Some folks with Catalina on the brain want to know how to prepare. Some folks want to prepare to reinstall Mojave. Joe has advice for future-proofing your home, and the A-Lady wants you to whisper sweet nothings at her. It’s that kind of week here and John and Dave are your stalwart guides. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!
macOS
macOS Mojave 10.14.5 Fixes Boot Camp Fusion Drive Bug
Apple released macOS Mojave 10.14.5 to fix a Boot Camp Fusion Drive bug. This update is for the iMac and Mac mini.
RIP: After 14 Years, Apple is Removing Dashboard in macOS Catalina
After 14 years Apple is removing Dashboard. macOS Catalina will no longer support it, and Apple removed Dashboard support from WebKit.
macOS Catalina Media File Locations
macOS Catalina will turn iTunes into Music and add Podcasts and Apple TV apps. This means that media file locations will be a bit different.
macOS Catalina Moves Us From User Consent to User Intent – TMO Daily Observations 2019-06-11
John Martellaro and Bryan Chaffin join Dave Hamilton to talk about Apple’s march forward towards security-with-flexibility in macOS Catalina. And then it’s time to look at Apple TV’s future… by the numbers.
Apple vs Ad Tracking, New OS Features – TMO Daily Observations 2019-06-10
Andrew Orr and Dave Hamilton join Kelly Guimont (and what’s left of her voice) to chat about Apple’s advertising stance and new OS features.
Migrating iTunes, Upgrading Macs, and a Quick Tip from Craig Federighi – Mac Geek Gab 765
It’s true, Craig Federighi let loose a perfect little Quick Tip last week at WWDC, did you catch it? Your two geeks did, and they’re here to share it with you. In addition to some more Quick Tips from other listeners, this episode is chock full of answers to your great questions on topics like preparing your iTunes library for Catalina, upgrading to a new Mac, and much, much more. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!
Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s Global Accessibility Chief Talks Tech
Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s Global Accessibility chief, talks about new accessibility features in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina.
Accessibility, as it always does, plays a significant role in not only the conference itself — the sessions, labs and get-togethers all are mainstays of the week — but also in the software Apple shows off. Of particular interest this year is Apple’s Voice Control feature, available for macOS Catalina and iOS 13 devices, which allows users to control their Macs and iPhones using only the sound of their voices.
The new features, such as Voice Control, are amazing.
Apple Deprecates SHA-1 in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina
Apple is deprecating SHA-1, an old security standard, in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina. This is good news since we now have the more secure SHA-2 and SHA-3.
macOS 10.15 Catalina Deprecates UNIX Scripting Languages
The older Python language, version 2.7, is being deprecated in macOS 10.15 Catalina and won’t be included in macOS 10.16. The same goes for other UNIX scripting languages.
Nervously Sweating, Astro HQ Compares Luna Display and Sidecar
Astro recently wrote a blog post comparing its Luna Display product against Sidecar. But they left out an important detail.
6 macOS Catalina Features Not Announced on Stage
We saw a preview of some macOS Catalina features on stage, but Apple didn’t have time to cover them all. On the preview page we see a full list of features coming.
WWDC19: Here’s the List of macOS Catalina Device Support
LIke our iOS 13 device support page, we now have a list of the macOS Catalina device support. And it supports a wide range of devices.
RIP Bash: macOS Catalina Will Set Z Shell as Terminal Default
Starting with the macOS Catalina beta, your Mac will use Z shell as the default shell in Terminal, replacing Bash which has been on the Mac since 2002.
WWDC Day One Coverage – TMO Daily Observations 2019-06-03
Dave and Kelly recap the first day of WWDC including the (public) keynote address and the State of the Union, new hardware, and new software.
WWDC19: Project Catalyst Could Help Revive Mac Gaming
Project Catalyst is Apple’s official name for what we now as Marzipan. It lets developers port iOS apps to the Mac. I think it can help revive Mac gaming, because presumably games will also be able to get ported. Apple Arcade will be available on macOS as well.
But the big news is clearly Catalyst. Details are still thin, and Apple will most likely share more information this afternoon during its State of the Union WWDC keynote.
Bypassing macOS Security With Synthetic Clicks
Security researcher Patrick Wardle found he can bypass macOS security by using synthetic clicks built with AppleScript.
Typically apps are signed with a digital certificate to prove that the app is genuine and hasn’t been tampered with. If the app has been modified to include malware, the certificate usually flags an error and the operating system won’t run the app. But a bug in Apple’s code meant that that macOS was only checking if a certificate exists and wasn’t properly verifying the authenticity of the whitelisted app.
Mr. Wardle refers to this as a “second stage” attack, because the hacker or malware needs access to your Mac to exploit this bug.
Apple is Shutting Down Back to My Mac on July 1
On July 1, 2019 Apple plans to shut down its Back to My Mac service. This let users set up a network of Macs that could be accessed remotely.
Splinternet, WWDC Wishes – TMO Daily Observations 2019-05-30
Bryan Chaffin and Andrew Orr join host Kelly Guimont for a discussion of walled-off sections of the internet and a look ahead at WWDC.
macOS 10.15 Screenshots Show Music and TV
9to5Mac has more screenshots of Apple’s future OS releases. Today we’re seeing macOS 10.15 screenshots of Music and TV.
Pandora Desktop App for Mac is Now Available
Pandora announced today that the Pandora desktop app for macOS is now available to download, giving you full-featured access to the streaming service.
Marzipan, iMessage's Social Media Play, WWDC Spoilers, with Andrew Orr - ACM 512
Will Marzipan be locked to the Mac App Store, and what effect will it have on the Mac experience? Bryan Chaffin is joined by Andrew Orr to discuss this, as well as the idea that iMessage is slowly backing its way to being Apple’s first successful social media play. They cap the show with a look at recent WWDC spoilers.
macOS: New Details on the Music Player in 10.15
Cult of Mac reports:
Some sources previously stated that the [macOS 10.15 Music] app would be made using Marzipan, which lets developers easily port iPad apps to the desktop. But new information reveals that won’t be the case.
In fact,
The Mac’s next-generation Music app will be based on iTunes, not ported over from iOS.
This makes some sense. The legacy macOS iTunes has a lot of Mac-specific code, including iOS device syncing and encrypted backups. But it’s probably also just phase one in the evolution of iTunes/Music on the Mac.
Apple Releases Patch for ZombieLoad Flaw in Intel Chips
ZombieLoad is a serious flaw affecting almost every Intel chip since 2011. Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have issue patches for it.
The tech giant said in an advisory that any system running macOS Mojave 10.14.5, released Monday, is patched. This will prevent an attack from being run through Safari and other apps. Most users won’t experience any decline in performance. But some Macs could face up to a 40 percent performance hit for those who opt-in to the full set of mitigations.
Crazy that Intel chips have had this since 2011. This is the first time I’ve heard of ZombieLoad.