Apple Seeds Second Public Beta of macOS Sonoma 14.4

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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 Roundup: macOS Sonoma
Related Forum: macOS Sonoma

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Top Rated Comments

Lvivske Avatar
Lvivske
24 weeks ago


Attachment Image
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
justanthonylee Avatar
justanthonylee
24 weeks 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
24 weeks 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
24 weeks 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)
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