The Pace of macOS Updates
My friend and former Macworld colleague Rob Griffiths keeps a record of macOS releases, which is exactly the kind of thing I’d expect from the guy who created Mac OS X Hints. Prodded by Stephen Hackett, who is apparently now the official Six Colors Chart Muse, I’ve decided to use Rob’s data to take a look at how often Apple updates macOS.
In terms of total updates released during the lifespan of a major version, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and macOS 10.13 High Sierra share the crown with 12. However, High Sierra was only the “current” version of macOS for 385 days, while Tiger reigned for nearly three years. That means that Tiger actually was the version of macOS with the longest time between updates, at an average of one update for every 88 days of release.
I think the most important part for quality is not the number of updates but the time between major releases. Snow Leopard lasted almost 2 years.
