MacBook, iPhone 6s. connection said update needed...

[Microman]

Wanted to backup my iPhone 6s, so I connected to the MacBook Pro.

Got a message with small iPhone appearing, when connecting to Finder (Catalina), that I needed an update before it could backup.

I stopped that process and went to my iPhone, and it was up to date. I think 14.4 or something like that.

So I went ahead and did the process, and I suppose it must have done some sort of update to the MacBook, as my iPhone never restarted or did anything.

So what did MacBook OS need to use my iPhone 6s?

[GGD]

Microman wrote:
So what did MacBook OS need to use my iPhone 6s?

A few years ago Apple separated some of the device/iOS specific interface code out of the iTunes application and into some MacOS frameworks. This way the iTunes/User Interface didn't need to be revised every time a phone or iOS release was made and just this lower level software needed to be revised.

So, that update that was needed was to provide the iOS 14 support to your Mac OS. Allowing it to install was the right thing to do. It doesn't do anything to the iPhone itself, it's a Mac thing.