Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming macOS Catalina 10.15.6 update to developers for testing purposes, a week and a half releasing the third beta and over a month after releasing macOS Catalina 10.15.5 with battery health management features for Macs.

macos catalina wallpaper
The macOS Catalina 10.15.6 beta can be downloaded from the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after the proper profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center.

There's no word yet on what improvements the new update to macOS Catalina brings, but it likely includes performance improvements, security updates, and fixes for bugs that weren't able to be addressed in the previous update. No new features were found in the first three betas, but we'll update this article should anything new be found in the fourth beta.

Related Forum: macOS Catalina

Top Rated Comments

jb-net Avatar
53 months ago
Is Apple even interested in fixing all the bugs in Catalina or a the just working on their ARM project? There are so many open bugs in Catalina, its mind-blowing! :mad:
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ScooterComputer Avatar
53 months ago

There are so many open bugs in Catalina, its mind-blowing! :mad:
What’s especially infuriating to me, as a 2012 MacBook Pro user, is that Apple has ONCE AGAIN decided to abandon a large chunk of users on a really buggy OS. Last time it was High Sierra. At this point, it’s pretty naked they’re doing it to drive new sales, which is supremely scummy. Worse IMHO is that they are cleaving off good popular work horse Macs, while supporting 4 years of known-garbage MacBook keyboards and warmed-over hard-drive-based iMacs. It’s like I’m being punished for not being stupid and just buying whatever crap Apple decided to poop out since 2016.

The community needs to get smarter, more vocal over this nonsense; it’s getting worse, not better. This Exec Team is revealing itself to be despicable.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RLK7 Avatar
53 months ago
Be careful! With a 2018 MacBook Pro 15 it wont recognize your keyboard or trackpad so I can’t log in! Even safe mode doesn’t let you use the keyboard/mouse. How does something that basic get through even the first beta?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheSkywalker77 Avatar
53 months ago
Well, here goes what is likely one of the last updates to my 2012 MBP. It’s been a fun ride.


Time to wait for dosdude1’s Big Sur patcher! :)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dickie001x Avatar
53 months ago

I finally bit the bullet a few months ago and moved my Macs from High Sierra to Mojave - I wanted to see if there were going to be any glaring issues before High Sierra fell off the security fix wagon.

All in all, Mojave seems mostly reliable (which wasn't my experience with provisional installs of earlier versions of Mojave). Main difference from High Sierra is that it's a bit more locked down security-wise, you have sometimes to go into Security & Privacy preferences to authorize special access for certain apps when they're first installed. AND the biggest bugaboo there is that you don't always get a notification that you need to do that - but if you miss the initial 30 minute window to approve the app's access... you're SOL!!

(actually you're not completely SOL, you can usually completely uninstall the app, reboot and then reinstall to restart another 30-minute authorization window. But it can be a silent failure, with no explanation regarding why an app isn't functioning as expected).
Disable Gatekeeper with the following command in Teminal:

sudo spctl --master-disable
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TallGuyGT Avatar
53 months ago

Still running High Sierra here and will upgrade to Mojave when my apps end support for it and Apple requires 10.14 or later. My concern is, should I just leave my MBP 2015 at Mojave since it seems Catalina and later seems not be particularly worth it both feature and stability wise? All I've been hearing about Sierra since it was launched is stability issues and bugs.
Yes, I would stick with Mojave. My MBA is still on Mojave, unfortunately my 16" MBP only runs Catalina. I may try the Big Sur beta on the Air to see how it compares to Catalina. (don't want my primary machine on a beta) Hopefully Big Sur is an improvement ...
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Use Same Rear Chassis as iPhone 16

Friday July 19, 2024 7:16 am PDT by
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
iPhone 17 Plus Feature

iPhone 17 Lineup Specs Detail Display Upgrade and New High-End Model

Monday July 22, 2024 4:33 am PDT by
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Just Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Monday July 15, 2024 4:44 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple TV Plus Feature 2 Magenta and Blue

Apple TV+ Curbs Costs After Expensive Projects Fail to Capture Viewers

Monday July 22, 2024 5:11 am PDT by
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
bsod

Microsoft Blames European Commission for Major Worldwide Outage

Monday July 22, 2024 11:55 am PDT by
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...