If only that would happen. The Max chips for desktops will likely only be available on the Mac Studio for the foreseeable future to force stepping up to the more expensive product.
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M3 MacBook Pro Ships With macOS Ventura, Can't Yet Be Updated to macOS Sonoma Over the Air
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Even Apple knows there software so buggy that they have the new device on a stable os
I see no issue with this. There's enough SKUs as it is. They don't need to make every chip available on every product. The mini is a "low end" aka "affordable" device. If you need the power of the Max, get the Studio.
Also realistically if they did put the Max in the mini, the price would be close to the base Studio anyway.
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It is crappy for sure but I fully expect Apple to get you all on Sonoma ASAP.
Should not have happened though obviously.
Congrats on the new iMac. I am really jealous, I've been wanting one forever.
This is officially one of the strangest bugs I've ever heard of relating to Apple products. Typically when a new computer comes out, it only works on the latest OS and newer. Some of them shipping with an older version is straight up bizarre. Makes me wonder if they thought Sonoma was going to slip later into the autumn so they readied a version of Ventura that worked with it? But maybe someone accidentally preloaded them with the wrong image?
You would think that would be caught in some type of QA testing done before shipping them out, but perhaps the QA testing software comes loaded with the image, so it was checking for that image? If that's the case, perhaps they should make each of those a distinctive thing, so it's less likely to happen by accident? Like another team member loads up the QA software separately so it catches it. Less likely to have two people screw it up. Or at the very least have at least three different people sign off on it before it installs? And then have an external team do spot checks before shipping?
IDK. I work a lot in developing standard operating procedures at my work for web development and server admin and I can't imagine how they got to this point, especially for a company this large.
You would think that would be caught in some type of QA testing done before shipping them out, but perhaps the QA testing software comes loaded with the image, so it was checking for that image? If that's the case, perhaps they should make each of those a distinctive thing, so it's less likely to happen by accident? Like another team member loads up the QA software separately so it catches it. Less likely to have two people screw it up. Or at the very least have at least three different people sign off on it before it installs? And then have an external team do spot checks before shipping?
IDK. I work a lot in developing standard operating procedures at my work for web development and server admin and I can't imagine how they got to this point, especially for a company this large.
It's pretty normal for new Macs to ship with older versions. The MacBook Pro 14"/16" with M2 was shipped with 13.0 on release day, even though 13.1 came out before the MBP was announced and 13.2 came out shortly before it started shipping. It's not that they installed an old version by mistake; they probably installed the current version and they sat in a warehouse since.
However, it's the first time I see them ship a previous major version. That's unusual.
Either way, the real bug here is that the update server still doesn't have 14.1 for M3. Needing a day-1 update is normal, that update not being available is not. To make it worse, if you erase the Mac and try to reinstall macOS from recovery, that also fails, because it tries to download macOS from the same update server that is unaware of these models, and now you're screwed until you restore from another Mac (or have the Genius Bar do it).
I think the truth is they might have been planning to launch M3 models at WWDC in summer and DELAYED the launch to the fall and had some of the hardware already built and even flashed with a version of the OS ready to support M3 at the time...
Thanks to @dhinakg we found another workaround to update M3 to 14.1: In Software Update settings, select Sonoma public beta.
If Software Update doesn't find any updates with the usual OTA system (which seems to be still unaware that these new Macs exist), it falls back to the older "update catalog" system, which uses the InstallAssistant.pkg installers:
If Software Update doesn't find any updates with the usual OTA system (which seems to be still unaware that these new Macs exist), it falls back to the older "update catalog" system, which uses the InstallAssistant.pkg installers:
- If you're in Ventura, that uses the 13-release update catalog, which doesn't have 14.1 for M3, it only has the previous 14.1 build for older Macs. This is why you see no updates available; there's a fallback but both systems fail!
- If you're in Sonoma, that uses the 14-release update catalog, which does have the 14.1 update for M3 (I think M3 Pro/Max users may see a minor update available this way?). But you're not in Sonoma, that's why you're trying to update in the first place.
- If you're in whatever and you select Sonoma Public Beta, that uses 14-beta update catalog, which does have the 14.1 update for M3. It also has 14.2 beta 1, but that doesn't support M3 so it won't show up as an option.
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Funny how that turned out. The M2 Pro is as fast if not faster than the M3 Pro, but the M2 Max is absolutely demolished by the M3 Max.
You are definitely on the better side of it with the M2 Pro.
Strangest bug I remember is the one that let you log into a Mac by pressing the spacebar.
Migration assistant says it's incompatible with my iMac with OS13, running it anyways, it better not give me errors..
Security issues?
arstechnica.com
What to do if your new M3 Mac shows up with an old, non-updatable macOS version
You’ll want to update for security fixes, even if you don’t care about features.
arstechnica.com
Why are so many people in an uproar over this? 😂🤣 it’s not like the computers are shipping with Linux or something. I kind of hope mine comes with Ventura, I rather be on a previous OS until third party apps become stable.