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Sincere question - Is there anything better in 12.6 than in 12.1?

otetzone

otetzone

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2019
158
17
Hello Community,

I'm on the 12.1, the system that was originally installed on the MBA M1 when I bought it. Heard stories about quirks with updates so kept staying on 12.1. Battery's fine, everything's fine. I can't complain on anything. Now the question -

Aside from Security Holes, is there anything better in 12.6 than 12.1? Better connectivity? Better battery life? Better anything related to software? I have an external SSD and installed 12.6 on it. Once in a while I boot up off of it. Aside from Maps showing buildings and Find My with battery widget absent, uhm, well, input language shown in letters, I can clearly see no significant change. Can't speak of the battery while it's being eaten since the SSD is external so I'm not sure how it would behave natively.

Let alone security holes, are there any reasons why I should update?

I would really like to understand what I'm missing. Again, aside from security, ok?
 
SalisburySam

SalisburySam

macrumors 6502a
May 19, 2019
921
809
Salisbury, North Carolina
I understand what you’re asking, but you’ve answered your own question a few times. For Apple updates, there is no “aside from security” at play. Apple is constantly updating its security to counter known threats to its devices. It’s a little like asking “aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
 
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otetzone

otetzone

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2019
158
17
SalisburySam said:
I understand what you’re asking, but you’ve answered your own question a few times. For Apple updates, there is no “aside from security” at play. Apple is constantly updating its security to counter known threats to its devices. It’s a little like asking “aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
Click to expand...
Thank you. The thing is there's no end both to security holes and security patches and the bugs they bring onto the system that's making it even more vulnerable or unusable. Apple sucks with updates these days, admit it or not. Every patch brings a bug. It's worse than Windows in 98-XP-Vista era. I never had any problem with my Mavericks machine although the OS is about 9 years old if I remember correctly. So if I got your message right, then I'd rather stay with what I have. It's more important to have a working machine than get paranoid over security.
 
G

galad

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2022
601
487
It makes no sense to stay on a minor releases like that. 12.6 contains a lot of fixes and improvements, and developers test only on the latest minor release.
macOS major releases are generally buggy, so staying on the first iteration doesn't seem the most intelligent thing to do.
 
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otetzone

otetzone

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2019
158
17
galad said:
It makes no sense to stay on a minor releases like that. 12.6 contains a lot of fixes and improvements, and developers test only on the latest minor release.
macOS major releases are generally buggy, so staying on the first iteration doesn't seem the most intelligent thing to do.
Click to expand...
Some personal questions if you don't mind. Are you on 12.6? What kind of Mac do you have? Have you ever checked battery longevity and its health before and after updates? What about all the buggy updates? What exactly do you consider an improvement in 12.6 compared to 12.1?

I bought my first Apple device in 2012. It was iPhone 3GS. Since then I got hooked on Apple. And one thing I noticed, and I bought a lot of Apple devices since then - they work best on the system installed as you bought them. Once my strategy was to go to the final point release of the system the device was on. But these days it doesn't prove right. Recent example - about half a year I bought iPhone 13 mini on 15.1 or something. It was working fine and battery was like almost three days long. I was a happy camper. By the time I bought it it was already time to updade to 15.3. Stupid me, I have. And what did I get? A battery that hardly got me through the day. It was pure luck 15.5 was released. 15.5 fixed the battery drain. Otherwise I'd stay with a brand new device on my hands feeling like it's something old. And don't forget how much they run by the way.

And while you still have the option to downgrade Macs when you're updated the iPhone there's no turning back (of course if the previous version is no longer signed).

Call me stupid but this is my experience. I believe in what I see. And I don't like what I see these days, talking about updates. Based on that security updates logic I should throw my Mavericks and High Sierra MBP's away because they're no longer secure.
 
K

kitKAC

macrumors 6502a
Feb 26, 2022
877
849
otetzone said:
Some personal questions if you don't mind. Are you on 12.6? What kind of Mac do you have? Have you ever checked battery longevity and its health before and after updates? What about all the buggy updates? What exactly do you consider an improvement in 12.6 compared to 12.1?

I bought my first Apple device in 2012. It was iPhone 3GS. Since then I got hooked on Apple. And one thing I noticed, and I bought a lot of Apple devices since then - they work best on the system installed as you bought them. Once my strategy was to go to the final point release of the system the device was on. But these days it doesn't prove right. Recent example - about half a year I bought iPhone 13 mini on 15.1 or something. It was working fine and battery was like almost three days long. I was a happy camper. By the time I bought it it was already time to updade to 15.3. Stupid me, I have. And what did I get? A battery that hardly got me through the day. It was pure luck 15.5 was released. 15.5 fixed the battery drain. Otherwise I'd stay with a brand new device on my hands feeling like it's something old. And don't forget how much they run by the way.

And while you still have the option to downgrade Macs when you're updated the iPhone there's no turning back (of course if the previous version is no longer signed).

Call me stupid but this is my experience. I believe in what I see. And I don't like what I see these days, talking about updates. Based on that security updates logic I should throw my Mavericks and High Sierra MBP's away because they're no longer secure.
Click to expand...

I've got a 2018 MacBook Pro that's on 12.6, on Monday evening it'll be running Ventura. Have I checked the battery's longevity and the health before and after updates? No, because I don't have OCD tendencies.

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/08/30/macos-now-scans-for-malware-whenever-it-gets-a-chance/

That article is about the new Malware Scanner that was introduced in 12.3, if you want to know about the other stuff that you've not got installed, you can find the release notes for each Monterey point update and have a read.

As for "all" the buggy updates, which ones are you referring to specifically?
 
otetzone

otetzone

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2019
158
17
kitKAC said:
I've got a 2018 MacBook Pro that's on 12.6, on Monday evening it'll be running Ventura. Have I checked the battery's longevity and the health before and after updates? No, because I don't have OCD tendencies.

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/08/30/macos-now-scans-for-malware-whenever-it-gets-a-chance/

That article is about the new Malware Scanner that was introduced in 12.3, if you want to know about the other stuff that you've not got installed, you can find the release notes for each Monterey point update and have a read.

As for "all" the buggy updates, which ones are you referring to specifically?
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll check the article out. It's always good to be informed at the very least.

Regarding the buggy updates I'm not even going to Reddit, just looking at the posts here on this forum -


This has been from 12.2 to 12.4 and I just got tired posting links so couldn't have gotten to 12.6. And there's much more on Reddit.

While my Wi-fi, bluetooth and everything else is working, why bother? Again, if this is security then should I throw away my Mavericks and High Sierra machines? They must be extremely insecure based on that way of thinking. I must say that both machines are smooth and bug-free. It's a pleasure to work on them. So what do you suppose I should do with them once they're working fine.
 
K

kitKAC

macrumors 6502a
Feb 26, 2022
877
849
otetzone said:
Thanks, I'll check the article out. It's always good to be informed at the very least.

Regarding the buggy updates I'm not even going to Reddit, just looking at the posts here on this forum -


This has been from 12.2 to 12.4 and I just got tired posting links so couldn't have gotten to 12.6. And there's much more on Reddit.

While my Wi-fi, bluetooth and everything else is working, why bother? Again, if this is security then should I throw away my Mavericks and High Sierra machines? They must be extremely insecure based on that way of thinking. I must say that both machines are smooth and bug-free. It's a pleasure to work on them. So what do you suppose I should do with them once they're working fine.
Click to expand...

People post on forums when they're having issues, people don't post when everything is going just fine! You can't judge the stability of an OS based on the threads that you find, only that specific people are having specific issues with their specific setup.

While my Wi-fi, Bluetooth and everything else is working, why bother?

To protect the security of your machine and data! The holes that 12.6 and earlier had patched, they are being actively exploited. I'm not sure why you're talking about your machines that run Mavericks and High Sierra, you started this thread about your M1 which can be actively updated and therefore protected. I seriously doubt that any bad actors are looking for Macs stuck on Mavericks or High Sierra, and are looking to infect them (such Macs are probably a rounding error in the total install base anyway) but if they were, you can install Windows 10 or Linux to protect those as well.

At the end of the day, they're your Macs and if you don't want to update them (well, the one that you actually can), then don't.
 
otetzone

otetzone

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2019
158
17
kitKAC said:
People post on forums when they're having issues, people don't post when everything is going just fine! You can't judge the stability of an OS based on the threads that you find, only that specific people are having specific issues with their specific setup.

While my Wi-fi, Bluetooth and everything else is working, why bother?

To protect the security of your machine and data! The holes that 12.6 and earlier had patched, they are being actively exploited. I'm not sure why you're talking about your machines that run Mavericks and High Sierra, you started this thread about your M1 which can be actively updated and therefore protected. I seriously doubt that any bad actors are looking for Macs stuck on Mavericks or High Sierra, and are looking to infect them (such Macs are probably a rounding error in the total install base anyway) but if they were, you can install Windows 10 or Linux to protect those as well.

At the end of the day, they're your Macs and if you don't want to update them (well, the one that you actually can), then don't.
Click to expand...
Of course people wouldn't post if there are no issues. This is the whole point! And there's a bunch of those.

I just have three MacBooks, the newest one is M1.

Don't you realize that there's no end to it? In the old days the updates were mostly stable and you had to pay to upgrade to the new OS. I never remember any beta-testing from those days. Updates were solid. Of course, there were couple of fails but still you could trust much more in updating. Having a 13 mini that wouldn't hold the charge during the day but have all security fixes - why in the world I would need that. I paid premium, phone works fine. I update it and get garbage on my hands. It's just ridiculous.

Yosemite was a joke. iOS 11 was a joke. Support became a joke. They changed people, they changed the ideology, they want to count beans. Nevertheless I'm still buying their products since there's nothing better on the market. All I want is that I get the device I paid for. By updating iPhone from 15.1 to 15.3 you're done. Even if I had an Apple Store at where I live, they wouldn't be able to help me since you just can't downgrade. Thank god you can still downgrade Macs but it's getting harder with the new ones, M1's and so on. So if you get an update that breaks something you get a headache of turning the things back as they were before. And if you updated your iPhone and the update broke something then you're straight up fvck3d.

I'd rather be vulnerable to security threats than have my premium-priced devices that don't work as they're supposed to. "It just works" became a joke these days.
 
otetzone

otetzone

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2019
158
17
Taken the risk and updated to 12.6.1 since on the external SSD it seemed okay and the battery drain is expected when you boot from external media.

So far so good. At least I haven't noticed any significant battery drain compared to 12.1. Hope no complaints pop up in the future either.

upd: on 12.6 Apple maps showed buildings. On 12.6.1 they removed the ability? Weird
 
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