They say no news is good news, and we’re sorry to say that this week’s issue of TidBITS is chock full of the bad kind. Apple had to push out two emergency updates to macOS to close a massive security vulnerability, and the company released iOS 11.2 ahead of schedule to eliminate an infinite reboot bug. While Apple had an awful week, the entire Internet may have had a worse one, as Ajit Pai’s FCC is set to eliminate Obama-era net neutrality protections. On top of everything else, Rich Mogull explains how iOS 11 makes your encrypted backups via iTunes less secure, albeit with the silver lining of making it harder to lock yourself out of them. There is one bit of unalloyed good news this week: Amazon says its Prime Video app for the Apple TV will ship this month. Notable software releases this week include Keyboard Maestro 8.0.4, BBEdit 12.0.2, BusyCal 3.2.5 and BusyContacts 1.2.6, LaunchBar 6.9.3, and Default Folder X 5.1.9.
Less than 24 hours after the news about the root vulnerability bug broke on Twitter, Apple has pushed Security Update 2017-001 to address it on all Macs running macOS 10.13 High Sierra. If it hasn’t already installed itself on your Macs, we recommend installing it immediately.
Why did Apple release a major iOS update before dawn on a Saturday morning? Josh Centers explains. Also, Apple Pay Cash is now available. Kind of. Not really.
Believe it or not, Amazon says that the Amazon Prime Video app for the Apple TV is still due to ship this year.
The FCC is set to rescind Obama-era regulations that mandate net neutrality — and what happens next is anybody’s guess.
In iOS 11, Apple has changed things so encrypted iTunes backups can now be restored with either the separate backup password or the device passcode. This move reduces security, but it also reduces the likelihood that users will forget the password and lose access to their backups.
Notable software releases this week include Keyboard Maestro 8.0.4, BBEdit 12.0.2, BusyCal 3.2.5 and BusyContacts 1.2.6, LaunchBar 6.9.3, and Default Folder X 5.1.9.
In ExtraBITS this week, developer Marco Arment offers some suggestions for how Apple could improve the MacBook Pro, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reveals the messy development history of Apple’s forthcoming HomePod.