Apple Seeds Second Release Candidate Version of macOS Monterey 12.5 to Developers

Monterrey has turned out to be one of the most mixed bag releases of macOS to date. It’s like the new Lion. I’m still on Big Sur and have yet had the urge to upgrade. Do hope the 5 point releases so far have done it justice and make it stable enough not move from version 11. If Monterrey is like this, you can only imagine what Ventura is gonna be like with all its new gimmicks. I will definitely leave it to the early adopter beta testers this fall to iron the remaining issues.

Monterey has been incredibly stable for me and I've had almost no issues. In fact this release has been better for me than Big Sur was, and I'm happy that if my 2015 5K iMac is going to be left behind that it will be left behind on Monterey.

You haven't upgraded yet; how do you even know if it's horrible or not?

Monterrey has turned out to be one of the most mixed bag releases of macOS to date. It’s like the new Lion. I’m still on Big Sur and have yet had the urge to upgrade. Do hope the 5 point releases so far have done it justice and make it stable enough not move from version 11. If Monterrey is like this, you can only imagine what Ventura is gonna be like with all its new gimmicks. I will definitely leave it to the early adopter beta testers this fall to iron the remaining issues.

For me, Monterey has been pretty stable since about 12.1. (I usually wait until .1 of a new macOS before installing). I don't use Mail or the Stocks app, but the rest of the apps included in Monterey have worked well for me.

If you're basing your opinion of Monterey (the "mixed bag" comment) on the fact that there are lots of people in these forums that have posted issues they're having with Monterey, I'd suggest that's not the best indicator of how well Monterey would likely work for you.

A much better indicator (that doesn't exist, unfortunately) would be the percentage of Monterey users that are having a good experience with it.

You can't infer how many people are doing well with Monterey from forum posts here, unfortunately, because very few of them will create a new post to state that. Instead, people post when they're having a problem, in hopes that other forum users can give them ideas, or share a solution if they've previously encountered the same problem. (Sorry, I know you probably knew this already and I really don't mean to condescend.)

Of course there are lots of folks in these forums who know way more about macOS than me and are having legitimate problems (meaning, not "user error") with parts of Monterey. That doesn't mean you'll experience the same problems, and it doesn't mean Monterey generally sucks for most users.

I'd encourage you to give Monterey a try. (Though maybe wait until 12.5 is released to the public, which is likely imminent.) It might turn out to be a mixed bag for you, but I think it's much more likely that you'll have a good experience with it.

Best wishes.

Monterrey has turned out to be one of the most mixed bag releases of macOS to date. It’s like the new Lion. I’m still on Big Sur and have yet had the urge to upgrade. Do hope the 5 point releases so far have done it justice and make it stable enough not move from version 11. If Monterrey is like this, you can only imagine what Ventura is gonna be like with all its new gimmicks. I will definitely leave it to the early adopter beta testers this fall to iron the remaining issues.

How can one be critical with a OS when you are not using it? :D
Big Sur was the very first Apple Silicon OS and reasonable people would want to run from that to Monterey as soon as they are satisfied with it gone through several minor incremental releases. So IMHO run don't stop and install 12.5 MacOS when it goes public. Ventura in its earliest betas is like a more progression from Monterey, especially with Metal 3, Stage manger and other enhancements that make the OS more polished with AS support.

Monterrey has turned out to be one of the most mixed bag releases of macOS to date. It’s like the new Lion. I’m still on Big Sur and have yet had the urge to upgrade. Do hope the 5 point releases so far have done it justice and make it stable enough not move from version 11. If Monterrey is like this, you can only imagine what Ventura is gonna be like with all its new gimmicks. I will definitely leave it to the early adopter beta testers this fall to iron the remaining issues.

My updating method has evolved from being an Apple beta-tester (with the maximum amount of pain and suffering in exchange for fulfilling my techno-lust) into abandoning all that and waiting for public release of macOS N.0 at which point I update to the existing version of macOS N-1. That pretty much always keeps me sane and on solid ground. I get a shiny new macOS update every year, but time shifted. Just got so sick of macOS bugs in the early versions compounded with application bugs (and even availability) for the new macOS version.

Any insight from release notes as to why 12.5 is taking so long to bake?

Too many cooks?