https://arstechnica.com/?p=1990115

Unfortunately WordPress (and this my blog) are not behaving tonight so all I can give you at the moment is the URL to an article explaining what’s new and what’s not included. Will update this as I can.

Later: A misbehaving VPN had to be totally removed. All is well now.

Apple releases iOS 17.2 and macOS 14.2, delays two features to 2024

watchOS and tvOS also saw updates today.

SAMUEL AXON –  12/11/2023, 3:53 PM

Today, Apple pushed out the public releases of iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, macOS Sonoma 14.2, watchOS 10.2, and tvOS 17.2.

iOS 17.2 and iPadOS 17.2’s flagship feature is the new Journal app, which Apple teased when it first introduced iOS 17 earlier. The app mimics several existing popular journaling apps in the App Store from third-party developers but leverages data from your Photos, workouts, and other Apple apps to make journaling suggestions.

Other features include the ability to tap a “catch-up arrow” to scroll to the first missed message in a conversation in Messages, the ability to take spatial video photos for later viewing on Vision Pro, and several tweaks and additions to the Weather app.

There are a few iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max-specific updates, too: The Translate app is now one of the main supported mappings for the Action button, and Apple says there have been improvements to the telephoto camera focusing speed in some situations.

There are still a couple of iOS features that were initially promised for the iOS 17 cycle that haven’t yet materialized: AirPlay for hotel room TVs and collaborative playlists in Apple Music. Those features will arrive sometime in 2024.

As is so often the case now, the latest macOS update (14.2) is comparatively modest. macOS gets some of the same tweaks to Messages and Weather. Additionally, “Enhanced AutoFill identifies fields in PDFs and other forms enabling you to populate them with information such as names and addresses from your contacts.”

[The article includes the full release notes which you can read by clicking thru on the URL at the top of this post.]