How the readiness check decides

The three rules behind the verdict

Rule 1: the chip decides the ceiling. macOS 26 is the last major release for Intel Macs. macOS 27 requires Apple Silicon. Everything else in this check is about how much friction you accept, not about whether a future version exists.

Rule 2: dependencies decide the timing. An operating system upgrade breaks things at the edges: audio plug-ins, virtual machines, enterprise Wi-Fi, printer drivers, sync clients. The more of those you depend on, the later you should upgrade, and the more you should wait for a dot release rather than installing on day one.

Rule 3: removals decide the annoyance. Launchpad is gone in macOS 26. Rosetta 2 narrows over time. Neither is a bug, and neither can be reverted by a setting, so they belong in the decision rather than in the complaints afterwards.

Scoring

The check adds points: Intel machine (2), several Intel-only apps (3), one Intel-only app (1), relies on Launchpad (2), network backup (1), Office installed (1). Five or more reads as High, two to four as Medium, below two as Low.

The weights are judgment calls, and they are written here so you can disagree with them. What is not a judgment call is the ceiling: that comes from Apple's published compatibility list.

What to do with a Medium result

Medium is the most common outcome and the least useful label, so the page turns it into two actions: confirm the backup runs, and confirm every critical app lists the target macOS as supported. Both take ten minutes and cover most real failures.

A note on timing

Installing a major release in its first week is the highest-variance moment. Waiting for the first dot release costs you a few weeks and removes a large share of the early bugs. That trade is usually obvious for a work machine and usually ignored for a personal one.