macOS 14 Sonoma Shipping Soon
Apple today at its “Wonderlust” event announced that macOS Sonoma, the latest version of its Mac operating system, will be available to all users with compatible Mac models starting on Tuesday, September 26.
Wow, this is the first time the new macOS has been released in September since Mojave. It’s usually not until October or November.
I was expecting and would have liked a bit more time to polish SpamSieve 3, but I’m still planning to ship it before Sonoma. Apple Mail on Sonoma won’t work with SpamSieve 2.x. There are two key bugs with Mail extensions that I reported with previous macOS versions and refiled with the Sonoma beta, but they have not been fixed.
I also found a new bug this summer where Mail sometimes just stops communicating with a Mail extension (FB12819637). Apple did actually reply to this one (on August 3), but its response made no sense to me, as it seemed to be inconsistent with what diagnostics on the affected Macs showed. I asked for clarification and submitted Mail sysdiagnose files from many different beta testers’ Macs but never heard back.
Needless to say, it’s a shame that the Mail extensions API remains almost as limited and broken as it was upon introduction. But I’ve worked around the bugs—so that, if necessary, SpamSieve can operate without even using the Mail extension—and in the end it works quite well.
Apple today shared in-depth lists of all new features coming with the iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma software updates, which are all set to be released later this month. The lists are available as PDFs on Apple’s website.
This is great.
Whoa, Apple discovered a different kind of cutting edge button technology in macOS Sonoma!
There’s a new Sync Now button for iCloud Photos.
For those who prefer to wait a bit longer, be very careful when you choose to update, say, to 13.6, and when you use SilentKnight. It’s likely that, like Ventura, Apple will release Sonoma as an update, rather than using the full installer for an upgrade. Don’t get caught and unintentionally become an early adopter.
Previously:
- macOS 14 Sonoma Public Beta
- RIP Apple Mail Plug-ins
- Feedback Through an Intermediary
- macOS 14 Sonoma Announced
- Mail App Extensions
Update (2023-09-14): Mullvad VPN (via Hacker News):
During the macOS 14 Sonoma beta period Apple introduced a bug in the macOS firewall, packet filter (PF). This bug prevents our app from working, and can result in leaks when some settings (e.g. local network sharing) are enabled. We cannot guarantee functionality or security for users on macOS 14, we have investigated this issue after the 6th beta was released and reported the bug to Apple. Unfortunately the bug is still present in later macOS 14 betas and the release candidate.
So as near as I can figure:
a) Sonoma blocks access to wifi names unless you have Location permissions enabled.
b) Sonoma does not prompt for Location permissions if your app tries to access wifi names.
b) Sonoma has no way to manually add an app to the Location permission system.
I am extremely impressed by the quality of the new dictation in macOS and iOS. This is the best dictation that I have used, with the exception of Dragon Dictate, which allowed you to make corrections and add custom vocabulary. If Apple ever adds a system where it learned from corrections, it will truly be amazing.
