In this article, we will be sharing up to date information, as we get it from brands and the community, about which pro audio applications and plug-ins do and don't work with macOS Big Sur 11 as well as other related issues which affect pro audio users. This article will be constantly updated as the information and compatibility status changes. 

There is also more information beneath the searchable database regarding Apple hardware compatibility.

With the release of macOS Big Sur, on Thursday, November 12th 2020, Apple retires Mac OS X (10) and replaced it with macOS 11. As the numeric change would suggest, this is probably the biggest change to macOS since Apple introduced Mac OS X roughly 20 years ago, especially when you consider the changes that come with the transition from Intel to Apple Silicon.

If you thought that the upgrade from macOS Mojave to macOS Catalina was a challenge with the dropping of support for 32-bit apps and code, then the change to Big Sur is going to more significant especially if you are coming from Mojave or earlier. That said, the creation of Rosetta 2 will help by enabling Intel coded apps and plugins to run in Big Sur on Apple Silicon computers.

If you want to learn more about how Rosetta 2 and Universal 2 will impact audio applications including DAWs and plugins then read our articles Apple Silicon - A Developer Helps To Explain The Impact and Apple Silicon - How This Will Affect You And Other Audio Professionals.

More Like iOS

Following a trajectory that has been underway over the last few years, macOS 11 is more like iOS than ever before. The Finder has a new sidebar that picks up from the iPad OS sidebar and apps like Mail gets new icons.

On the menu bar, you can now have Control Center and redesigned Wi-Fi and Sound menus. As we learnt when Apple announced Big Sur, Catalyst enables apps designed for the iOS and iPadOS and Catalyst has been improved with the release of macOS Big Sur, meaning that not only does macOS 11 look and function more like the iOS operating systems, you can also run iOS apps on your Apple computer running macOS Big Sur.

More Secure

The system now resides on a cryptographically sealed Signed System Volume. That seal can only be applied by Apple; ordinary copies of the System volume are non-bootable without Apple's seal. To create a functional copy of the macOS 11 System volume, you will now have to either use Apple-proprietary tools to copy the system or install macOS onto a backup. We have more detail on this later in the article.

Is It Too Early To Upgrade To macOS Big Sur?

Simply put - Yes.

Even though all of Apple’s software will not only be compatible with Big Sur from day 1, including Logic Pro and Final Cut and able to run on Apple Silicon too, even Logic and FCPX users will find that a lot of the plugins that you depend on will not be macOS 11 compatible from day 1 so our advice, even for you, will be NOT to upgrade yet.

Got A Late 2013 Or A Mid 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro? Read This Now

A growing number of late 2013 and mid-2014 13-inch MacBook Pro owners are reporting that the macOS Big Sur update is ‘bricking’ their machines. A MacRumors forum thread contains a significant number of users reporting the issue, and similar problems are being reported across Reddit and the Apple Support Communities, suggesting the problem is widespread.

During the course of updating to ‌macOS Big Sur‌, user’s machines get stuck and display nothing more than a black screen. Key reset combinations, including NVRAM, SMC, safe mode, and internet recovery, seem to fail to resolve the issue, leaving the user’s machine in a ‘bricked’ state.

Apple has responded with a Support Pages document, which acknowledges the issue and offers a potential workaround.

Follow these steps if you can't install macOS Big Sur on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) or MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014).

When you install macOS Big Sur on these Mac models, the installer might say that the update cannot be installed on this computer, or your Mac might start-up to a blank screen or circle with a line through it. 

If your Mac no longer starts up successfully, these steps might help resolve the issue:

1. Press and hold the power button on your Mac for at least 10 seconds, then release. If your Mac is on, it turns off.

2. Unplug all external devices from your Mac, including any displays and USB accessories, and remove any card inserted in the SDXC card slot. Then turn your Mac on.

3. If the issue persists, reset the SMC as described for notebook computers with a nonremovable battery.

4. If the issue persists, reset NVRAM or PRAM.

5. If none of these solutions work, please contact Apple Support for further assistance.

This article will be updated as more information becomes available.

Unfortunately, most, if not all, of these suggestions have been reported as not working by users who have got ‘bricked’ late 2013 and mid-2014 13-inch MacBook Pro computers.

Our advice is that if you have a late 2013 and mid-2014 13-inch MacBook Pro DO NOT update to macOS Big Sur.

Check, Check And Check Again

We recommend that you search the database to see whether the software, and hardware that you use is compatible with macOS Big Sur yet. You should wait until all the DAW, plug-in and software brands that you use as well as peripheral manufacturers are also supporting macOS Big Sur 11 BEFORE you upgrade.

Not Here = Not Supported

Absence on this list should be taken as not compatible, initially, the information will be scarce. As soon as brands let us know about their macOS Big Sur compatibility, we will update this article and database as we did with our MacOS 10.13 High Sierra Pro Audio Compatibility Guide, macOS Sierra Pro Audio Compatibility, macOS Mojave Compatibility - The Ultimate Pro Audio Guide and macOS Catalina Pro Audio Compatibility articles.

Don't Update In The Middle Of A Job

We always recommend that you leave any upgrade until you have some downtime. Experience has told us that upgrades are rarely straightforward, especially OS upgrades as they often have knock-on effects, so wait until you have time to fix the unforeseen problems.

iLok Is Supported - Other Copy Protection Systems May Not Be - Check First

PAce, the company behind iLok have given us this exclusive statement with regard to iLok and macOS Big Sur Compatibility…

“iLok License Manager and iLok services are all compatible with macOS Big Sur. We have texted extensively with the releases available since the developer releases came out. Our products currently work with Apple Silicon systems under Rosetta 2. Next year we plan to release a universal binary version that will run natively under Apple Silicon.”

Avid Have Announced Their macOS Big Sur Compatibility Status as Of November 19th 2020

Avid has reported that they have been working to support macOS Big Sur and the new M1-powered Macs over the past several months in anticipation of these releases.  

You can check their article or visit your product's specifications page for information on the current operating system requirements. In the meantime, Avid recommends you continue to use previously qualified operating systems until further notice. 

Which Mac Computers Will Be Supported With macOS Big Sur?

macOS Big Sur is compatible with most 2013 and later Apple computers, that includes some computers that are 7 years old. Here is the definitive list…

• MacBook Pro (Late 2013 and later) - see warning above

• MacBook Air (2013 and later)

• MacBook (2015 and later)

• iMac (2014 and later)

• iMac Pro (2017 and later)

• Mac Mini (2014 and later)

• Mac Pro (2013 and later)

Note that Big Sur is NOT supported on the following Macs that are capable of running macOS Catalina…

• MacBook Pro (2012 and Early 2013)

• MacBook Air 2012

• iMac (2012 and 2013)

• Mac mini 2012

Run Two Versions Of macOS On Your Studio Mac - Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur

You may be stuck between a rock and hard place needing two versions of macOS on your studio Mac. Or you may just be curious and want to try and see if the newest version plays nice.

With Apple File System (APFS) formatted drives, Apple has done some magic. You can now create dynamic volumes on one drive. What this means is you simply add a second volume and the APFS file system will assign drive space as needed, so you don’t even need to pre-allocate space when making the volume - it’s almost magic. From Apple’s support documentation;

“Apple File System (APFS) allocates disk space on demand. When a single APFS container (partition) has multiple volumes, the container’s free space is shared and can be allocated to any of the individual volumes as needed. Each volume uses only part of the overall container, so the available space is the total size of the container, minus the size of all volumes in the container.”

In this article we show how to install two versions of macOS on one Mac, no reformatting required and all thanks to a handy feature built into modern Macs. It’s easy to do and gives you the flexibility of running a dual boot Mac in minutes.

Improved Security And Privacy With macOS Big Sur

As we mentioned in the introduction, with macOS 10.15 Catalina, Apple introduced the read-only system volume, which stored system content in its own separate area in order to prevent tampering with core OS files.

With Big Sur, Apple has taken this protection up another level with the Signed System Volume (SSV). 

SSV uses something called ‘cryptographic hashing’ to verify the integrity of all system data when installing, updating, or even booting macOS Big Sur. What happens with cryptographic hashing is that an input value is run through a special mathematical algorithm to produce an output value (this output value is referred to as the ‘hash value’. Any change to the input value, no matter how small, will result in a completely different hash value, which is what makes cryptographic hashing such a useful tool for verifying the integrity of any files. 

SSV runs every file in the system volume through the SHA-256 hashing algorithm and then stores the resulting hash values in the filesystem metadata. During updates and boots, these stored hash values are compared to hash values computed from the data in the current system volume. The values should be the same, so if a difference is found, the system knows that there has been some change to the data on the system (indicating possible tampering) and will prompt the user to reinstall macOS. 

For most users, it shouldn’t impact the way you use macOS on a day-to-day level at all, whether you are updating or just booting up your Mac. However, developers like Bombich who are behind apps like Carbon Copy Cloner have reported during the beta stages of macOS Big Sur saying…

“Apple's APFS replication utility is not working correctly with the Signed System Volume. As a result, ASR-created copies of the System volume are not bootable. We regret that Apple was not able to resolve that before shipping Big Sur, but we are working with Apple to resolve these issues.”

All in all, Apple has made it a little harder for people up to no good to mess with your computer’s operating system, but with consequences that require developers to revise their software again and this may mean that finishing macOS Big Sur compatible software and plugins may take extra time to get right.

Apple Continues To Phase-out Kexts

With the release of macOS Catalina 12 months ago, one of the announcements that Apple made, which you might have missed, is that ‘kernel extensions’ (also known as Kexts) would soon be deprecated, although no timescale has been specified yet.

A kernel extension allows third-party developers to extend the functionality of the core code of the macOS in order to run their apps. Kexts are frequently used to build device drivers.

Kexts have been considered risky in security circles because they allow third parties to access the most sensitive part of the macOS and so open the door to potential stability and security issues. We understand that because of this vulnerability Apple has decided to replace kexts with System Extensions (for networking and ‘endpoint security’ functionality) and DriverKit (for the creation of device drivers).

The key difference here is that because System Extensions run in ‘userspace’ rather than requiring kernel-level access, developers now have a safer way of getting the extended kernel functionality they need, without compromising the security of the macOS.

With macOS Catalina, we have started to see an alert displayed when a kext (referred to as a “legacy system extension”) first loads. The user is warned that future versions of macOS won’t support the extension and is advised to contact the developer for more information.

From what we have been able to find out, it doesn’t look as if Apple is going to completely stop the use of Kexts with macOS Big Sur but developers and users alike need to be aware that this is Apple’s direction of travel.

 Apple continues to expand the list of deprecated kernel extensions that have System Extension and DriverKit alternatives and we understand that developers will be required to use these alternatives in Big Sur. Apple’s official developer documentation reinforces the point saying “In macOS 11 and later, the kernel doesn’t load a kext if an equivalent System Extension [or DriverKit] solution exists”. 

With the browser being one of the more vulnerable areas for security and privacy risks, with macOS Big Sur, Apple has added a number of features to help users. In Safari, a new Privacy Report uses the browser’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention to spot and block trackers that help advertisers build profiles based on your web activity. You can click a button in the Safari toolbar to see which trackers are being blocked. And if you go to Safari > Privacy Report, you’ll see an overview of every tracker blocked in the past 30 days. Safari can also monitor your passwords, checking websites and user names stored in iCloud Keychain against known data breaches.

Updates

As we said at the beginning, we will continue to update both this article and the searchable database as new information comes to light.