When it comes to OS updates, it is recommended that users install them as soon as possible. Some updates add cool new features, but the most important ones are the ones that fix bugs and make the system safer.
But iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS 13.3 were the updates that were worth waiting for. Depending on the problems you’ve had with your devices, they could be the most important updates of the year.
Apple released small updates to iOS 16.4 and macOS 13.3 on Friday. The updates are very small if you look at the release notes. There are only three small things mentioned—fixes to Siri, the ability to automatically unlock your Mac with an Apple Watch, and an emoji—but they are much bigger than that.
Do you know that after releasing the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the 7900X3D, AMD is starting to phase out the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which is much cheaper but not as powerful. The first listing comes straight from the Canadian version of Best Buy, which has the new CPU on backorder:
For one thing, they have two important security fixes for problems that “may have been actively exploited.” Also, it looks like they fix most, if not all, of the bugs that were introduced with iOS 16.4 and macOS 13.3.
iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4
- Weather app – The forecast is hard to see on the Weather app, which many of us use to set the mood for the day. This week, the Weather app lost all of its data. According to Apple’s System Status website, service has been restored, but the app still doesn’t work right. We don’t know for sure if the Weather app is fixed, but since Friday, we haven’t had any problems.
- Battery drain – Whenever a new update comes out, a number of users always complain that their battery life has gotten shorter. But there seem to be more anecdotal reports, like those on Apple’s Support Community, about iOS 16.4. YouTuber iAppleBytes has a video showing a Geekbench battery test with iOS 16.4, which backs up the claim that the battery life is shorter. Battery drain is hard to measure, but iOS 16.4.1 hasn’t caused us to notice any unusual battery drain.
- Home app – The architecture of the Home app, which is used to control smart home devices, was updated, but Apple made a mistake when it was released. It was first available in iOS 16.2, but it was taken away and put back in iOS 16.4. iMore says that there are now a lot of complaints about the changed app. In iOS 16.4, we didn’t have any problems, but in iOS 16.4.1, our Home app works well.
macOS Ventura 13.3
- Home directory – macOS 13.3 makes it hard for users to save their Home directories to external drives. System Integrity Protection can be turned off to get around this problem, but that’s not ideal. We’ve confirmed that the macOS Ventura 13.3.1 update fixes this problem.
- Quick Look – I haven’t had this problem, but many people in Apple’s Support Community can’t get Quick Look to work in macOS 13.3. Responses to the original post show that the problem is fixed by macOS 13.3.1.
- Universal Control and Handoff – These features, which rely on being connected to iCloud, have stopped working for some users after installing 13.3. The workaround is to log out of iCloud and then back in, but this can be a lot of trouble for some users, especially if they use iCloud to sync their photo library. We need to see if this bug is still there.