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Hi Suzi,

As a general rule, it shouldn't be an issue changing back forth. Even though it's rare, there may sometimes be exceptions to this. Therefore I recommend reading the release notes / changelog before making the change to see if there's anything to be aware of. Note, this is only an issue when moving from a newer release to an older one. It is considered safe to move to a newer version. Just keep in mind the maturity of the release you move to. R1 is the latest version which means it's less than a month old. This means that it's had a couple of months worth of bug fixes less than R3 for example.

Ring versions are updated when a new 10.X is released. This usually happens the last Tuesday of every month. Currently, R1 is version 10.12, R2 is 10.11, R3 is 10.10 and R4 is 10.9. When 10.13 is released at the end of February, it becomes R1 and the other versions move to the next Ring. At that time, 10.9 moves out of a Ring and thereby out of support.

If you downgrade from R1 to R3, you lose the features introduced with R1 and R2. They follow the Ring. You will get those features back once the current R1 becomes R3, which -- as mentioned above -- usually takes two months from its release.

I hope this helps to shed some light on the Release Ring concept.

- Jeppe