New Apple Operating Systems for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch Today

/

Last week, Apple introduced the new iPhone 16 and 16 Pro phones (see their website for more info). These are great upgrades if you’re using older models and will be required (or the iPhone 15 Pro) if you want to take advantage of some of the Apple Intelligence features Apple has been talking about the last few months. The new iPhones are available for pre-order and will be available on Friday. They will run iOS 18, which will be released later today for older iPhones, and it will add some really great new features. Note that iPadOS 18 will also be released today.

However, when Apple announced the new iPhones, Apple Watch, and AirPods last week, they didn’t talk about the upgrade for macOS , which will also be released later today.  As you may (or may not) know, macOS 15 Sequoia is an exciting new upgrade for Macs that lays the groundwork for the forthcoming Apple Intelligence features coming later this year and into 2025.

There are a few things that you should do and know before upgrading your Mac (especially #2 below):

  1. As always, before any upgrade, make sure you have a backup. That means making sure your Time Machine backup is up to date right before installing macOS Sequoia. You may be using iCloud, but that is NOT a backup system; it’s a synchronization system. iCloud makes sure that some of your data (like Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, and more) are in sync between your devices when you’ve turned on iCloud syncing on each of those devices. Having iCloud enabled does not allow you to make a bootable backup nor does it backup documents that are not in specific places (like Desktop and Documents — IF you have that enabled and IF you have enough iCloud storage). Having a Time Machine backup makes sure that ALL of your data (except what’s in the Trash and some cache files) is completely backed up and you have an ongoing history of that data — not just the most recent versions of your files.

  2. Apple has become more and more stringent when it comes to security with every new upgrade and Sequoia is no different. After upgrading, you may encounter some notifications about Extensions being added to your system, or you might get some popups asking you to give permissions to some apps to access your hard drive, screen recording or audio recording, Bluetooth, or network settings, among other things. These are not bugs and these messages are intentional by Apple. In fact, Apple really wants to make sure you intentionally give these applications access to various parts of your system so your computer may ask you these questions regularly. You’ll notice these kinds of popups on a monthly basis or when you reboot. It might seem annoying at first and I hope that Apple reconsiders the frequency of these notifications and makes some changes to not have them appear as frequently after you’ve already given permission.

  3. Not all Macs are compatible with Sequoia. If you have a Mac that uses an Apple Silicon chip (M1, M2, or M3), you’re good to go. In fact, Sequoia was written with these chips in mind. If you have an older Mac that uses an Intel chip, you’ll need to make sure that it’s on the compatibility list for Sequoia: iMac: 2019 and later, iMac Pro 2017 and later, Mac Studio (All), Mac mini (2018 and later), MacBook Air (2020 and later), MacBook Pro (2018 and later), Mac Pro (2019 and later).  If you’ve got a Mac older than these, you won’t be able to install Sequoia.

  4. System Settings has been redesigned — again. You probably know that System Preferences has been previously redesigned into System Settings with a new interface. Apple has taken much feedback from users, and they’ve further refined the layout for System Settings. You won’t notice too much of a difference, but some items have been moved around a bit.

  5. There are a bunch of new features including Window management, iPhone mirroring, Safari enhancements, a new Passwords app, audio transcription and Math Notes in the Notes app, text effects and Send Later in Messages. There’s much, much more to come when Apple Intelligence gets released in the first updates in October.

If you’d like some training on some of the features or want me to handle the upgrades for you, let me know and we’ll setup an appointment. Let’s make sure that you have a very smooth experience with the new operating systems. I’ve been using a pre-release version of macOS Sequoia, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 for a few months and they’re pretty solid upgrades. I’ve noticed all of my devices are a little snappier and I’m enjoying the new features.

I hope to hear from you soon.