Apple Seeds Second Public Beta of macOS Sonoma 14.4

by

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming macOS Sonoma 14.4 update to public beta testers, allowing non-developers to test the software ahead of its launch. The second public beta comes a week after Apple released the first public beta.

macos sonoma 4
Beta testers can opt-in through the Software Update section of the System Settings app. Under Beta updates, simply toggle on the Sonoma Public Beta. Note that you must sign up to participate on Apple's beta testing website.

macOS Sonoma 14.4 introduces some of the features in the iOS 17.4 beta, such as new emoji characters. We don't know what Mac-specific features are included, but nothing new has been found in the developer betas so far.

Related Forum: macOS Sonoma

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 18

Apple Announces iOS 18.2 Launching Today With These New Features

Wednesday December 11, 2024 5:23 am PST by
Apple has announced that iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 will be released today following more than six weeks of beta testing. For the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, the update introduces additional Apple Intelligence features, including Genmoji for creating custom emoji, Image Playground and Image Wand for generating images, and ChatGPT integration for Siri. There is also ...
Read Full Article • 57 comments
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds Second Release Candidate Versions of iOS 18.2 and More With Genmoji, Image Playground and ChatGPT Integration

Monday December 9, 2024 10:06 am PST by
Apple today seeded the second release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2 updates to developers and public beta testers for testing purposes, a week after releasing the first RCs. The first iOS 18.2 RC had a build number of 22C150, while the second RC's build number is 22C151. Release candidates represent the final version of beta software that's expected to see a ...
Read Full Article • 93 comments
iPhone SE 4 Single Camera Thumb 3

iPhone SE 4 Said to Feature 48MP Rear Lens, 12MP TrueDepth Camera

Monday December 9, 2024 4:48 am PST by
Apple's forthcoming iPhone SE 4 will feature a single 48-megapixel rear camera and a 12-megapixel TrueDepth camera on the front, according to details revealed in a new Korean supply chain report. ET News reports that Korea-based LG Innotek is the main supplier of the front and rear camera modules for the more budget-friendly ~$400 device, which is expected to launch in the first quarter of...
Read Full Article • 133 comments
Apple MacBook Pro M4 hero

MacBook Pros With OLED Displays Won't Have a Notch, Roadmap Shows

Monday December 9, 2024 7:36 am PST by
Apple plans to remove the notch from the MacBook Pro in a few years from now, according to a roadmap shared by research firm Omdia. The roadmap shows that 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models released in 2026 will have a hole-punch camera at the top of the display, instead of a notch. It is unclear if there would simply be a pinhole in the display, or if Apple would expand the iPhone's...
Read Full Article • 116 comments
vipps nfc tap to pay iphone

World's First Apple Pay Alternative for iPhone Launches in Norway

Monday December 9, 2024 1:28 am PST by
Norwegian payment service Vipps has become the world's first company to launch a competing tap-to-pay solution to Apple Pay on iPhone, following Apple's agreement with European regulators to open up its NFC technology to third parties. Starting December 9, Vipps users in Norway can make contactless payments in stores using their iPhones. The service initially supports customers of SpareBank...
Read Full Article • 179 comments
New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Friday December 6, 2024 4:42 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. There are a handful of new non-AI related feature controls...
Read Full Article • 28 comments
Apple Watch Series 10 lineup 240909 feature

Apple Watch Could Get Blood Pressure Monitoring in 2025

Tuesday December 10, 2024 11:51 am PST by
Apple is ramping up work on a blood pressure monitoring feature for the Apple Watch and it could be ready as soon as 2025, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Blood pressure monitoring is a health addition that Apple has been working on for the last several years, and based on rumors, Apple wanted to debut it in 2024. The feature would not provide exact systolic and diastolic blood pressure...
Read Full Article • 68 comments
macOS Sequoia Night Feature

Apple Releases macOS Sequoia 15.2 With New Apple Intelligence Features

Wednesday December 11, 2024 10:02 am PST by
Apple today released macOS Sequoia 15.2, the second update to the macOS Sequoia operating system that was released in September. macOS Sequoia 15.2 comes over a month after the release of macOS Sequoia 15.1. Mac users can download the ‌macOS Sequoia‌ update through the Software Update section of System Settings. macOS Sequoia 15.2 adds Image Playground, an app that lets you create...
Read Full Article • 137 comments

Top Rated Comments

Lvivske Avatar
Lvivske
11 months ago


Attachment Image
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
justanthonylee Avatar
justanthonylee
11 months ago

Why does Apple insists to use the CGI/fake wallpapers? I doesn't look good and it hurts my eyes.
I miss the real world photos of seas and mountains. And when the interface was intuitive/easy to use.
It's almost like there are a bunch of other wallpapers and real world captures in settings to pick from....



Attachment Image
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tywebb13 Avatar
tywebb13
11 months ago
The Sonoma 14.4 beta 2 build number is 23E5191e

Yesterday the ipsw was available for the developer beta from the apple developer center at https://developer.apple.com

Now the full installer is also available.

The full installers for the ventura 13.6.5 rc 2 build 22G610 and monterey 12.7.4 rc 2 build 21H1111 are also available now too.

To get the full installer InstallAssistant.pkg you can run these commands in Terminal and the relevant links and build numbers will be revealed:

Sonoma:

for file in $(curl -# https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-14seed-1.sucatalog | grep Info.plist | grep -Evw '(Info.plist.integrityDataV1|InstallInfo.plist)' | sed -e s/"<string>"//g -e s/"<\/string>"//g -e s/\ //g); do
curl -# $file | egrep -EA 1 '(>Build<|OSVersion)' | sed -e s/"<string>"//g -e s/"<\/string>"//g -e s/\ //g | sed -e s/"<key>"//g -e s/"<\/key>"//g -e s/\ //g
echo $file | sed -e "s/Info.plist/InstallAssistant.pkg/g"
done

Ventura:

for file in $(curl -# https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-13seed-1.sucatalog | grep Info.plist | grep -Evw '(Info.plist.integrityDataV1|InstallInfo.plist)' | sed -e s/"<string>"//g -e s/"<\/string>"//g -e s/\ //g); do
curl -# $file | egrep -EA 1 '(>Build<|OSVersion)' | sed -e s/"<string>"//g -e s/"<\/string>"//g -e s/\ //g | sed -e s/"<key>"//g -e s/"<\/key>"//g -e s/\ //g
echo $file | sed -e "s/Info.plist/InstallAssistant.pkg/g"
done

Monterey:

for file in $(curl -# https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-12seed-1.sucatalog | grep Info.plist | grep -Evw '(Info.plist.integrityDataV1|InstallInfo.plist)' | sed -e s/"<string>"//g -e s/"<\/string>"//g -e s/\ //g); do
curl -# $file | egrep -EA 1 '(>Build<|OSVersion)' | sed -e s/"<string>"//g -e s/"<\/string>"//g -e s/\ //g | sed -e s/"<key>"//g -e s/"<\/key>"//g -e s/\ //g
echo $file | sed -e "s/Info.plist/InstallAssistant.pkg/g"
done

It seems that quite often (but not always) even developers have to wait till public betas are released before full installers become available.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Realityck Avatar
Realityck
11 months ago
Reposted from the dev thread

Comparison of 14.4 beta 2 to previous 14.4 beta

macOS 14.4 beta 2 (23E5191e)

* Safari Version 17.4 (19618.1.13.11.5)
* System Firmware Version: 10151.100.753 (M1 based Macs)
* Darwin Kernel Version 23.4.0: Sat Jan 27 14:22:59 PST 2024; root:xnu-10063.100.633~14/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 arm64

macOS 14.4 beta (23E5180j)

* Safari Version 17.4 (19618.1.11.11.3)
* System Firmware Version: 10151.100.738.0.1 (M1 based Macs)
* Darwin Kernel Version 23.4.0: Fri Jan 12 22:41:06 PST 2024; root:xnu-10063.100.610.0.2~19/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 arm64

* Apple Music/TV now 1.4.4.38 was 1.4.4.29

12 days later then first beta

[SPOILER="macOS Sonoma 14.4 Beta 2 Release Notes"]
[HEADING=2]AppKit ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#AppKit')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Resolved Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Resolved-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Fixed an issue where center or right aligned NSTextField appears blurry. (120819010)
* Fixed: Resolves an issue where pointer style does not update when browsing in Safari. (121131986)

[HEADING=2]Core ML ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Core-ML')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]New Features ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#New-Features')[/HEADING]

* ML Program models that are loaded with MLComputeUnits.cpuOnly will use a new high performance CPU backend that takes advantage of Accelerate framework’s BNNS library (114037934)

[HEADING=2]CreateML ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#CreateML')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Resolved Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Resolved-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Fixed: When using the transfer learning algorithm option, the CreateML app and framework object detection template might fail to converge and cause poor model quality and produce more than expected false positives. (114480994)

[HEADING=2]Finder ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Finder')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Resolved Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Resolved-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Fixed: Resolves an issue where tiling a window causes the desktop picture to turn black. (118044617)

[HEADING=2]Messages ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Messages')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Known Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Known-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Stickers (Memoji and 3rd party) might appear blank. (120994483)

[HEADING=2]Software Updates ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Software-Updates')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Known Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Known-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Updates to macOS 14.4 starting from macOS 11.0–12.3.1 will not work. (120548971)
Workaround: Update to macOS 12.4 or later prior to updating to macOS 14.4.

[HEADING=2]StoreKit ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#StoreKit')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]New Features ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#New-Features')[/HEADING]

* You can use the productDescriptionHidden(_ API to configure the visibility of product descriptions in ProductView, StoreView and SubscriptionStoreView instances within a view hierarchy. When building with Xcode 15.3, you can use this view modifier even if your app is running on iOS 17.0, iPadOS 17.0, macOS 14.0, tvOS 17.0, watchOS 10.0, visionOS 1.0, or later.
If you implement your own product view style, you can support this new view modifier by checking the descriptionVisibility property on the configuration value. (110414819) (FB12261973)
* You can use SubscriptionStoreView ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/subscriptionstoreview') to present promotional offers by adding the subscriptionPromotionalOffer(offer:signaturemodifier.
If you’re already using inAppPurchaseOptions(_ ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/view/inapppurchaseoptions(_:)') modifier to support promotional offers for StoreKit views, you should adopt the new API instead when your app is running on iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, tvOS 17.4, watchOS 10.4, visionOS 1.1 or later. Do not use both APIs to apply a promotional offer for the same view. (115358806)

[HEADING=3]Resolved Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Resolved-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Fixed: The isEligibleForIntroOffer ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/product/subscriptioninfo/3803203-iseligibleforintrooffer') property and isEligibleForIntroOffer(for ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/product/subscriptioninfo/3791958-iseligibleforintrooffer') method now reflect ineligibility in cases where a customer would otherwise be eligible for the offer if they weren’t actively subscribed. This means a customer which is not currently eligible for an introductory offer may become eligible in the future.
Customers who redeem an introductory offer for a given subscription group will continue to never be eligible for another introductory offer in that subscription group. You can detect this case this by checking if any one transaction with a matching subscriptionGroupID ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transaction/3749718-subscriptiongroupid') has the type ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transaction/offer/4307073-type') property on offer ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transaction/4307076-offer') set to introductory ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transaction/offertype/3822309-introductory'). (103604770) (FB11889732)

[HEADING=2]SwiftUI ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#SwiftUI')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]New Features ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#New-Features')[/HEADING]

* Table now supports dynamic numbers of columns with the new TableColumnForEach. (79492167) (FB9189673)

[HEADING=3]Resolved Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Resolved-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Fixed: DatePicker in macOS reset focus to the first date component when its bound date changes and timeZone is overriden in the environment. (97376561)

[HEADING=2]Weather ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Weather')[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Known Issues ('https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14_4-release-notes#Known-Issues')[/HEADING]

* Weather might crash on launch on Intel macOS hardware. (121294923)



[/SPOILER]
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments