Well today we got the new announcement of macOS Big Sur and I was wondering how Blocs will take advantage of it.
It seems very cool and promising not to mention the coming apple silicons CPUs
Iām excited.
Iāve already applied for the Apple TDK test hardware 
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Awesome! I am so excited too.
Will one day Blocs be on a mac and on an iPad at the same time? uuuuhhhā¦ that workflow baby
Just a heads up. Iāve had 2 reports that Blocs v3 doesnāt run on Bug Sur.
Of course, itās very early days, I usually dont start testing with the OS betas until a few weeks in, once the initial dust settles.
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Havenāt gotten around to testing it since my job relies on a functional OS, but if needed I can create a separate partition and send you bug reports.
Thanks, but dont bother yet 
I wont touch it for a few weeks, and Iāll most likely start a thread when Im starting that testing.
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Confirmed.
Blocs (all versions including latest Beta) crashes.
Since this is the biggest update in 20 years for the Mac. I figured I would start a little early with this beta.
What Iāve found so far is:
Creating new projects works.
Opening some saved ones doesnāt.
More info soon.
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Something I just found on Facebook regarding Big Sur:
"WARNING ABOUT BIG SUR & T2 CHIPS
If you have a mac with a T2 chip and want to upgrade to MacOS BS (sorry, couldnāt resist) then you need to know this:
These macs load something apple calls a ābridgeā OS before mac os loads. Itās in the firmware of your machine (andā¦ itās actually iOS- yes you read that right, your T2 mac loads iOS first before mac os).
The bridge OS must be updated for Big Sur to install and CAN NEVER be downgraded again.
Now this does not mean your mac itself cannot have its OS downgraded (from what I understand). But it does mean that if the Bridge OS is buggy and needs to be updated (and apple has openly admitted that Bridge OS in this version is, in fact, buggy) it could create serious instabilities if you downgrade.
2 scenarios would then ensue:
An update is available for the Bridge OS. HOWEVER, you CANNOT simply install it on its own- you have to upgrade to Big Sur again to install it (at least as of now). Then downgrade again. So one solution would be to CCC (carbon copy cloner) a copy of a clean install of Big Sur onto an external drive of some kind. Then, when you need to upgrade the Bridge OS, you disconnect your main drives and just update that drive
An update is not available for Bridge OS. Wellā¦ then youāre stuck going back to Big Sur for functionality.
the more you knowā¦
(PS: interesting side note- for macbook with touchbar users: the touchbar has its own OS all together, andā¦itās watch OS. Watch OS is used to run the touchbar. so for a macbook with T2 and touchbar, youāre actually running 3 OSāsā¦ fun fun)"
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So glad I donāt own a T2 chip Mac!
As to Blocs being ready for Big Sur, LOL, it is. I actually watched the Keynote. You can see Intel software running just as great as ever in Rosetta 2. Thatās what I call ātaking advantage of it.ā Not all classic software ran so well in Rosetta 1 back in the day, so Rosetta 2 looks great. But as to āApple Silicon-specific optimizationsā for Blocs, it really does go without saying that Blocs will take full advantage of new chip features as time goes on. Itās not like Blocs will be missing something when you buy an ARM Mac, nor will Blocs immediately benefit from some of the fancier technologies that I can see, unless Apple builds in a special AI into their chips that allows apps to do all our work for us! 
Correct.
I keep on testing.
Well ā¦ not sure.
Looks to me like a mixture of IOS and MacOS.
But despite the Blocs crash (no complain) itās running very smooth.
Even Filemaker (17 & 19) is running without problems. (so far)
I keep on testing ā¦
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Nice. From what I saw at WWDC I like the design of the UI. Seems like a lot of the elements are becoming suitable for touch screens / Apple Pencil ? I guess thatās for parity, but I wonder if we will see touch screens in the future for Macās
Probably, but I have enough trouble keeping people (ie my wife) from pointing into the screen, fingernail first!
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HAHA yeah me too, I really dislike when people do that.
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Iām a little worried that I might need to buy a new Mac. Given Appleās track record from Rosetta 1 between PowerPC to Intel, they were rather quick to drop the universal binaries after the two year mark.
Not to mention, they just dropped the 2012- Early 2013 Macs (Ivy Bridge Gen Processors). Patching the OS installer for these models is pretty straightforward with the exception of trying to figure out how clearing the Kextcache works and no WiFi so the unsupported Mac community will soon have a patcher by the end of July.
Iām predicting Apple will drop all Haswell Gen Models (Late 2013 - Early 2015) in either the next version or the year after. Within 4-5 years, they may rid all Intel Macs of MacOS releases
So how do we know (or can find out) which Macs have T2 chips? Iāve just gone into āAbout This Macā and canāt see anything significant there.
@TMRJIJ You donāt necessarily have to upgrade the OS immediately. Catalina will receive security updates for another couple years, so you can keep using your current computer assuming nothing breaks. I have an ageing mid 2010 Mac Pro on Mojave that should remain perfectly usable for roughly another year until the security updates stop. At that point it could still be used as an offline production machine.
Memories of the transition from PPC to Intel are vivid, recalling the bugs and costs involved, plus the way my G5 PowerMac was basically obsolete within 3 years. I cannot afford to lose weeks waiting for a custom build new computer to arrive and migrate everything, so I reluctantly purchased a new mini recently, despite knowing the ARM transition is coming.
Tim Cook said at WWDC that there are new Intel machines due to be released in the coming months and with that in mind I think Apple will have to continue supporting current Intel models for another five years with OS updates. Intel machines are also likely to have fewer compatibility issues with 3rd party software for at least a year or two as well.
Itās worth pointing out that the T2 processor used in modern Macs is actually ARM based and already used by the OS for various purposes where there is some benefit like H265 encoding where T2 equipped computers leave older ones for dust. In theory Apple could look for T2 processors on Intel machines and enable many of the same features.
Older Macs without the T2 processor are on borrowed time but that was the case even without the ARM transition.
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