Last Week on My Mac: Are you ready for Sonoma 14.6?

Last Tuesday, as the uproar over the CrowdStrike catastrophe was still subsiding, and alongside the fourth developer beta of Sequoia, Apple quietly provided its first release candidate for macOS 14.6. Don’t be surprised if that ships early next week, alongside Ventura 13.6.8 and Monterey 12.7.6, making it the earliest release of the sixth minor version in the annual macOS cycle since Mojave. For the last four years, from Catalina to Ventura, the last full update marking the start of two years of security-only maintenance has taken place in September.

To put this into context, it’s worth revisiting how Apple numbers macOS versions and how that fits into its annual release cycle:

The first digits in the version number indicate the major version, currently 14 for Sonoma, which changes around September-October of each year with the start of each new cycle.
The second digit indicates the minor version, currently 5 for Sonoma, and starts from 0 with the first major release in September. Minor updates are scheduled well in advance, and culminate in the sixth as the last regular update (Catalina was an exception in running to 7), and the start of that version’s first year of security-only updates.
The third digit indicates the patch version, used for urgent unscheduled fixes between those minor versions. The previous release of Sonoma before 14.5 was 14.4.1, which fixed a few urgent bugs and security vulnerabilities. For security-only updates after the x.6 release, this marks each security update.

Thus the first year of Sonoma is expected to run from its first release as 14.0 on 26 September last year, through 14.1 to 14.6, its last full update, shortly before the release of Sequoia. Sonoma then enters its first year of security-only updates in 14.6.1, and its second year in the autumn/fall of 2025 with versions 14.7, 14.7.1, and so on, until it becomes unsupported after a total of three years.

Sonoma has been running early throughout its release cycle, starting with its first release, and squeezed in 14.2 well before Christmas. While this could indicate that Apple doesn’t intend putting it into security-only maintenance until after version 14.6.1 or even 14.7 in September, around the time of Sequoia’s initial release, that would mark a significant change in the annual cycle. You also have to wonder how many non-security fixes could be prepared for release during August, when most of Apple’s software engineers are fully extended in finishing off the major new versions of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS and visionOS for release the following month.

I expect next week will bring the release of Sonoma 14.6, the last general update and start of its two years in security-only maintenance, together with Ventura 13.6.8 as the end of its first year of security-only fixes, and Monterey 12.7.6, its swan song as it becomes unsupported. Those should pave the way for Sequoia 15.0 in September, bringing support for a batch of new Macs featuring M3 and M4 chips, to include an updated Mac Studio, Mac mini, and MacBook Pros.

If your Mac is still running Ventura or Monterey and is supported by a more recent version of macOS, now is the time to make a decision about whether and when to upgrade. Even if Monterey does get one more final security update, it’s almost certain to fall well short of that provided for Ventura and Sonoma. If you were intending to upgrade to Sonoma, then it’s not likely to have any further general fixes after this forthcoming update, but only to receive security updates from August onwards.

Appendix: Previous last general updates to macOS

Ventura 13.6 – 21 September 2023
Monterey 12.6 – 12 September 2022
Big Sur 11.6 – 13 September 2021
Catalina 10.15.7 – 24 September 2020
Mojave 10.14.6 – 22 July 2019
High Sierra 10.13.6 – 9 July 2018
Sierra 10.12.6 – 19 July 2017

Data from System Updates