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macOS Sequoia end of cycle report
With the next scheduled update to macOS Sequoia likely to be released in September or October, macOS 15.6 officially marks the end of its year-long cycle of full support. This article looks at its updates and how it has changed.
Updates
It took Sequoia a total of 11 updates to reach version 15.6 at the end of July, including five unscheduled patch updates, which is close to average. Prominent through those updates has been the number of security vulnerabilities addressed, peaking at 81 in 15.6.
In terms of cumulative size of updates, Sequoia was close to average at a total of 27.5 GB for Apple silicon Macs and 19.3 GB for Intel models. Although not as bad as Big Sur which took over 50 GB for Apple silicon Macs, it wasn’t as good as Sonoma at just over 21 GB. Update size was relatively small up to 15.3, but added over 9 GB in the three updates it took to reach 15.4. Apple doesn’t appear to have made progress in reducing the size of updates for Apple silicon Macs, and that may not be achieved until macOS 27 next year, when Intel support is finally dropped.
Bundled apps
The total number of bundled apps has increased slightly, from 60 in Sonoma to 62 in 15.0, and 64 in 15.6. That’s set to rise again in Tahoe, with the addition of Journal and Phone.
/System/Library
The total number of bundles in /System/Library has risen further to reach 9,304, almost double the number in 10.14.5 six years ago, and up from 8,392 a year ago in 14.6. Unusually, this has risen by nearly 300 through Sequoia’s cycle. Previously it has been more common for only small rises to occur during a cycle, and in macOS 13 the total fell slightly.
Over that period, the main growth has been in the number of Private Frameworks, which have risen from about 1,760 in 10.14 to over 4,400 in 15.6. Public Frameworks have risen less, from less than 520 to 806. Despite Apple’s campaign for third-parties to move away from kernel extensions, those in macOS also continue to grow, rising from a minimum of 515 in 10.15.0 to 939 in 15.6. Sequoia has added 39 of those in going from 15.0 to 15.6.
This is a more detailed breakdown by category of bundles in /System/Library, comparing 10.15.6 with 15.6:
- Accessibility, a small increase from 125 to 161
- Automator, a small reduction from 266 to 252
- Templates, a marked reduction from 383 to 252
- CoreServices, a small reduction from 390 to 363
- AssetsV2, a substantial growth from 188 to 806
- Public Frameworks, a modest increase from 600 to 806
- Kernel extensions, a substantial increase from 534 to 939
- Private Frameworks, a huge increase from 2,055 to 4,407.
Five years ago in 10.15.6, public Frameworks were almost a quarter of all Frameworks. In 15.6, they are less than 18%. macOS continues to become an increasingly private operating system supporting Apple’s apps, not those of third party developers.
