On Thursday, Apple released the first software updates for its devices since last month’s rollout of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia.
Those who’ve been following along know that several key features that didn’t make it into the initial release of iOS 18 are expected in iOS 18.1, but that’s not the update we got on Thursday.
Rather, Apple pushed out a series of smaller updates that fixed several bugs but did not add new features. The updates are labeled iOS 18.0.1, iPadOS 18.0.1, visionOS 2.0.1, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1, and watchOS 11.0.1.
Arguably, the two most important fixes come in iPadOS 18.0.1 and iOS 18.0.1. The iPad update fixes an issue that bricked a small number of recently released iPads (those running Apple’s M4 chip). That problem caused Apple to quickly pull iPadOS 18 for those devices, so Thursday’s iPadOS 18.0.1 release is actually the first time most users of those devices will be able to run iPadOS 18.
On the iPhone side, Apple says it has addressed a bug that could sometimes cause the touchscreen to fail to register users’ fingers.
Today is the official release date for the public versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and a scad of other Apple software updates, the foundation that Apple will use for Apple Intelligence and whatever other features it wants to add between now and next year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. But for those who value stability and reliability over new features, you may not be excited to update to a new operating system with a version number ending in “0.”
For those of you who prefer to wait for a couple of bugfix updates before installing new stuff, Apple is also releasing security-only updates for a bunch of its (now) last-generation operating systems today. The iOS 17.7, iPadOS 17.7, and macOS 14.7 updates are either available now or should be shortly, along with a security update for 2022’s macOS 13 Ventura. An updated version of Safari 18 that runs on both macOS 13 and 14 should be available soon, though as of this writing is doesn’t appear to be available yet.
Apple has historically been pretty good about providing security updates to older macOS releases—you can expect them for about two years after the operating system is replaced by a newer version. But for iOS and iPadOS, the company used to stop updating older versions entirely after releasing a new one. This changed back in 2021, when Apple decided to start providing some security-only updates to older iOS versions to help people who were worried about installing an all-new potentially buggy OS upgrade.
Eventually, iOS and iPadOS users will need to install iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 to keep getting security updates. But for the handful of older iPads that can’t run iPadOS 18, Apple will usually keep supporting those specific devices with security updates for a year or two. Apple was still providing new security updates for 2022’s iOS 16 as recently as August, keeping older devices like the iPhone 8 and the first-generation iPad Pros reasonably secure even though they were incapable of running newer operating systems.
The macOS 15 Sequoia update will inevitably be known as “the AI one” in retrospect, introducing, as it does, the first wave of “Apple Intelligence” features.
That’s funny because none of that stuff is actually ready for the 15.0 release that’s coming out today. A lot of it is coming “later this fall” in the 15.1 update, which Apple has been testing entirely separately from the 15.0 betas for weeks now. Some of it won’t be ready until after that—rumors say image generation won’t be ready until the end of the year—but in any case, none of it is ready for public consumption yet.
But the AI-free 15.0 release does give us a chance to evaluate all of the non-AI additions to macOS this year. Apple Intelligence is sucking up a lot of the media oxygen, but in most other ways, this is a typical 2020s-era macOS release, with one or two headliners, several quality-of-life tweaks, and some sparsely documented under-the-hood stuff that will subtly change how you experience the operating system.
The AI-free version of the operating system is also the one that all users of the remaining Intel Macs will be using, since all of the Apple Intelligence features require Apple Silicon. Most of the Intel Macs that ran last year’s Sonoma release will run Sequoia this year—the first time this has happened since 2019—but the difference between the same macOS version running on different CPUs will be wider than it has been. It’s a clear indicator that the Intel Mac era is drawing to a close, even if support hasn’t totally ended just yet.
Enlarge/ The Mac’s Gatekeeper feature has been pushing developers to digitally sign their apps since it was introduced in 2012.
Apple/Andrew Cunningham
It has always been easier to run third-party software on a Mac than on an iPhone or iPad. Despite the introduction of the Mac App Store a couple of years after the iPhone’s App Store opened, it has always been possible to download and run third-party scripts and software on your Mac from anywhere. It’s one reason why the iPhone and iPad are subject to new European Union regulations about software sideloading and third-party app stores, while the Mac isn’t.
That’s not changing in macOS 15 Sequoia, the new version of macOS that’s due to be released to the public this fall. But it is about to get more annoying for some apps, according to a note added to Apple’s developer site yesterday.
“In macOS Sequoia, users will no longer be able to Control-click to override Gatekeeper when opening software that isn’t signed correctly or notarized,” the brief note reads. “They’ll need to visit System Settings > Privacy & Security to review security information for software before allowing it to run.”
Users (including me) had noticed this behavior in early macOS Sequoia betas, but this note confirms that the change was made on purpose and that the software is working as intended.
What’s changing and what isn’t
To understand what’s changing, it’s helpful to understand how macOS handles third-party apps. Though software can be downloaded and run in macOS from everywhere, Apple encourages developers to digitally sign their software and send it to Apple for notarization, which Apple describes as “an automated system that scans your software for malicious content, checks for code-signing issues, and returns the results to you quickly.” Notably, it is not the same as the app review process in Apple’s App Stores, where humans check submitted apps and can refuse to distribute them if they run afoul of Apple’s rules.
Notarization does come with benefits for users—users can be sure that the apps haven’t been tampered with and can run them with minimal hassle from Gatekeeper, macOS’ app-screening security feature. But it creates an extra step for developers and requires the use of a $100-a-year paid Apple Developer account, something that may not be worth the cost for hobby projects or open source projects that don’t generate much (or any) income for their contributors.
Unsigned, non-notarized software will refuse to run in current macOS versions, but it has always been possible to right-click or control-click the app or script you want to run and then click Open, which exposes an “open anyway” option in a dialog box that lets you launch the software. Once you’ve made an exception for an app, you can run it like you would any other app unless the software is updated or changed in some way.
Enlarge/ The section of the Settings app where you’ll need to go in macOS Sequoia to allow unsigned apps to run.
Andrew Cunningham
Which gets us to what Sequoia changes. The right-click/control-click option for easily opening unsigned apps is no longer available. Users who want to open unsigned software will now need to go the long way around to do it: first, try to launch the app and dismiss the dialog box telling you that it can’t be opened. Then, open Settings, go to the Privacy & Security screen, scroll all the way to the bottom to get to the Security section, and click the Open Anyway button that appears for the last unsigned app you tried to run.
This has always been an option for skirting around Gatekeeper, going all the way back to the days when Settings was still System Preferences (and when Apple would let you disable Gatekeeper’s checks entirely, something it removed in 2016). But it takes so much more time that I never actually did it that way once I discovered the right-click trick. Now, doing it the long way is mandatory.
I don’t want to oversell how disruptive this is—generally once you allow an app to run the first time, you don’t have to think about it again unless the app is updated or otherwise modified or tampered with. Apple isn’t allowing or disallowing any new behavior in macOS. Popular apps from major developers do tend to be notarized, rendering this change irrelevant. And if this change pushes more developers to sign and notarize their apps, that is arguably a win for user security and convenience.
But for most people most of the time, it’s just going to make a minor annoyance into a medium-size annoyance. And among the conspiratorially minded, it’s going to reignite 12-year-old anxieties about Apple locking macOS down to the same degree that it already locks down iOS and iPadOS.
The macOS 15 Sequoia update is currently available to developers and the general public as a beta if you’ve signed up for either of Apple’s beta programs. An early iteration of the 15.1 update with some Apple Intelligence generative AI features enabled is also available to developers with Apple Silicon Macs.
Enlarge/ Apple Intelligence was unveiled at WWDC 2024.
Apple
As the parent of a younger child, I can tell you that getting a kid to respond the way you want can require careful expectation-setting. Especially when we’re trying something new for the first time, I find that the more detail I can provide, the better he is able to anticipate events and roll with the punches.
I bring this up because testers of the new Apple Intelligence AI features in the recently released macOS Sequoia beta have discovered plaintext JSON files that list a whole bunch of conditions meant to keep the generative AI tech from being unhelpful or inaccurate. I don’t mean to humanize generative AI algorithms, because they don’t deserve to be, but the carefully phrased lists of instructions remind me of what it’s like to try to give basic instructions to (or explain morality to) an entity that isn’t quite prepared to understand it.
The files in question are stored in the /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_GenerativeModels/purpose_auto folder on Macs running the macOS Sequoia 15.1 beta that have also opted into the Apple Intelligence beta. That folder contains 29 metadata.json files, several of which include a few sentences of what appear to be plain-English system prompts to set behavior for an AI chatbot powered by a large-language model (LLM).
Many of these prompts are utilitarian. “You are a helpful mail assistant which can help identify relevant questions from a given mail and a short reply snippet,” reads one prompt that seems to describe the behavior of the Apple Mail Smart Reply feature. “Please limit the reply to 50 words,” reads one that could write slightly longer draft responses to messages. “Summarize the provided text within 3 sentences, fewer than 60 words. Do not answer any question from the text,” says one that looks like it would summarize texts from Messages or Mail without interjecting any of its own information.
Some of the prompts also have minor grammatical issues that highlight what a work-in-progress all of the Apple Intelligence features still are. “In order to make the draft response nicer and complete, a set of question [sic] and its answer are provided,” reads one prompt. “Please write a concise and natural reply by modify [sic] the draft response,” it continues.
“Do not make up factual information.”
And still other prompts seem designed specifically to try to prevent the kinds of confabulations that generative AI chatbots are so prone to (hallucinations, lies, factual inaccuracies; pick the term you prefer). Phrases meant to keep Apple Intelligence on-task and factual include things like:
“Do not hallucinate.”
“Do not make up factual information.”
“You are an expert at summarizing posts.”
“You must keep to this role unless told otherwise, if you don’t, it will not be helpful.”
“Only output valid json and nothing else.”
Earlier forays into generative AI have demonstrated why it’s so important to have detailed, specific prompts to guide the responses of language models. When it launched as “Bing Chat” in early 2023, Microsoft’s ChatGPT-based chatbot could get belligerent, threatening, or existential based on what users asked of it. Prompt injection attacks could also put security and user data at risk. Microsoft incorporated different “personalities” into the chatbot to try to rein in its responses to make them more predictable, and Microsoft’s current Copilot assistant still uses a version of the same solution.
What makes the Apple Intelligence prompts interesting is less that they exist and more that we can actually look at the specific things Apple is attempting so that its generative AI products remain narrowly focused. If these files stay easily user-accessible in future macOS builds, it will be possible to keep an eye on exactly what Apple is doing to tweak the responses that Apple Intelligence is giving.
The Apple Intelligence features are going to launch to the public in beta this fall, but they’re going to miss the launch of iOS 18.0, iPadOS 18.0, and macOS 15.0, which is why Apple is testing them in entirely separate developer betas. Some features, like the ones that transcribe phone calls and voicemails or summarize text, will be available early on. Others, like the new Siri, may not be generally available until next year. Regardless of when it arrives, Apple Intelligence requires fairly recent hardware to work: either an iPhone 15 Pro, or an iPad or Mac with at least an Apple M1 chip installed.
The beta-testing cycle for Apple’s latest operating system updates is in full swing—earlier this week, the third developer betas rolled out for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and the rest of this fall’s updates. The fourth developer beta ought to be out in a couple of weeks, and it’s reasonably likely to coincide with the first betas that Apple offers to the full public (though the less-stable developer-only betas got significantly more public last year when Apple stopped making people pay for a developer account to access them).
Many of the new updates’ features are present and available to test, including cosmetic updates and under-the-hood improvements. But none of Apple’s much-hyped Apple Intelligence features are available to test in any form. MacRumors reports that Settings menus for the Apple Intelligence features have appeared in the Xcode Simulator for current versions of iOS 18 but, as of now, those settings still appear to be non-functional placeholders that don’t actually do anything.
That may change soon; Apple did say that the first wave of Apple Intelligence features would be available “this summer,” and I would wager a small amount of money on the first ones being available in the public beta builds later this month. But the current state of the betas does reinforce reporting from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that suggested Apple was “caught flat-footed” by the tech world’s intense interest in generative AI.
Even when they do arrive, the Apple Intelligence features will be rolled out gradually. Some will be available earlier than others—Gurman recently reported that the new Siri, specifically, might not be available for testing until January and might not actually be ready to launch until sometime in early 2025. The first wave of features will only work in US English, and only relatively recent Apple hardware will be capable of using most of them. For now, that means iPads and Macs with an M-series chip, or the iPhone 15 Pro, though presumably this year’s new crop of Pro and non-Pro iPhones will all be Apple Intelligence-compatible.
Apple’s relatively slow rollout of generative AI features isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Look at Microsoft, which has been repeatedly burned by its desire to rush AI-powered features into its Bing search engine, Edge browser, and Windows operating system. Windows 11’s Recall feature, a comprehensive database of screenshots and text tracking everything that users do on their PCs, was announced and then delayed multiple times after security researchers and other testers demonstrated how it could put users’ personal data at risk.
Enlarge/ Features like Image Playground won’t arrive in Europe at the same time as other regions.
Apple
Three major features in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia will not be available to European users this fall, Apple says. They include iPhone screen mirroring on the Mac, SharePlay screen sharing, and the entire Apple Intelligence suite of generative AI features.
In a statement sent to Financial Times, The Verge, and others, Apple says this decision is related to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Here’s the full statement, which was attributed to Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz:
Two weeks ago, Apple unveiled hundreds of new features that we are excited to bring to our users around the world. We are highly motivated to make these technologies accessible to all users. However, due to the regulatory uncertainties brought about by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we do not believe that we will be able to roll out three of these features — iPhone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence — to our EU users this year.
Specifically, we are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security. We are committed to collaborating with the European Commission in an attempt to find a solution that would enable us to deliver these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety.
It is unclear from Apple’s statement precisely which aspects of the DMA may have led to this decision. It could be that Apple is concerned that it would be required to give competitors like Microsoft or Google access to user data collected for Apple Intelligence features and beyond, but we’re not sure.
This is not the first recent and major divergence between functionality and features for Apple devices in the EU versus other regions. Because of EU regulations, Apple opened up iOS to third-party app stores in Europe, but not in other regions. However, critics argued its compliance with that requirement was lukewarm at best, as it came with a set of restrictions and changes to how app developers could monetize their apps on the platform should they use those other storefronts.
While Apple says in the statement it’s open to finding a solution, no timeline is given. All we know is that the features won’t be available on devices in the EU this year. They’re expected to launch in other regions in the fall.
On Monday, Apple announced it would be integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI assistant into upcoming versions of its iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. It paves the way for future third-party AI model integrations, but given Google’s multi-billion-dollar deal with Apple for preferential web search, the OpenAI announcement inspired speculation about who is paying whom. According to a Bloomberg report published Wednesday, Apple considers ChatGPT’s placement on its devices as compensation enough.
“Apple isn’t paying OpenAI as part of the partnership,” writes Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, citing people familiar with the matter who wish to remain anonymous. “Instead, Apple believes pushing OpenAI’s brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments.”
The Bloomberg report states that neither company expects the agreement to generate meaningful revenue in the short term, and in fact, the partnership could burn extra money for OpenAI, because it pays Microsoft to host ChatGPT’s capabilities on its Azure cloud. However, OpenAI could benefit by converting free users to paid subscriptions, and Apple potentially benefits by providing easy, built-in access to ChatGPT during a time when its own in-house LLMs are still catching up.
And there’s another angle at play. Currently, OpenAI offers subscriptions (ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, Team) that unlock additional features. If users subscribe to OpenAI through the ChatGPT app on an Apple device, the process will reportedly use Apple’s payment platform, which may give Apple a significant cut of the revenue. According to the report, Apple hopes to negotiate additional revenue-sharing deals with AI vendors in the future.
Why OpenAI
The rise of ChatGPT in the public eye over the past 18 months has made OpenAI a power player in the tech industry, allowing it to strike deals with publishers for AI training content—and ensure continued support from Microsoft in the form of investments that trade vital funding and compute for access to OpenAI’s large language model (LLM) technology like GPT-4.
Still, Apple’s choice of ChatGPT as Apple’s first external AI integration has led to widespread misunderstanding, especially since Apple buried the lede about its own in-house LLM technology that powers its new “Apple Intelligence” platform.
On Apple’s part, CEO Tim Cook told The Washington Post that it chose OpenAI as its first third-party AI partner because he thinks the company controls the leading LLM technology at the moment: “I think they’re a pioneer in the area, and today they have the best model,” he said. “We’re integrating with other people as well. But they’re first, and I think today it’s because they’re best.”
Apple’s choice also brings risk. OpenAI’s record isn’t spotless, racking up a string of public controversies over the past month that include an accusation from actress Scarlett Johansson that the company intentionally imitated her voice, resignations from a key scientist and safety personnel, the revelation of a restrictive NDA for ex-employees that prevented public criticism, and accusations against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of “psychological abuse” related by a former member of the OpenAI board.
Meanwhile, critics of privacy issues related to gathering data for training AI models—including OpenAI foe Elon Musk, who took to X on Monday to spread misconceptions about how the ChatGPT integration might work—also worried that the Apple-OpenAI deal might expose personal data to the AI company, although both companies strongly deny that will be the case.
Looking ahead, Apple’s deal with OpenAI is not exclusive, and the company is already in talks to offer Google’s Gemini chatbot as an additional option later this year. Apple has also reportedly held talks with Anthropic (maker of Claude 3) as a potential chatbot partner, signaling its intention to provide users with a range of AI services, much like how the company offers various search engine options in Safari.
Enlarge/ The classic Mac OS wallpaper in macOS 15 Sequoia mimics the monochrome user interfaces used in System 1 through 6.
Apple
I’m still in the very early stages of poking at macOS 15 Sequoia ahead of our customary review later this fall, and there are quite a few things that aren’t working in this first developer beta. Some of those, like the AI features, aren’t working on purpose; I am sure some of the iCloud sync issues I’m having are broken by accident.
I’ve already encountered a few functional upgrades I like, like iCloud support inside of virtual machines, automated window snapping (at long last), and a redesigned AirDrop interface in the Finder. But so far the change that I like the most is actually a new combo wallpaper and screen saver that’s done in the style of Apple’s Mac operating system circa the original monochrome Mac from 1984. It’s probably the best retro Mac Easter egg since Clarus the Dogcow showed up in a print preview menu a couple of years ago.
The Macintosh wallpaper and screen saver—it uses the animated/dynamic wallpaper feature that Apple introduced in Sonoma last year—cycles through enlarged, pixelated versions of classic Mac apps, icons, and menus, a faithful replica of the first version of the Mac interface. Though they’re always monochrome, the default settings will cycle through multiple background colors that match the ones that Apple uses for accent colors.
If you’re too young to be familiar (or if you were using MS-DOS in the mid-’80s instead of a Mac), this Mac theme hearkens back to the days before Mac OS (then Mac OS X, then OS X, then macOS) was called Mac OS. The first seven versions of the software were simply called System or System Software, all the way up through 1991’s System 7. The Mac OS name didn’t appear until the System 7.5.1 update in 1995, and the name was formally changed in the 7.6 update in 1997 (OS updates were obviously released at a more leisurely pace back then).
If you want to poke at a live, interactive version of the monochrome System Software, developer Mihai Parparita’s Infinite Mac project hosts classic System, Mac OS, and NeXTStep versions that will all run in a browser window using ports of various emulators.
My only complaint is that now I want more of these screen savers. As a millennial, my exposure to Systems 1 through 6 was fairly minimal, but I’d definitely take a color version of the screen saver modeled on Mac OS 9, or an early Mac OS X version with shiny candy-colored Aqua-themed buttons and scroll bars.
Enlarge/ Macs running a preview build of macOS 15 Sequoia.
Apple
We’ve written before about Apple’s handy virtualization framework in recent versions of macOS, which allows users of Apple Silicon Macs with sufficient RAM to easily set up macOS and Linux virtual machines using a number of lightweight third-party apps. This is useful for anyone who needs to test software in multiple macOS versions but doesn’t own a fleet of Mac hardware or multiple boot partitions. (Intel Macs support the virtualization framework, too, but only for Linux VMs, making it less useful.)
But up until now, you haven’t been able to sign into iCloud using macOS on a VM. This made the feature less useful for developers or users hoping to test iCloud features in macOS, or whose apps rely on some kind of syncing with iCloud, or people who just wanted easy access to their iCloud data from within a VM.
This limitation is going away in macOS 15 Sequoia, according to developer documentation that Apple released yesterday. As long as your host operating system is macOS 15 or newer and your guest operating system is macOS 15 or newer, VMs will now be able to sign into and use iCloud and other Apple ID-related services just as they would when running directly on the hardware.
This is still limiting for developers, who might want to run an older version of macOS on their hardware while still testing macOS 15 in a VM, or those who want to do the reverse so that they can more easily support multiple versions of macOS with their apps. It also doesn’t apply to VMs that are upgraded from an older version of macOS to Sequoia—it has to be a brand-new VM created from a macOS 15 install image. But it’s a welcome change, and it will steadily get more useful as Apple releases more macOS versions in the future that can take advantage of it.
“When you create a VM in macOS 15 from a macOS 15 software image… Virtualization configures an identity for the VM that it derives from security information in the host’s Secure Enclave,” Apple’s documentation reads. “Just as individual physical devices have distinct identities based on their Secure Enclaves, this identity is distinct from other VMs.”
If you move that VM from one host to another, a new distinct identity will be created, and your iCloud account will presumably be logged out. This is the same thing that happens if you backup a copy of one Mac’s disk and restore it to another Mac. A new identity will also be created if a second copy of a VM is launched on the same machine.
Mac users hoping to virtualize the Arm version of Windows 10 or 11 will still need to look to third-party products for help. Both Parallels and VMware offer virtualization products that are officially blessed by Microsoft as a way to run Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, and Broadcom recently made VMware Fusion free for individuals.
