Don't Install Catalina (Yet)

In recent weeks we have written a few times about macOS 10.15 Catalina, Apple’s latest version of the Mac operating system. Catalina, e.g., removes support for older 32-bit applications (read more about this here and here) and increases security by a number of more or less intrusive mechanisms.

Even though Apple officially released macOS Catalina last week, the upgrade has numerous very rough edges that can even stop you from getting any actual work done on your Mac.

For example, The Verge’s Dieter Bohn strongly recommends to wait before installing Catalina:

At the risk of being an I-told-you-so kind of person, I’m just going to repeat what I said in the Catalina review again. You probably depend on your Mac or PC for “real work,” and so updating on day one could threaten that real work — literally threaten your livelihood. It’s better to wait and see how things shake out, to let other people experience the problems and report them.

And Six Colors’ Jason Snell reminds us that only a few people need to jump on the Catalina track right away:

If there’s a must-have app that only runs on Catalina, or you want to use Voice Control or Screen Time or Find My or Apple Arcade, and all your go-to software checks out, then by all means, make the jump to Catalina. (I’ve been using it for the last month with only a few minor app incompatibilities that I expect to be resolved as updates roll out alongside the new release.) But if you can wait, you should. Let other people discover the early bugs and suffer the app incompatibilities. Catalina will still be there for you when you’re ready for it.

And the always well-informed Michael Tsai warns about problems with Apple Mail in Catalina and recommends, too, to wait:

I’m working on more posts about the Catalina release, but I wanted to start with a short warning. (…) I don’t know whether these are due to Mail bugs or to other factors such as problems on the Mac or with the mail server. But my advice is to hold off on updating to Catalina for now.

If you must upgrade to macOS Catalina, because you’re a software developer or because you can’t stand the red circled 1 on System Preferences’ icon, DEVONthink 3 is ready, and so is DEVONsphere. DEVONagent Pro has a glitch that we’ll fix soon.