Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Releases macOS 10.14.3, iOS 12.1.3, watchOS 5.1.3, and tvOS 12.1.2 (arstechnica.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the for-the-record dept.

Apple today pushed software updates for a range of its computing platforms. They are all minor releases that simply offer a few bug fixes and security updates, with no new features -- and there are no new features in any of the beta releases for these versions of the operating systems, either. From a report: iOS 12.1.3 fixes a scrolling bug in Messages, an iPad Pro-specific audio bug, and a graphical error in some photos, and it addresses some CarPlay disconnects experienced by owners of the three new iPhone models released in late 2018. It also fixes two minor bugs related to the company's HomePod smart speaker.

53 comments

  1. Must be a slow news day by nwaack · · Score: 0, Troll

    Nothing to see here. Move along.

    1. Re:Must be a slow news day by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      I don't know, a major vendor releases updates just to address and fix bugs and doesn't try to force new unneeded/unwanted features or emojis on it's users? Seems kind of unique.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    2. Re:Must be a slow news day by godrik · · Score: 1

      Exactly!

      Stop the presses! "We have no reason to stop the presses!"

      In other news, the sun is currently rising somewhere on earth!

      (Why am I still reading slashdot???)

    3. Re: Must be a slow news day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they forgot to mention enhancements to the CPU monitor that prevents your device from becoming a brick

    4. Re:Must be a slow news day by nwaack · · Score: 1

      Wow, I got modded down as 'troll' for this. Apple fanbois are truly fockwads.

  2. How typical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    More of the same unfounded anti-Apple bias from haters in the Slashdot comments. Nothing to see here. Move along.

    1. Re:How typical... by Bobrick · · Score: 1

      TFS summary states that these "are all minor releases that simply offer a few bug fixes and security updates, with no new features", how is it anti-Apple bias to decry this insignificant non-story? Keep your shilling for when it's relevant, maybe?

    2. Re:How typical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To apple shills all shilling is relevant. They always must defend the brand.

    3. Re:How typical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To apple shills all shilling is relevant. They always must defend the brand.

      Its nice to see Apple is actually working on fixing bugs rather than introducing new features. Isn't this what everybody has been complaining about for both Windows and MacOS?

    4. Re:How typical... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      I'd heard that it was best to avoid the iPhone upgrade to iOS 12,1,2,,,as that it had broken cellular connectivity for quite a number of phones in the US.

      Anyone heard if they fixed this in 12.1.3?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    5. Re:How typical... by bodog · · Score: 1

      Had 12.1.2 on 4 different model iphones, no breakage..

    6. Re:How typical... by sheramil · · Score: 1

      Just curious here... do you own them all?

    7. Re:How typical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lot of us are actually Apple users who've been burned repeatedly since around 2013-2014, when the quality started to drop off.

      They've got problems and they're not addressing them, I would know, I'm a certified repairer and things have never been quite this bad in terms of bugs in shipped software, platform lock-in, aggressive marketing tactics for cloud products to the point of being obnoxious and the biggest issue, the hardware they are shipping... isn't far from garbage.

    8. Re:How typical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To apple shills all shilling is relevant. They always must defend the brand.

      Its nice to see Apple is actually working on fixing bugs rather than introducing new features. Isn't this what everybody has been complaining about for both Windows and MacOS?

      stockholm syndrome... the victims.. ie. the Apple customers/iSheep.. are defending the company that is figuratively fucks their ass until it bleeds violently and they still beg for more while whimping and denying all negative talk about the brand that they are so loyal to and defend at all costs...

      must be the same thing that still keeps the reality distortion field active for the cult members... they actually think that Apple invented anything and that they were first with anything... They buy all the PR and honest to god lies and all their horseshit... like Retina screens (its not even 4K WTF) and privacy (yeah right) and all the idiotic unneeded restrictions that they pay up their nose to get... they pay 10x what they should just so Apple can lock them in a cage... why oh god why?

      they line up at the stores to buy shitty obsolete devices and they think they are part of a small group, despite Apple having decent sales... they think it is exclusive because of price... well... maybe I should polish one of my own turds and sell it to them at 10k dollars a poop?

      I could never be dragged in to the cult like religion of Apple... its a god damn tech company that exploits customers for fucks sake... WAKE UP

  3. Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by bogaboga · · Score: -1, Troll

    They are all minor releases that simply offer a few bug fixes and security updates, with no new features -- and there are no new features in any of the beta releases for these versions of the operating systems, either.

    (...bold mine...)

    How else can one interpret this, in light of the latest Apple performance?

    1. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They are all minor releases that simply offer a few bug fixes and security updates, with no new features -- and there are no new features in any of the beta releases for these versions of the operating systems, either.

      (...bold mine...)

      How else can one interpret this, in light of the latest Apple performance?

      It's like the writer dosn't understand that Apple just recently released Mojave.

      Or in the bitchabouteverything Apple world, each update must be an entirely new operating system?

      No Bogaboga, Apple has updates all the time. But the ones between OS changes do indeed tend to be incremental.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      That they wanted to put out a bugfix and security release?

      I read it as "There are no new features in the production releases, but there weren't any new features in any of the betas up to this point either."

      As in, they didn't slip one past the goalie at the last second. Which is good.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    3. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by WankerWeasel · · Score: 1

      It's like complaining that the monthly updates Microsoft release for Windows don't bring new features. "I don't want bug and security fixes, I want stupid new feature I won't ever use!"

    4. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by Yaztromo · · Score: 1

      This has virtually always been the case. Apple rarely introduces new features in 10.x.y releases (y > 0) ; new features are mainly introduced in 10.x.0 releases.

      This is a bug fix for an existing OS release. I generally prefer if my OS vendor isn't using a fixpack to introduce significant new features.

      Yaz

    5. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The idiots pushing for more features are the ones crapping up Mac OS with bugs. This is called scope creep. It's been taught to not do this in comp sci courses for decades, the programmers who've all left apple the last 10 years knew this, they got sick of being pushed to scope creep and quit. New guys came in, stupid, young, and broke everything.

    6. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's how it should be. Majors for features and major improvements, point releases for bugfixes and minor improvements.

      With the 1 - 2 year lifecycle and the sin of adding features in a point release, Apple are now being inundated with bugs in their OS.

    7. Re:Now I confirm. Apple is going down, sadly. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      It's like complaining that the monthly updates Microsoft release for Windows don't bring new features. "I don't want bug and security fixes, I want stupid new feature I won't ever use!"

      Roger that. Each OS has some things to complain about. Complaining about an incremental update 6 months after an entire OS update is silly.

      Here's one for the outrage crew: Last night I got an update, and horrors! it was only for Safari. Nothing else at all.

      But the nice thing about it was that I chose the time to do it.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. no more innovation by danbuter · · Score: 1

    Apple has largely abandoned it's computer customers. Everything they do is focused on the iPhone. Macs used to be the go-to for any kind of graphical artist. Now they can't even handle most graphics programs well. It's sad that they abandoned their core artist base to suit kids sitting on coffee shops, showing off their Mac accessory.

    1. Re:no more innovation by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      There are more kids in coffee shops than artists.

    2. Re:no more innovation by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apple has largely abandoned it's computer customers. Everything they do is focused on the iPhone. Macs used to be the go-to for any kind of graphical artist. Now they can't even handle most graphics programs well. It's sad that they abandoned their core artist base to suit kids sitting on coffee shops, showing off their Mac accessory.

      Cool story Bro. Using both Apple and Windows, at least my Macs work after updates, and how do I use Windows as the go to when the software I need simply doesn't exist in Windowsworld.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:no more innovation by GoTeam · · Score: 2

      Don't all those kids in coffee shops think they're artists?

    4. Re: no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Adobe and others have long abandoned their favor of Apple since back in the early OS X days when between Apple's lean towards trying to make PPC a viable platform (when at the time it was struggling to compete with wintel in power and performance) and said companies taking far too long to port their software from aging Carbon frameworks over to Cocoa and objective C. Instead they opted to inject more support into the wintel platform which still to this day hold superiority as far as raw power over the Macintosh platform. Mac Pro has yet to be updated since 2013...

    5. Re: no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on if you count wait staff or not. If you do, the number of artists increases.

    6. Re:no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cooler story Bro. I guess that why the world run on macs.. Oh wait. It doesn't!

    7. Re: no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I count waitstaff when they look a bit goth

    8. Re:no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could search for that on Bing

    9. Re:no more innovation by antdude · · Score: 1

      Bring back Steve Jobs. Oh wait... :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    10. Re:no more innovation by dk20 · · Score: 1

      Does that include OSX updates where Apple arbitrarily decides some models wont support the newer versions? They put in code to find which mac you have and decide if it will install or not. Then the cat and mouse games starts, where people figure out how to bypass the locks.

    11. Re:no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't a camp versus camp issue, Apple users are getting tired of the drop in quality. I'm a repairer and a consultant working in this space for 12 years and all of my customer are complaining about the high sierra and mojave breaking things... or the low build quality of their laptops.

      I've noticed more dismissive, deflecting comments like yours since the beginning of January... I wonder why...

    12. Re:no more innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've also heard similar attitude out of the mouths of Apple staff. Have you Received any mail from Apple or bank transfers from them lately, hmm?

    13. Re:no more innovation by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Are but did they? Old versions of Photoshop work just fine on Windows 10, even with the latest updates installed.

      Look you can defend Apple for a lot of reasons, but certainly not for listening to their original core customers who have seen the platform become increasingly irrelevant. Shit man 15 years ago if you saw a PC in a photostudio it was a good sign that you should just turn and walk away as the person clearly didn't know what they were doing.

      Not so anymore, especially after Apple's update fiasco meant several versions of photoshop were not delivered in 64bit form to Mac users at a time when 64bit was already quite relevant in the photography world.

    14. Re:no more innovation by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      This isn't a camp versus camp issue, Apple users are getting tired of the drop in quality. I'm a repairer and a consultant working in this space for 12 years and all of my customer are complaining about the high sierra and mojave breaking things... or the low build quality of their laptops.

      I've noticed more dismissive, deflecting comments like yours since the beginning of January... I wonder why...

      I have been caught. You caught the Tater. Apple is paying me 5000 dollars for every dismissive, and deflecting comment I make.

      Regardless, we are fortunate to be living in an age with the flawless perfection of Windows 10 which has eliminated all problems with computing. Each update raises the bar.

      I got paid 25,000 US for that.

      And all those posts about update problems with Winbdows 10? Fake news, all spread by me. Apple pays me 50,000 dollars US for those.

      It's a great gig.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  5. Apple, not, thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    This is my computer. AMD Ryzen, 4.0 GHz, 64 GB RAM, Windows 10.

    I've installed PhotoShop and it is working smoothly.

    I won't need an Apple for drawing photos, my computer is enough and almost cases better than the competition.

    1. Re: Apple, not, thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You were looking good until
      The windows 10 part. You threw all credibility out the window with that one.

    2. Re: Apple, not, thanks! by AHuxley · · Score: 0

      The Windows 10 part makes the GPU work and the games play at 4K, 8K.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re: Apple, not, thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats right. It isnt all crap. In fact none of the core update contain any of the typical junk you would normally expect to find. Of course some are more careful than others about updates. I think the major security updates contain nothing but secure patches but you have to wait for those

    4. Re: Apple, not, thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It probably runs well enough on huge specs like this.

      The trash can Mac Pro with "factory upgrade" to 64GB RAM and 10 or 12 core CPU should be about similar (add even more money for SSD size) though not only it'll be likely over $3000 more than the PC, it will use more power as well. OR you need a "low end" iMac Pro with 64GB upgrade to match a PC. Granted we've not seen the new upcoming Mac Pro.
      In conclusion, what a shit show! It's like going back to the old days of $10,000 high end branded computers and $3,000 beige box PC that did about the same job.

      It sucks, but OSX workstations are heading the way of SGI, Sun, HP etc. workstations. They were all killed for good with Windows XP machines that were cheaper and faster

  6. ZOMG!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article has changed my worldview! I've now switch political parties, religion, and my sexual preference!!!

  7. What if you want bug fixes without feature creep? by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If I install this latest update to fix bugs, it will also install a bunch of crap I have no desire to install. And it will re-enable the undesirable crap that I disabled in each of the previous updates.

    I know it's not just iOS; You can no longer get bugs fixed in the existing version without loading up on bugs in the new features, whether it's Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, or whatever. And if you find a feature you do like, the next revision replaces that feature with a "service" to move that feature "into the cloud", so you can be better tracked. And the version after that will make it harder to do it without involving the cloud.

    What's the use of having extra storage on your phone for stuff if Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all hell-bent to making you store that stuff on a (for fee) off-device storage service?

    Or, is the extra storage to just hang on to the huge links to your content?

  8. Re:What if you want bug fixes without feature cree by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

    And if you find a feature you do like, the next revision replaces that feature with a "service" to move that feature "into the cloud", so you can be better tracked. And the version after that will make it harder to do it without involving the cloud. What's the use of having extra storage on your phone for stuff if Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all hell-bent to making you store that stuff on a (for fee) off-device storage service?

    Or, is the extra storage to just hang on to the huge links to your content?

    Funny.

    Neither my iPhone, my iPad nor my MacBook pro have every forced or even cajoled me to move or store anything in the cloud.

    I didn't use iCloud for anything until recently, when I decided I did like to connect them just far enough to sync my bookmarks, and my iMessages between all 3 devices.

    But no real need other than that, and I operated them just fine without any iCloud connectivity at all, zero, nada, zilch....just fine for most of my years on the platform until maybe just the past 8-9 months.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  9. Re:What if you want bug fixes without feature cree by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1

    So you never got a prompt to enable Apple Music? Very strange. Mine prompts me to enable it with each and every update since it became available.

    Sure, I don't HAVE to enable it and upload my (self-ripped and maintained) music collection to Apple's servers, but it is persistent in asking me to.

  10. It also disqualifies tons of cables by Xygon · · Score: 1

    "This accessory is not supported" messages for most of my off-brand Lightning cables. Worked before the update, work with all my phones that didn't have the update, don't work now (this is based on the public beta).

  11. But have they fixed their hardware yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't want: Skeletal supermodel too slim hardware.

    Want: Real computers.

  12. What the heck by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple has largely abandoned it's computer customers.

    You say that in response to a story about an iOS *and* and macOS update.

    If that were not silly enough, it's also just a year after Apple released the iMac Pro, and months after they updated the Mac mini. making it a fairly nice desktop unit for those that want to bring their own monitors.

    Macs used to be the go-to for any kind of graphical artist. Now they can't even handle most graphics programs well

    That is crazy nuts as the Mac is seeing a resurgence of amazing programs dealing with the graphic arts, from photo to video to vector creations... being an artist on the Mac has never been better.

    Also if you were any kind of real artist you would at least be nodding with respect for the combination of the iPad Pro and the Pencil. I think you really don't care about art, you just like to bitch about Apple... what a shame that another creative mind has withered from within due to Hate.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:What the heck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Also if you were any kind of real artist you would at least be nodding with respect for the combination of the iPad Pro and the Pencil.

      No they wouldn't, they'd be laughing with their Surface Pro and Pen. Because the Surface Pro can run actual Photoshop, complete with one of the best-in-class digitizers.

      The iPad Pro can run $10 App Store "drawing" apps.

      Artists don't use Apple products these days, they've all given up and moved to Windows. Not necessarily the Surface itself, but real art these days uses Windows.

  13. Re:What if you want bug fixes without feature cree by antdude · · Score: 1

    Ditto. It's annoying. iOS v12.1.3's Photos app asked to use iCloud for it in a just upgraded iPhone 6+. No thanks!

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  14. Next they will host a conference.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and release 3 new watch faces!

  15. Update ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple Releases macOS 10.14.3

    Not showing up yet in App Store !!