Home Forums Mac Software Mac Applications Messing around with Big Sur

I discussed the possibility of deleting apps from Big Sur's sealed volume with Mike Bombich before it was even released to the public, and he linked me to a post that outlined methodology but was beyond my ability to work with.

Recently, though, I ran across this step by step procedure:


The upside:

1. The resulting volume is bootable.
2. The 19 apps I wanted gone are gone.

The downside:

1. The 19 apps could be deleted from Catalina and prior OS versions by dragging all of them into Terminal in one shot, while deleting them from Big Sur requires 19 separate transactions.
2. Many/most/all of the deleted apps will reappear with each update, necessitating a repeat trip to Recovery after each one.
3. Carbon Copy Cloner cannot create a bootable clone of the resultant volume. (I've run the issue past Mike, and, totally understandably, as much as he'd love to play with it, it's definitely too obscure and perhaps even too transient to be worth his time.)

Conclusion:
    I'll wait for 11.3 to see if anything changes for the better, but I'll most likely bite the bullet and live with what Apple has inflicted upon me.

SIGH!

While CCC can create a bootable clone of macOS 11.3 using Apple's ASR utility, those clones have significant limitations, to the point I am finding them useful only as a "proof of concept" and would not under any circumstance attempt to clone back to my internal drive as a potential backup/recovery mechanism. Whether clones can or will become more functional or not are open questions, but after looking at your procedure for removing core apps, why bother? Just drag them to a hidden sub-folder in the applications folder. They will still be physically present in the System Volume but they will not be visible or easily accessible in Finder. Out of sight, out of mind.

(NOTE: I haven't tested this, but the invisibility should survive an update.)

Wow! What an elegantly simple solution, thought I, until I tried and found out that "No Write" indeed means "NO WRITE."

Dragging my apps into a newly created folder simply recreated them in the folder and left the originals intact.

I've now reinstalled Big Sur and recreated my bootable CCC tasks, so I"m back to square one, just having to remember to update my source volume after each macOS update.

I've never tried using a Big Sur clone as a recovery source, but since I"m still running an Intel Mac, I don't expect the process to be problematic if ever need to. (I may actually have to break down and add a Time Machine drive to my configuration some day, but I'll find that out the hard way.)

(Out of curiosity, have you ever heard of even a single incident in which an Apple app was used as a vector for malware?)

I hindsight I suspect that did not recreate (or copy) the app, rather created a firmlink. I am going to work on that some more and see if I can't make ti work.

It all depends on what you perceive as the purpose of a clone. At the current state of the art on Apple silicon, a bootable clone seems to me to be relatively useless, but then I have always felt clones are pretty limited. Apple's switch to using APFS snapshots for Time Machine backups, which has significantly reduced both the storage (only the changes within a file are backed up not the entire file) and processing load on the system, together with the Recovery Drive are a better and far more flexible alternative for my purposes. There is the issue of needing an internet connection for the Recovery Drive, but I mitigate that by keeping an installable copy of the current Big Sur release on a bootable thumb drive. If you haven't tried Time Machine in Big Sur check it out. You might find you like it.

Not an app per se but so much of the functionality of the Apple apps is either integrated into or drawn from macOS functions or APIs. I don't know if it is even possible to draw a white line separation between an app and the OS. Most of what we "see" as an app is little more than a GUI shell drawn over and around an underlying command line app or apps. The basic editing module, for example is called in Safari, Mail, Pages, Notes, Numbers, Keynote, Contacts, Calendar, TextEdit, Xcode, in fact almost every Apple and third party application, but the actual code exists only once.

Time Machine is superior to a bootable clone because it likely gives you a more, even faaar more, up to date result, while a bootable clone is uniquely useful as a fallback in the event of total drive failure...admittedly, considerably less likely with today's SSDs than it was with yesteryear's HDDs, particularly since drives can no longer be swapped out. (On the other hand, though, CCC is so fast on my Intel MBP that I could set it to run every hour. Hmmm...)

My biggest problem with TM is I've got nowhere to put the necessary drive. Were I to go that route I'd need to be able to do it remotely, but Apple no longer makes Time Capsules. (Does anyone?)

And as an afterthought, I wonder for how long Apple will support AirPort Utility?

All true! and I have done a full recovery from Time Machine on multiple occasions after beta glitches and during testing. But I use Time Machine most often when I need to recover a file that was deleted anywhere from hours to weeks or even months ago, which is not feasible with clones

True, but there is no practical way of "versioning" or recovering a file long since deleted and the clone overwritten.

I have an elderly Mac mini tucked in a cabinet that serves as a print, and file server that I use as a Time Machine server, but a 2GB 2.5" HD in an enclosure like this or this takes up very little room, costs less than $130, and has adequate capacity and more than adequate speed for Time Machine backups — especially the current generation APFS Snapshot version of Time Machine.

Good question. I just checked and the last time Airport Utility was updated was January 1, 2020. I suppose it will be "supported" until Airport Utility no longer works "as is".

Many thanks for your insights and suggestions.

BNIB Time Capsules are available on eBay, but I don't know if spending the coupl'a hundred bucks they go for is warranted in the face of AirPort Utility's uncertain future.

Were I in your situation, i.e. if I actually created files that might need recovery some day, I'd have already managed to somehow make Time Machine fit my situation, but as it is, TM is just a future consideration which will hopefully fall victim to Mike Bombich's ingenuity, so while your insights and suggestions are much appreciated, they're not about to elicit any immediate action...probably won't until I'm forced to buy an M1.

If that forced situation does occur in the near future, then might we all benefit from a clarification response to my post here?

Don't forget security issues as well. Time Capsules, Airports, Airport Express have all gone through multiple firmware updates over the years mostly revolving around security. So its not just Airport Utility but all the versions of the Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, Airport Express, and Airport Base Station as well. And all of the Airport devices have been designated Obsolete, in other words, completely unsupported by Apple. While I have not found a list of Obsolete Apple software products, the fact that although Apple has updated all of their current software products to run native on M1 Macs, Airport Utility was not updated which seems to imply it too is no longer supported, and why would it be when all of the devices it supports are officially Obsolete? All of which leads me to ponder how I am going to reconfigure my LAN to support several Apple Home devices that only work on a 2.4GHz band WiFi and don't play nice with my high speed mesh network. 🤔

I am not arguing with your choice, but I would like to point out something that I recently realized about Time Machine. The last file I recovered was not one I had created rather it was an installer for a previous version of a third party application that had somehow been lost or simply never placed into my personal collection of installers. That made me realize I had been taking too narrow a view of the possibilities for using Time Machine. Rather than taking working disk space storing installers just in case, Time Machine is already doing that. At most all I might need is a database/spreadsheet of version numbers and download/install dates to facilitate recovery. I am currently working on the detailed mechanics and exploring possibilities but it appears possible I might be able to automate the process with some minor scripting. 👨🏻‍💻

Results: TBD

Unless Mactracker is incorrect, these three devices are still supported, but under any circumstances, I'm not worried about security, because I don't use my AirPort Express Base Station for Internet, only for AirPlay, which functionality I'd very much hate to lose.

Mitigating factor? The Sony STRDH190 receiver I bought last year includes "Built in Bluetooth lets you wirelessly stream your favorite music service, podcasts, and more from other Bluetooth devices" in its documentation. I wonder if my MBP qualifies/can be made to qualify as an "other Bluetooth device" and if my sound quality can be maintained in that configuration if its possible.

I maintain an archive of installers - only a bit more than 2.5 GB at the moment, i.e. not at all an exorbitant space commitment on my 500 GB SSD - which I purge periodically, and I don't remember ever running into a situation in which I regretted having purged too soon.

My real problem is remembering to compress and archive App Store updates which don't come with installers.

In your situation, i.e. running upwards of 200 apps and putting yourself in situations in which the need to backdate apps is more likely than it is for us average users, Time Machine is, indeed, an excellent option.

I am a great fan of MacTracker and refer to it often, but in this case I took my information direct from the horse's mouth.

Bluetooth is a standard and Apple sticks closely to standards, so unless Sony is doing something off standard it should work. (FWIW, I use Rogue Ameaba's Sound Source to control audio input and output sources and it offers far more discrimination than is available in the normal preference settings.) As to sound quality that is a function of bandwidth and IIRC bluetooth's bandwidth isn't all that great so whether it would meet your quality standard I think could only be determined in "the ear of the listener".

You looked at the wrong teeth. The three devices listed in my screenshot are not on Apple's list.

I read that as your saying that my MBP can broadcast the music in Music.app to the SONY, in which case I'll have to experiment. (Happily, I apparently have a coupl'a years to get around to it.)

I've been aware of SoundSource for ages but have never needed it. I"ll now keep it in mind as a potential necessity.