This week Apple has released Release Candidates for iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, and Xcode 15.3, as well as the fifth beta for macOS 14.4, tvOS 17.4 and the fourth beta for visionOS 1.1. It seems that the iOS and iPadOS updates will be released in time to meet the EU DMA regulation deadline next week, while the other platforms will stick to the more traditional release timing.
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📰 News and Opinion
Apple Cancels Car Project
From the very early rumors about "Project Titan" it has been a strange journey. I am really curious about the inside scoops that are sure to be told down the road.
Mostly, I am relieved us Apple administrators will not have the extra task of deploying and managing cars, as well.
Mac Admins Foundation Announces New Officers, Four New At-Large Members
The Mac Admins Foundation today announces new appointments of the Executive Office to the Board of Directors, as well as the appointment of four new At-Large Board Members.
Tech has graduated from the Star Trek era to the Douglas Adams age
It is absurdly improbable that you can hoover up the internet, shred it, then talk to the mulch pile and it talks back.
Truly this is the age of Douglas Adams technology.
🔐 Security and Privacy
IT Teams are also Security Teams
When you approach the relationship of IT and security this way you get such a better return from every team’s work, and you find yourself working with security teams on a constant basis to deliver solutions to your organization.
🔨 Support and Tutorials
Platform SSO for macOS with Microsoft Intune and Entra ID
The new Platform SSO extension is available at the macOS Login window, so users can log in to Mac computers with their Identity Provider (IdP) credentials [...], and then automatically sign in to corporate apps and websites. The local account password is kept in sync with the identity provider so the cloud and local passwords are going to be always the same.
Setting Up Yubikey ECDSA SSH Keys
I wanted to revisit ssh keys on my iPhone. Prompt 3 came out recently and supported Yubi hardware keys
Granting Munki Full Disk Access
in recent releases of macOS, Munki needs to be granted Privacy Preferences Policy Control permissions to access certain disk locations or update some apps.
Changes to Microsoft AutoUpdate deferral options
these new keys appear to let you set a uniform deferral length for all applications, different deferrals for each application and the ability to pin apps to a specific version.
Solving login password problems
If you can’t seem to enter the right password, be very careful: don’t just keep trying in the hope that you’ll get it right, as you could end up locking up your Mac altogether. Here are some tips to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Good overview for end users. However, it is missing the option of using a FileVault Recovery Key to reset the password which is especially useful for managed Macs, where the key can be escrowed with the management system.
🤖 Scripting and Automation
Using the Jamf Pro API to download installer packages from a JCDS2 distribution point
a script which uses the Jamf Pro Classic API and Jamf Pro API to get the list of installer packages on a Jamf Pro server, retrieve the associated download links and download the installer packages to a directory on my Mac.
Swift scripts importing Cocoa frameworks broken on macOS 14
On macOS 14 Sonoma there is a regression in Swift 5.9 which causes Swift scripts that import Cocoa frameworks to fail.
♻️ Updates and Releases
🎧 Listen
Cody Thomas
we chat with Cody Thomas about his research into Keychain security, where he was able to find some successes in red teaming, and where his attempts were thwarted!
Webex comes to Apple TV and Vision Pro
Jeetu Patel from Cisco about Webex on the Apple TV and Vision Pro.