Apple has released minor updates to macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. With iOS 17.2.1 (iPadOS isn’t included this time, unusually), iOS 16.74, and iPadOS 16.7.4, the onscreen release notes admit only to unspecified “important bug fixes” and don’t mention security updates.
With macOS 14.2.1 Sonoma, however, there are security notes, which say the release fixes a bug where “a user who shares their screen may unintentionally share the incorrect content.”
This year was the year we started to get actual Matter devices and the year the big smart home platforms (slowly) began to adopt it. Backed by all the big names — Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, Ikea, Comcast, Philips Hue, LG, and more — Matter is meant to make the smart home easier.
It hasn’t.
Alongside iOS 17.2.1, Apple today released iOS 16.7.4 and iPadOS 16.7.4 updates that fix an issue with built-in apps. In some cases, if a user deleted a built-in Apple app on a device running iOS or iPadOS 16.7.3 or earlier, the app would not be able to be reinstalled.
As of iOS 17.2, U.S. customers that have a Verizon SIM can connect to Verizon via satellite to get roadside assistance on the iPhone, with this option joining the already existing AAA roadside assistance option that Apple announced as part of iOS 17.
Apple's AirPods firmware updates do not come with details on new features, so it is unclear what might be included in the software.
The fitness challenge for the next Apple Watch Activity Challenge is unchanged from the Ring in the New Year Challenge since 2017: “Let’s go for it in 2024. Earn this award by closing all three rings for seven days in a row in January.”
Asked if changes to commission rates had been involved in the Athletic partnership, Cue said: “Nothing’s really changed – from the very beginning of when we started, [commission rates] get paid and allocated based on readership and what people are doing on the site and we share the revenue.”
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But he said: “We’ve always wanted to build a product that [can be] monetise[d] for news providers. We think it’s incredibly important for society to have successful news entities out there, and so one of our main objectives in this when we got started was to get people to pay and to be able to share a lot of that revenue with the news providers.”
A hail mary veto is unlikely, but that doesn’t mean Apple is just going to accept an import ban on a $17 billion segment of its business. Apple spokesperson Nikki Rothberg told The Verge in a statement that the company was “pursuing a range of legal and technical options to ensure that Apple Watch is available to customers.” That means the watch is going back on sale one way or another — it’s just a question of what path Apple takes.
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The SE points to one way for Apple to sidestep the import ban altogether. According to both Brittingham and Levi, Apple could redesign its Apple Watch to avoid the infringed patents until the appeals process is done. Theoretically, all Apple has to do is push out a firmware update that disables the SpO2 sensor and then it could go right back to importing Apple Watches for sale.
Apple has decided to not appeal a UK court ruling that revives a comprehensive antitrust investigation into its dominance in mobile browsers and cloud gaming, meaning it will commence in January.
Check calendar. Good, no Teams meeting for the rest of the week while working from home where I can use my Mac and my big screen to do presentations. Okay, I think I can delay today's macOS update.
Yes, of all the OS updates on all my Apple devices, the one that I most worried about is still macOS. I'm still scheduling updates on days where I know I have free time afterwards to solve any unforeseen problems.
No, I did not encounter any problems for many macOS updates already. But, you know, habits.
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Thanks for reading.