Should You Upgrade to macOS 14.5?

[Updated May 20, 2024, with an additional note.]

Last week, Apple released their latest version of macOS: 14.5. The big question is: Should you upgrade? In the past, this was easy to answer “yes.” But, as features in each OS release became more complex, major OS versions appeared annually and upgrades were released almost monthly, Apple’s quality control could not keep up.

For the last several years, it became best practice to wait – sometimes up to several months – for an OS version to stabilize.

This was reinforced with the recent releases of macOS 14.4 and 14.4.1, which contained more than their fair share of bugs that directly impacted media creators.

So, now that macOS 14.5 is out – should we upgrade?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Yes, probably.

LARRY’S RULES FOR UPGRADING

First, let’s review my rules for upgrading:

1. Never upgrade the first day an upgrade comes out, UNLESS your system is non-functional or it’s an application you don’t care about.
2. Never upgrade in the middle of a large project. Finish the project, then upgrade.
3. Make sure your gear supports the upgrade.
4. Allow enough time to perform the OS upgrade (1-2 hours), then to upgrade any out-of-date applications, then to find and fix any problems that occurred due to the upgrade.
5. The world will not end if you don’t upgrade immediately, whereas it will FEEL like it ended if you upgrade and the key applications you need don’t work.

Corollary

Upgrade to the latest security version as soon as it comes out. Malware wrecks more havoc than even a bad OS upgrade.

Assuming this is a good time to upgrade, let’s see if we should.

UPDATE: In reading and thinking about the comments to this article  since this was published, I wanted to add one more note: There’s no “perfect” operating system that’s totally bug free; there are always problems. The question we all face is whether we can live with those problems or should we wait. It’s a trade-off between fixing existing problems and access to new features vs. the risk of something new breaking. This is a decision that each of us needs to make for ourselves. For myself, I decided to upgrade to 14.5.

THE DETAILS

Given the wide variety of hardware, software and custom configurations in use today, it is impossible to be definitive. The biggest strength of the Mac ecosystem is also what makes it hard to upgrade anything: there are just too many variations to test for everything.

However, I upgraded to 14.5 over the weekend and not only do I not have any problems, I don’t expect any.

Why? Several reasons:

• This version focused almost exclusively on fixing bugs and improving security.
• The two new “features” are new games in Apple News+. This means that Apple’s energy wasn’t spent creating new stuff, but getting the old stuff to work better.
• A Google search for “problems with macOS 14.5” turns up only two websites reporting problems – one issue proved to be a problem with Microsoft One Drive app not the OS, another was with monitor cabling and the others seemed isolated to areas that most media creators won’t find central to their operation.
• A Google search does not turn up any desperate “alerts” from key manufacturers – Avid, OWC, Adobe, Maxon, BorisFX – warning of the imminent collapse of civilization if we upgrade. In fact, the lack of alerts is reassuring.

For me, the upgrade took 30 minutes and – so far – I’ve had zero problems.

Deciding when to upgrade is now up to you.

EXTRA CREDIT

• Here is a list of hardware that supports macOS Sonoma (v14.x)
• Here are Apple’s Release Notes on the new version.
• Here is Apple’s Security Note summary on the new version, along with Apple’s Security Note details.
• Here’s MacRumor’s report on problems.
• Here’s GoToMobile’s report on issues.