Time esimates

Installed a couple of (mostly security) updates this morning for Ventura and Safari. After the download it went into "Preparing updates" with an initial estimate of 25 minutes; within less than a minute that dropped to 15 minutes, and the whole preparation phase until it rebooted into the actual installation only took about 5 minutes.

The whole thing, from starting the download to the system restarting took just under 25 minutes and the only half-way accurate estimate was the final 9 minutes, and even that only took about 7!

I do wish Apple would get their estimates about right!

And while I'm at it, I'm sure updates were a lot quicker in the days of 32-bit (although the time estimates weren't any better). Granted the systems are more complex these days, but I thought 64-bit (especially with SSDs!) was supposed to be much faster?



[rant mode off]

I suspect they start with a default estimate that is blind to your set up and it gets refined with progress.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

I suspect they start with a default estimate that is blind to your set up and it gets refined with progress.

Sounds reasonable. I'm (fairly) sure it used to display "Calculating time remaining" until it knew which ballpark it was in, I'd prefer that. But maybe a lot of people complained and said they'd prefer to see a time right from the start; even Apple can't win 'em all

My biggest complaint is that there are too many periods where you just have a black screen. Call be an old fuddy duddy, but I like a progress indication even when ....imprecise.

Call me an old fuddy duddy

… you are an old fuddy duddy.

I've only once had the screen go black during an update and stay that way.

I'd read all sorts of dire warnings against interrupting an update, but after about 45 minutes with no signs of activity (not even any noise from the HDD) I figured "what's to lose?", crossed everything I've got two of that could be crossed and forced a shutdown/restart using the power button. To my immense relief it simply picked up where it left off and completed the update without issue.

I don't know if I was just plain lucky or if it's actually OK to do that, but I have no desire to find out the hard way that it was the former so yes, I don't like black screens either!

I don't like how the MAc updates, the screen goes blank, and I have no idea what it is doing and for long it is going to do it for, saying that, maybe it is displaying on the other monitor which for most of the time is turned off, i just thought of that.
I don't like the mac restarting without any warning, at least with Windows it does give a warning and will allow you to stop it. I don't allow updates, I do a check every week.

I have updated to Sonama, it seems ok, I have not had any problems yet, but it offers me nothing really, the screensaver thing is a gimmick and i hate widgets on the desktop

In reply to a post by ian_c:

My biggest complaint is that there are too many periods where you just have a black screen. Call be an old fuddy duddy, but I like a progress indication even when ....imprecise.

I should have read your post before I posted mine, so it is not me then, there are a lot of blank screens during updates

Yeah, unlike iPhones where it gives you a nice shiny apple to look at....and a progress bar.

Unlike iOS, some parts of the installation process for an update for macOS make it impossible to maintain the video output and some other services from the OS which is why you see the black screens from time to time whilst doing an update. It’s nothing to be concerned about unless it continues for an unusually long time.

Edited by jjgraphics (Sat 04-Nov-23 14:23:12)