This week Apple has announced a flurry of updates for certain versions of their operating systems, most notably macOS 15.6 and iOS 18.6. The iOS update comes with 29 security fixes. There are a total of 81 security fixes included in the latest macOS 15.6 update, some are described as quite serious.
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(Above: Banner made in Adobe Photoshop CS4 on an Apple Power Mac G5.)
With the iOS 26 and macOS 26 development in full swing this summer, this beta cycle is coming to a close. We may or may not see additional iOS 18.7 and macOS 15.7 updates in the future, and if we do, they will almost certainly be security updates. Otherwise, we can continue to expect the OSes to receive security updates without version number bumps.
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Development timeline of this macOS update
- Up until Mid-June 2025: Internal Testing Only
. - June 16th, 2025: Beta 1 is seeded to developers as Build 24G5054d.
. - June 30th, 2025: Beta 2, Build 24G5065c
. - July 14th, 2025: Beta 3, Build 24G5074c
. - July 30th, 2025: Final Release, Build 24G84
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Development timeline of this iOS update
- March 31st, 2025 – Apple begins testing iOS 18.6, according to MacRumors’s Website visitor logs.
. - June 16th, 2025 – iOS 18.6 beta 1 (22G5054d)
. - June 21st, 2025 – Public Beta of iOS 18.6 is released
. - June 30th, 2025 – Second Beta seeded to developers
. - July 1st, 2025 – Second Public Beta, Build 22G5064d
. - July 15th 2025 – iOS 18.6 Beta 3 (Build 22G5073b)
. - July 30th 2025 – Final Release, Build 22G86
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What’s included in this macOS update
- See: About the security content of macOS Sequoia 15.6 – (81 Security fixes)
. - See: What has changed in macOS Sequoia 15.6? – The Eclectic Light Company
The Eclectic Light Company goes into detail about the enterprise notes about this software update. There aren’t many notable changes, as this mainly focused on bug fixes and security. There was one major fix, which affected all users on prior versions of Sequoia:
- Back in macOS 15.6 Beta 3, they fixed an issue where Finder and Apple configurator may be unable to successfully restore some devices from DFU mode.
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Included in this iOS update
Forbes goes into detail about all the ins and outs of this latest iOS and iPadOS 18.6 update, and why you should apply it to your device. Since this update is still brand new, Apple is not giving out the details of all the bug fixes just yet. This is so people can have time to update their devices, so malicious actors cannot get ahold of the details as quickly.
“Tracked as CVE-2025-4322, one of the issues patched in WebKit could see sensitive user information exposed, if a user processes maliciously crafted web content. Meanwhile, a trio of CVEs patched in iOS 18.6 could lead to memory corruption as a result of processing maliciously crafted web content.” As mentioned in the Forbes article.
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Other updates in this cycle
- See: About the security content of iPadOS 17.7.9 (Build 21H446)
. - See: About the security content of visionOS 2.6
. - See: About Software Updates for HomePod
. - See: About the security content of watchOS 11.6
iOS 17.7.9 is also out, with a long list of security fixes which are listed on Apple’s website. Most of the same types of security fixes are being applied across the board to all the flavors of Apple’s OSes.
