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The Dot-Four Edition Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Apple Releases macOS Sequoia 15.4 With Mail Categorization And More, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

With macOS 15.4, Apple is bringing Mail Categorization to the Mac. The Mail app features dedicated categories like transactions, updates, and promotions, with important emails organized into a primary section.

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji And More, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

iOS 18.4 adds Priority notifications for Apple Intelligence-capable devices, showing you your most notification first.

Apple Releases visionOS 2.4 With Apple Intelligence, Spatial Gallery And New iPhone Integration, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

The visionOS 2.4 update brings Apple Intelligence to the Vision Pro for the first time, putting it on par with the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The Vision Pro has an M2 Apple silicon chip inside, and is capable of running the full suite of ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features.

Apple Music In iOS 18.4 Adds New Feature That Goes Beyond The App, by Ryan Christoffel, 9to5Mac

The ability to assign a mood playlist button to your iPhone’s Lock Screen, Action button, or Control Center removes friction from the music playback experience.

It also helps reduce my own analysis paralysis when opening the Music app and confronting far too many options to choose from. Now I can have a simple toggle fit for these select occasions.

Apple News+ Subscribers Can Now Access Apple News Food, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

‌Apple News‌+ Food offers tens of thousands of recipes, that users can browse through. There are built-in filter and search tools for finding specific recipes, and new content is added daily. Favorite recipes can be saved for access later, and Apple has designed a special format for recipes.

Apple Releases New AirPods Max Firmware With Lossless And Low-Latency Audio Support, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

When paired with the iOS 18.4 update, the new ‌AirPods Max‌ firmware brings lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio to the USB-C version of the headphones. The USB-C ‌AirPods Max‌ support 24-bit 48 kHz lossless audio, which is designed to allow listeners to experience music the way the artist created it in the studio. Apple says lossless audio and Personalized Spatial Audio offer a “more sonically accurate, uncompressed, and immersive experience.”

On Security

Threat Modelling And Analyzing iPhone Mirroring, by Aaron Schlitt

Apple's iPhone Mirroring was incredibly complex to get right in the first place. Apple used their expertise in designing secure systems to introduce a number of safeguards, including cryptographic measures and a User Experience that is meant to make misuse as difficult as possible.

Despite that, especially initial beta releases had critical bugs and even the final release version of the feature enables attack vectors that previously didn't exist.

Stuff

Apple Announces 'Find My' Network Availability In South Korea, by Tim Hardwick, MacRumors

Apple today announced 'Find My' network availability in South Korea. The launch brings the full range of Apple's location-based ‌Find My‌ services to South Korean customers for the first time, enabling them to keep track of devices, belongings, and loved ones.

Plex Is Rolling Out Its Big App Redesign, by Emma Roth, The Verge

The new app comes with an updated navigation system that should make it easier to access different parts of the app and find content to watch, along with a dedicated tab for centralized media libraries.

Develop

The Dark Side Of Apple Development: Why Developers Are Struggling On Apple’s Increasingly Hostile Platforms, by Magic Lasso

Developing for Apple used to be a thrilling challenge. Now, it feels more like an endurance test with constantly shifting rules.

While iOS and macOS remain incredible platforms from a technical perspective, the business side of things makes it harder and harder to justify the investment.

Notes

France Fines Apple $162M For App Tracking Transparency, Taking The Side Of Surveillance Advertisers Over Users, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

App Tracking Transparency actually accomplished, in practice, via user-focused plain-language consent, what the EU’s privacy laws were intended to do but do not. This fine boils down to France declaring that Apple shouldn’t have actually done what the EU was pretending to do. They’re acting at the behest of the very developers and advertising companies who were (and still are trying) to conduct cross-app tracking that App Tracking Transparency successfully gave users some control over.

New Zealand Banned Phones In Schools 12 Months Ago. Here’s What Happened, by Cara Swit, Aaron Hapuku, Helena Cook, Jennifer Smith, Independent

Our research shows young people aren’t just passive users of technology. They’re active problem solvers. They want to be part of the conversation – and part of the solution.

This would involve replacing top-down bans with meaningful conversations involving young people and adults to build fair and practical digital guidelines, where everyone benefits.

Bottom of the Page

The good news, with the latest iOS reelase, is that I can finally switch the language settings back to where I really am to use Apple Intelligence.

The not-so-good news: I am not sure when was the last time I used Apple Intelligence.

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Thanks for reading.