Starting next week, Apple has upgrades coming for just about everything that uses Apple software. macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
As is my usual methodology, and that of a few hundred million of Apple’s followers, I blindly upgrade every device in the O’Brien household– except my iMac; the one I use the most, the oldest of my Macs, and the one that won’t be upgraded until Apple releases desktop Macs with Face ID.
No technology gadget maker has done a better job of making software upgrades a mostly uneventful issue in recent years. I noticed a few bugs were fixed with iOS 11.4, my Apple Watch battery life seems even better with watchOS 4.3.1, but the display lag on my iPad Pro seems to be untouched by the bug fixes.
All that brings up a few questions.
First, should you upgrade your Apple products now or wait around until the next update that fixes even more bugs? Second, is there anything you can do if an update causes problems?
Let me address the second question first. Yes, but you need to move quickly I keep an iTunes backup of each iPhone and iPad, and backup each one before doing an iOS upgrade. The Macs have multiple external disk drives which are clones of the Mac’s internal storage, so, yes, a fallback exists if something goes bad.
The problem with upgrades is that none of them are perfect, all of them introduce new issues while they squash old issues, so what’s the deal with waiting until later to install an update?
As always, the real answer to everything is the time honored “It depends.”
I know a few graphic designers, Photoshop gurus all, and they wait a few updates before making any changes because, 1) they’ve been burned before, and, 2) nothing new will make much difference to a Mac system that already works, and, 3) money talks; upgrades take time and introduce new headaches.
Should you upgrade now? Or, wait? I upgrade. Except on the Mac, which is tied to livelihood, so I wait awhile, and try out the upgrades on a lesser machine first. And, yes, everything gets backed up before each update or upgrades.
Trust me. I’m an outlier; except among those whose Macs, or iPhones, or iPad are part of their profession, and the we’re a bit more cautious. So far, Apple hasn’t burned me on anything since MobileMe and the original App Store, and not on the Mac since Mac OS X Lion.
What about you? What’s your poison?