I took the leap to update all three devices around the same time.
Apple Watch Series 7 was on watchOS 9.x, 2022 iPhone SE was on 16.7.2, and MacBook Air was on macOS Monterey.
I usually wait until the x.x.1 version of the operating system, but lately, Apple has not been as good. I was going to wait until the release that happens right before Christmas. None of them want to deal with problems over the Christmas holiday, so they usually do a better job of bug elimination.
However, the Mac has been two generations back from Sonoma, and it shows when I want to back up the iPhone. There is a need to download a compatibility patch of some sort. I wouldn't be two generations of macOS back except that Ventura has had so many bad reports, I didn't want to encounter any of the problems.
I remember too well how my PowerPC machine was having trouble with Leopard and later, Snow Leopard. It just never was so good again. However, the people with Intel-based machines were really happy with the performance. Transition time anywhere is not so easy.
So, I clicked on Install, and Sonoma was downloaded and around 30 minutes later, was running.
Downloading 17.1.1 was just as simple and the update process was free from errors. The time to process the update seemed forever but was suddenly finished.
Requesting the Apple Watch update from the iPhone app was interesting. At one point, it said "1 Day" and later, it seemed to lock onto "16 Hours", which was way too long. I restarted the phone and the watch, and then, started the update from the watch. It requested agreeing to the Terms and Conditions on the phone, which went back and forth four times. The screen had things overlapping, as if they hadn't really tested the installer. However, it claimed 2 Hours once everything was handled correctly.
Everything is up to date for the moment. Battery life on the phone and watch seem less than ideal, which I expect with every new release. Usually, macOS has some checking and cataloguing to be done for days, and that hasn't seemed to have happened. It just went to work immediately. It seems fairly steady.
I hope that it will all be good before the releases in February. Hopefully, the battery life will be improved with the releases before Christmas.
Update 2023.11.24: The updates are generally good, although the battery life for the watch and phone have been less than ideal. They have not entered the dreaded red zone yet, though.
People have been mentioning that Sonoma has been quite a bit faster. Maybe, I'm not seeing it because I don't use Safari as my web browser, plus, I never used Ventura.
That said, I keep waiting for GOG Galaxy and Steam to become Universal applications and speed up a lot of things. Steam will be the last one of all, I'm almost certain. With dwindling Mac game play through Steam, Valve doesn't really care to invest much effort. Perhaps, when the last of the Intel-based machines are on the obsolete list, Valve will do something more. I really liked playing Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 on my Mac. It's a shame that I loaded Catalina on my older, Intel-based Mac because I could still play those 32-bit games before Catalina.
Hopefully, with Sonoma' Game Mode running successfully, more developers will arrive with good ports of their games. Feral Interactive has done well on conversions, and Larian Studios has Macs in mind when developing.
Update 2023.11.30: Sonoma 14.1.2 is out with bug fixes and security updates, as well as iOS 17.1.2. Updates went smoothly, so I'm hoping for the best.
Update 2023.12.14: My Apple Watch decided that I wanted to update to watchOS 10.2 and did it without asking. I'm waiting for macOS 14.2.1 and iOS 17.2.1 before I go further. Those should be out in the next week or two.
Update 2023.12.20: macOS and iOS are on my M1 MacBook Air and 2022 iPhone SE. They are both working relatively well. Given that there won't likely be another update until February, I'm satisfied with the performance. Everything needs better battery life, though. People with Intel-based Macs are complaining about Sonoma but it's macOS is finally getting better for Apple Silicon-based Macs, in the way that Leopard made Intel-based Macs better, and messed up PowerPC-based Macs.
Sonoma's Game Mode does help, but my SteelSeries Nimbus+ controller is not working, possibly due to a fall. It disconnects intermittently, even when using a cable. Why are game controllers so fragile?
Update 2023.12.31: I continue to see users complaining about random bugs and I wonder how many used developer or public beta test versions before using a production version. I would have that happen occasionally in the early days of Mac OS X but haven't had that happen lately.
I started the mid-2012 MacBook Pro, with Catalina, the other day. I'm considering a Linux-based distribution, so that I can turn it into a decent game machine. I can't decide on a distro. I'm leaning toward Arch or Kubuntu, in hopes that I can load the SteamOS Proton layer in order to play Windows games. However, with only 512 MB of VRAM, it might not be enough. Even the full 1 GB of VRAM might not be enough for recent games from my experience with the Omen by HP with a GeForce GTX 1050 with 2 GB of VRAM. This latest Windows machine has an RTX 3050 Ti with 4 GB of VRAM.
Still, the old MacBook Pro is a good heater with that quad-core Intel i7-3770.
Update 2024.01.28: This week, Apple pushed iOS 17.3, macOS 14.3, and watchOS 10.3. I don't usually go until the x.x.1 release is ready. They were pushing a lot and they mentioned a security flaw that might have been exploited, which usually means that it had been exploited. Ugggh. So, I updated. It may have been a fluke but cellular connectivity doesn't seem as stable. Battery life is still not right. Hopefully, the x.x.1 update will be ready before Valentine's Day.
I'm still glad to have the M1 MacBook Air on Sonoma. I wish Apple would really take software development seriously and produce better software. The only good thing is that we're not paying for bad releases, as we were in the System 7.x and MacOS 8.x, 9.x days. When I would pay US$79.99 for a release and it wasn't really any better and then, they would discontinue things that really helped, it was rather frustrating.
Update 2024.01.31: I wanted to make room for Death Stranding: Director's Cut and I started deleting games and more because I only had about 153 GB available in Finder. So, I went through Steam and looked at the games I wasn't playing or that we're as important. I also deleted so other various stuff, and found through Settings(Control Panel) where various data was too much. I checked and the available space was 2 GB smaller. I waited for fseventd to finish and I restarted the machine. No significant change was shown. I deleted more and still no change that I could see. I used the application WhatSize to help me find things that macOS wouldn't let me access easily. I deleted more but there still was no visible change, even after a restart. I left it along for a while and it had gone from 151 GB to about 298 GB available. Today, it was showing 458 GB available.
Apple apparently doesn't have any long term developers watching what they're doing. It's a bit scary that they've handed off development to people without oversight. Someone should be checking the quality and fixes should be issued as soon as possible.
Sadly, they only seem to handle security flaws when they're on the news.
I live out in Central Valley and many people from the San Francisco Bay Area live out here now, including people from Apple, HP, and Google. I wonder how many are so tired from their three hour commute that they're just not productive. I'm hoping that someone cares but I'm not so sure about that, either.
Update 2024.02.08: Updated to 17.3.1, 10.3.1, and 14.3.1, which is the best fix for a while. They had a fix for a major inconvenience in editing text on iOS or macOS. Hopefully, they fixed a lot of other little bugs, as well.
Update 2024.03.22: Updated to 17.4.1 on iOS. There were some serious problems to fix. I'm hoping for 14.4.1 and 10.4.1 updates soon. These are usually ready just before WWDC and the newest major releases. Then, we wait until August or September. I suspect that things are better on my iPhone with this newest release, but there are probably loads of bugs remaining. It seems that Apple just wants to add feature after feature without fixing problems ahead of adding features. They've become like Adobe.
I'm not ready for iOS 18, especially if they're going to push AI integration. With the car project halted, AI developers are available, but should they experiment in the background more and wait to move such work into the real world?
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