just keep Big sur on the iMac Pro, or I could upgrade the iMac to Monterey.
What do you think?
I'm wary of upgrading to Monterey because I don't want new accessibility issues like busy busy busy on Safari, for example. Catalina doesn't have that problem. In fact, Catalina doesn't have the newer accessibility problems that Big Sur has either.
So, if you could do it all over again, which would you choose?
Thank you for your feedback.
Bruce
Comments
big sur
If I could, I'd go to Big Sur. I never used Catalina but I did use all the way up to high Sierra, then took a windows break.
I'm having some bluetooth connectivity weirdness with Monterrey that I never had with Big Sur.
Monterey
If I could choose, I'd go for Monterey. Since 12.3, many braille issues were fixed (which does not mean that the use of a braille display is perfect, it's definitely not). Also, Monterey has some great enhancements like the screen curtain which retains its state after a reboot or a restart of VoiceOver or the improved performance in Catalyst-based apps, the audio graphs, Live Text in photos (which works very well since Monterey 12.3), and much more.
Nevertheless, Monterey has introduced some new bugs which can become very annoying. For example, when opening system preferences and selecting an option (let's say "general"), VoiceOver may stick in the main pane. You must then press the tab key in order to jump into the "general" window. Apart form that, I'm currently not encountering further major issues. I'd recommend you to head over to the Bug Tracker here on AppleVis to check which bugs are still active. You can then decide whether you tolerate those bugs or not.
Monterey
Currently using 12.3 in a production environment and it has fixed bugs that used to be there in earlier versions when running Logic. Unless there are egregious bugs, I'll always go with the latest version, so long as my software and hardware are supported.
Agree with the last post
I'll never understand the if it ain't broke, don't fix it mentality with this community, but also in the general population. i'm not saying we need the latest phone ever six months, or we need the latest computer. but running an eight year old Mac, going to this new one, four months ago, is amazing. it's not perfect, but for instance I can use the image description feature and get a lot more out of things than I could before. I absolutely understand the cost issues, so I wasn't saying everyone needs to shell out beyond their capabilities. I just will almost always go for the latest version.
Big sur
because monterey broke safari.
Which Safari issue do you…
Which Safari issue do you mean? the "safari is not responding" issue? I think this also occurs on other system versions like Catalina with the current version of Safari.
Monterey
Subject says it all. I love that we can use focus sessions, it responds quicker then Big Sur, and the latest updates have fixed some major bugs like the Facetime notifications. I think the one thing I miss with Catalina is the layout of the messages app, but I am used to the new layout.
Monterey responds quicker then Big Sur?
Now that got me interested.
I'm still on Big Sur, but that sounds nice.
Responds in general? Or VoiceOver?
Macos 13 developer beta.
Beta testing macOS 13, as it will have new features. Plus, I was the beta tester who submitted a bug report about screen curtin not persisting in a reboot of the Mac or restart of VoiceOver. Why I even thought of that, is I, personally have elevated photosensitivity do to concussions years ago, and having screen curtin always on unless manually turned off is a game changer for me.