Apple discontinues standalone updates in favor of OTA installers?

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Level 1

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Apple discontinues standalone updates in favor of OTA installers?

Well, it appears that Apple has finally decided to move a step further by discontinuing the availability of individual DMG packages for future versions of macOS in favor of OTA installers. This controversial move has caused frustration among Mac users who find the standalone updates handy in critical situations.

Starting with Big Sur the Cupertino-based giant is phasing out the Downloads page by keeping only essential security updates for legacy software.

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 18, 2020 1:17 AM

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Answer 1

dragontorc Author

Level 1

69 points

Dec 18, 2020 2:32 AM in response to Eau Rouge

I believe this decision came as Big Sur benefits from the advantages provided by APFS snapshots.

Not only updates are more reliable to deploy but they also give users the ability to roll back the OS to a working state in case of failure, making installation from individual packages redundant.

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Answer 2

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,554 points

Dec 18, 2020 1:38 AM in response to dragontorc

Another asinine move, seeing as so many people write in with

problems using the OTA updates.

Often the recommendation is to download the standalone

update.

more infinite loopyness

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Apple discontinues standalone updates in favor of OTA installers?

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