Apple releases iOS 18.6, macOS 15.6, and other updates as current gen winds down

Apple's next-generation software updates are just a couple of months away, but Apple isn't done with last year's releases just yet. Apple has released iOS 18.6, iPadOS 18.6, macOS Sequoia 15.6, watchOS 11.6, tvOS 18.6, and visionOS 2.6 to the public today, fixing an issue with sharing movies from the Photos app but mostly patching a long list of security vulnerabilities.

For iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, the list of resolved CVEs covers everything from the Metal graphics API to WebKit to networking to filesystem permissions issues. All told, each of these updates patches over two dozen vulnerabilities, and the other OS updates cover many of the same flaws. According to Apple's release notes, at least, none of these vulnerabilities are being actively exploited in the wild—you should patch as soon as you can, but there appear to be no known zero-day vulnerabilities.

For iOS and iPadOS users in the EU, the updates also include a mechanism for installing alternate app stores and for installing apps directly from websites, in accordance with the EU's Digital Markets Act.

Many of the security fixes are also available for older operating systems that Apple is still maintaining, mostly for people who can't update their devices to the latest versions. The iPadOS 17.7.9 update covers several tablets that were dropped by iPadOS 18, and macOS Ventura 13.7.7 and macOS Sonoma 14.7.7 will cover fading Intel Macs that were dropped by newer releases.

All of these operating systems will be superseded in the fall by new releases, unified under version number 26. The first public betas of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and other updates were released last week.