Shortly after the launch of Apple's new M1 Macs, we saw reports that attempts to restore and reinstall macOS on those machines right away could result in an installation error that would leave your Mac non-functional.
Specifically, the error message would read: "An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again."
Over the weekend, Apple posted detailed instructions for users experiencing this issue. Specifically it seems the issue arises if you erase/restore your Mac before upgrading to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1.
If you erased your Mac with Apple M1 chip before updating to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1, you might be unable to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery. A message might say “An error occurred while preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again.”
Use either of these solutions to reinstall macOS. You should then be able to use macOS Recovery as expected when reinstalling macOS in the future.
Apple suggests that you could create a bootable installer using another Mac. Otherwise, Apple details a more technical 17 step process using Terminal to restore your M1 Mac to a functional state.
If you are still having trouble, Apple recommends contacting support, and you can also visit our ongoing forum thread where users are troubleshooting this specific issue.
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple may have updated several iPads and Macs late last year and early this year, but there are still multiple new devices that we're looking forward to seeing in 2025. Most will come in September or October, but there could be a few surprises before then.
We've rounded up a list of everything that we're still waiting to see from Apple in 2025.
iPhone 17, 17 Air, and 17 Pro - We get...
A new report from The Information today reveals much of the internal turmoil behind Apple Intelligence's revamped version of Siri.
Apple apparently weighed up multiple options for the backend of Apple Intelligence. One initial idea was to build both small and large language models, dubbed "Mini Mouse" and "Mighty Mouse," to run locally on iPhones and in the cloud, respectively. Siri's...
Thursday April 10, 2025 4:19 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple in October 2024 overhauled its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display changes, and more. That's quite a lot of updates in one go, but if you think this means a further major refresh for the MacBook Pro is now several years away, think again.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects only a small...
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we catch up on the latest iOS 19 and watchOS 12 rumors, upcoming devices, and more.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos
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A common complaint about the iPad Pro is that the iPadOS software platform fails to fully take advantage of the device's powerful hardware.
That could soon change.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that iPadOS 19 will be "more like macOS."
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Improved multitasking
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Apple's current struggles with Apple Intelligence and Siri began in early 2023 when AI head John Giannandrea sought approval from CEO Tim Cook to purchase more AI chips for development, according to a new report from The New York Times.
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Apple is working on a new version of the Vision Pro with two key advantages over the current model, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
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Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold") will feature two screens as part of its book-style design, and a Chinese leaker claims to know the resolutions for both of them.
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What mess? There was a bug in 11.0. Apple issued 11.0.1 but some people received the machine and immediately did a restore for any of various reasons. Since the machines shipped after 11.0.1 they had the bug in 11.0.
The fix is fairly simple for anyone that would have encountered the bug, ie: generic home users are not in the habit of doing a complete system restore out of the box, power users do that.
