With the turn of the fiscal year, macOS version 11.x Big Sur transitions from supported status (since December 2020 for Intel-based systems and January 2021 for Apple Silicon-based systems) to supported and recommended. It replaces macOS version 10.15.x Catalina as the recommended version of macOS. As of July 1st, 2021 the current version of Big Sur is 11.4.

Supported versus supported and recommended is a construct developed within Penn Computing many years ago. It was initially created to give support providers and users an idea of which web browsers were preferred. However, it serves operating system transitions quite well.

Big Sur's supported and recommended status does not mean it is the appropriate choice for every Intel-based Mac user at the University (Apple Silicon users currently can only run on Big Sur). There remain a few issues with Java Web Start and with lab management.