I remember a time 10 or 15 years ago when you could install a system update on your Mac without rebooting. I always chuckled at the Windows users who seemingly had to reboot every time they installed a new program, let alone a system update. I don’t remember exactly when Macs started requiring reboots for system updates, but it was a sad day.
Recently, Apple gave me some hope, when I read on the Apple website that:
Once macOS Big Sur is installed, software updates begin in the background and finish faster than before — so it’s easier than ever to keep your Mac up to date and secure.
Could this mean that I don’t need to reboot anymore? That would be great!
Nope, not the case! The download is done in the background, but it requires a reboot, and to me it seems even slower than before – since moving to Big Sur I have had to do 2 or 3 updates, and each one has taken about 10 minutes to install. I find this quite disappointing. Had Apple not touted this as an improvement, I would probably not be writing this, but here we are. Can we ever hope to have true background updates again?