Apple Releases macOS Sonoma 14.1
Apple today released macOS Sonoma 14.1, the first major update to the macOS Sonoma operating system that initially came out in late September.
The macOS Sonoma 14.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Settings. Apple has also released macOS 13.6.1 and macOS 12.7.1 updates for older machines.
With macOS Sonoma 14.1, Apple has added a new warranty section that lets you see the AppleCare+ status of your Mac and connected AirPods, plus there are now options to favorite songs, albums, and playlists in the Apple Music app. Apple's full release notes for the update are below.
This update provides enhancements, bug fixes, and security updates for your Mac including:
- Favorites expanded in Music to include songs, albums, and playlists, and you can filter to display your favorites in the library
- Apple warranty status for Mac, AirPods, and Beats headphones and earbuds are available in System Settings
- Fixes an issue where the System Services settings within Location Services may reset
- Fixes an issue that may prevent encrypted external drives from mounting
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices.
For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222
In addition to macOS Sonoma 14.1, Apple has also released macOS Ventura 13.6.1 and macOS Monterey 12.7.1 with many of the same security fixes for those still running older versions of macOS.
More information on the features in macOS Sonoma can be found in our macOS Sonoma roundup.
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Top Rated Comments
Yes, I remember suffering from my fair share of bugs, graphical glitches, etc., but they were somehow… more benign. Even the great debacle that was the loss of functionality in iWork or in Final Cut Pro, when Apple rebooted their respective codebases, felt less gratuitous or disrespectful, because there was some sort of a program behind it and it WAS properly communicated to the end-users, even at a time when Apple's PR was a bit of a paranoid mess.
These regressions and silent feature deletions, half-assed implementations (like the CloudStorage framework and the world of hurt it wrought upon us, in my case as recently as… you've guessed it, the 14.0 update, which borked Time Machine in the process because of some really stupid decisions made by Apple engineering) and whatnot do feel a bit more sloppy and egregious than before. Back then Beta builds felt like Beta builds and RCs and GMs felt like RCs and GMs, whereas now everything feels like Beta builds, one after the other, with many old bugs left unfixed and new ones, including regressions, unannounced feature deletions, etc., rearing their ugly head.
For sure, I remember some infamous bugs like the one that caused data loss on external media connected during OS updates (was it some Leopard point update in the later G5 days? Maybe…). Yes, Apple did have some really dark moments in the past, but their current crop of software, especially on the Mac, gives off that “death by a thousand cuts” vibe so familiar in Microsoft products of yore (and current ones, as I've been sadly also realizing, and likely for similar reasons). I remember vividly what using PCs was like, and the kinds of issues I've been getting on the Mac remind me a lot of those. Especially the cryptic, non-human-readable/fixable nature of some of the structures put in place by Apple on top of NeXTSTEP/early OS X's simple elegance.
Apple engineering moving away from the com/org.[app developer].[app name].plist naming scheme and simple Application Support/[app developer]/[app name] hierarchy to whatever the hell they decided to come up with on their Containers and Group Containers folders is ridiculous (yes, I get it, it has to do with sandboxing, but… did they *really* need to add a numerical identifier for developers? Why didn't they use a similar naming convention to that of .plists and add such identifiers after their names, so as to not screw up alphabetic sorting, then? ?♂️), and the insanity that is TCC reeks of both Vista's UAC at its worst and, to add insult to injury, the Windows Registry itself. Trying to troubleshoot and fix TCC permission-related problems feels like complete voodoo, with some of those probably calling for an outright erase-and-install (seriously, at some point it may just be easier, and kind of makes me miss editing hex values by hand). Don't believe me? The fact that this page ('https://eclecticlight.co/downloads/') even has to exist (or, better yet, that a regular user might have to resort to it) in the first place is a bit worrying if you ask me.
TL;DR: it's not just the bugs, it's the inelegant way the OS is structured, and that unsettling vibe of technological debt slowly but steadily accruing. Yes, I know Apple has been “replacing parts of the engine while in flight” for a few years, but they've also been tacking a lot of cruft on the side (will you look at all those daemons in Activity Monitor, trashing your SSD and whatnot), and even when it's patently useful or even essential, it isn't nearly as elegant or well thought-out as early OS X components and structures were. It's hard to put a finger on it, but modern macOS, at least behind the curtain, kind of feels like a weird blend between the worst of Windows, Classic Mac OS and even OS X (namely its lack of transparency whenever something goes wrong, which has indeed been a longstanding problem), with but a veneer of user-friendliness on top.
Also, text rendering in Safari is STILL messed up beyond all recognition… Check out this post I just wrote a few minutes ago:
FFS APPLE!! Text rendering! Of ALL things, they can't get something as basic as this right?