Zoom / Studio Display Apple received a firmware update today to improve the performance of its webcam.
Andrew Cunningham
Apple released new software updates for all of its platforms on Tuesday. This includes the following:
- iOS 15.5 for iPhone and iPod touch
- iPadOS 15.5 for iPad
- macOS 12.4 for Mac
- watchOS 8.6 for Apple Watch
- tvOS 15.5 for Apple TV
- HomePod 15.5 software for HomePods
- Studio display firmware 15.5 for studio display
- Swift Playgrounds 4.1 for iPad and Mac
These are almost certainly the latest updates ahead of the company’s annual developer conference, which is scheduled to begin on June 6. Among other things, Apple will announce iOS and iPadOS 16, macOS 13 and watchOS 9 at the conference, but these updates won not arrive until later this year.
iOS 15.5
Today’s iOS update offers enough new features aimed at users to earn this 15.x label instead of 15.xx, which is usually reserved for bug fixes and the like.
However, all this is a small update. The built-in Podcasts app gets “a new setting to limit episodes stored on your Mac and automatically delete older ones.”
A 15.5 allows the iPhone to be used as a device for sale without additional hardware, as reported in February.
Advertising
Previously, vendors such as farm stalls and home repair services used iPhones with additional hardware attached from companies such as Stripe to receive payments.
Now the iPhone doesn’t need these attachments; Stripe works great with the iPhone that just came out of the box.
In addition, iOS 15.5 offers safety features in the Messages app designed to prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate content in the following new countries:
- Australia
- Canada
- New Zealand
- Great Britain
- United States
macOS 12.4
On the part of macOS, Apple names only two changes aimed at consumers in its release notes. It adds support for Studio Display Firmware Update 15.5 (which claims to improve webcam performance on Apple’s new monitor), and the built-in Podcasts app gets the same new feature that iOS did.
However, macOS 12.4 includes more than 50 security updates under the hood, according to Apple’s support documentation.
watchOS 8.6
watchOS 8.6 is a relatively minor update. It extends some of the watch’s health features – namely heart rate detection and ECG – to Apple Watch users in Mexico.
Other updates
Studio Display Firmware 15.5 tries to respond to some user complaints about the quality of the monitor’s webcam. Apple has not shared any details about what is in the firmware update of HomePod or tvOS 15.5.
There is also Swift Playgrounds 4.1 for Mac and iPad. This is not an OS update, but it appeared at about the same time. It allows users to use Playgrounds to create applications with SwiftUI on Mac and deepens the integration of App Store Connect to publish applications, among other things.
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