Same - I did my iPhone and both Apple Watches on Monday, and the iPad this morning. I updated one of my Apple TVs Monday night, mostly because I wanted the updated enhanced dialog feature. I may upgrade to Sequoia on my MBA later this morning, too.
Really iOS and iPadOS are fairly minor upgrades with 18.0. The enhancements to watchOS (plus fitness on iOS) I really like, though it’s going to take a while for training load and vitals to start giving me reports (which seems weird, since I have history already in the health app.) Coincidentally I am now ill (first symptoms Monday night) and the vitals app reported this morning higher heart rate, breathing rate, and wrist temperature than normal, so that’s good to see. That said, again, watchOS 11 is not a dramatic upgrade from 10.
Mine is a production Mac and it takes a while to check App compatibility and whether anything critical is going to break somewhere in the chain, and that might not be due to the OS itself but the ramifications across the board, including peripherals. I normally review bug reports until the Spring when I am clear about what the various pros and cons will be and what solutions have been developed and tested.
The trend has been for macOS updates to be less disruptive than in the past but there is little urgency and changing workflows can be time consuming and aggravating, so picking the right moment between projects is the key for me.
I also need to test compatibility with client systems and they update their Macs when I give them the all clear and I know what configuration changes may need to be made. They don’t like updates much, so no pressure coming from there.
I fall on this side for the most part. A lot of the changes that come about with each major release feel to me like changes for the sake of change. So I wait until I know I will have time to spend getting used to the changes and updating the myriad third-party apps that inevitably break with a new major release—especially with iOS/iPadOS apps, which still have to work their way through Apple’s App Store review process. Despite compatible versions having been submitted by the developers, Apple may not have posted the updates to the App Store yet.
Third-party apps and devices are a big stumbling block for many people. For example, I use a Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for my diabetes (well, I did until the sensors got backordered this month—now I’m considering switching to a different brand). The hardware readers for these sensors are pricey, even with insurance, but the mobile app makes a hardware reader superfluous for most people.
But.
Abbott (the company that makes Freestyle diabetes products) still doesn’t even officially list iOS 17 as fully compatible with their app, such that when you first run it on iOS 17, it makes you confirm and accept that some features may not work correctly because it’s an “unsupported” OS. I’ve never had any problems I could trace to this, but it’s still annoying to have such an incompatibility this long after iOS 17 was released. I got an email from Abbott the other day warning that, similarly to iOS 17, they cannot guarantee full compatibility with iOS 18, and they recommend waiting to upgrade.
Then there’s the history of major bugs in initial releases, which, while not nearly as common as some people think, are still common enough to be a consideration; honestly, a single data-destroying bug in ten years is frequent enough to be worth pausing before the update. Public beta testing will never catch all possible major bugs, because the number of configurations (hardware + apps) is effectively infinite, and the number of users willing to test out a public beta is still a small fraction of the total user base. So it’s prudent to wait at least until the initial bug reports start rolling in, typically within a few days of release, if not to just wait for the inevitable x.0.1 release that should fix whatever big things may have gotten missed in beta.
There is, in fact, such a bug in iOS 18 (though based on what causes it, it’s probably rarely triggered.)
In the messages app if you are part of a message thread that receives a watch face attachment shared from the watch app, replying to the message can cause a crash when opening the thread that can be fixed only with a deletion of the chat history of that thread.
I’m just behind the bleeding edge. I usually don’t upgrade to betas and never for critical devices (my desktop Mac, iPhone, and iPad). I generally advise my more risk-averse friends to upgrade several months afterward when there appear to be no more severe bugs or new features), but I insist that they do it before the next full-version production release.
I do that because getting informal support from me is harder for older versions. By the time the next version has come out, I have forgotten the changes between older versions. I also have difficulty remembering what issues caused problems during the upgrade. It’s harder to research the issues and to get support from Apple.
Skipping versions means that when you finally do an upgrade, it will be even harder to troubleshoot issues that arise.
I’ve been upgrading with initial releases for many years and haven’t had any data loss. This is a shift from previously when things were less solid and I did wait until a few point releases were out. Obviously that’s just me, so take it fwiw.
(On the other hand, in this media world, any bug is going to get breathless and horrified wall to wall coverage, so take that fwiw)
I have upgraded none of my Apple devices yet. The iPhone, M1 Max and Watch I am waiting for a period where I can thoroughly learn the new functionality. For me, this is a positive thing. Going through all new things and finding the nice things that make a difference for me. I see a period coming up in about 2 weeks.
I generally wait a week or so to do a major update to avoid the issues we’re seeing reported this time around: iPadOS bricking the M4 iPads, crashing but in Messages if your reply to a thread with an Apple Watch screen, etc.
In these cases, I’ll wait for the bug fix releases and then another week or so to see if they work or not.
I updated my iPhone 13 Pro and iPad Pro M1 to iOS 18 a couple of days ago and basically they are ok. I like the new way they merge reminders with calendar.
I don’t like some things in Photos, like the new organization, or the way movies loop and don’t just stop when done.
But no bugs.
And… I took the leap and upgraded from MacOS 14.7 to Sequoia just before! This is on my MBP 14" M1 from 2021. From initial request to finish and login was just 35 minutes. I don’t see any problems so far. All my apps reopened. And one piece of good news! A problem I’ve been having lately with Microsoft Word, where I couldn’t drag my cursor and select text, was fixed with the upgrade!
On Monday I upgraded my M1 MacBook Air and M2 MacMini to 15. I upgraded 4 HomePods to HomePod OS 18, an AppleTV to TVoS 18, my 15 Pro to iOS 18, my Ultra to WatchOS 11, and my iPad mini to iPadOS 18. I’ve had no problems at all. The only thing that doesn’t work as it’s supposed to is iPhone Mirroring, and my 16 Pro arrives tomorrow, so I’ll try again once that’s up and running. Maps on iOS/macOS/WatchOS now have trails (at least most of them), although still no topographic maps as was promised last year (except for one small patch on my Ultra). And for some reason my Ultra seems to charge slower that it used to on the 3rd party charger I use. Haven’t looked into that much yet.
I think you also should take into consideration what kind of Mac processor is in your machine. If you are running and Intel Mac, many new features in the past two macOS upgrades did not apply to your machine. Even that warning from OWC for Softraid users applied to Apple Silicon users. Right now, I suspect the majority of the people in system development at Apple are concentrating on getting things right for Apple Silicon. I have seen this play out for the transition to PowerPC and from Motorola to Intel. Each time, you were best off to leave the older computers on legacy systems. System 7.5 was the best for 64000 series, all the system 8 versions were bug ridden and System 9 was PowerPC only. Tiger was best for PowerPC, Leopard actually lost features like Classic! Monterey has been very stable for my iMac and all my Intel software is running latest versions. (I’m one version behind on Pages - I not missing anything I use.) When the software I use won’t run on Monterey, I’m pretty certain they won’t run on Intel. For those worried about hackers, Apple AI is a huge target - and my iMac is immune. For those with Apple Silicon, you are on the other end of this. You have been stuck with releases like Mac OS 8.0 and Cheetah. It takes a long time for Apple to get things working well on the new hardware. Snow Leopard was pretty sweet and so is Mojave. Sequoia certainly sounds like it is mature - I hope the name choice can meet the big expectations.
I did all mine (Mac Studio, and iOS devices along with Homepod). Then this morning, doing remote work from home, my “work” MacbookPro offered the Sequoia update. I thought, OH, Jamf admins are ok with push for this. It updated fine.
Then I read some computer news and … drop jaw. Seems Crowdstrike and Sentinel One are breaking Sequoia installs. GREAT! So sigh… since this was posted today (9/19/2024), I will check in the morning with our group on why this was ok’d or if they have the updated Crowdstrike resolution.
