Apple Releases iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1 Ventura, watchOS 9.2, and tvOS 16.2

When I updated my M1 MacBook Air, System Settings didn’t display any release information

That’s because of bad UI design not indicating to you what you’re expected to do.

You didn’t select the update. Even if this is the only update in the list, until you manually select it, you won’t see any release notes. Not that those terse bullets are worth a whole lot anyway though. :wink:

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Unmentioned by Apple but noticed by Howard Oakley is the fact that macOS 13.1 restores the Network Locations feature to System Settings.

FI. NAL. LY! :clap:

I’m still surprised fixing a simple oversight like this (BTW, beta testers, perhaps you might want to wake up next time?) takes exactly 50 days for company with $250B in cash on hand. Something tells me it shouldn’t quite cost that much or be that complicated. But heck, what do I know?

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Grr! Yeah, Apple’s page about HomePod Software had no update, and I wasn’t seeing it for our original HomePods, but now mine say they’re downloading HomePod Software 16.1.

Aha! Our HomePod mini says it’s downloading 16.2 which has “general performance and stability improvements.”

Fixed in the article now.

Seriously? Wow, that’s terrible interface design. I’ve avoided System Settings for the most part, but every time I go in, I’m shocked at how bad it is.

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Just because a flaw is reported, doesn’t mean it will get fixed any time soon. I would hazard a guess that less than half the beta bugs reported end up being fixed before public release. Apple management appears to be aware of this now and has said things will improve, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

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I’m surprised that Apple hasn’t mentioned the updates for the new (optional) Home architecture updates in either this or tvOS 16.2 release notes.

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I’ve had frequent kernel panics on my M1 MBP since upgrading to Ventura. Too early to tell, but I hope this update nixes that.

Had a look at Freeform and the first thing that jumped out on me was: no dark mode. I’d use it for astronomy projects with colleagues at the planetarium, so dark mode is essential there. I’ll put in a feature request.

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I just tried Freeform on my iPhone. It looks like there are some nice features, but my first thought was why didn’t they just upgrade Notes to add the additional markup features?

Now there are two note taking apps basically, right?

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Happily using Freeform here. It’s ideal for quick diagramming for my tech support work before getting bogged down in Visio. It’s made a very good first impression with me.

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And it’s still saying 16.1 today.

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Is there a use case for Freeform outside of iPad & Pencil?

Has anyone updated whose Mac is on an older OS? Does syncing still work? I’ll probably be on Mojave for a while but rely on syncing. Thanks!

Yes, it should still work unless you take advantage of Advanced Data Protection on one of your other platforms that did apply one of these updates. Doing so will ask you to remove all other platforms from iCloud.

Since updating iOS and iPadOS to 16.2 I’ve had to manually reconnect and re-enter WiFi network passwords on networks I regularly connected to.

They’re still there in the iCloud Keychain, my Macs are happily reconnecting.

Anyone else seen this, or just me?

On recent macOS updates I’ve sometimes experienced that my Mac will disconnect from my home wifi after several hours and refuse to reconnect. It’s not a password issue, just failure to connect to network. Restart the Mac and gone. My home wifi is AirPort Extreme (last gen) based and usually rock stable so this is definitely related to the updates. I have no idea why a restart would “fix” it. Since there is a lot of common code used between macOS and iOS, especially for stuff like network layer, I wonder if these issues could be related. Have you tried a forced restart of your iPhone/iPad?

Unfortunately HomepodOS 16.2 has introduced a pause when sound tracks are in a loop. I have been using a waterfall sound track for tinnitus and it smoothly looped before the 16.2 update. Now there is a pause for a couple of seconds, making it useless for sleep therapy.
I have sent feedback to Apple. They know how to fix it because it happened with OS 15.4!

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I’ve been sticking with Monterey on my M2 MBAir since I’d read Ventura caused problems, which I wasn’t having, and didn’t bring improvements or features that I’d miss. Is Ventura 13.1 now better/safe/recommended?

Of course this is just me, but I’ve had no issues at all (with the exception of learning my way through the new settings app at times) on any version of Ventura on my M2 MBA. 13.1 has been fine for me. As I mentioned on another thread, the 13.1 upgrade was the first time I restarted it even logged out of my user account since 13.0.1 came out.

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I have to admit for me Ventura seems to have been one of the better ones. Nothing new AFAICT got broken. Some old glitches not fixed yet perhaps, but nothing new that’s broken here (M1 Pro 14", M1 Max 14", M1 MBA) . I don’t care about any of Ventura’s new “features” like Stage Manager or the new Settings GUI, but I will say that I am feeling pretty good about ADP.

Edit: one little exception does come to mind. Getting generic icons in Mail for attached PDFs stinks. That was never an issue in Monterey. And it’s nowhere else (Finder, etc) other than in Mail.

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I’m more excited for Freeform now that I’m dealing with multiple, large initiatives with many moving parts that all link together in various ways. I’m using a similar (and costly) tool to plot these out and visualize how they relate, which is incredibly useful. Unfortunately, Freeform is Apple only, so it’s of limited utility for people who work in a mixed environment.