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M1 Max on Monterey... is it time to update? (15.3.1)

C

cappo3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 3, 2014
216
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Hi guys and gals!
I've been waiting for a stable version of Sequoia to make the jump from Monterey. I am not interested in Apple Intelligence, I'd update in order to get fresh security updates.
Thus the question: is 15.3.1 refined enough to make the jump from a perfectly stable 12.7.6?
Or, due to my light and unspecialised workload, would I be better off with the latest Sonoma, or even Ventura?
Thank you for your time!

14" MacBook Pro M1 Max 32GB
 
My best opinions...

FIRST: BACKUP what you have by creating a bootable clone with 12.7.6. That gives you the ultimate way back if you don't like the upgrade. Don't upgrade without an easy way back. SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner are good tools for this.

THEN: if me, I'd hop to 14.7.4 (Sonoma's latest). If this is purely about security, Sonoma gets security updates same day as Sequoia. I did exactly this myself from Monterey and had no significant new problems... though substantial settings changes was not exactly a joy to re-learn where everything had been reorganized.

WAIT: if you are Sequoia-or-bust-minded, I'd wait for .5 or .6 minimum, about WWDC time this summer... though with the rolling nature of A.I. releases, the mature release of Sequoia may end up being something like .10 or .12. To me, "wait for .5 or .6" is the new Apple version of the old "wait for .2 or .3."

20 or 30 guys will now chime in saying latest Sequoia is perfectly fine in every way but there's a whole section dedicated to Sequoia here with LOTS of bug threads... and a search for macOS Sequoia bug list and similar will lead to lists of many bugs still in play. Proceed with caution... especially if you don't create the backup clone.
 
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cappo3 said:
Thus the question: is 15.3.1 refined enough to make the jump from a perfectly stable 12.7.6?
Click to expand...

I think so, but I'm an early upgrader. That said, 15.3.1 has fixed the only issues I have had so far with my m4 max. I've run into zero issues with any of the Sequoia releases on my M1 Pro, 2020 Intel Air or 2013 Mac Pro (via OCLP - on that it is actually much more stable than Monterey!).

Ai... is what it is. You may not care for it but having used it - sure it is limited right now but will get much better with future integration into apps.

I had less issues with sequoia personally than with big Sur or Sonoma.

Monterey really is quite old at this point and hasn't been getting prompt security updates for some time now. If you have to upgrade, I'd suggest either Sonoma or Sequoia. Maybe go to Sonoma, and see how you like it, imho big Sur was just... less performance, buggier.

If your workload is light and there's nothing specific you need, I'd say sequoia is fine. Yes there are bugs but imho no show stoppers and every macOS has had bugs.
 
If you have external SSD drives...you might experience the sudden unexpected disk ejects. Even if it's plugged directly on the Mac. Unless you set it to never sleep, that helps to keep it connected. I've been getting those with Mac OS 15. I just updated to 15.3.1 and I'm hoping that helps prevent it from happening. Oh and the Time Machine unable to backup error also is an issue.
 
Thank you all for your informative replies!
For the moment being I have no practical need to update my system. It has been flawless on Monterey, at least for my use case.
The opinions about the current maturity of Sequoia seem to still drift apart... therefore my question turns into how important the latest security updates have been and what I'd be missing on while staying on Monterey for a bit longer!
Any breach or exploit we know about which really should be patched?
 
I will also say that I think if you're on apple silicon, the more recent the macOS the better the performance in my experience. I really think they're transitioning more of the OS to native Apple Silcion/Apple Silicon optimised code.



edit: just realised I got Ventura confused with Big Sur above. Wherever I said Big Sur - I meant Ventura.
 
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If you're on Monterrey, you are no longer getting security updates. Apple releases security updates for exploits on a regular basis, and Monterrey has been out of support for almost half a year now.

If you value stability over the latest features, I would suggest that you just stay on the oldest OS that is still getting patched. You can just upgrade to Ventura now and you will be covered until macOS 16 drops, at which point you can upgrade to Sonoma. If you maintain this strategy, you won't have to "worry" about whether there are exploits to worry about... and you'll still just get a low-risk minor macOS point release update once every 2-3 months.

I would recommend Sonoma as the upper limit in your situation anyway. Sequoia feels a bit like it is still under active development to me.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
20 or 30 guys will now chime in saying latest Sequoia is perfectly fine in every way but there's a whole section dedicated to Sequoia here with LOTS of bug threads... and a search for macOS Sequoia bug list and similar will lead to lists of many bugs still in play. Proceed with caution... especially if you don't create the backup clone.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily, if a users 3rd party software is still lacking decent Sequoia support it would be the same advice. ;)
 
cappo3 said:
is 15.3.1 refined enough to make the jump from a perfectly stable 12.7.6?
Click to expand...

Every OS release has bugs. The question is whether they would affect you in a significant way or not and whether the software you use supports it. In my case the Finder bug where large directories (1000's of files) are slow to display is still there but I just ignore it.
 
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