What has changed in macOS Sonoma 14.6

As I forecast only yesterday, Apple has today released macOS Sonoma version 14.6. According to its previous calendar, this should be the last release of the cycle featuring general bug fixes and any remaining enhancements. In previous years this has been released in September, just before the first release of the new version of macOS. This year, in September we could see either 14.7 or 14.6.1, Sonoma’s first security-only update.

Apple hasn’t provided any release notes at all for 14.6, although it did for the release candidate, where it stated that this fixes app crashes when running iPhone and iOS apps on Apple silicon Macs, and a complex bug resulting in the hardware video decoder not being used when it should have been.

Security vulnerabilities addressed total 54, of which several are bugs in open source code. These are detailed in Apple’s security release notes.

There are firmware updates for all Macs with T2 or Apple silicon chips, and probably several other recent Intel models. T2 Macs should now be running version 2022.140.5.0.0 (iBridge: 21.16.6074.0.0,0), and Apple silicon Macs iBoot version 10151.140.19. I will analyse other models and update the firmware tables here, and SilentKnight’s expectations, later in the week, to allow time to update.

Sonoma 14.6 has a build number of 23G80.

Looking at changes in the System volume, there are many minor increments in build numbers, including both public and private frameworks. Of the bundled apps, in addition to several minor build increments, the following appear more substantial:

Music updated to version 1.4.6
News to version 9.5
Photos a large build increment
Safari to version 17.6 (19618.3.11.11.5)
Stocks to version 6.2.3
TV to version 1.4.6.

In the /System/Library folder, APFS is updated to version 2236.141.1 and the FileProvider framework has a significant build increment.

These confirm that many small general bug fixes are included with the long list of security fixes, although there’s no sign of any new kernel extensions or private frameworks with exotic names.