Latest news with #macOSSequoia15.4
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Business Standard
29-07-2025
- Business Standard
Using Apple's Mac device? Update it to latest macOS now: Check reason here
Reportedly, Microsoft has disclosed a macOS flaw dubbed 'Sploitlight' that could have let attackers access highly sensitive data cached by Apple Intelligence. Apple has patched it with Sequoia 15.4 Spotlight on macOS New Delhi The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team uncovered a serious vulnerability in macOS that could have allowed attackers to steal personal data including files and caches linked to Apple Intelligence. The issue, dubbed 'Sploitlight', was found in how Spotlight, macOS's built-in search tool, handles certain plugins. While Apple fixed the flaw in macOS Sequoia 15.4 back in March 2025, Microsoft is now detailing how dangerous the bug could have been, especially because it could potentially reveal sensitive AI-generated data and affect other devices linked to the same iCloud account. What was the risk? At the core of this flaw is TCC (Transparency, Consent, and Control), a system Apple uses to protect private data like your location, photos, downloads, and more. Apps normally need your explicit permission to access such data. But Microsoft's researchers found a way to bypass these protections using Spotlight importers. These are essentially the plugins that help index files so they show up in searches. By tweaking how these plugins work, attackers could potentially access files without the user ever granting permission. The exposed data could include: Photo and video metadata, including face recognition tags Geolocation data Search history and app usage patterns AI-generated summaries from Apple Intelligence Private files in protected folders like Downloads One of the most concerning aspects of this vulnerability is its link to Apple Intelligence, Apple's suite of AI-powered tools for tasks like summarising emails or organising photos. These tools cache data locally to function quickly and privately. However, Microsoft discovered that those cached files could be accessed using this bug. That means attackers could potentially extract AI-generated content, including summaries of emails and notes, as well as data used in photo face recognition. Making matters worse, attackers with access to one device could infer information about other Apple devices tied to the same iCloud account. For instance, even though photo databases differ across devices, metadata like face tags and shared content are synced. So, someone accessing a Mac could gain partial insight into what's on the user's iPhone or iPad without physically accessing them. Has the vulnerability been addressed? Microsoft said that it disclosed the vulnerability through its Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure program. Apple addressed the issue – now tracked as CVE-2025-31199 – in an update released on March 31, 2025 – macOS Sequoia 15.4 version. While the Microsoft blog said that the vulnerability was never seen in the wild, users are still requested to update their Mac devices to macOS Sequoia 15.4 or later.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Yahoo
You Can Turn Off Apple's New AI Features in Mail for Mac
With macOS Sequoia 15.4, Apple fully rolled out all of its new Apple Intelligence features to the Mail app. As such, when you open Mail after updating to the latest OS, the app will look quite different. You'll see new "Mail Categories," a Priority Messages box, and email summaries, the latter two of which are powered by AI. It's not something many asked for, and you might be longing for the Mail app you're used to. But there's good news here: If you don't like these features, you can easily disable or customize them to suit your needs. How to disable Mail Categories on Mac Apple first added Mail Categories to the iPhone back in iOS 18.2. After a few rounds of updates, it's now front and center on the Mac, too. This feature automatically sorts all your emails into four neat boxes: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. Apple's positioning for this feature is a bit weird. While Apple is using on-device processing to sort out these emails, it's not actually an Apple Intelligence feature. So, turning off Apple Intelligence on the Mac won't instantly get rid of this feature, either. The idea is that Apple does all the heavy lifting to figure out which emails are most important and useful, and presents them to you in the Primary box. It mostly works, but it isn't always accurate. If you want to see all your emails at any given time, swipe right on the trackpad or Magic Mouse while hovering on the Categories tab to switch to the All Mail tab. This tab presents your messages in chronological order, as you're used to. But that might not be enough. If you want to disable the Categories view altogether, click the three dotted Menu button at the top of the Mail list, then uncheck Show Mail Categories. After that, the Mail list will be back to how it used to be. How to recategorize email In case you do like this feature and want to keep it around, here's a tip for when things go a bit wrong. In case the Mail app incorrectly categorizes an email, you can take a bit of manual control and point the app in the right direction. Right-click on an email in the Mail list, then choose Categorize Sender. Here, choose the category where you want the email to end up in. How to disable Priority Messages When you receive a time-sensitive email, or something that Apple deems significant (like an email from your company, or your family member) it will show up in a new Priority box on top of the Mail list. If you don't like this feature, there's a quick way to disable it as well. Click the three-dotted Menu button on top of the Mail window, then uncheck Show Priority Messages. How to disable AI summary previews Apple now provides a short summary for each email instead of showing you the first couple of lines. This too, is hit or a miss. Just like Notifications Summaries on iPhone, these Mail summaries can sometimes go horribly wrong, as the app changes the meaning of the message completely. If you don't like this feature, here's what to do: Go to Mail > Settings (Command + Comma) from the menu bar, and switch over to the Viewing tab. Here, uncheck Summarize Message Previews to get rid of Mail summaries. How to disable all Mail AI features Lastly, there's the nuclear option. To turn off all AI features in Mail, you can simply disable Apple Intelligence on your Mac. In one fell swoop, you can get rid of the Priority mail box, AI summaries, and the Summary button in emails, as well as hidden features like Apple Intelligence Writing Tools and Smart Replies options. To do this, open System Settings, go to Apple Intelligence & Siri and disable the Apple Intelligence toggle. From the popup, click Turn Off Apple Intelligence to confirm. Of course, when you do this, you'll also miss out on the new Siri design, Writing Tools, Gemmoji, Image Playground and more. But if you don't care for these AI features anyway, better to just keep them off completely.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
macOS Sequoia 15.4: All the New Features for Your Mac (And How to Use Them)
macOS Sequoia 15.4 is now available. It's probably the last feature-packed release until Apple restarts the beta cycle with iOS 16, iOS 19, and more at the WWDC in June. The update brings some missing Apple Intelligence capabilities to the Mac, but there are other changes to make your daily computing a bit smoother. What you won't get in this release is the promised AI-infused version of Siri since the feature has been delayed until later in 2025 or 2026. So grab your Mac and follow along with our rundown of the key new features in macOS Sequoia 15.4. macOS 15.4 brings Quick Start, Apple's proximity pairing setup, to the Mac. If you've ever set up your Apple TV using a nearby iPhone, you've used this feature. Quick Start in macOS Sequoia 15.4 streamlines the Mac setup process for iPhone and iPad owners. After reinstalling macOS on your existing Mac or setting up a new Mac, the built-in Setup Assistant will offer a new option to use a nearby iPhone or iPad to fast-track the process. Choose 'Set Up with Device' and follow the instructions. You'll need to unlock your iPhone, turn on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi if they're not already on, and bring the device near your Mac. Setup Assistant will display a unique pattern you'll need to scan with your iPhone to authorize the secure transfer of many of your settings, including saved passwords and Wi-Fi credentials. This includes stuff saved in iCloud, such as photos, messages, and files. You can also do this manually like before, but you'll need to use the keyboard to enter your Apple account password and other required information. macOS already supports adding new Macs enrolled with MDM solutions like Apple School Manager, Apple Business Manager, or Apple Business Essentials by scanning the image in Setup Assistant with the Apple Configurator app on an iPhone. The iOS device will display prompts asking you to enter your iCloud password and confirm sending diagnostic data from your Mac back to Apple. Your iPhone and iPad must use iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 for this to work. Like on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, Quick Start in macOS Sequoia 15.4 supports transferring data to a new Mac wirelessly or via a USB cable. Every Apple silicon Mac comes with Image Playground, Apple's app for AI image creation. Image Playground in macOS Sequoia (and iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4) includes a new drawing style, Sketch, that boosts your images with hand-drawn effects. Joining the existing Animation and Illustration styles, the Sketch option is 'an academic and highly detailed style' that 'produces gorgeous drawings on stark backgrounds,' says Apple. It uses 'a vibrant color palette combined with technical lines to produce realistic drawings.' As of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, the Sketch option is available in Image Wand. Image Wand is an Apple Intelligence feature in the built-in Notes app that makes it easy to add drawings to notes by sketching out a rough idea or using the surrounding context, such as words in your note. Image Playground is available as a standalone app and a built-in option in many apps, including Messages, Freeform, and more. All AI-generated images are created on the device without sending anything to Apple's servers or Apple Intelligence partners like OpenAI. The Apple Passwords app introduced in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia has gained a useful visual tweak for two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. Each 2FA code in the app now has a gray ring that fills with green, indicating how much time is left before it expires. Once the code expires, the Passwords app generates a new one and restarts the timer. The timer appears inside the Codes section and on password pages in the app. I especially like that it shows up directly in the menu bar, where I can get a 2FA code with just a few clicks without keeping the Passwords app open. By default, accessing saved passwords and verification codes via the macOS menu bar is disabled. To turn it on, click the Passwords > Settings menu and tick the 'Show Passwords in Menu Bar' box. I like these types of quality-of-life improvements. 2FA codes are time-based, and I fumbled entering them before, so I'm glad Apple has added this long-overdue feature to the Passwords app. The code expiration timer is also available in the iPhone and iPad versions of Apple Passwords with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. Apple Mail gets an important upgrade in macOS Sequoia 15.4—automatic message categorization, which arrived earlier on the iPhone and iPad with iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2. The great thing about mail categorization is that it doesn't require Apple Intelligence. Turned on by default, the feature will neatly split your incoming emails into four distinct views, labeled "Primary," "Transactions," "Updates," and "Promotions." Primary: The Primary view includes emails that the algorithm has deemed urgent, so you can quickly digest them at a glance. This includes personal emails and any time-sensitive messages, including from other views. Transactions: This view aggregates all emails related to order confirmations, receipts, shipping notices, etc. Updates: The Updates view is reserved for service-related messages, subscription emails, news, newsletters, social updates, and similar notices. Promotions: Finally, this view includes sales emails from apps and websites regarding various sales offers, deals, discounts, coupons, and similar marketing items. To switch between these views, click or swipe across their labels at the top. To return to the full view listing all emails in chronological order, click the view you're already on in the upper-right corner of the inbox. Alternatively, click Mailbox > Go to Mailbox Category > All Mail or press Option+Command+5 on the keyboard. Gmail has a similar feature that cuts through clutter. I'm glad this new Mail feature doesn't require Apple Intelligence, as I can use it on my ancient 2018 Intel-based MacBook Pro. Triaging my inbox based on the types of messages received is much faster than manually sorting through messages to find important correspondence with my doctor or a time-sensitive alert from Netflix warning me I need to update my payment method on file. After you upgrade to macOS Sequoia, the Categories view will be turned on by default. Should you discover the message categorization algorithm doesn't work well for you, you can turn this feature off anytime by clicking View > Show Mail Categories. The Mail app in macOS Sequoia 15.4 also brings a new digest view that pulls together all the relevant emails from a business, so you can scan for what's important at the moment. macOS Sequoia 15.4 brings the option to create Memory Movies in Apple's Photos app, which has been available on the iPhone and iPad since iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1. Memory Movies is an Apple Intelligence feature, so you must have an Apple silicon Mac (M1 or later) to use it. Instead of manually creating a slideshow or picking one the app has created for you, you can quickly create a compelling slideshow featuring music and animation out of simple prompts such as 'Play time with my cat Sergey' or 'My son with his dog, happy vibes.' All your memories are available in the Memories > Created section. To use the feature, switch to the Memories section by clicking View > Collections > Memories and type a descriptive query. You can use the word 'Me' in your query, as well as people or pet names, in which case you may be prompted to select an appropriate face from the library. These AI-curated video montages can be saved as video files in the Photos or Files app or shared with friends and family on social media apps and websites. Memory Movies is basically an LLM frontend for the existing animated slideshow feature in the Photos app. However, I've noticed a few quirks. Sometimes it would wrongly parse the query and include media that didn't fit my description at all. Other times, Memory Movies had difficulty understanding my description of the images I wanted to include in a slideshow, highlighting how far Apple's computer vision algorithm is behind OpenAI and Google. Check your finished movie before sharing. The Memory Movies feature has a bug causing it to include media from the Hidden section of the Photos app. The built-in News app on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad gets a dedicated section for foodies in macOS Sequoia 15.4, iOS 18.4, and iPadOS 18.4. It hosts thousands of recipes, cooking tips, restaurant reviews, and curated stories about healthy eating from the leading food publishers. As per Apple, the section will feature content from Allrecipes, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Good Food, and Serious Eats. Select "Food" in the News app sidebar to start exploring. New recipes are added daily, and you can browse, search, and filter them all in the Recipe Catalog section. You can save your favorite recipes to access them offline later. 'The beautifully designed recipe format makes it easy to review ingredients and directions, and a new cook mode takes step-by-step instructions to the full screen,' said Apple. The Food section is restricted to Apple News+ subscribers, which might limit its appeal. Only 'select stories and recipes' are accessible to non-subscribers. Non-news content such as puzzles and food recipes helps make Apple News+ more enticing. The Food section might even make some folks reconsider subscribing to News+. A subscription to Apple News+ unlocks hundreds of top publications is $13 in the United States, £13 in the United Kingdom, $17 in Canada, and $20 in Australia. Apple Intelligence in macOS Sequoia 15.4, iOS 18.4, and iPadOS 18.4 has expanded to new English locales with localized support for Apple Intelligence users in Singapore and India, and eight non-English languages: French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified). If you live in any of those countries and own an M1 Mac or newer, you can now summarize text with Writing Tools, create custom AI emoji with Genmoji, and use other Apple Intelligence features. 'These new languages will be accessible in nearly all regions around the world with the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4 in April,' Apple noted. macOS Sequoia, iOS 18.4, and iPadOS 18.4 introduce two new widget types for the built-in Podcasts app on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad: Library and Shows. The Library widget lets you play episodes from a specific list in your library. In contrast, the Shows widget shows you episodes from a particular show you follow. Podcasts search in macOS Sequoia 15.4 also suggests relevant shows and creators as you type, helping you find what you're looking for faster. Put these widgets on your Mac's desktop to access your favorite shows quicker. To do so, bring up the Notification Center by clicking the date and time in the macOS menu bar or swiping left from the right trackpad edge, then click 'Edit Widgets' at the bottom. Select 'Podcasts' in the sidebar of the widget gallery and scroll through the available widgets for the app. You can add widgets to your Notification Center or drag and drop them onto the desktop. To customize what the widget displays, like a specific podcast show, Control-click the widget on your desktop and choose the 'Edit' command from the menu. Don't forget you can also use widgets from your iPhone on your Mac, even if they don't have macOS versions. macOS Sequoia 15.4 brings a total of seven new emoji characters to the Mac that the Unicode Consortium officially approved in May 2024: Bags under the eyes Harp Shovel Leafless tree Root vegetable Fingerprint Splatter These new emoji characters are also available on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch with the iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and watchOS 11.4 updates. Apple has finally rolled out the promised but delayed support for robot vacuum cleaners in the built-in Home app. You can add any Matter 1.2-compatible cleaner to the Home app, such as this Roomba robot that can wash its own mop. Doing so will let you manage the device in the Home app, use it in automations and automatic scenes, and use your voice to ask Siri to clean a specific room. Robovac support in the Home app is available across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch with the iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS Sequoia 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and watchOS 11.4 updates. Samsung has said that it will bring support for robot vacuum cleaners through Matter to its SmartThings platform this summer. macOS Sequoia 15.4 also unlocks support for SDUC cards larger than 2TB on Apple silicon Macs equipped with an internal SD card reader. I also appreciate various quality-of-life ecosystem improvements, which make performing tasks across devices smoother, like the code expiration time in the Passwords app. Also, I'm definitely looking to trying out proximity pairing the next time I set up a Mac from scratch.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Apple Intelligence features expand to new languages, regions
Apple (AAPL) said that Apple Intelligence is expanding to 'even more people around the world.' The company stated: 'Starting Monday, with the availability of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4, Apple Intelligence features are now available in many new languages, including French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese – as well as localized English for Singapore and India – and are accessible in nearly all regions around the world. In addition, iPhone and iPad users in the EU have access to Apple Intelligence features for the first time, and Apple Intelligence expands to a new platform with an initial set of features available in U.S. English with Apple Vision Pro – helping users communicate, collaborate, and express themselves in entirely new ways. Now, Vision Pro users can proofread, rewrite, and summarize text using Writing Tools; compose text from scratch using ChatGPT in Writing Tools; explore new ways to express themselves visually with Image Playground; create the perfect emoji for any conversation with Genmoji; and much more. This release also comes with additional Apple Intelligence features, including Priority Notifications to help users stay on top of time-sensitive communications, the ability to create a memory movie on Mac by simply typing a description, and an added Sketch style in Image Playground that creates academic and highly detailed sketches.' Discover the latest stocks recommended by top Wall Street analysts, all in one place with Analyst Top Stocks. Make smarter investments with weekly expert stock picks from the Smart Investor Newsletter. Published first on TheFly – the ultimate source for real-time, market-moving breaking financial news. Try Now>> See Insiders' Hot Stocks on TipRanks >> Read More on AAPL: Disclaimer & DisclosureReport an Issue Rocket acquires Mr. Cooper, Musk's xAI acquires X: Morning Buzz Roth MKM Internet/capital markets analyst holds analyst/industry conference call TSMC Stock Struggles Amid U.S. Expansion and Growing Tensions France Fines Apple (AAPL) €150 Million Over 'Unfair' Privacy Pop-Up Apple put buyer realizes 10% same-day gains
Forbes
01-04-2025
- Forbes
Apple Intelligence Now Available In India, Brazil And More Regions
Apple Intelligence Create a Movie Memory feature Prakhar Khanna Apple Intelligence is expanding to more regions and languages. With the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 updates, it is now available in localized English for India and Singapore, as well as eight new languages. You can use Apple's 'personal intelligence system' in French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. For those unaware, Apple Intelligence is a set of AI features for Apple products, similar to how Galaxy AI works for Samsung Galaxy devices. It allows you to seek assistance in writing, understand multiple notifications in a single summary, and more. These features are integrated across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS and are now rolling out to visionOS, too. Here's a list of features you can find across your Apple devices with the latest update in your region: I've been using Apple Intelligence in English (US) since launch, and while it hasn't transformed my user experience, I like a few aspects of it. The goofiness of Notification Summary adds a fun element, while Clean Up gives me quick editing tools to remove distractions from my photos. Visual Intelligence needs better reliability, and I'm still waiting for Siri to get smarter. That being said, Apple Intelligence rolling out to more regions is a positive step toward development after the initial hiccups.
