Big Sur and Xcode beta 3 fun

This week we got a beta 3 of Big Sur, the next macOS release and Xcode 12.

To me they feel stable enough that I decided it was time to use them more regularly. So I have spent time since the releases using them on my personal machine for a daily driver. Note that I said personal machine, meaning that I do not use them for the day job or production projects.

I hope that everyone is doing the same as me and filing feedback any time you find something.

Big Sur

I have to say that I’m getting very comfortable with Big Sur, I like it. Firstly, that battery icon is gone. So why highlight that in particular? Well it means Apple is paying attention, that’s a big deal and we should feel good about it.

The visual glitches continue on my MacBook Pro 16 with things like weird box shading sometimes as the mouse cursor moves over some UI panels, but hey it’s a beta. I’d love to see them go away though as they are pretty obvious and maybe they are waiting for a later ‘refinement and performance’ beta near the end.

Something interesting of note to me is that the built in Podcast app is actually better now than the 10.15 version, the sync feels more reliable and faster. Although it does still not sync played episodes across devices and that I feel is vital to making me switch to it more than just about any other podcast player at this point, until then Overcast is still my daily multi-device player. Apple really needs to get on that if they want to take back the Podcast crown from 3rd party apps.

The saddest part about the Podcast app is that for me at least it has better discovery for new things to listen to than other players. So currently I have to add new shows to the Podcast app and Overcast, kind of annoying to maintain two updated lists.

Xcode 12

I am still having the problem of adding an account to Xcode and it crashing, but hopefully that gets fixed in later releases.

Performance feels like it is improving for the preview canvas and I’d venture to unscientifically say that in general everything feels a little quicker.

I have not been diving in to features that much this week as I wanted to spend some time learning the new SwiftUI changes and watching WWDC videos to catch up some.

Next week I plan to start reworking my Patreon to support the new SwiftUI changes so if you are a supporter you will be ready for the full Xcode 12 release later in the Fall.