OS version control / M series indentifiers

[tomtunney]

Hi, We have some smart groups that set target OS on Mac products, which currently forces user above the target OS to downgrade via DFU blaster.....  our target Stable OS in ventura, but unfortunately newly purchased macs with m3 processors will not go back to Ventura, so i want to exclude them from them from the smart group. 

Is there a processor identifier/or model identitfier i can use as advanced criteria in the smart groups  to  select M3 processors?

[AJPinto]

You probably want to use regex and add the devices you want to target or want to exclude. However, I would very strongly suggest getting update to MacOS 14 Sonoma as soon as possible. MacOS 12 Monterey will be dropped from support this summer, and macOS 13 Ventura will be N-2 when macOS 15 Saquoia releases this fall which is not a good place to be.

Note: Because of dependency on architecture and system changes to any current version of Apple operating systems (for example, macOS 14, iOS 17, and so on), not all known security issues are addressed in previous versions (for example, macOS 13, iOS 16, and so on).

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About software updates for Apple devices - Apple Support

[sdagley]

@tomtunney If you can say is there a specific reason that macOS Ventura is your "target Stable OS"? To paraphrase @AJPinto's response, Apple's attitude is that if you want the most secure version of macOS you need to be running the latest version of macOS. Sometimes getting internal agreement on that isn't always easy, but the peanut gallery here can probably share approaches that have made for more rapid adoption of new macOS versions.