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OSXphoto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
258
80
Hi all, currently at Monterey 12.6.9 on my 16" M1 Max.
I'm torn between going:
1. Monterey 12.6.9 -> Ventura 13.6 -> Sonoma
2. Skip Ventura and go Monterey 12.6.9 ->Sonoma. Any drawbacks to skipping a major macOS version entirely?

Ventura's initial issues made me stick with Monterey. I just like to be careful.
If Sonoma is the Snow Leopard to Leopard / the High Sierra to Sierra, the stable successor to Ventura, I might just skip Ventura.
Has Ventura become stable enough now that it's almost at the final release? In that case I might go 13.6 and have more time to jump to Sonoma.
Mostly using: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, Apple Mail, HandBrake, Signal and Carbon Copy Cloner. Production machine, don't have time to have do part time IT work to keep it going.

Thanks!
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
Production machine dont even consider Sonoma. Ventura has been no issue for me. Sonoma will take time to mature and undoubtedly many issues will be found as the OS goes live to the public.

As others have said remaining on Monterey is an option as the OS still gets security updates. Alternatively try Sonoma and rollback if problematic, equally as said it's on your time & $$$$. Caveat being with the latter is what Apple does with the updated firmware which may make older OS's less stable. Reloading via DFU mode & IPSW file can solve that.

TBH I just wish Apple would slow down the update cycle, focus on stability and stop with the tricks & bells. It's pretty much the same every release. Unless Apple specifically state's the new OS is stability focused it's just a new iteration of macOS with potential for good & bad.

I learnt a long-time ago from a wiser man that it's far safer to remain one, if not two iterations behind with macOS. If the system is a primary and or revenue generating. You still get a new OS annually, reduce the likelihood of issues and have far fewer updates to deal with.

Q-6
 

OSXphoto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
258
80
I learnt a long-time ago from a wiser man that it's far safer to remain one, if not two iterations behind with macOS. If the system is a primary and or revenue generating. You still get a new OS annually, reduce the likelihood of issues and have far fewer updates to deal with.

Q-6
Wouldn’t it generally suffice to stay on the last sw release of the previous major macOS version? To have all bugs ironed out I mean. At present 13.6 would be that version, thereby assuming that any Ventura updates hereafter only or mostly contain security fixes.
As such, the last Ventura release should be as good as the last monterey or any other macOS version.
Except, as you also mentioned, there have been so-so years (Lion, Sierra, mavericks) and better years (mountain lion, high sierra, El Capitan) which focused more on stability than new features.
I’m not sure how Monterey, Ventura and sonoma fit into these categories.
 
Last edited:

flowrider

macrumors 604
Nov 23, 2012
7,317
2,998
Is it Mature enough to drink or vote - Nope. But, it's old enough to join the army👍🏻 I consider myself a wise mani - I'm on Somona V14.1🥰

Working Great‼️ You folks who stay behind don't knw what you're missing😱

Lou
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
Wouldn’t it generally suffice to stay on the last sw release of the previous major macOS version? To have all bugs ironed out I mean. At present 13.6 would be that version, thereby assuming that any Ventura updates hereafter only or mostly contain security fixes.
As such, the last Ventura release should be as good as the last monterey or any other macOS version.
Except, as you also mentioned, there have been so-so years (Lion, Sierra, mavericks) and better years (mountain lion, high sierra, El Capitan) which focused more on stability than new features.
I’m not sure how Monterey, Ventura and sonoma fit into these categories.
Probably but as said some releases have been spotty and never being fully settled. Right now Apple seems more concerned with adding ever more features versus then outright stability.

Sonoma is too soon to see, Ventura is as complete as it ever will be barring something serious raising it's head. Those with Apple Silicon Mac's will hopefully benefit in time as the code simplifies as Intel Mac's are phased out. Those on Intel will need to rely on 3rd party solutions...

Q-6
 
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throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
9,137
7,293
Perth, Western Australia
Mostly using: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, Apple Mail, HandBrake, Signal and Carbon Copy Cloner. Production machine, don't have time to have do part time IT work to keep it going.

I've been using signal, apple mail, parallels, spark, a whole slew of IT nerd network/diagnostic apps on Ventura since release on an M1 Pro with very few issues. Originally had a few weird bugs with stage manager prior to first update from memory, but that was trivially worked around by turning off stage manager.

I think I have had 1-2 reboots required (outside of security updates - due to "weirdness" or system problem) in 12 months.

I'm on Sonoma right now with zero issues so far to report.

Out of the above apps you mention, I would not suspect handbrake would be an issue, check carbon copy cloner for compatibility.

I'd go for it. It's not like you're running legacy old apps from 2009. Neither of these versions have been anywhere near the trouble that I had with Lion.


I'd suggest that Ventura was fine 6-9 months ago. I'm pretty happy on Sonoma right now. literally zero issues for me so far and I've been using it for work every day since release.


I'd be far more concerned with Apple's attitude to slowly back porting security updates to prior releases than I would be rolling forward from Monterey to either Ventura or Sonoma at this point.
 
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okkibs

macrumors 65816
Sep 17, 2022
1,069
1,004
Ventura isn't Leopard, not even close. I had more crashes (3) on Monterey than on Ventura (0). Ventura in its current version is just as stable for me as Monterey ever was. Even the new system settings aren't that bad, simply because you usually only go through settings once so if it takes me a bit longer to get it set up so be it.

I wouldn't consider Sonoma now because I know Ventura does what I need it to do reliably, I do not know that about Sonoma, it's just too new and the first versions are simply more likely to have lots of bugs until a couple minor versions later.
 

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
9,137
7,293
Perth, Western Australia
Ventura isn't Leopard, not even close. I had more crashes (3) on Monterey than on Ventura (0). Ventura in its current version is just as stable for me as Monterey ever was. Even the new system settings aren't that bad, simply because you usually only go through settings once so if it takes me a bit longer to get it set up so be it.

I wouldn't consider Sonoma now because I know Ventura does what I need it to do reliably, I do not know that about Sonoma, it's just too new and the first versions are simply more likely to have lots of bugs until a couple minor versions later.

I would concur.

I had far more issues with Monterey than any later version of MacOS so far. Obviously early days with Sonoma yet, but so far nothing to report. It's just Ventura but better as far as I'm concerned.
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
7,257
3,314
Skip Ventura and go Monterey 12.6.9 ->Sonoma. Any drawbacks to skipping a major macOS version entirely?

I completely skipped Catalina due to some reported problems. Normally I wait until the .2 or .3 release before updating but because of an ongoing support issue with Apple I updated to Sonoma since they probably wouldn't prioritize the issue if I stayed on Ventura. It has had the fewest problems of any OS release that I can remember - not a single one so far. Updated all of my critical applications with versions that supported Sonoma before the upgrade.
 
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Insidious

macrumors regular
Dec 6, 2017
136
130
I just upgraded to Ventura and I'm quite happy with it. Waiting for OCLP 1.0 to release before I consider moving to Sonoma.
 
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Mac Hammer Fan

macrumors 65816
Jul 13, 2004
1,326
497
I just upgraded to Ventura and I'm quite happy with it. Waiting for OCLP 1.0 to release before I consider moving to Sonoma.
I would stay with Ventura if I was you. OpenCore is more difficult and risky with some updates and Ventura is now a stable OS.
 
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OSXphoto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
258
80
Hmmm...I hear mostly good reports about Ventura, even better than Monterey, and even the cradle releases of Sonoma. Very tempted now to install Ventura 13.6
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
7,257
3,314
I hear mostly good reports about Ventura,

In my case Ventura had major problems with some file related operations. Finder could take minutes to display the contents of a large directory, the same for file open dialogues in applications. Default Folder X could take minutes to display its options in file open windows.

Sonoma fixed the Default Folder X problems but Apple Development is still working on the problem of displaying large directory contents.

It affects some users, might not be an issue for you.
 
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tylerlovesapple

macrumors newbie
Nov 5, 2013
19
10
Weimar, CA
Check if your apps are 101% compatible and bug-free before upgrading.

You could possibly dable... do a Time Machine backup then upgrade to Ventura.

If you aren't happy then rollback to Monterey then Time Machine back.
The problem here is the last time I tried to roll back an OS by using time machine IT DIDNT WORK I was flabbergasted.
 

ThatOnePaulGuy

macrumors newbie
Apr 20, 2023
6
3
I would just wait until like end of October or at least whenever 14.1 releases. I've been running the betas since June and there's only been like two major bugs, involving widgets not changing from monochrome at all and the desktop not being able to show the secondary menu. Aside from that, it's been perfectly fine, if not a little better. I'd say be careful, back up your stuff and update when 14.1 rolls around :)
 

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
9,137
7,293
Perth, Western Australia
So, been running Sonoma since the release day.

No problems to report so far. If you're already on Ventura - as far as I can see it's basically Ventura with some tweaks around the edges. Ventura had several issue for me on release.

I use the following apps:

Code:
1Blocker.app    Numbers.app


1Password 7.app    OneDrive.app


ARANYM    OpenEmu.app


Affinity Designer 2.app    Pages.app


Affinity Photo 2.app    Parallels Desktop.app


Affinity Publisher 2.app    Parcel.app


AirSurvey.app    Patterns.app


AnyList.app    Playgrounds.app


Apple Configurator.app    PowerShell.app


BBEdit.app    Raspberry Pi Imager.app


BOM Weather.app    Remote Ripple.app


Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition.app    RemotePlay.app


Banktivity.app    Safari.app


Battle.net.app    ScreenToLayers.app


Boop.app    Serial.app


Cisco ASDM-IDM.app    ShellFish.app


ClickShare_for_MacOSX.app    Signal.app


Crestron AirMedia.app    SnippetsLab.app


DaisyDisk.app    Sorted³.app


Day One.app    Spark Desktop.app


Developer.app    Spark.app


Diablo III    Speedtest.app


Docker.app    StarCraft


Downlink.app    Steam Link.app


EdrawMind.app    Steam.app


Fantastical.app    StopTheMadness.app


FileZilla.app    SubnetCalc.app


Firefox.app    Telephone.app


GNS3.app    TestFlight.app


GOG Galaxy.app    TetrisBeat.app


GSplus.app    The Unarchiver.app


GarageBand.app    Toast Burn.app


Google Earth Pro.app    Transfer.app


GrandPerspective.app    Transmission.app


Grindstone.app    Transporter.app


Hex Fiend.app    UTM.app


ICMPUtil.app    Utilities


IP Scanner.app    VMware Remote Console.app


IPTrace.app    VirtualC64.app


JSON Viewer.app    Visual Studio Code.app


Keynote.app    Vivaldi.app


Kindle.app    Weather HD Live Pro.app


KyPass.app    Webex.app


Ledger Live.app    WiFi Explorer.app


Logi Options.app    WiFi Scanner.app


Mactracker.app    Wireshark.app


Magnet.app    Wondershare EdrawMax.app


Microsoft Excel.app    Wondershare EdrawProj.app


Microsoft OneNote.app    Xcode.app


Microsoft Outlook.app    YubiKey Manager.app


Microsoft Remote Desktop.app    Yubico Authenticator.app


Microsoft Word.app    iMovie.app


Network Radar.app    iNet Network Scanner.app


NetworkKit.app    tldr-pages.app


NetworkToolbox.app    vAmiga.app


NetworkView.app
 

nph

macrumors 65816
Feb 9, 2005
1,049
214
i have Ventura as well and am really satisfied, basically no issues. I am still evaluating Sonoma though...
 

OSXphoto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
258
80
Two weeks ago I upgraded my wife’s 2020 M1 MBAir to Ventura 13.6. She mainly uses Apple mail, safari and signal. Haven’t heard her complain since.

Will probably move from Monterey to Ventura 13.6 on my M1 Max tomorrow.
 

OSXphoto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
258
80
This is what I use daily:
4K Video Downloader.app Adobe Bridge 2023 Adobe Bridge 2024 Adobe Creative Cloud Adobe Lightroom Classic Adobe Photoshop 2024 AlDente.app Authy.app BitdefenderVirusScanner.app Carbon Copy Cloner.app Epson Software Firefox.app HandBrake.app Infuse.app Keynote.app Numbers.app Pages.app Safari.app Serial.app Signal.app Synology Drive Client.app Utilities VLC.app Viscosity.app coconutBattery.app iMovie.app
 
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