macOS Sequoia 15.6 is likely to be the last scheduled general update before Sequoia enters its two years of security-only support, with the release of macOS 26 Tahoe most probably in September. It’s notable for the number of security fixes it delivers, about 81 in all, some of which look very serious, although Apple hasn’t reported that it’s aware of any of them being exploited in the wild. Yet.

Apple hasn’t seen fit to provide any general release notes, merely referring to it bringing important bug and security fixes. There are enterprise release notes, though, and they reveal:

• softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer now completes successfully
• after installing software update, some Macs have been booting to Recovery; that has now been fixed

and a few other details more relevant to enterprise users.

There is a single entry in Apple’s developer release notes, possibly the most important of all. This reports that 15.6 fixes a bug in which “Finder and Apple Configurator may be unable to successfully restore some devices from DFU mode.” I don’t understand why that never made it to notes intended for the public.

Apple’s lengthy security release notes are here.

Firmware updates were expected, and bring the iBoot version on Apple silicon Macs to 11881.140.96, and T2 chips to 2075.140.4.0.0 (iBridge 22.16.16083.0.0,0). The macOS 15.6 build number is 24G84.

Significant changes seen in bundled apps include:

• Books to version 7.6
• Music to version 1.5.6
• News to version 4.12.7
• Notes to version 4.12.7
• Passwords to version 1.6
• Safari to version 18.6 (20621.3.11.11.3)
• Stocks to version 7.4
• TV to version 1.5.6.

Of those, Notes seems to have received particular attention.

Changes seen in /System/Library are relatively modest, and include:

• in CoreServices, Paired Devices.app to version 6.8.0
• in DriverExtensions, XboxGamepad.dext to build 12.6.1
• kernel extensions updated include all AGX to version 329.2, several AMD and AMDRadeon, AppleDiskImages2, and AudioDMAControllers
• APFS is updated to version 2332.140.13
• various public and private Frameworks have modest build increments
• the new Bosporus Private Framework has been removed
• Espresso Private Frameworks have been reduced, with the removal of a LoopKitGeneratedKernels framework
• all Spotlight Private Frameworks have been updated.

Overall this is a small update that completes general bug fixes in macOS Sequoia before it goes into security-only maintenance, but it’s most important for its many security fixes. For other bug fixes and enhancements, you’ll need to look to Tahoe in a few weeks.

And no, before you ask, the whole of this has absolutely 🦉 no AI content.