Originally published at: When Should You Upgrade to Apple’s 2024 OS Releases - TidBITS
Apple has released the initial versions of its 2024 operating systems—macOS 15 Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, watchOS 11, visionOS 2, tvOS 18, and HomePod Software 18. You might want to upgrade immediately, but Adam Engst recommends that most people wait at least a bit. Or even longer, for macOS.
For some years now, my practice has been upgrade to the new macOS after the next macOS is released. So I’ll upgrade my secondary computer (a MacBook Pro) to Sonoma once Sequoia is released.
Normally I’d upgrade my main computer (an iMac) a couple of months later. But this time I can’t – it doesn’t support Sonoma – which means, I’ll need to get a new computer. And that means I’m stuck on this iMac until I finish all of the games that only run on Intel.
It is another Catalina situation. I was stuck on Mojave for a little over 2 years, until I finished the 32-bit games.
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When I was working I’d typically wait for a .3 or .4 update before committing.
Now I’m retired - and have a couple of spare machines - I’m likely to update a spare and see how it goes. My main machine will stay on Sonoma for at least a few months unless my tests show it’s ‘safe’.
As long as the updates don’t screw up iCloud I see upgrading a spare machine as minimal risk.
Local (USB) Calendar syncing is still broken under Sequoia (and Sonoma, and Ventura), so no. This summer my iPhone also had a traumatic (fatal) impact. Seriously thinking dumb phone and DayTimer.
I may rue saying this sometime over the next month but I’ve become relaxed about upgrading even on the day of release. The long graph of reliability since System 4 (
) shows a steep upturn over the past 5 years. I just upgraded an iPhone, an iPad, and a Watch and so far no hiccups. I did have to fully reset the 32G iPad in order to get enough space for the install. (Hm, maybe time to upgrade. . . .)
The 2017 iMac is limited to Ventura and in the next couple of months I’ll upgrade to a Mac Mini but even with the security updates I just do them when they come out making sure it’s fully backed up before I do them (and it is fully backed up).
If you’re responsible for a farm or farms of Macs in production, for sure I would say wait for months if not a year to upgrade but for personal use? Do it when you feel comfortable but don’t obsess about it.
Dave
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My reading here suggests many people wait months (or years) after major releases to upgrade. So I think it important to point out that falling behind the latest release means slipping considerably with respect to having Apple’s patches for security vulnerabilities.
Case in point… I did a comparison of the security issues patched with today’s release of iOS 17.7 vs. the release of 18. While I didn’t actually count fixes, I’d say that of all the vulnerabilities fixed in 18, only maybe 70 to 75% were also present in 17.7. While I didn’t check the comparable releases of macOS, I would expect a similar ratio.
So even with installing today’s security releases for the now “old” OS, you’re already missing some fixes for non-trivial vulnerabilities. And as the year progresses, you’ll fall even further behind.
Admittedly, I haven’t been burned by a major release in its first few weeks for quite some time. And I’m rather paranoid when it comes to security vulnerabilities. So your threat/bug model may differ considerably from mine. Nevertheless, it’s good to know some of these details and the corresponding risks when deciding on your upgrade strategy.
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I wouldn’t read too much into that. It’s very possible that many of the “missing” patches were issues introduced during iOS 18 betas and aren’t vulnerabilities in iOS 17.6.1.
So far no issues for me with iOS 18 or watchOS 11.
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I upgraded my iPad Pro (2021 M1) and iPhone 13 Pro to iOS 18 today. No problems at all.
I really don’t understand the math editor, or the other new Memo features. I have to find a place to read up some more on it. Everything else is working fine.
I do like the fact that they have merged Reminders into the Calendar. I’m going to stop using a third-party Calendar app now.
I haven’t tried many new features yet. But no speed or battery or heating or other problems so far. Looks nice.
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I honestly don’t understand why people wait such long periods of time before updating to the latest OS release, except of course in cases where it will break compatibility with a key app. For all the bugs in MacOS, at a high level reliability these days is extremely good, the chance of a serious issue is very small. The public beta process surely helps with this. But honestly, waiting a year to upgrade doesn’t seem to serve any practical purpose. And there are often loads of little quality of life improvements in new versions of MacOS, as well as features that take advantage of corresponding ones in iOS.
I definitely understand waiting a few weeks to see if there are any major bugs that shake out. But what is the purpose of waiting a year? MacOS is simply not as buggy and more reliable than it was in the Snow Leopard days.
One solution might be to see how the games run under Whisky. I’ve only done this with one game and it seemed to work pretty well. But I’m not a gamer and don’t know how resource intensive your games are. Still, you could test how well it works on your MacBook Pro to potentially remove a dependency for upgrading the iMac.
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When I picked up my iPhone 11 Pro I was intending to update to 17.7, but I was presented with an 18.0 promo that I didn’t see how to escape. So I shrugged and now am on 18.0.
A post was split to a new topic: Mail in Sequoia jumps to full screen
I have a 2020 Intel 27” iMac and a iPhone 12Pro that can upgrade to newest OS and iPad 10.5Pro and Watch Series 5 which cannot. Will there be compatibility issues in Photos between new and older versions on my devices?
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One problem found in iOS 18 on my iPhone 13 Pro with Siri.
Siri’s automatically deciding whether to use its voice or not is not working right. At night I always turn my sound and alerts off. But unattended Siri is supposed to use its voice. In the morning before opening my eyes I often say, “Siri, what time is it?” and it answers.
This morning it didn’t. I had to go into Siri settings and change the automatic (is that a new setting) to always use voice.
I tried reporting this to Apple Feedback, but there is no option to choose iOS 18 yet there.
My Apple TV automatically upgraded to 18.0. After a while one of my 1st gen Stereo Homepods stopped playing. I upgraded both Homepods to 18.0 but the problem was not fixed. I tried restarting everything but it was still not fixed.
Eventually I powered off the Homepods - fortunately this fixed the problem.
I will delay upgrading my Mac to Sequoia!
I delay to put off the pain of lost functionality as long as possible. And, since Apple moved to the annual release cadence, each release adds more bugs than are fixed. The problem is they only fix bugs that are confirmed to be new for a release. All the other bugs become “existing”, with no development time spent to address.
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Last night I was given the choice between iOS 17.7 or 18.0 on my iPhone 12 and iPad Mini 6; went with 17.7. I haven’t checked my iPad Mini 5 yet because I have to keep it on 14.4.2 due to one non-replaceable app.
Edit: 25 Sep 24 I forgot to mention I’m maxed out on my iMac at MacOS 10.13.6 and on my MBP at MacOS 12.7.6
ICloud Private Relay is playing up again. I had to disable it to reach this page.
I generally update to a new macOS version about the time its successor enters the beta period - my days of always wanting the latest and greatest have long since passed
But then, I’m under the impression that most improvements these days happen in the macOS/iOS integration area, and -not using iOS- that is of no interest to me.
As I usually do, I jumped right into the deep end, updating both my iPhone & iPad to iOS 18. They’ve both been fine – basically over the last decade or so, Apple’s public beta period seems to have taken the place of the previous first few months of a system release in terms of working out serious kinks. System reliability and bugginess is so much better now than it used to be, which is great. I haven’t had a chance to play with the new features much so no word there yet.
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Me too…did 2x iPad Air 4, iPhone 15 Pro Max, Watch 9, and M1 MBP 14 with no issues. My overall upgrade experience matches yours. I did wait until yesterday vice Monday to do anything just in case and backed up everything first of course.
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