I removed Garage Band.
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That only removes 1 annoying marker LOL 
ps it arrived. Setting up from scratch to avoid legacy from years ago. Downloads a plenty at the moment.
I am going to play devil's advocate here.
The popular definitions seem to be that updates have patches and fixes and upgrades have new features. Updates change a version's revision number (the 1 in the hypothetical version 4.2.1) and upgrades change a version's minor or major numbers (the other numbers in the hypothetical version 4.2.1). I don't think these definitions hold up these days. Look at the release notes for FileMaker Server 19.1.2 and tell me with a straight face that this was a revision.
One could say that the difference between an upgrade and an update is dependent on whether it is a major or minor change. Is a minor change an existing feature change? Is it a new feature that does not require a change in the operating environment? Is it a modification of any kind that does not change interfaces such as a plugin architecture? Can fixes require changes in interfaces or operating requirements or is this a major change?
I would argue that there is no definition of what constitutes an update or an upgrade. Marketing departments essentially decide what is an upgrade and what is an update. I agree with everyone that believes Big Sur is a major change from Catalina. Its operating requirements and its interfaces differ a lot from Catalina. Should it be called an update or an upgrade? I don't think it matters.
Whether it's update or upgrade, it's always buyer beware in my books. Any operating system change, no matter how minor, can result in broken applications. Users should therefore do a risk assessment prior to updating or upgrading anything. Depending on needs and resources, users should then test on a separate machine, backup, update and pray that all goes well or change nothing.
@bdbd you’ve raised a lot of valid points.
However, the difference between an annually released major system change, which in this case not only includes a name change but an integer change that has not changed since 2001 and previously had to be looked for in the App Store, is now displaying permanently in the System Preferences ‘Software Update’ and is an accident waiting to happen.
If Apple didn’t take such a blunderbuss approach to backward compatibility, then this wouldn’t be so much of an issue. But this is clearly both a marketing and technical major upgrade that will cause a lot of grief.
The result of installing an Apple upgrade should not be a surprise. During my years of Mac support, the look of panic in a designer’s eyes when it was suggested they either needed a new Mac or an OS upgrade was fully justified as they often only got Quark, Adobe and Suitcase apps working together by the time the next Mac/upgrade was due.
The encouragement from all OS vendors is to run the latest updates for security reasons, with good cause, but sneaking these major upgrades into ‘updates’ cannot be justified due to the resulting productivity and obsolescence costs.
I take your point on FileMaker Server 19.1.2, but this is still a significant amount of work to upgrade/update, it isn’t a question of clicking a single button and letting it get on with it.
Maybe Apple should survey their client base and find out what percentage of Apple apps are actually used by their customers. If the vast majority of users are on Mail, Safari, Photos, Music, Final Cut Pro, etc. then maybe they are justified. However, I don’t know many of these myself.
Hey ho, there isn’t much we can do about it, but unfortunately we often have to pick the pieces up.
Thanks for your input
Andy
The first update on the M1 Mac.
I’m setting it up manually and have just installed all my most commonly used apps and registered them.
So far, without doing any actual work, every single one has launched without problem. I was prompted to install Rosetta early on, which was incredibly quick. Even FileMaker Pro 17 Advanced with 5 plugins/extensions has launched and loaded the plugins. The majority of apps are downloaded rather than from the App Store.
As mentioned above, I’ve lost my Sophos anti-virus and haven’t addressed running Windows yet (except RDP, Jump Desktop and Microsoft Remote Desktop have worked), but so far, so good with lots and lots of ‘allowing’ (access to folders, mic, camera).
I have established that, despite the single monitor connection limit, it will additionally use an iPad Pro using Sidecar as shown in the attached photo.
The proof however, will be when some work is attempted. 
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A quick update as I’ve just swapped to the MacBook Pro to try to do some work. There has been a change since my initial (successful) application launch tests in that the MacBook is now connected to a couple of USB hubs and a 34” widescreen display, whereas all previous testing has been directly on the MacBook Pro.
Opening all copies of FileMaker resulted in a ‘This application is from an unknown developer’ with an option to open it (System Preferences are set to allow apps downloaded from ‘App Store and identified developers’ in Security & Privacy - I’m trying to avoid using Terminal to allow apps from anywhere option, particularly as I’m without anti-virus at the moment).
Interestingly, FileMaker Pro 18 Advanced has quit unexpectedly every time it was launched. However, v19 AND v17 are launching OK. Version 18 and version 19 both have the same, most up to date, plugins installed, whereas v17 has one or two older versions. I appreciate that the older versions are not supported, but we do have clients who haven’t updated as yet and I don’t have a copy of Windows running at yet.
I’ll be carrying out troubleshooting on v18 later.
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Apps already installed should not show the unknown developer.
And please never switch the preferences to allow all apps.
FMP 18 works here on a test Mac with Apple Silicon.
Do you have a crash report to check?
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Hi Christian
We’ve set this up from new, rather than do any Time Machine restore to avoid many years of legacy data being transferred. As mentioned above, all apps initially launched successfully in exactly the same state as they are now and this is a change of behaviour, hence it was worth reporting. It could even be hardware related, as my Apple Magic mouse is currently losing Bluetooth connection on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, we still have clients using some old extensions, such as Reactor and Dataguard that will not run without enabling all applications. We have 3 choices until these system have been updated to be free of these extensions, 1. enable all apps or 2. throw the Mac away and use Windows, or 3. stop supporting these clients.
Options 2 and 3 are not actually options to us.
Regards
Andy
ps I forgot to mention the crash report. I do, but first I wish to do some basic troubleshooting to gain a better understanding first.
you can use "xattr -cr path" command in terminal with various file paths to remove quarantine flags, which often helps to get something to run on double click.
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Maybe 18 doesn’t like the video card...
or the M1 specialized cores give less room for high graphical processing. What was new in 18 that got optimized in 19?...
I’ve now identified the problem, which is interesting. The problem is with the Mailit extension, but it doesn’t make too much sense and I’ve sent my findings to Dacons.
FileMaker 18 and 19 both had the latest 8.0.b63 version of MailIt. I also tested FMPA 17 with MailIt 7.0.b50. Versions 19 and 17 both launch and, as far as I can tell, operate normally. However, v18 crashes on launch no matter which version of the extension/plugin is installed. All extensions are put into the appropriate Extensions folder in the ~Library/Application Support/FileMaker folder.
I also tried Mailit 8.0.b61 but the OS reported that the developer could not be verified. Needless to say, I did try v7.0.b50 as well, but FMPA 18 crashed each time.
Other than the above and the bluetooth mouse occasionally disconnecting, which appears to be settling down, I pretty much forgot I had swapped from the Air to the M1 Pro, which is praise indeed.
I’ve used FileMaker 19, Word, Preview, Outlook, Mail, BBEdit, Remote Desktop, Jump Desktop, Photos, Transmit, Visual Studio Code, Safari, Chrome, Edge, Skype, WhatsApp, Calendar, FM Perception and others with no problems.
The native apps launch in an instant, those running within Rosetta 2 take a little longer, but no longer than they did on my 2019 Intel Air.
All in all, a good start and I have no reason to believe I’ll be reverting to my MacBook Air. Windows virtualisation remains the one missing element (and of course Sophos antivirus) at the moment. CodeWeavers apparently have CrossOver running in Rosetta and I hear some rumours that Hangover may be an option. But with an HP Elitebook sitting beside my Macs, it isn’t currently an issue.
Andy
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A quick update. now that I’ve done some work on the M1 MacBook Pro.
The main issue is that FileMaker 17 will run, but quits every time it is asked to enter layout mode, with or without extensions, so will be removed from the Applications folder and working on any old systems will, for now, using the trusty HP Windows laptop.
One pain, which may also be as a result of moving from a 27” Samsung display to a 34” widescreen, but the ‘Assign to’ option in the Dock has disappeared. I’ve an old system I need to refer to while we’re moving it to our SaleFaith system that is a (lot of) multi-file solution and I’m having to move each window to the 2nd reference display one at a time. I used to be able to simply assign an app to a display.
The Magic Mouse is still disconnecting, but seemingly mostly at the start of a working session and seems to improve as the day goes on. The jury is out on this one.
I’m having a few issues with the top of windows disappearing under the menus, but again this could be due to the display change.
Apps all appear to open much faster, with our without Rosetta, although I haven’t tested my full suite as yet. Everything appears snappier to be honest.
As an aside, I decided to manually delete my MacBook Air Time Machine backup from a Seagate external USB 3.0 7200rpm 3.5” disk, as I wanted to keep another backup on it. It has now deleted over 3 million items and has been deleting for 2-days (with the odd message of an item in use) and is still continuing.
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Do you have a crash log for that Layout mode issue?
Do you consider running older FM versions in VMs on the M1?
Hi Torsten, yes I was thinking the very same thing. Will be interesting and I bought the 1Tb disk for various VMs, so may go that route. Thanks. Andy
So it shows a list in the user interface with items and accesses first item, but the list is empty.
LOTOutlineView, maybe the Layout Object Table?
Hi Christian
I picked a demo file that happened to be on my desktop, it just had a few fields in, but the behaviour was identical when trying to use a fully developed system.
I can provide data, but I don’t have time to go through crash reports, we’ve 3 major projects scheduled to go live for the new year.
Regards
Andy