A new beta, a surprising security update (which also fixes a Bluetooth battery drain issue on Monterey), an announcement on the AirTag tracking. Apple sure was busy this week. But everyone else seems to be really busy, too. Lots of news, updates and releases this week.
(Sponsor: vast limits)
uberAgent: application performance monitoring
uberAgent is an innovative user experience monitoring product for macOS and Windows. uberAgent’s highlights include detailed information about application performance, network reliability drill-downs, application usage metering, browser performance, and web app metrics. Try for yourself and get your free 100 user community license at uberagent.com.
Another emerging topic is Apple’s treatment of the App Store ecosystem and the developers. There have been a few lawsuits and decisions around the world and I believe that Apple’s reactions might shape the company’s future and their public perception more than any VR/AR products that might be announced.
If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)
News and Opinion
- iPhone 13 Pro: The Edge of Intelligent Photography — Sebastiaan de With, Lux
- Jamf CEO weighs in on Apple deployments and enterprise security – Jonny Evans, Computerworld
- Apple in 2021: The Six Colors report card – Jason Snell, Six Colors
- My Part of the Six Colors Apple Report Card – Tom Bridge
- Apple’s profit is always the priority–no matter the cost – Jason Snell, Macworld
- On Sideloading on iPhone: It’s OK, I’m Changing My Mind – Numeric Citizen Blog
- An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking – Apple
- BeyondCorp is dead, long live BeyondCorp – Maya Kaczorowski
- A Good Example of a Bad Example – John C. Welch
macOS 12 Monterey and iOS 15
macOS and iOS Updates
- macOS Monterey 12.2.1
- iOS 15.3.1
- iPadOS 15.3.1
- watchOS 8.4.2
- Apple security updates
- Apple has released Monterey 12.2.1 and a Safari update – Howard Oakley
- Apple Releases macOS 12.2.1 Monterey, iOS 15.3.1, iPadOS 15.3.1, and watchOS 8.4.2 – Josh Centers, TidBITS
- What has changed in macOS Monterey 12.2.1? – Howard Oakley
- macOS Monterey 12.2.1 Update (21D62) Fixes BT Battery Drain! – Mr. Macintosh
MacAdmins on Twitter
- Guilherme Rambo: “Thoughts on iOS sideloading. Apple (and people who defend Apple no matter what) make it out as being a big deal that’s going to completely destroy the security of the platform and harm a huge number of innocent users. The reality is way less exciting…” (Thread)
- mikey: “iOS 15.3.1 and macOS 12.2.1 patch a WebKit use after free (UAF) (CVE-2022-22620). Apple aware that it may have been exploited in the wild”
- James Rath: “Just a bummer that there aren’t many tracking alternatives for blind folks. Airtags and precision finding are incredibly accessible with VoiceOver support. And we’re a an audience who benefit significantly from things like AirTags. I tried Tile & the app was inaccessible.”
Security and Privacy
- Mac Malware-Dropping Adware Gets More Dangerous – Jai Vijayan, Dark Reading
- Beyond the good ol’ LaunchAgents, 26, Finder Sync Plugins – Csaba Fitzl
- Beyond the good ol’ LaunchAgents, 27, Dock shortcuts – Csaba Fitzl
- Beyond the good ol’ LaunchAgents, 28, Authorization Plugins – Csaba Fitzl
Support and HowTos
- Python 2 is dead: Long live Python! – Armin Briegel, Jamf Blog
- Apple Classroom Issues: Part 2 (Now With a LaunchDaemon!) – Rebecca Latimer
- Managing snapshots: how to stop them eating free space – Howard Oakley
- Why do installer packages expire, but apps don’t? Signing certificate and notarization oddities – Howard Oakley
- MunkiReport and Python 2 – Kevin M. Cox
- A guided tour of M1 Recovery – Howard Oakley
Scripting and Automation
- A shell command to create JSON: jo – Jan-Piet Mens
- Things to do with Dialog – Bart Reardon
- Sometimes, High-Level Languages don’t suck – John C. Welch
- A Jamf Pro API Helper in Bash – macnotes
Apple Support
- List of available trusted root certificates in iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, macOS 12.1, tvOS 15.1, and watchOS 8.1 – Apple Support (updated)
- Technotes – Apple Developer Documentation (unfortunately no RSS feed yet)
- What to do if you get an alert that an AirTag, Find My network accessory, or set of AirPods is with you (updated)
- Keep track of personal items using Find My (updated)
Updates and Releases
- Dialog v1.9.1
- esmat: New Free macOS Endpoint Security Message Analysis Tool – Helge Klein, uberAgent
- IOBrowser 1.0.0 – A macOS application for browsing the IOKit registry
- google/santa v2022.1 · (Now with USB Mass Storage blocking)
- Installomator v9.0
- BIG-RAT/Prune: Remove unused items from your Jamf server
- WhiteBox Packages 1.2.10
- New packaging features in Adobe Admin Console – Adobe Support Community (Universal Packages! via Darren Wallace and Patrik Fergus)
To Listen
- Weldon Dodd – Mac Admins Podcast
- Low Hanging Fruit & Slow Paying Clients — Command-Control-Power
- Mike McNeil FleetDM – MacDevOpsYVR
Support
If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!
If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!